• MIDDLE EAST

    Iran’s “forward defense” strategy – focused on addressing threats externally before they become ones within its borders – would suggest that Iran will continue to support proxies through weaponry, funding and tactical knowledge to reduce the influence and legitimacy of the U.S. and its allies in the region. This underscores the delicate balance required in responding to Iranian-backed aggression – aiming to safeguard U.S. interests while preventing an escalation into a wider regional confrontation.

  • EXTREMISM

    Germany is considering banning Austria’s far-right extremist Martin Sellner from entering the country. Such a move is not unprecedented, but the legal hurdles in the EU are high.

  • EXTREMISM

    Alternative for Germany (AfD) has been playing down its involvement in a meeting of far-right extremists but a new investigative report claims yet another man with close ties to party boss Alice Weidel was in attendance.

  • TERRORISM

    For Germany, the reemergence of more violence orientated left-wing extremist actors has diversified the threat posed by non-state actors even further. Violent left-wing extremism is also of growing concern across Europe. While left-wing violent extremism does not currently represent as acute a threat as currently manifested by jihadist and right-wing terrorist attacks, the recent concerning trend among German left-wing extremists is toward greater violence and transnationalism.

  • SUPPLY-CHAIN SECURITY

    Due to Houthi attacks on cargo ships in the Red Sea, worldwide shipping is in trouble and the global supply chain faltering. These technologies can help.

  • SUPPLY-CHAIN SECURITY

    While the Huthis are using an arsenal of Iranian weapons to wreak havoc in the Red Sea and are considered part of Tehran’s “axis of resistance,” the Yemen-based rebel group does not necessarily follow Iran’s commands.

  • TERRORISM

    The FBI credits its Terror Watchlist with keeping the country safe, but critics point to the experience of thousands of innocent American Muslims who were swept up by a screening system, and then found themselves trapped in a Kafkaesque nightmare as they tried to clear their names. The watchlist currently contains nearly two million names, of which about 15,000 are U.S. citizens and permanent residents.

  • GAZA WAR

    Planning for the ‘Day After’: After three months of this war Israel has weakened Hamas but not eliminated it, and cannot promise that elimination can be achieved quickly, if at all. The Israeli government is close to breaking point and perhaps only if it breaks will there be an opportunity for a serious consideration of options for addressing the Palestinian issue. There are, however, reasons why this issue has proved to be intractable in the past.

  • MARITIME SECURITY

    Houthi attacks against commercial ships in the Red Sea have upended global shipping. The disruptions could soon ripple through the global economy.

  • ARGUMENT: TERRORISM THREAT TO THE U.S. in 2024

    We enter the new year with “blinking lights everywhere,” Austin Doctor writes. “From a U.S. homeland security perspective, the terrorism threat in 2023 can be summarized as diverse, diffuse, and active. In 2024, we are likely to continue to see signs of continuing shifts in the terrorism landscape—such as the threats posed by lone juvenile offenders, the malign use of democratized technologies, and ‘violent resistance’ narratives adopted across the extremist ecosystem.”

  • ARGUMENT: DOMESTIC TERRORISTS PREFER GUNS

    There used to be a time that domestic terrorists favored bombing as their preferred method. “Today, however, the terrorists’ preferred tactic is the mass shooting,” Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware write. “Assault-style rifles have replaced explosives.”

  • DEMOCRACY WATCH

    The shocking events of Jan. 6, 2021 were an example of a new phenomenon: influential figures inciting large-scale political violence via social media, and insurgents communicating across multiple platforms to command and coordinate mobilized social movements in the moment of action. We call this phenomenon “networked incitement.” The use of social media for networked incitement foreshadows a dark future for democracies. Rulers could well come to power by manipulating mass social movements via social media, directing a movement’s members to serve as the leaders’ shock troops, online and off.

  • TERRORISM

    Families of Americans killed and injured in Hamas’ October 7 terror attack in Israel are contemplating a lawsuit against North Korea for indirectly supplying the Palestinian militant group with weapons, according to an Israeli attorney representing the families.

  • COUNTERINSURGENCY

    It makes perfect sense for American military organizations to study both the war in Ukraine and the war in Gaza, and to draw insights from both. But as the U.S. Army studies these two wars for insights, let’s drop the “learned” from the phrase “lessons learned.” Lessons learned assumes that an insight—a “lesson”—from these current wars can also, at the same time, be “learned”—that is, incorporated into the training and strategies of another military. This is a highly problematic assumption.

  • HEMISPHERIC SECURITY

    Latin America’s democracies and democrats don’t get enough credit for weathering inequality, violence, and economic stagnation. Miraculously, only two of the region’s former democracies, Venezuela and Nicaragua, have collapsed into full-fledged authoritarianism. In no other part of the world have so many democracies held up under such pressures for so long. Governments have learned to manage many threats, but they are failing to curb the growing power of organized crime.

  • GAZA WAR

    The subterranean infrastructure developed by Hamas, popularly known as the Gaza Metro, consists of tunnels, command and control centers, living spaces, stores and contingency fighting positions. The infrastructure is the pivot of Hamas’s irregular warfare strategy and allows it to undertake both offensive and defensive operations and has been assessed as one of its centers of gravity. Israel has been aware of the infrastructure but has possibly been surprised by the scale and sophistication achieved by Hamas in tunnel construction. The IDF’s technologies and doctrinal concepts are being tested every day in the ongoing war and will have a number of lessons for other armies.  

  • ARGUMENT: PROPORTIONALITY IN WAR

    The Israeli Air Force’s (IAF’s) bombing of Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, has been widely criticized for the extreme level of civilian deaths, the choices of weapons used, and the way in which those weapons have been employed. Marc Garlasco writes that the Israel Air Force (IAF) dropped a staggering number of bombs on Gaza, and, what’s more, many of these bombs were “dumb bombs” which cause wide-area damage. Garlasco writes that that question “is how the IAF is assessing proportionality, which is the amount of civilian harm acceptable for a military target. To date, that appears to be heavily skewed to a point where Israel will accept extreme levels of civilian harm for questionable military value.”

  • EXTREMISM

    A new report, analyzing the research environment in the U.K. within which research on extremism takes place, found that there are problems in studying extremism and communicating the findings of studies of extremism. These problems have caused gaps in the knowledge base around extremism in the U.K. and a lack of research on specific extremist movements, especially Islamist extremism.

  • AI & WMD

    The diversity of the biorisk landscape highlights the need to clearly identify which scenarios and actors are of concern. It is important to consider AI-enhanced risk within the current biorisk landscape, in which both experts and non-experts can cause biological harm without the need for AI tools, thus highlighting the need for layered safeguards throughout the biorisk chain.

  • SUPPLY CHAINS

    After a rise in attacks by the Iran-backed Houthis, the world’s largest shipping firms are staying away from the Red Sea and Suez Canal. Will we see another supply chain crisis?