Dancers at the Knife's Edge: PLA Rocket Force Nuclear Warhead Management

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The PLA Rocket Force (PLARF), until 2016 known as the PLA Second Artillery Force (PLASAF), is the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) ground-based strategic missile service. It is equipped with a wide range of nuclear and conventional missiles, including short, medium, intermediate, and intercontinental ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and anti-ship missiles. It has significantly expanded in size and capabilities since being upgraded to a full service in 2015 adding a range of new weapons systems and at least 11 new missile brigades, the majority of which are likely nuclear-capable. 

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been a nuclear power since 1964, when it successfully detonated its first atomic weapon. Since then, the PLASAF/PLARF has served as the PRC’s primary nuclear deterrent force. While the PLA has begun building up a credible nuclear triad in recent years, the PLARF and its ground-based nuclear force remain by far the largest and most capable component of that triad.

Epic Fury and Roaring Lion: From War Scenarios to Pressing Postwar Questions in Iran

Assaf Orion

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The statements made by President Trump and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announcing this weekend’s operations—codenamed “Epic Fury” by the United States and “Roaring Lion” by Israel—reflect close coordination but also some differences. Both recalled the Iranian regime’s lethal legacy, vowed to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons, and called for its fall, though without committing to topple it directly.

President Trump stated that his central goal is to defend the United States, and that the operation will be a massive and protracted campaign aimed at destroying Iran’s missiles and navy, preventing Tehran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon, and neutralizing its regional terrorist proxies. He also called on the regime’s security and police agencies to surrender, and for the Iranian people to take power once the operation is over.

World Oil Transit Chokepoints

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Chokepoints are narrow channels along widely used global sea routes that are critical to global energy trade and security because of the large volumes of petroleum and other liquids and liquified natural gas that pass through them. International energy markets depend on reliable transport routes. The blockage of oil transit through a major chokepoint, even temporarily, can lead to substantial supply delays and higher shipping costs, resulting in higher world energy prices. Although most chokepoints can be circumvented by using other routes—which adds significantly to transit time—some chokepoints have no practical alternatives.

This report analyzes seven chokepoints, disruptions to which could add thousands of miles of transit in alternative routes and affect oil and natural gas prices. The world’s most important strategic chokepoints by volume of oil transit are the Strait of Hormuz, leading out of the Persian Gulf, and the Strait of Malacca, which links the Indian and Pacific Oceans (Figure 1). This report also discusses the Cape of Good Hope, which is not a chokepoint but is a major trade route and alternative route to other chokepoints.

War in Iran: Who wins and who loses?

Ian Bond , Thomas Maddock

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In launching a war of aggression against Iran on February 28th 2026, the US and Israel have caused renewed chaos in the Middle East, after a few months of relative stability following the US-brokered ceasefire agreement in Gaza. US president Donald Trump seems not to have considered what the war’s wider effects might be, or its winners and losers; Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu may not care.

US president Donald Trump seems not to have considered what the wider effects of war on Iran might be, or its winners and losers; Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu may not care. Russia seems likely to be the biggest winner, in several ways. First, higher oil and gas prices will boost Russian export revenues, enabling the regime to ease pressure on the civilian economy, and to keep ploughing money into the war against Ukraine. Global oil prices rose from under $60 a barrel in the first week of January to more than $100 on March 13th, while natural gas prices in the EU more than doubled between mid-December 2025 and early March. Both prices could go much higher if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed for a significant period. In an effort to increase the amount of oil in the global market, the US has suspended sanctions on the purchase of Russian oil, initially for a 30-day period.

Iran and Gaza conflicts teach Gulf states a hard-power lesson

Dr Neil Quilliam

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The military campaign that the United States and Israel launched against Iran on 28 February has plunged the region into conflict, triggering retaliatory strikes from Tehran, including against all six states of the Gulf Cooperation Council. Amid frantic efforts to defend their airspaces and populations, these countries are counting the high cost of partnering with the US – a price they were already paying by accepting a compromised role in Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan. As a result, they are likely to increasingly embrace hard power and diversify security partnerships in the face of worsening regional volatility.

The GCC’s worst fears have been realised in the wake of the US–Israel attacks on Iran.

In October last year, US President Donald Trump presented his Gaza peace plan as a historic breakthrough. ‘It’s the start of a grand concord and lasting harmony for Israel and all the nations of what will soon be a truly magnificent region,’ he told the Israeli parliament. ‘This is the historic dawn of a new Middle East.’ Instead, it heightened the unease of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other states in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). While the US continues to promote the initiative as a ceasefire blueprint and pathway to reconstruction, reality tells a different story.

Will the Iran war end oil dependence?

Joel Mathis

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President Donald Trump has worked to steer U.S. energy policy away from wind and solar and back to fossil fuels. But the economic aftershocks from the war against Iran are revealing the limits of his oil-driven energy agenda.

Trump’s efforts at “blocking clean energy” have left Americans “more vulnerable to supply shocks caused by the war,” said The Associated Press. The president has gone “all in on fossil fuels” in his second term, expanding tax breaks for drilling and fast-tracking federal permits while repealing a government finding that climate change “endangers public health and the environment.” He even ended the tax break that subsidized electric vehicle sales. Those decisions are leaving consumers in a lurch as gasoline and oil prices rise. Fossil fuels “have their own supply risks, and the administration has no answers,” said Tyson Slocum, the energy director at consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, to the outlet.

Strait of Hormuz disruptions: Implications for global trade and development

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The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most critical maritime chokepoints, carrying around a quarter of global seaborne oil trade and significant volumes of liquefied natural gas and fertilizers. The ongoing military escalation in the region has disrupted shipping flows through this narrow passage. The resulting ripple effects go far beyond the region, affecting energy markets, maritime transport and global supply chains.

These developments raise concerns for global trade and development prospects. Oil markets have reacted quickly, with Brent crude prices now rising above $90 per barrel. Higher energy, fertilizer and transport costs – including freight rates, bunker fuel prices and insurance premiums – may increase food costs and intensify cost-of-living pressures, particularly for the most vulnerable.

From shield to sword: Europe’s offensive strategy for the hybrid age

Will Brown, Jana Kobzova, Nicu Popescu, José Ignacio,  Torreblanca 

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Wars are not lost simply because of military defeat or economic exhaustion. Divided, fatigued or demoralised, people grow tired and lose the will to fight for a cause or a country. Modern warfare is fought as much in minds and cyberspace as on land, at sea, in the air and in regular space. Narratives, perceptions and cohesion can decide victory.

Aside from Ukraine, European countries are not formally at war. Yet their societies are under a barrage of attacks. Unidentified drones disrupt civilian airports. Criminal networks, often paid in cryptocurrencies, sever cables and darken railway stations in the dead of night. Neighbouring states push migrants and refugees across borders, exploiting vulnerable people to inflame tensions. Leading European business figures face assassination plots. Cyber-attackers steal or damage European innovations and black out hospital servers.

Climate change and Conflict in Myanmar

Helene Maria Kyed & Justine Chambers

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This special issue of the Independent Journal of Burmese Scholarship presents new research on the politics and lived experiences of climate change in Myanmar’s post-coup crisis. It offers rare insights into how conflict-affected communities experience and interpret extreme weather events and environmental disruption while also having to navigate violent conflict, military dictatorship and economic crisis. The issue further explores how climate and environmental issues have become deeply entangled with political struggles over authority, territory, and international legitimacy, involving the military, resistance movements, and civil society activists.

Theoretically, the authors engage the concepts of rupture and chronic crisis to nuance understandings of the climate–conflict nexus. In doing so, it moves away from causal explanations centered on whether climate change triggers conflict towards a qualitative social science and historical exploration of how violent conflict dynamics shape climate vulnerabilities and the politics of climate change. Methodologically it builds off in situ fieldwork, remote community ethnographies, and digital research, adapted to the conflict situation.

Not One War but Three Wars in the Middle East

Bernard Siman

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From a strategic perspective, the currently labelled “Iran War” is in fact three distinct wars, inter-connected no doubt, but with distinct aims and characteristics. These are: the US war on Iran with a global dimension, within which there is the narrower, regional Israeli war on Iran with the attendant but separate land invasion of Lebanon, and the third war-in-the-making is the rising armed confrontation between the Gulf Cooperation Council states and Iran. This framework helps to understand the rationale of Iran’s rapid escalation, as well as the impact on global energy and shipping, and how the US and Israel’s objectives will diverge in a manner that will largely determine the outcome.

War on Iran: Tactical Success, Strategic Risk?

Bernard Siman

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Today Turkey, not Iran, is Israel’s main strategic rival. If we agree on this, as strategists, the brilliance of the spectacular tactical display of military might, intelligence, and technology in the war against Iran that commenced a few days ago, starts to diffuse into many hazy rays, as they beam through the unforgiving crystal ball of foresight.

Iran is akin to the “Sick man of Europe” of the 19th Century

A historic analogy may be illustrative. The “Sick Man of Europe”, the Ottoman Empire, was kept alive and standing by the Great Powers because they realised that, if it collapsed, they could neither contain the impact on the European balance of power, nor could they brook Russian advances into Ottoman territory, thus upsetting that balance leading to war.

Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, and an Unprecedented Energy Crunch

Michael Froman

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We are in the midst of what could be an unprecedented and escalating global energy crisis. Many are asking when it might end. On one hand, it could conceivably end any time President Donald Trump declares victory with respect to the core military objectives. On the other hand, Iran has a vote on when the conflict ends. As U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth observed this morning, “the only thing prohibiting transit in the straits right now is Iran shooting at shipping.” The shooting does not appear poised to stop. The first public statement attributed to the new supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, proclaimed on Thursday that “the lever of closing the Strait of Hormuz must continue to be used.”

The effective closure of the strait has the potential to remove some 20 million barrels per day (mmb/d) from global oil supply, or about 20 percent of global petroleum liquids consumption. To put that in perspective, the Arab Oil Embargo of the 1970s removed approximately 4 mmb/d from the global oil market, or just 7 percent of consumption at that time. To deal with this crisis, the member states of the International Energy Agency (IEA) agreed this week to release 400 mmb of oil reserves. Of that, the United States is slated to release 172 mmb of the 415 mmb it has in the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).

Taiwan Explained: Why China Claims It, and Why the U.S. Is Involved

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Taiwan, officially known as the Republic of China (ROC), is an island separated from China by the Taiwan Strait. Mainland China, officially the People’s Republic of China (PRC), is under Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule and asserts that Taiwan is an integral part of its territory, though it has never governed the island.

The PRC views the island as a renegade province and vows to eventually “unify” Taiwan with the mainland, preferably by peaceful means but by force if necessary. In Taiwan, which has its own democratically elected government and is home to approximately twenty-three million people, political leaders have differing views on the island’s status and relations with the mainland.

The Strait of Hormuz: A U.S.-Iran Maritime Flash Point

Mariel Ferragamo

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The U.S.-Israeli war with Iran has ignited a regional conflict that is strangling shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz—the choke point for nearly one-fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas supply—and roiling energy markets.

After Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in a strike on February 28, Tehran retaliated by attacking U.S. military bases across the region and threatening ships in the Strait of Hormuz, a twenty-one-mile-wide waterway that abuts southern Iran at its narrowest point. At least three ships were targeted in the strait the day after the initial U.S.-Israeli strikes, and in the days that followed, the United States and Iran have continued to attack each others’ maritime infrastructure. Gulf countries, which rely on unimpeded travel through the strait to access global oil markets, now face shipping disruptions. Ship trafficking data showed a 70 percent drop in vessels traversing the strait after the launch of Operation Epic Fury.

What Does the Iran War Mean for Global Energy Markets?

Joseph Majkut, Kevin Book, Adi Imsirovic, Sarah Emerson, Raad Alkadiri, Leslie Palti-Guzman, and Ben Cahill

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The sudden eruption of war in the Mideast Gulf has created dramatic new risks for global energy security. Iranian attacks have damaged oil and gas facilities in the Gulf region, and threats against shipping though the Strait of Hormuz have brought maritime traffic to a near standstill, halting oil and liquified natural gas (LNG) exports. As the crisis continues, announcements of closing production fields and LNG export facilities are beginning to mount. On Friday, March 6, international Brent oil prices surpassed $92 per barrel, up 28 percent since last Friday’s market close. Prolonged disruptions to shipping and/or significant damage to export facilities could cause lasting and larger price increases.

This week, President Donald Trump announced several measures to reduce potential energy price shocks. He said that the United States would guarantee shipping through the strait using both naval escorts and insurance products backed by the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, and that it would loosen energy sanctions on Russian oil imports into India.

Iran’s War Strategy: Don’t Calibrate—Escalate

Mona Yacoubian

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Iran’s aggressive retaliation against U.S. and Israeli strikes highlights Tehran’s war strategy: eschewing calibrated retaliation for unbridled escalation. Iran aims to restore deterrence and ensure the Islamic Republic’s place in the region’s emerging order. Iran signaled its intent to widen and deepen the conflict from day one, and its unprecedented approach could spark multiple escalation scenarios with significant regional and global impacts.

By going big early, Iran appears to have absorbed the lessons from previous conflicts. Iran and Israel first crossed the Rubicon of open state-on-state conflict in 2024, with direct clashes in April and October. Then, the United States joined Israel in the June 2025 Twelve-Day War. These conflicts were marked by limited, tit-for-tat escalation, short durations, and a telegraphed and choreographed end. This time is different. Even before the outbreak of conflict, Tehran signaled that it would not repeat the Twelve-Day War. Threatened by regime change and determined to deter future attacks, Iran appears to have opted for unrestrained escalation.

US' and Iran's options for ending war narrow the longer it goes on

Amir Azimi

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For weeks, the US and Israel have insisted that Iran's military capacity has been severely degraded. US President Donald Trump and his defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, have repeatedly claimed that sustained strikes have crippled Iran's command structure and weakened its ability to respond.

By their account, the conflict should already be moving towards an end.

Yet the opposite appears to be happening. The escalation continues faster, sharper, and with fewer clear exit points.

It emerged on Saturday that Iran had launched two missiles towards the US-UK base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, a distance of around 3,800km (2,300 miles). Although the missiles did not reach the island, the incident has raised fresh concerns about Iran's capabilities. Until now, its missile range was widely believed to be about 2,000km.

The Problem With the Idea That Netanyahu Made Trump Attack Iran

Daniel C. Kurtzer and Aaron David Miller

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There’s an argument flooding the media zone since the beginning of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is responsible for pushing U.S. President Donald Trump to attack Iran. This is not only silly but also pernicious, for the argument’s not-so-subtle subtext is the idea that Israel and Jews control American foreign policy. The truth is both simpler and more complex.

Netanyahu has been an ardent and very public advocate for unseating the Iranian regime for four decades. It might even be considered his life’s work. He has pursued this mission relentlessly with every U.S. president and with every member of Congress who visited Israel. During Trump’s first term and now again in the second term, Netanyahu has pressed hard for regime change in Iran. Although past presidents ignored or rejected Netanyahu’s appeals for any number of well-thought-out reasons, Trump offered him an open door.

How far can Iran’s ballistic missiles reach? A defense expert explains how the missiles work, and what Iran can and can’t hit

Iain Boyd

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Iran fired two ballistic missiles on March 20, 2026, at the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, which hosts a strategically important joint U.S.-U.K. military base, according to U.S., U.K. and Israeli officials. One missile broke apart during flight, and the other appears to have been destroyed by U.S. missile defenses.

Iran has denied responsibility for the launches.

Diego Garcia is about 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers) from Iran, which is about twice as far as the top range Iran has declared that its ballistic missiles have. Parts of Western Europe, Asia and Africa lie within a 2,500-mile (4,000-km) radius of Iran, raising concerns about the vulnerability of these areas. However, there’s no evidence that Iran has developed a new type of missile or that it can otherwise hit targets at the longer range. Iran most likely modified an existing type of missile, but increasing a missile’s range poses significant challenges.

Preventing Biological Weapons Proliferation: Operational Applications of Emerging Technologies

Dr Miranda Smith, Kolja Brockmann and Dr Mark Bromley

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Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and distributed ledger technology (DLT) are reshaping how biological research, data and materials are managed. At the same time, the mechanisms used to implement and demonstrate compliance with the biological weapons prohibition regime rely heavily on national oversight systems that face increasing administrative complexity and uneven capacity across states. Emerging technologies are often discussed as potential sources of risk in the life sciences, but they may also provide tools to strengthen key regime functions. 

AI and DLT could support more effective laboratory oversight, strengthen export controls on dual-use items, and facilitate national reporting and transparency mechanisms. Their impact will depend on governance choices—including how states manage data integrity, human oversight, interoperability and equitable access to digital capabilities. Used responsibly, these tools could improve record integrity, administrative efficiency and confidence in the peaceful use of biological research.

Strategic surprise in the 21st century: complexity, systems failure and the rewiring of national security

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This report argues that strategic surprise in the 21st century is less the result of intelligence failure and more a structural consequence of operating in an increasingly complex and interconnected strategic environment.

In Strategic surprise in the 21st century: Complexity, systems failure, and the rewiring of national security, authors examine how modern shocks increasingly emerge from the interaction of pressures across economic, technological, political and security systems rather than from a single hidden threat. Disruption now tends to build gradually through overlapping pressures across multiple domains, rather than appearing as a single, identifiable crisis event.

The report finds that contemporary crises are shaped by continuous, concurrent and cascading risks, amplified by the volume of information, the speed of events and the growing variety of actors and methods. Strategic surprise often occurs not because warning is absent, but because institutions struggle to integrate information and respond at the pace required by the environment. This creates what the report describes as integration lag, where the speed of institutional coordination falls behind the speed of events.

Off Target A Working Paper on AI Alignment Challenges for National Security

Caleb Withers, Jay Kim and Ethan Chiu

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The pace of progress in frontier artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities shows no sign of slowing.1 Frontier models offer transformative potential for national security—from analyzing intelligence data at unprecedented speed and scale to supporting cyber operations and military planning.2 The United States is not alone in recognizing this potential. Beijing views AI as central to modern conflict and as an opportunity to disrupt U.S. military superiority; as Chinese large language models (LLMs) have grown increasingly capable, the People’s Liberation Army has been looking to integrate them across its command and intelligence infrastructure.3

Recent U.S. policy reflects an appropriate urgency. The Department of Defense’s AI Acceleration Strategy, released in January 2026, targets an “‘AI-first’ warfighting force across all components,” accepting that “the risks of not moving fast enough outweigh the risks of imperfect alignment.”4 But even with risk tolerance befitting this urgency, the importance of AI alignment—ensuring that AI systems pursue intended objectives—will only grow.5 Indeed, the confrontation in early 2026 between the department and Anthropic stemmed in part from divergent views about how to address model reliability and alignment challenges in the military domain.6

A Contest of Wills: China and the Quad

Nathan Kepner-Roberts

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The United States is at an inflection point; a rising China and a shifting political landscape in the Western Hemisphere have created great strategic tension in Washington. China remains the pacing threat, but senior leaders’ focus is shifting to affairs in the Western Hemisphere. Defending the Homeland will include improving US posture in the Indo-Pacific as expanding Chinese power may reach uncomfortably close to Guam or even Haiwaii sooner rather than later. In varying degrees of virulency, a considerable portion of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) supports a restoration of Chinese power and the burial of the century of humiliation. This creates an environment and opportunity for Beijing to take advantage of a distracted international body to rewire the world to its benefit. The US and its partners have the tools, such as existing partnerships in the Indo-Pacific, to guard against Chinese aggression but must change how it uses them. To defend the Homeland and ensure “a free and open Indo-Pacific,” the US should confront the China challenge by working with Allies and Partners to transform the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) from an informal security cooperative into a community of collective defense.

China’s Localization Drive in Semiconductors Gains Impetus from Allied Chip Export Controls

Sujai Shivakumar, Charles Wessner, and Thomas Howell

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U.S. and allied export controls on advanced semiconductor technologies, imposed beginning in 2022, were designed to constrain China’s AI and high-end chip development. While progress on these goals has been limited, the controls have clearly accelerated Beijing’s long-standing drive for semiconductor self-reliance. The initial round of controls restricted transfers of advanced logic chips used to train and operationally use AI models and semiconductor manufacturing equipment (SME) used to make those devices. 

The controls have subsequently been expanded to additional device, design, and SME categories. While the controls have disrupted Chinese access to leading-edge chips and equipment, their principal effect has been to accelerate the adoption and use of indigenous equipment and products, giving new impetus to coordinated state and industry efforts to localize semiconductor design and manufacturing. The Chinese government has reportedly directed domestic enterprises to acquire domestic devices and SME that are less advanced than foreign alternatives in order to advance national self-sufficiency.

Chinese Eyes, Iranian Missiles: Intelligence Cooperation in the US/Israel–Iran War 2026

Tahir Azad

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The 2026 war involving the United States, Israel, and Iran exemplifies one of the most technologically intricate wars in contemporary Middle Eastern history. The capability of Iran to execute accurate missile and drone strikes on Israeli urban centers and American military installations in the Gulf region astonished numerous military analysts. The accuracy unveiled in these missions indicates the existence of advanced targeting systems, satellite navigation, and real-time intelligence networks. Despite Iran’s development of an indigenous missile program over the past thirty years, critics increasingly contend that its recent operational achievements cannot be attributed purely to domestic technological capabilities. A burgeoning corpus of evidence indicates that China has significantly contributed intelligence support, satellite navigation, radar systems, and electronic warfare technologies that augment Iran’s targeting capabilities.

The alliance between China and Iran is founded on extensive geopolitical interests. Iran is a pivotal ally in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a significant energy provider, and a crucial geopolitical counterbalance to U.S. dominance in the Middle East. China’s technology collaboration, especially in space-based information and navigation systems, may facilitate Iran’s execution of precision warfare against the US and Israeli sites while circumventing direct military engagement.

China Is Squeezing Southeast Asia

Jessica C. Liao and Zenel Garcia

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Southeast Asia should be benefiting from China’s rise. Beijing has made the region’s growth a priority: Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s Maritime Silk Road—the nautical pillar of the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s global infrastructure and investment program—put Southeast Asia at the heart of Beijing’s geoeconomic strategy and made it a prime target for development opportunities. Southeast Asia has attracted roughly $126 billion in Chinese investment in the last decade, and in 2020, the region surpassed the United States and the European Union to become China’s largest trading partner. As Washington revives tariff threats and

What is Xi Jinping Learning from the Iran War?

Mick Ryan

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There’s probably no foreign leader who is paying more, is looking more intently about Putin’s experience in Ukraine over the last 11 and a half months than Xi Jinping. I think he was surprised and unsettled, to some extent, by the very poor performance of the Russian military, of many Russian sophisticated weapon systems as well, and trying to draw the lessons from that about his own military modernisation and on specific issues like Taiwan. CIA Director Burns, 2 February 2023, J. Raymond “Jit” Trainor Award Ceremony, Georgetown University.

Just as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine provided China with a real time laboratory on the political and military lessons of modern war, so too the current U.S.-Israeli war against Iran is providing Beijing with real-time insights into how American power is exercised. This includes the military domain, how U.S. alliances function under stress, and how the information environment shapes perceptions of conflict. For President Xi Jinping, who has talked constantly about China’s unfinished business in Taiwan, the lessons are crucial.

The Right Plan, the Wrong Clock: How the Iran War Exposed Europe’s Air Defense Timeline

Miro Sedlák

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The Iran conflict has turned a theoretical vulnerability into an operational crisis. Europe has the right plan. It just doesn’t have the time.

A few days into Operation Epic Fury – the joint US-Israeli campaign to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program, missile production, and proxy networks – the war against Iran is already rewriting the economics of air defense. Not on a think tank whiteboard, but in real time, over real cities and under real missile threats. Not on a whiteboard in a think tank. In real time, over real cities, with real missiles.

Iran’s retaliatory strategy since the joint US-Israeli strikes began on February 28, 2026, has been neither reckless nor desperate. It is arithmetically precise. Tehran is launching mixed salvos – waves of $20,000 Shahed-136 one-way attack drones interleaved with ballistic missiles – across an unprecedented number of theaters simultaneously. The intent is not to overwhelm any single target. It is to drain the defender’s magazine. And it is working.

New weapons and technologies making their debut in the war against Iran

Frumentarius

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As the nearly month-long Israeli-American war against Iran approaches the end of its first month, let’s briefly examine some of the weapons systems, tactics, and strategies being employed by both sides in this first prolonged war since the Russia-Ukraine conflict kicked off in 2022. The latter can be seen as a watershed conflict in terms of the proliferation and prominence of unmanned systems (drones) employed in war. It was the First Drone War, as it were, and the 2026 Iran conflict can now accurately be described as the Second Drone War – although missiles are also featuring prominently, as well.

On the American-Israeli side, some of the innovative weapons and tactics being used include sophisticated and layered interceptor air defenses and directed high-energy weapons systems. Specifically, the U.S. military’s HELIOS and ODIN laser systems, and the Israeli Iron Beam, have been used successfully to take down Iranian attack drones. Such laser systems will surely feature in future military conflicts as more militaries develop their own versions.

Why Iran just committed a dramatic strategic error!

Donald Vandergriff

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Iran launched two intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs, ~4,000 km range) toward the joint US-UK military base there on or around March 20, 2026, in the ongoing Iran-US-Israel conflict. Neither missile hit the target: one failed in flight, and the other was intercepted (or at least engaged) by a US warship using an SM-3 missile.

The missiles achieved nothing militarily. Diego Garcia — a remote but critical US-UK hub for bombers, submarines, and operations in the Indian Ocean — suffered no hits, no casualties, and no disruption. This contrasts with Iran’s earlier regional strikes (e.g., on Israel or Gulf targets), where at least some effects were claimed. A failed strike on such a high-profile, distant target simply highlighted the limits of Iran’s missile reliability and accuracy against modern defenses.

The Forever War Playbook Returns

Alexander Langlois

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Former President George W. Bush once famously botched an old cliché as his administration painstakingly attempted to sell what would eventually be the illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq, stating “Fool me once … shame on … shame on you. Fool me … you can’t get fooled again.” Today, as the U.S. and Israel wage war on Iran, this hapless statement should serve as a lesson – that sloppy attempts to justify and rebrand military intervention abroad in the name of unachievable goals are likely to produce catastrophe.

Yet the same tactics and mistakes that characterized the misadventure in Iraq have returned in full force just weeks after the first Israeli and American bombs struck Iran. Take Vice President JD Vance’s words, for example: “The idea that we’re going to be in a Middle Eastern war for years with no end in sight — there is no chance that will happen.” Or consider the shaky response from Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby during a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, in which the Department of Defense’s number three official argued that operations against Iran are not “interventionism” or a “forever war.”

‘Operation Hidden Hand’: Iran-Russia military axis comes into view

Gabriel Honrada
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Emerging reports of Russian intelligence support to Iran in its war with the US and Israel are raising critical questions about the scope, credibility and strategic implications of deepening Russia–Iran military cooperation.

This month, reports citing US officials and sources familiar with intelligence assessments say Russia has provided Iran with targeting data on US troops, warships and aircraft in the Middle East, marking the first indication of Russia’s indirect involvement in the conflict.

What Trump May Do if He Loses in Iran

Suzanne Nossel

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U.S. President Donald Trump doesn’t like to lose. And as his chances of pulling off a win in the war on Iran look increasingly slim, the world may soon face the prospect of a volatile president confronting a foreign-policy dilemma that is utterly out of his control. To be sure, Trump may yet pull off a feat that is lauded by geopolitical analysts as advancing U.S. interests and justifying the human, economic, and political costs of the war. But as Trump finds himself in an increasingly tight corner, it’s time to anticipate how he might react to the specter of failure in Iran—and prepare for the possibility that his response could make the conflict even more dangerous.

The challenges of the Iran war seem to mount by the day. While the U.S. military, working together with the Israel Defense Forces, has been largely successful in destroying Iran’s air defense, naval, and ballistics capabilities, the country’s political system and sources of economic leverage have proved far less tractable. There is also the matter of Iran’s remaining fissile material and nuclear capabilities—not to mention the risk that Tehran emerges from the conflict determined that it can only properly defend itself with nukes. Hopes of either a mostly seamless Venezuela-style transition to a pliable leader or a widespread people’s revolution have faded.

US' and Iran's options for ending war narrow the longer it goes on

Amir Azimi

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For weeks, the US and Israel have insisted that Iran's military capacity has been severely degraded. US President Donald Trump and his defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, have repeatedly claimed that sustained strikes have crippled Iran's command structure and weakened its ability to respond. Yet the opposite appears to be happening. The escalation continues faster, sharper, and with fewer clear exit points.

It emerged on Saturday that Iran had launched two missiles towards the US-UK base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, a distance of around 3,800km (2,300 miles). Although the missiles did not reach the island, the incident has raised fresh concerns about Iran's capabilities. Until now, its missile range was widely believed to be about 2,000km.

Iran’s Next Move: How to Counter Tehran’s Multidomain Punishment Campaign

Benjamin Jensen

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Iran has adopted a multidomain punishment campaign to counter U.S. and Israeli attacks. An oil tanker does not have to sink for a weakened Iran to gain leverage. It only has to turn around. A liquefied natural gas terminal does not have to be destroyed by a barrage of drones. It only has to stop loading ships long enough to jolt markets, raise insurance costs, and create enough economic pain among energy-importing states to pressure the United States and Israel to end military strikes. From missiles to cyber-enabled wiper attacks that destroy computer systems and botnets that amplify propaganda, coercion takes many forms in modern war.

This is the logic of a multidomain punishment campaign. When a state cannot win a direct military contest, it looks for ways to impose costs indirectly by holding civilian and economic systems at risk from multiple domains. The goal is not battlefield decision. It is political pressure: to make the costs of continuing a campaign feel larger, wider, and harder to control. The objective transcends brute force and simply destroying critical infrastructure to create psychological and political pressure.