Indian Strategic Studies

12 April 2026

India: Decisive Decimation In Madhya Pradesh – Analysis

Deepak Kumar Nayak

On March 25, 2026, the Government of Madhya Pradesh extended the ban on Left Wing Extremist (LWE) organisations, including the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) and its affiliated fronts, till November 2026, under the Madhya Pradesh Special Areas Security Act, 2000. The notification covers the Krantikari Kisan Committee (KKC) and Krantikari Jan Committee (KJC), which were earlier declared unlawful in January 2024. Despite Chief Minister Mohan Yadav declaring the state Naxalite-free in December 2025, authorities cited the need for sustained vigilance to prevent the resurgence of Naxalite activities. The renewed ban, aims to maintain surveillance and control over residual networks and affiliated entities.

Significantly, no CPI-Maoist-linked incident has been reported during the first 94 days of the current year (data till April 5, 2026), and data for 2025 indicates that the security situation in the State with regard to Maoist violence strengthened considerably, as compared to 2024.

India: Border Instability In Arunachal Pradesh – Analysis

Afsara Shaheen

On March 26, 2026, three personnel of the Assam Rifles (AR) were reportedly killed in an attack by militants belonging to the Yung Aung faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland–Khaplang (NSCN-K-YA) along the Namgoi–Pangsau Road near the Indo-Myanmar border in the Changlang District of Arunachal Pradesh. According to reports, militants targeted a construction team of the 10th Assam Rifles that was engaged in building a border fence in the area.

In a subsequent statement, the ‘Ministry of Information and Publicity’ (MIP) of NSCN-K-YA claimed responsibility, asserting that its ‘Naga Army Tactical Unit’ carried out the attack in response to protests by Naga groups against what it described as the “illegal” fencing of the Indo-Myanmar boundary by the Government of India (GoI). The group warned that any continuation of such construction would invite resistance from Naga groups operating on both sides of the border. The incident highlights the continuing volatility of the Tirap-Changlang-Longding (TCL) region and the sensitivity of infrastructure development projects in insurgency-affected border areas.

Nuclear deterrence in South Asia looks stable only on paper

Rameez Raja

The nuclear trajectories of India and Pakistan are rooted in their historical rivalry, emerging from the contentious partition of British India and the disputes that followed. Since Independence, this rivalry has generated a persistent sense of insecurity and vulnerability, accompanied by the recurring possibility of conflict. Both countries have sought to outmanoeuvre each other through arms accumulation and alliance-building, reflecting the realist and neo-realist view that security remains the primary driver compelling states to acquire nuclear weapons.

Within neo-realist thought, scholars are divided into optimists and pessimists based on their understanding of deterrence. Deterrence optimists argue that nuclear weapons, whether limited or expansive, can ensure stability by raising the costs of conflict to unacceptable levels. Viewed from this perspective, India’s nuclear trajectory, often justified as peaceful, was shaped by strategic concerns, particularly China’s nuclear test in 1964. The subsequent Chinese hydrogen bomb test in 1967 further accelerated India’s nuclear ambitions, leading to weapons design efforts at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in Mumbai.

Terrorist and Other Militant Groups in Pakistan

Kronstadt, K. Alan

U.S. officials have identified Pakistan as a base of operations and/or target for numerous armed, nonstate militant groups, some of which have existed since the 1980s. Notable terrorist and other groups operating in and/or launching attacks on Pakistan are of five broad, but not exclusive types: (1) globally oriented; (2) Afghanistan-oriented; (3) India- and Kashmir-oriented; (4) domestically oriented; and (5) sectarian (anti-Shia). Twelve of the 15 groups listed below are designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) under U.S. law and most, but not all, are animated by Islamist extremist ideology.

Pakistan has suffered considerably from domestic terrorism since 2003, and related fatalities peaked in 2009. Many observers predicted a resurgence of regional terrorism and militancy in the wake of the Afghan Taliban's 2021 takeover, and data show this has occurred: After five consecutive years of declining fatality rates down to 365 in 2019, the number of terrorism-related deaths in Pakistan is up every year since, spiking to 4,001 in 2025, the highest toll in 11 years (see Figure 1). By many accounts, Pakistan currently is the country most impacted by terrorism.

China is winning one AI race, the US another - but either might pull ahead

Misha Glennyand

In the second half of the 20th Century, it was the race to develop nuclear arms that occupied some of the finest minds in the US and the Soviet Union. Now the US finds itself in a different kind of race with a different adversary: China. The aim is to dominate technology; specifically Artificial Intelligence (AI). It's a fight taking place in research labs, on university campuses, and in the offices of cutting-edge start-ups - watched over by leaders of some of the world's richest companies, and at the highest levels of government. It costs trillions of US dollars.

And each side has its strengths - something Nick Wright, who works on cognitive neuroscience at University College London (UCL), neatly sums up as the battle between "brains" and "bodies". The US has traditionally led on so-called AI brains: the world of chatbots, microchips, and large language models (LLMs). China has been superior on AI "bodies": robots (and in particular, "humanoid" robots that look eerily like people).

Iran War: From F-15's to B-2 stealth bombers, the US military assets being used

Annie Jennemann

The United States military employed more than 30 types of aircraft, vessels and systems in its operation in Iran as of March 23. "Operation Epic Fury" was launched at 1:15 a.m. Feb. 28, according to U.S. Central Command. Over the first 72 hours of the operation, more than 1,700 strikes occurred by the United States.

As of March 23, more than 9,000 strikes have occurred, and more than 140 Iranian vessels have been damaged or destroyed, according to CENTCOM. A U.S. fighter jet was shot down over Iran on Friday. Images of the jet analyzed by CNN matched an F-15E fighter jet. Three U.S. Air Force F-15Es were struck down in Kuwait during the first week in a "friendly fire" incident. The Get the Facts Data Team compiled information about some of the various aircraft used in the United States’ operations in Iran. The data collected includes the cost per unit at the time it was built or according to the U.S. Air Force website.

Pete Hegseth’s staffing moves prompt allegations of militarized discrimination

Rafi Schwartz

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s effort to purge the Pentagon of so-called woke ideologies has earned him plaudits from the White House. But his “highly unusual” decision to strike four officers — two women and two Black men — from a recent promotions list has some asking whether the officers were “being singled out because of their race or gender,” said The New York Times. The incident has resurrected a question that has dogged the secretary since his confirmation: Is the Defense Department still the microcosmic American melting pot it once was?

Implying lack of talent

It’s “exceedingly rare” for one-star general promotion lists like the one recently edited by Hegseth to receive “intense scrutiny from a defense secretary,” said the Times. The secretary’s sentiments dovetail with the “broader Trump administration’s attacks” on federal government programs designed to “support and promote the concerns of minority populations,” said Military Times.

2026-04-06 Contesting the rimlands: Ukraine, Iran, Korea?

Junotane

The wars in Ukraine and Iran are routinely seen as separate—one a grinding territorial conflict in Europe, the other a slow-burning confrontation in the Middle East. This framing is neat, even comforting. Some like to imagine that it all could have been avoided if it weren’t for Trump or Netanyahu’s influence. They like to think that each conflict can be managed on its own terms. This is wrong.

Ukraine and Iran are not isolated events. They are connected expressions of technological change and geopolitical struggle—one driven by the rising strength of continental powers and the relative decline of maritime power, playing out across the rimlands where they collide. Nearly a century ago, Nicholas J. Spykman argued that power is not decided in the continental interior, but along the more densely populated, economically vital edges of Eurasia—the zones where land and sea power meet. These rimlands are not peripheral. They are decisive. Control them, and the balance of the entire system shifts.

The US Decimated Iran’s Navy. How Does It Still Control the Strait of Hormuz?

Harrison Kass

Operation Epic Fury has led to the near-total destruction of Iran’s conventional navy. Dozens of its ships now lie at the bottom of the Persian Gulf, and those that remain are largely hidden in secluded bases along the coastline, with minimal ability to challenge the US Navy in any open confrontation.

Despite the sorry condition of its naval forces, however, Iran still maintains selective control of the Strait of Hormuz—resulting in 80 to 90 percent of the traffic being halted. How? Not through naval dominance, but rather through asymmetric disruption, which Iran uses to make travel through the Strait too dangerous to risk.

Iran mediators make last-ditch push for 45-day ceasefire

Barak Ravid

The U.S., Iran and a group of regional mediators are discussing the terms for a potential 45-day ceasefire that could lead to a permanent end to the war, according to four U.S., Israeli and regional sources with knowledge of the talks.

Why it matters: The sources said the chances for reaching a partial deal over the next 48 hours are slim. But this last-ditch effort could be the only chance to prevent a dramatic escalation in the war that will include massive strikes on Iranian civilian infrastructure and retaliation against energy and water facilities in the Gulf states. Driving the news: President Trump's 10-day deadline to Iran was expected to expire Monday evening. But on Sunday, Trump extended his deadline by 20 hours and posted on Truth Social a new deadline of Tuesday at 8pm ET.

The Real Intelligence Failure in Iran

Shane Harris

In 2005, a bipartisan commission of lawmakers and security experts concluded that “the Intelligence Community was dead wrong in almost all of its pre-war judgments about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.” America’s spies had told President George W. Bush that Saddam Hussein had reconstituted a nuclear-weapons program and that Iraq possessed biological weapons and mobile production facilities, as well as stockpiles of chemical weapons. These supposed facts became the basis for a U.S. invasion and an eight-year occupation. “Not one bit of it could be confirmed when the war was over,” the commission found. “This was a major intelligence failure.”

If a similar panel of experts scrutinized the run-up to the current war in Iran, their assessment might go something like this:

The intelligence community was accurate and consistent in its prewar judgments about Iran’s capabilities and intentions to attack the United States and its allies. Contrary to what President Trump has said to justify his decision, the intelligence showed that the Iranian regime was not preparing to use a nuclear weapon; it did not have ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States; and in response to a U.S. military attack, Iran was likely to strike at neighboring countries in the Persian Gulf and try to close the Strait of Hormuz, precipitating a global economic crisis.

OPINION | Airpower’s reckoning: Lessons that we don't want to learn from Ukraine, Sindoor and Iran confrontations

Vice Admiral Harinder Singh (Retd)

The last half-decade has rewritten the rules of aerial warfare. From the grinding resilience of Ukraine to the sharp lessons of Operation Sindoor and the asymmetric blows traded around Iran, three conflicts expose a single, uncomfortable truth: airpower is no longer decided by platform prestige or the romance of the dogfight. Sensors, standoff reach, missile mass, and unmanned systems now shape outcomes. For nations that still equate air superiority with fleets of high-end fighters, the message is urgent and unambiguous: adapt or be outflanked.

When Russia’s invasion settled into a prolonged war, Ukraine’s survival became a study in distributed resilience, and it still stands four years later. Skilled pilots and capable aircraft mattered, but they mattered within a broader system: mobile air defence batteries, resilient sensor networks, dispersed logistics, and an industrial base that could sustain attrition. The conflict demonstrated that survivability in contested airspace is not an attribute of a single platform; it is a property of an integrated force. Fighters could not operate with impunity where layered defences and long-range fires dominated. Ukraine’s endurance was less about individual airframes than about the ability to combine sensors, missiles, and improvisation under pressure, aided substantially by Western support.

Bridge Day and the Law of War: Limits on Targeting Infrastructure

Haley Fuller

On April 5, 2026, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day… Open the Fuckin’ Strait… or you’ll be living in Hell.”

The statement threatens attacks on infrastructure if access through the Strait of Hormuz is not restored. From a law of armed conflict perspective, the post matters because it frames potential targets in categorical terms. It does not identify specific military uses or operational objectives. That distinction becomes central when evaluating legality under the framework that actually binds the United States.

The Army’s Multi-Domain Task Force (MDTF)

Feickert, Andrew

Congress has expressed concern about the threat to U.S. national security posed by Russia and China. The Army believes to address this threat, it must be able to operate in a multi-domain (air, land, water, space, cyber, information) environment, requiring new operational concepts, technologies, weapons, and units. The Multi-Domain Task Force (MDTF) is the Army's self-described "organization centerpiece" of this effort.

What Is a Multi-Domain Task Force?

The Army's Chief of Staff Paper #1: Army Multi-Domain Transformation Ready to Win in Competition and Conflict dated March 16, 2021, describes the MDTF as "theater-level maneuver elements designed to synchronize precision effects and precision fires in all domains against adversary anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) networks in all domains, enabling joint forces to execute their operational plan (OPLAN)-directed roles."

The Real Intelligence Failure in Iran

Shane Harris

In 2005, a bipartisan commission of lawmakers and security experts concluded that “the Intelligence Community was dead wrong in almost all of its pre-war judgments about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.” America’s spies had told President George W. Bush that Saddam Hussein had reconstituted a nuclear-weapons program and that Iraq possessed biological weapons and mobile production facilities, as well as stockpiles of chemical weapons. These supposed facts became the basis for a U.S. invasion and an eight-year occupation. “Not one bit of it could be confirmed when the war was over,” the commission found. “This was a major intelligence failure.”

If a similar panel of experts scrutinized the run-up to the current war in Iran, their assessment might go something like this:

The intelligence community was accurate and consistent in its prewar judgments about Iran’s capabilities and intentions to attack the United States and its allies. Contrary to what President Trump has said to justify his decision, the intelligence showed that the Iranian regime was not preparing to use a nuclear weapon; it did not have ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States; and in response to a U.S. military attack, Iran was likely to strike at neighboring countries in the Persian Gulf and try to close the Strait of Hormuz, precipitating a global economic crisis. All of this was known before the war and presented to President Trump.

Befooled By Iran’s Grand Strategy, Trump Hits Out: But To What End? – OpEd

M.K. Bhadrakumar

To borrow from William Congreve’s 1697 play The Mourning Bride, “Heaven has no rage, like love to hatred turned, / Nor hell a fury, like a woman scorned”. This predicament explains the uncontrollable rage of the US President Donald Trump, a megalomaniac with an Amazonian ego, when belatedly he came to know that the Strait of Hormuz was not just one waterway amongst the 8 in the world.

By then Trump had already washed his hands off Iran’s move to shut down the Hormuz saying it was none of his concern, and left it the Europeans and the Gulf Arab sheikhs. Now he is staging a comeback and the turnaround is a wild swing, as he realises that if Iran is allowed to preside over the strait of Hormuz, it would have profound implications for “de-dollarisation.” Iran’s Majlis is already seized with legislation introducing a toll system to regulate the use of the waterway by foreign ships.

Israel destroys southern Lebanon towns, hits ‘safe’ areas around Beirut

Al Jazeera Staff

Israel has launched renewed strikes on southern Lebanon as it continues to press forward with a ground invasion, while also waging new attacks on Beirut shortly after striking areas around the capital that had been so far removed from the conflict.

At least four people were killed in a raid that hit a car in the southern town of Kfar Rumman, the Lebanese Civil Defence told Al Jazeera.Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported a string of attacks in the Jabal Amel region, south of the Litani River, including in the towns of Arzoun, Jouya, Hadatha, Jmeijmeh, Dbeibine and Haris.

A new regional order for the Strait of Hormuz

Sina Emami

The ongoing war of choice launched by the United States and Israel against Iran has shattered the geopolitical status quo in our region. As Washington finds itself entangled in another Middle Eastern quagmire, reports suggest that US President Donald Trump’s administration is increasingly in need of a political off-ramp.

The Hormuz littoral states possess a rare, collective opportunity to provide the American president with an exit strategy. By taking the initiative to establish a new, locally managed security architecture for the Strait of Hormuz, our nations can further elevate their strategic significance in regional geopolitics and the global economy. The alternative to this win-win scenario is prolonged conflict that would ensure that a new regional order is eventually imposed unilaterally by Tehran.

America’s silent guardians

Wendy Noble

Twelve months have passed since I was released on April 4, 2025, as the 20th deputy director of the National Security Agency. I believe that the president always has the right to choose his team — that is not a political statement, it is a constitutional one. Executive authority over the national security apparatus is real, and proper. Over the past year, as I reflected on my nearly 40 years at the agency, my overwhelming feeling has been a sense of gratitude for having worked with the countless professionals who play a vital role in safeguarding Americans.

What readers are saying

The conversation explores a range of perspectives on the role and challenges faced by the U.S. intelligence community, particularly under the Trump administration. Many participants express gratitude and admiration for the dedication and service of intelligence professionals,... Show moreThis summary is AI-generated. AI can make mistakes and this summary is not a replacement for reading the comments.

America Is Used to Hiding Its Wars. Trump Is Doing the Opposite.

Charles Homans

On April 1, 32 days after abruptly launching a wave of airstrikes on Iran, President Trump made his first formal White House address to the American people about the war. He offered no new information or clarity on his strategy or goals. It was mostly just Trump, talking. But amid the familiar superlatives and tangents, there was a curiously specific digression.

“It’s very important that we keep this conflict in perspective,” Trump said. “American involvement in World War I lasted one year, seven months and five days. World War II lasted for three years, eight months and 25 days. The Korean War lasted for three years, one month and two days. The Vietnam War lasted for 19 years, five months and 29 days! Iraq went on for eight years, eight months and 28 days.” All of this was to say that 32 days was really not very long at all.

Trump threats cause dilemma for US officers: disobey orders or commit war crimes

Julian Borger

Donald Trump’s threats to carry out mass bombing of civilian infrastructure in Iran present US military officers with a dilemma: disobey orders or help commit war crimes. It is an urgent matter for the US chain of command. In an expletive-laden threat, Trump set a Tuesday 8pm Washington time deadline for the Iranian government to open the strait of Hormuz or face “Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one”.

He wrote on his Truth Social platform on Sunday: “There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell.” Trump’s deadline for Iran looms… again – The Latest

Outpaced by the US, China’s military places selective bets on artificial intelligence

Ralph Jennings

NEW TAIPEI CITY, Taiwan — The Chinese navy is enhancing its guided-missile frigate, the Qinzhou, with an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm designed to illuminate blind spots during air defense engagements, an official military website said. The website cited a state-run media report and experts calling the vessel a “major leap in integrated combat capability” that “positions the vessel among the most advanced frigates in service today”.

A slew of announcements such as that one from March 30 shows AI expanding across a military that aims to “intelligentize” as it prepares for potential conflicts in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait. But analysts say China is picking its AI battles carefully rather than expecting quick domination of the technology or short-term parity with the United States.

The Algorithmic Battlefield: Forging The U.S. Army’s Future Dominance With A New Breed Of Acquisition Leader

Lt. Col. Aditya S. Khurana

Imagine a world where artificial super intelligence conducts combined arms warfare across all domains of war, using quantum computing, robotics, predictive logistics and nanotechnology. This vision, once the realm of science fiction, is rapidly becoming a strategic reality, as outlined in the U.S. Army’s concept for multidomain operations. As artificial intelligence (AI) technologies become integral to modern warfare, it is critical to identify and address gaps in current acquisition strategies related to AI threats, ethical considerations, necessary infrastructure and cost-effectiveness. By 2030, AI supremacy will likely equal military supremacy as the militarization of AI has severe implications for global security, according to a United Nations University article, “Militarization of AI Has Severe Implications for Global Security and Warfare.”

The transformation of the 51C workforce (officers and noncommissioned officers, or NCOs) from traditional transactional roles to strategic acquisition leaders is essential for empowering personnel to navigate the complexities of modern algorithmic procurement effectively. Upskilling in AI, cybersecurity, ethics and energy markets will enhance capabilities, build public trust through transparency and ensure alignment with military objectives.

How U.S. military dominance unravels China’s war machine

Miles Yu

The modern trajectory of China’s weapons development cannot be understood without recognizing a recurring pattern: Every major leap in the People’s Liberation Army has been triggered by decisive demonstrations of U.S. military superiority. From the Persian Gulf War to more recent confrontations involving Iran and Venezuela, American battlefield dominance has repeatedly exposed systemic weaknesses in China’s military-industrial complex, forcing cycles of hurried modernization, internal crisis and political purges.

This pattern reflects not only strategic rivalry but also deeper structural deficiencies within the Chinese Communist Party system itself. At its core, the CCP has long defined the United States as its principal adversary. From Mao Zedong’s ideological framing of struggle against Western imperialism to Xi Jinping’s emphasis on “great power competition” and systemic sabotage against America’s global standing on all fronts, the party’s strategic mission has consistently centered on overcoming and ultimately displacing American power.

11 April 2026

Epstein Presented Himself to Indian Tycoon as a Trump White House Insider

Anupreeta Das

Anil Ambani, one of India’s most prominent businessmen, was eager in the early days of the first Trump administration to figure out where India might fit into the new president’s national security strategy. In 2017, that led him to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender whose fat Rolodex of politicians, diplomats and policymakers allowed him to present himself to Mr. Ambani as a White House insider and guide, according to a review by The New York Times of hundreds of messages exchanged by the men over a two-year period.

“Will need ur guidance on dealing wth white house for india relationship ad defense cooperation,” Mr. Ambani wrote to Mr. Epstein soon after their online introduction, according to exchanges released this year by the Justice Department. Mr. Epstein promised to get Mr. Ambani some “inside baseball.”

Pakistan’s Peacemaking Is a Setback for India

Sushant Singh

When Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar recently called Pakistan a dalal, or fixer, for acting as a messenger between the United States and Iran, the insult betrayed a profound sense of marginalization. In a sense, it was also an involuntary acknowledgment of reality: In U.S. President Donald Trump’s eyes, being a fixer is not a mark of shame but a badge of utility.

Trump boasts of his ability to secure the best deals in history, and he has found in Pakistani Army chief Asim Munir exactly the sort of interlocutor that he likes—a hard-power operator with direct access to the White House and a willingness to sell himself as useful. This has left Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in an awkward position, relegated to receiving a single phone call from Trump about the crisis in the Middle East (with Elon Musk listening in on the line).

No Room for Maneuver: Why Structure Forces Taiwan’s Strategic Choice

Wayne Tan and Anita Chu

In the 21st century, the international system has returned to a bipolar structure and is heading toward a new “Cold War” (Tunsjø, 2018; Ferguson, 2019; Doshi, 2021; Beckley, 2022; Lind, 2024). Countless news reports and commentaries discuss how policymakers in the White House are obsessed with containing China’s economic and technological power, and how Beijing is attempting to break through this containment or undermine American influence. Undoubtedly, the United States and China are already in a situation of mutual confrontation. Conflicts will only proliferate, and the chain reactions of this great power rivalry will destabilize global markets and significantly heighten unpredictability. We have entered an era defined by pervasive risk and crisis.

For states situated in the Asia-Pacific, the sustained expansion of Mainland China’s economic and military power has triggered a perilous logic of hegemonic transition, compelling a strategic response from the United States (Loke, 2021). To be sure, this pessimistic Thucydidean perspective has faced academic challenges (Hanania, 2021). However, considering that the combined aggregate power of the two contemporary titans—the U.S. and China—already far exceeds that of the U.S. and Soviet Union during the previous century, this article contends that the strategic context of the current Sino-American confrontation is significantly more volatile and complex than that of the Cold War (Krickovic & Jaeyoung, 2025). Consequently, several developments merit close attention: First, in today’s international system, states such as Brazil, India, and South Africa exercise greater autonomy and agency than they did during the Cold War.

Iran’s Ballistic Missiles: Weapons of Terror That Have Failed to Deliver

Roman Pryhodko

Iran has developed the most powerful and diverse ballistic missile program in the Middle East. It constitutes a fundamental element of the national defense doctrine and serves as an instrument of regional power projection. Over the past decades, Iran’s military and political leadership has invested enormous resources in creating a self-sufficient missile industry. This sector compensates for the technological lag in traditional weapons systems, particularly the air force, which has long been constrained by international sanctions.

The evolution of Iran’s missile arsenal reflects a transition from simply purchasing and reverse-engineering Soviet models of the 1950s to developing complex, high-precision systems. Modern designs utilize solid propellant, guided warheads, and elements of hypersonic technology.

The Banality of Resistance: How We Keep Misreading Iran

Siamak Naficy

Western analysis of Iran suffers from a persistent, almost comforting delusion: that the Islamic Republic is fundamentally irrational. It’s easier that way. If Iran is driven by theology, fanaticism, or some opaque revolutionary mysticism, then its behavior can be dismissed rather than understood. Strategy becomes pathology. Policy becomes moral posture. But what if the opposite is true? What if Iran is not irrational—but rational in a way we refuse to take seriously? Because once you grant that premise, the last four decades of Iranian behavior stop looking erratic. They start looking disturbingly coherent.

Note that this is not an argument for sympathy. The Islamic Republic isn’t benign, and its leadership is not misunderstood in any charitable sense. But the prevailing story is analytically lazy. It replaces strategy with caricature. If you actually listen—really listen—to how Iranian leadership understands itself, a different picture emerges. Not a nicer one. A more dangerous one, precisely because it is coherent. At its core, the Islamic Republic does not think of itself as a religious project. It thinks of itself as the end of a historical condition: a century of humiliation, intervention, and subjugation. That’s the starting point. Miss that, and everything else looks like madness.

Inside the U.S. Special Operations Mission to Rescue a Downed F-15E Officer in Iran

Guy D. McCardle

A U.S. Air Force F-15E was shot down over Iran, leaving a weapons systems officer evading capture for more than 36 hours as American forces launched a full-scale rescue under fire. Seven thousand feet up, cut into rock and wind, a United States Air Force colonel sat alone with a pistol, a radio, and a beacon. He was bleeding. Not catastrophic, but enough to slow him down. Ejection will do that. The spine compresses. Limbs take a hit. You walk it off, or you don’t.

He moved anyway.

True to his SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) training, he climbed out of the crash basin, away from wreckage, away from heat signatures and predictable search patterns. He found a crevice and stayed small. He keyed the beacon only when needed. Iranian forces were already moving. Civilians too. There was a bounty on his head, and state television was telling people to shoot on sight.

The Carter Doctrine and the Limits of Liminal Conflict in the Persian Gulf

Richard W. Coughlin

The U.S.-Israeli war against Iran is on the verge of superseding the limits of the liminal conflict. What is liminal conflict? Liminal conflict is a way in which states deploy bounded violence to shape the international order and to reproduce that order over time (Lacey 2024). Liminal conflict is oriented toward system maintenance rather than disruption. But in the case of the Persian Gulf, the regional order is now experiencing systemic disruption, which may escalate into systemic collapse. Both Israel’s geopolitical ambitions and Iran’s capacity to engage in horizontal escalation exceed the limits of liminal conflict. There are diplomatic responses to this conflict that can be characterized as entropic diplomacy. The goal is not to establish order but to minimize the disorder toward which the system tends.

The historical aspiration of the United States has been to order the international system rather than to permit the system to order itself (Bacevich 2010). This is because if the world orders itself, the U.S. position of the primacy within it will become eroded. But, of course, this primacy is already badly eroded from the point of view of technology and production, as Time Sahay and Kate Mackenzie (2026) emphasize with regard to energy production. The U.S. is still a financial and military power that exercises some degree of the structural power over the physical infrastructures of the global economy – financial networks, geopolitical and geoeconomic choke points. The Strait of Hormuz is significant with respect to the type of power the U.S. has – in particular, its long-term policies of power projection into the Persian Gulf to supply the world market with cheap energy.

Iran at War: Deterrence, National Identity, and Existential Stakes

Tewfik Hamel

To read the present conflict in Iran only through the categories of the Iran-Israel rivalry or the Tehran-Washington confrontation is to miss its most consequential dimension. For Israel, the central problem is the neutralization of a military and potentially nuclear threat. By the time of the military attacks of June 2025, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) assessed that Iran had accumulated 9,247.6 kg of enriched uranium in total; by the time of the attacks in mid-June 2025, it had also accumulated 440.9 kg enriched up to 60 percent U-235, making it the only non-nuclear-weapon state under the NPT to have produced and accumulated material at that level (IAEA 2025a; IAEA 2026). For the United States, the conflict is embedded in a broader calculus of regional security, alliance credibility, energy security, and escalation control. For several Arab states, it is principally a matter of balance, containment, and spillover management. Tehran, however, increasingly appears to read the war in a different register: not simply as another episode in a long regional struggle, but as a crisis touching the continuity of the state itself.

What should be done about Iran’s potential secret chemical and biological weapons programs?

Christina McAllister, Richard T. Cupitt

Ahead of a televised address Wednesday, critics wanted US President Donald Trump to lay out a clear roadmap for ending the now month-long war in Iran and clarify the objectives for having started it. Denying that his goal was ever regime change, Trump emphasized in his speech the objective of preventing Iran from possessing a nuclear weapon. However, the future course of the conflict remains nearly as murky on Thursday as it was the previous day, as does the future of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium. That’s also true of the status of possible secret chemical and biological weapons programs that appear to have received scant attention during recent events—despite years of US and likeminded-partner country concerns and sanctions.

After reportedly considering a ground-invasion to retrieve Iran’s highly enriched uranium, Trump said on Wednesday the country’s “nuclear dust” was inaccessibly buried under rubble and would be monitored by satellite (notably, the same status it was left in after last summer’s US-Israeli attacks, before this latest war). That may not reassure observers who fear that now Iran—its regime under severe stress, but expected to hold on to power—has more of an incentive to cross the nuclear weapons “threshold.”

The Real War for Iran’s Future Who Will Determine the Fate of the Islamic Republic?

Afshon Ostovar

On March 1, 2026, the Iranian government made it official. “After a lifetime of struggle,” a state broadcaster declared, “Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei drank the sweet, pure draft of martyrdom and joined the Supreme Heavenly Kingdom.” The broadcaster praised Khamenei for being “unceasing and untiring” and for his “lofty and celestial spirit.” As he read the announcement, people offscreen wailed. When he finished, he, too, broke down in tears.

Most Iranians probably didn’t cry when they learned of Khamenei’s passing. For over 35 years, Iran’s supreme leader ruled with an iron fist, repressing women, minorities, and anyone who dared

A Plan to End the Iran War?

Lawrence Freedman

This post was largely written yesterday with the aim of identifying a possible way forward to bring an end to the Iran War. This morning Reuters is reporting that Pakistan's army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, has been in contact ‘all night long’ with US ⁠Vice President JD Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to come up with a plan to be known as the ‘Islamabad Accords’. Under the proposal, a ceasefire would take effect immediately, reopening the Strait of Hormuz, with 15–20 days to finalise a broader settlement. The report also notes that buy in from Iran is uncertain.

My post looks at the two alternative approaches adopted by President Trump to ending the war and why neither of them currently works, and then the challenges facing Iran. I take a critical look at the Pakistani plan and end with a suggestion that I haven’t seen made elsewhere (for understandable reasons!)

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