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Clearing Mines in the Strait of Hormuz: Q&A with Scott Savitz
“The number of mines you need to create an effective minefield is zero. You just need people to perceive that there’s a threat there,” says Scott Savitz, a senior engineer at RAND, a specialist in naval operations and technologies, and an expert in mine warfare.
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Fast 16 Malware Aimed at Undermining Proliferant State Nuclear Weapons Programs, Iran was a Credible Target
The Fast 16 malware looks to be targeting a nuclear weapon program’s hydrodynamic calculation group working on implosion systems using weapon-grade uranium as the nuclear explosive material.
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Strike Missiles and Cheap Drones: How Southeast Asia Can Deter China
Southeast Asian countries looking for security against China should shift the weight of their defense spending to deploying highly mobile, mostly inexpensive equipment that it would struggle to counter.
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The Iran Nuclear Deal the World Deserves Takes Us Back to the Basics
The current nuclear negotiations on Iran need to reflect Iran’s requirement to demonstrate it does not have a nuclear weapons program and secondarily on eliminating the means to enrich uranium and the existing stocks of enriched uranium.
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U.S. Should Substantially Boost Support for Manufacturing USA Program, Issue National Industrial Manufacturing Strategy, Says New Report
To better compete globally, the United States should develop a comprehensive industrial strategy to align resources for manufacturing and maximize the national security and economic impacts of the collaboration among the key actors — small and large industry, engineering and science expertise, state and local government, and economic development stakeholders — needed to advance progress in manufacturing technology.
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How Artificial Intelligence Could Reshape Four Essential Competitions in Future Warfare
How will advances in artificial intelligence (AI) shape the future of war? There is a growing belief among some policymakers and analysts that AI will transform the future of war, but researchers are still in the early stages of understanding how AI will actually change warfighting.
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Technologies for Identifying Deepfakes, Cyberattacks and Drone Threats
Artificial intelligence, advanced sensor technologies and immersive simulation are opening new possibilities for law enforcement and public security agencies.
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Iran War Has Become a Lesson in How Power Really Works
Military superiority still matters enormously. But the ability to endure politically, economically and socially matter just as much. Iran is a state with a complex, resilient structure, and depth of legitimacy especially when it comes to conflicts with the US and Israel. Iran understood that from the beginning. It has taken Iran’s opponents too long to grasp the same facts. But they have now been educated by experience.
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Taiwan’s Legislature Slashes Equipment Budget, Weakening Porcupine Strategy
The Taiwanese legislature’s curtailing of a defense acquisition budget on 8 May has impeded the government’s attempts at building a porcupine defense system and has damaged the island’s strategic credibility.
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Hollow‑Earth Myths and Nazi UFOs on TikTok Are Bringing White Supremacism into the Mainstream
Extremist content on social media does not exist in isolation. Instead, it lives in what researchers call “hybridized spaces”, where users move in and out of extremist discourse. In such spaces, borderline content, outright extremism, mundane trends and humor blend seamlessly – and participants may find their mainstream interests lead them to radical narratives.
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What the Iran War Taught China About Fighting the United States
Iran could not defeat the United States militarily, but it never needed to—and China is taking note. By choking the Strait of Hormuz, spiking energy markets, and running down the clock, Tehran offered Beijing a case study in how to impose costs without seeking victory.
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What A War Game Already Told Us About Iran
Two months after the war began, the Iranian regime is intact. The Strait of Hormuz is under Iranian control. The regime has not been forced to make any additional concessions regarding its nuclear program. Iranian proxies are damaged but operational. In the summer of 2002, the U.S. military spent $250 million, after two years of planning, to answer a question: what happens if America goes to war with an Iran-like power in the Persian Gulf. Trump’s Pentagon should have paid more attention to the 2002 Millenium Challenge war game and its conclusions.
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Beyond Misuse: Artificial Intelligence, Grievance, and the Future Landscape of Political Violence
If we posit that AI is a whole-of-society transformative technology, then we can develop a theoretical account of how AI generates the structural conditions historically associated with the onset of political violence: AI is reordering labor markets, institutional authority, and the relational worlds in which people live, generating preconditions for political violence independently of whether violent actors adopt the technology themselves.
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How Influencers Indirectly Mobilize Action and Legitimate Violence
Influencers are key mobilisers of collective action, shaping narratives that create urgency, define group norms, and can indirectly legitimate violence without issuing explicit calls to action.
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Robots Just Captured a Russian Position in Ukraine—but Don’t Worry About Real-Life Terminators Just Yet
Military ground robotics are rapidly transforming battlefield tasks. Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky recently announced that ground robots (also known as unmanned ground vehicles) had captured a Russian position. But for the immediate future at least, robots are more likely to support that fight, rather than lead it.
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The long view
AI-Generated Zero-Day Vulnerabilities: Implications for Future Warfighting
Cybersecurity has long been viewed as a support function, largely focused on protecting military computer networks and information systems. This paradigm is now obsolete. AI is now reshaping the character of warfare itself, turning cybersecurity into a foundational layer of combat power.
More States Restrict 3D-Printed Firearms
For decades, making an untraceable firearm required specialized tools, technical expertise and hours of work. Today, it can start with a downloaded file and a consumer-grade 3D printer. At least six states this year have outlawed or imposed regulations on such guns.
The U.S. Military Is Spending Big on Critical Minerals
Over the past decade, DOD spending for critical minerals transformed from virtually nonexistent into a major spending area. The last five years in particular have seen a dramatic surge in both contracts and dollar value. Indigenous peoples raise the alarm as Pentagon spending on lithium, graphite, and other minerals skyrockets.