Small Wars Journal

Bringing Special Operations Research Into the Open Special Operations Research: Out of the Shadows marked an important moment in the development of special operations scholarship. Published in the inaugural issue of Special Operations Journal (SOJ), which later evolved into Inter Populum: The Journal of Irregular Warfare and Special Operations, Christopher Marsh, James Kiras, and Patricia Blocksome’s article argued that special …
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The post Throwback Thursday: Special Operations Research: Out of the Shadows appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) published a report in late April analyzing the status of U.S. munitions inventories following the 39-day air campaign against Iran. “Last Rounds? Status of Key Munitions at the Iran War Ceasefire” concludes that U.S. missile expenditure won’t constrain current operations, but significantly weakens preparedness for future wars. The New York Times and …
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The post Part 4: The U.S. Munitions Problem appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Abstract This article examines how maritime swarm tactics are reshaping competition in contested littorals and increasing the operational burden on major naval powers. It argues that Lebanon can strengthen maritime security under conditions of asymmetry by adopting a denial-focused swarm strategy built on distributed unmanned systems and sustained presence. Rather than seeking naval parity or escalation dominance, the approach emphasizes …
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The post Persistence Over Power: A Lebanese Model of Maritime Denial appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Abstract This article argues that the Bay of Pigs remains relevant because it warns against a persistent strategic error: mistaking visible hardship for revolutionary capacity. In 1961, U.S. planners assumed dissatisfaction inside Cuba would translate into an uprising once outside pressure was applied. Today, Cuba again faces severe economic crisis, blackouts, shortages, and repression while U.S. policy seeks to intensify …
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The post Discontent Is Not Revolution: What the Bay of Pigs Still Teaches Us About Cuba appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Congratulations to the 2026 Global and National Security Institute Non-resident fellows! Read about the newest fellows in this press release from GNSI. The Newest Members of the GNSI Fellows Team   Egemen Bezci, PhD Principal Data Scientist, Payla Jim Cahill, PhD Adjunct Professor, Dakota State University, U.S. Army Colonel (Ret) Mark Fedor Senior Director of Programs, HII, Rear Admiral, U.S. …
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The post University of South Florida’s GNSI Announces Newest Additions to Fellows Roster appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

May 7, 2026 573. Cognitive Warfare – The Human Mind is the Decisive Terrain of Future Conflicts From the Army Mad Scientist Initiative: [Editor’s Note: Army Mad Scientist welcomes T2COM G2 analyst, Mr. Dorsel “Flip” Boyer as today’s guest blogger. Mr. Boyer expertly lays out how our adversaries view cognitive warfare, the emerging technologies impacting its transformation, and how the …
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The post Cognitive Warfare – The Human Mind is the Decisive Terrain of Future Conflicts appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) published a report in late April analyzing the status of U.S. munitions inventories following the 39-day air campaign against Iran. “Last Rounds? Status of Key Munitions at the Iran War Ceasefire” concludes that U.S. missile expenditure won’t constrain current operations, but significantly weakens preparedness for future wars. The New York Times and …
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The post Part 3: The U.S. Munitions Problem appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Access National Security News HERE. Access Korean News HERE. National Security News: 1. Director of Pentagon’s secretive Strategic Capabilities Office lays out focus areas 2. What Trump and Xi Want to Achieve at Their High-Stakes Summit 3. Target Audience Analysis of the Iranian Lego Video: Unpacking the Virality of AI Propaganda – EdgeTheory 4. Irregular Warfare, Part Two: AI Approaches, Implications, and Proposed Recommendations …
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The post 5/13/26 National Security and Korean News and Commentary appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

The Center for the Study of Democracy’s “Shadow Alliances: Authoritarian Powers and the Hybrid Warfare Nexus in Latin America” is the most comprehensive open-source mapping yet of how Russia, China, and Iran have embedded themselves in Latin America.   The core argument: These three actors have made criminal networks a functional instrument of statecraft. They’ve built a layered system that fuses …
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The post The Hemisphere’s Shadow War | Center for the Study of Democracy appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

The Economist obtained a leaked ten-page GRU proposal outlining Russian plans to arm Iran with two drone systems and a training pipeline—timed to counter a feared American ground operation in the Gulf. The first system is the one that matters most. Fibre-optic drones, guided through spooled wire cables rather than radio signals, are unjammable. They have reshaped the battlefield in …
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The post Russia’s Secret Playbook for Iran appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

At 03:17 local time, the lights in Ulaanbaatar go out. Not everywhere. Not all at once. But enough. A substation fails. Then another. Communications flicker—first degraded, then silent. By 03:24, senior officials cannot reach one another. By 03:31, conflicting reports begin to circulate: a cyberattack, a strike, an accident. No one is sure. No one is in control. And then …
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The post The Steppe Is Not a Fortress: What Mongolia Can Learn from Iran’s Mosaic Defense appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Abstract: This article argues that reluctance to trust Artificial Intelligence (AI) for grading within Professional Military Education (PME) represents a critical failure to validate the core hypothesis of its own AI-first strategy. It posits that PME has a professional and moral obligation to serve as the proving ground for human-machine teaming, using the low-stakes “grade chain” to test and refine …
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The post AI-First Professional Military Education: Validating the Grade Chain Before the Kill Chain appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

The Lowy Institute’s After Annexation: How China Plans to Run Taiwan, authored by Richard McGregor and Jude Blanchette, delivers the clearest documented account yet of Beijing’s post-seizure governance intentions, drawn from PRC academic and policy literature published between 2019 and 2025. The authors trace a decisive shift in Chinese strategic thinking, in which Beijing no longer pursues peaceful accommodation and …
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The post China’s Occupation Playbook for Taiwan Is Already Written appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman Dan Caine testify on the War Department’s FY27 budget request before the Senate Appropriations Committee in Washington on May 12, 2026. For more on the Department of War, visit: http://www.war.gov

The post Secretary Hegseth and Chairman Caine Testify Before the SAC FY 27 Budget Request appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

The cost-exchange problem in drone warfare just got some attention. General Atomics announced this week that an Air Force MQ-9 Reaper successfully downed aerial targets using the APKWS—a laser-guided rocket that runs $25,000 to $40,000 per shot. The target it’s designed to kill: Iran’s Shahed one-way attack drone, priced at roughly $30,000. The math driving this demo is brutal, writes …
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The post The MQ-9 Gets Cheaper Teeth appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Politico reports that NATO is publicly backing renewables as an integral part of the alliance’s security as the fallout from the Iran War continues to disrupt fossil fuel imports. A NATO Energy Security Centre of Excellence (ESCE) report from earlier this year underscored the importance for allied militaries of diversifying away from imported oil products, particularly in forward and remote …
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The post NATO Backs Renewables; U.S. Objects appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Introduction Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Gulf tour spanning Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Jordan has generated considerable international attention. The headline offer is straightforward: Ukraine will share its hard-won expertise in countering Iranian-origin drones with Gulf states currently absorbing waves of Shahed strikes. Yet the strategic logic underpinning this initiative is more complex and more contested than …
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The post Mind the Gap: Zelenskyy and Ukraine’s Middle East Gamble appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Abstract This article evaluates Russia’s integrated model of network-centric warfare, analyzing its execution across four critical domains: Computer Network Operations (CNO), AI-enabled Information Operations (IO), Electronic Warfare (EW), and Space-based capabilities. Rooted in Soviet-era doctrines of reflexive control and strategic deception (maskirovka), modern Russian strategy seeks to disrupt the “CIA triad” (Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability) of adversary systems to degrade …
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The post Assessing Russian Network Warfare Through the Lens of the Ukraine Conflict appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

Abstract: This paper presents a probabilistic model to assess the lethality of small tactical strike drones, including widely used first-person view (FPV) quadcopters, and provides a basic yet flexible analytical tool for researchers and planners seeking to better understand the role of these systems in contemporary military operations. The model underpins a series of simulations examining lethality distributions in campaigns …
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The post Modeling the Lethality of Small Attack Drones and Loitering Munitions appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.

On April 16th, Ukrainian drones struck the marine terminal at Tuapse—a Black Sea port city 70 miles from Sochi—killing two and injuring seven. In “How a Ukrainian strike on a Russian oil hub caused catastrophe,” The Economist reports that four subsequent strikes over two weeks hit the same facility repeatedly, including a direct hit on the main Rosneft refinery on …
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The post Tuapse: Ukraine Continues to Take the Drone War to Russia appeared first on Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University.