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War on the Rocks

War on the Rocks

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Latest coverage from War on the Rocks

Going Over the Brink: How Hizballah’s Risk Strategy Made Lebanon Impossible to Ignore

When the United States and Iran announced their framework agreement on June 15, attention focused on the direct U.S.-Iran dimensions of the deal, including the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the lifting of the U.S. naval blockade, and the fate of Iran’s nuclear program. But the agreement also included a commitment to the “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon.” Washington had spent months treating Lebanon as a separate issue in negotiations, even as the Israel-Hizballah conflict remained active under a nominal ceasefire in place since April 16.It was ultimately this second front that The post Going Over the Brink: How Hizballah’s Risk Strategy Made Lebanon Impossible to Ignore appeared first on War on the Rocks.

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Fraying Deals and Rising Strikes

Welcome to The Adversarial. Every other week, we’ll provide you with expert analysis on America’s greatest challengers: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and jihadists. Read more below.***IranThree weeks after it was signed, the memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran seems to be quickly unravelling. The two sides skirmished after an April ceasefire and continued to do so after the memorandum of understanding was reached, but had managed to keep those tit-for-tat exchanges from escalating into a full-on return to hostilities. Their agreement nonetheless faced death by a thousand cuts over mutual claims of violations and bad faith.A string The post Fraying Deals and Rising Strikes appeared first on War on the Rocks.

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The Pentagon’s Sprint to Get Tech Out of the Lab and to the Warfighter

Joe Jewell left academia and his role directing hypersonic wind tunnels to oversee the Pentagon’s science and technology enterprise. He wants more researchers to make the same move. He joins Jonathan to discuss the Pentagon’s science enterprise, why he thinks academia is the envy of America’s closest allies, and how his office gets technology from the lab into the hands of the warfighter.Image: Gabriella White via DVIDS. The post The Pentagon’s Sprint to Get Tech Out of the Lab and to the Warfighter appeared first on War on the Rocks.

2 days ago

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The Pentagon’s AI Strategy Has a Funding Problem

In the span of two weeks, the White House issued two of the most ambitious artificial intelligence directives in American history. On June 2, President Donald Trump signed an executive order mandating rapid AI adoption and hardened cyber defense across the government. Three days later, National Security Presidential Memorandum 11 directed every element of the national security enterprise to accelerate AI adoption, anchored by four pillars: adoption, adaptation, assurance, and accountability.The strategy is sound. The harder challenge is execution, and a fiscal squeeze on the Fiscal Year 2026 operations and maintenance accounts threatens to stall it before it begins. On The post The Pentagon’s AI Strategy Has a Funding Problem appeared first on War on the Rocks.

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Victory for al-Qaeda’s Affiliate in Mali Would be a Catastrophe

Mali is not Syria, and Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin is not Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham.While the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime and the rise of the Ahmed al-Sharaa government in Damascus, Syria can be seen as a net positive for regional security in the Levant, a Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin victory in Mali would devastate the region.Unlike Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin is a horizontally integrated transnational coalition committed to dismantling existing international borders, with a rank and file too radical to accept an Islamic Emirate of Mali as a terminal goal. Iyad Ag Ghali, the leader of The post Victory for al-Qaeda’s Affiliate in Mali Would be a Catastrophe appeared first on War on the Rocks.

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Victory for al-Qaeda’s Affiliate in Mali Would be a Regional Catastrophe

Mali is not Syria, and Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin is not Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham.While the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime and the rise of the Ahmed al-Sharaa government in Damascus, Syria can be seen as a net positive for regional security in the Levant, a Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin victory in Mali would devastate the region.Unlike Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin is a horizontally integrated transnational coalition committed to dismantling existing international borders, with a rank and file too radical to accept an Islamic Emirate of Mali as a terminal goal. Iyad Ag Ghali, the leader of The post Victory for al-Qaeda’s Affiliate in Mali Would be a Regional Catastrophe appeared first on War on the Rocks.

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A Fresh Look at the Houthi Threat to Maritime Shipping

In 2024, Allison Minor wrote, “Solving the Houthi Threat to Freedom of Navigation,” where she argued the international response to Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea has so far been inadequate and proposed a U.N.-led solution. Two years later, with global attention once again focused on maritime shipping activity, we asked Allison to review her arguments. Image: Petty Officer 1st Class Jonathan Word via DVIDSWhen you wrote about the Houthi threat in 2024, the activities in the Red Sea commanded high global attention. Two years on, that attention has largely shifted to the Strait of Hormuz. What has been The post A Fresh Look at the Houthi Threat to Maritime Shipping appeared first on War on the Rocks.

3 days ago

The Davis Wing, the B-24 Liberator, and the Self-Made Bet That Paid Off

The most produced American military aircraft of World War II was not a small fighter, a trainer, or a simple utility airplane — it was a complex four-engine heavy bomber called the B-24 Liberator. Over the course of five years, American industry produced a staggering 18,482 of these bombers, and they served in every theater of the war.The B-24 was a workhorse with strategic impact, but it would not have had its utility — or possibly even existed — were it not for its wing.Of course, all airplanes need a wing to fly. But the B-24 Liberator’s wing was special: The post The Davis Wing, the B-24 Liberator, and the Self-Made Bet That Paid Off appeared first on War on the Rocks.

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Somali Pirates Are Back — But the Coalition That Beat Them Isn’t Coming

Numerous recent pirate attacks, especially the hijacking of three merchant vessels off the Horn of Africa, are a stark reminder that the conditions for resurgence can return quickly.It took years of sustained, coordinated effort by multinational naval coalitions, the shipping industry, and international organizations to get rid of pirates in the Western Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden. Since 2016, many observers have viewed Somali piracy as yesterday’s problem. Shipping companies increasingly treated the threat as manageable, and Western navies no longer prioritized it. However, piracy did not disappear, it simply went dormant. Somali piracy is now re-emerging amid The post Somali Pirates Are Back — But the Coalition That Beat Them Isn’t Coming appeared first on War on the Rocks.

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Gathering Clouds: Building Digital Strategic Depth in the Compute Age

The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have exposed a strategic reality that military planners are only beginning to confront: In a data-centric age, digital infrastructure has become part of the battlespace. Data centers and cloud regions are now the digital backbone of military power and economic prosperity. As such, they present attractive targets for rapidly proliferating long-range strike systems, drones, and cyber capabilities. As the protective value of physical distance erodes, strategic depth — once conceived in geographical terms — must now be measured in the resilience of data and compute.Alex Rough detailed the physical vulnerability of data The post Gathering Clouds: Building Digital Strategic Depth in the Compute Age appeared first on War on the Rocks.

4 days ago
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