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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 Indo-Pacific Could Shape Control of the Growing Spyware Market
The market for commercial cyber intrusion capabilities (CCICs) is moving faster than the frameworks designed to govern it. What began as a niche ecosystem of surveillance vendors has evolved into a sprawling, fragmented industry.
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Iran Nuclear Talks: Three Lessons from the War for Negotiators
Diplomats have gathered in New York to review the future of the global nonproliferation regime, while Washington and Tehran develop terms for a potential future meeting in Islamabad. The Iran war has surfaced three initial nuclear security lessons that should shape the deals negotiators aim to reach.
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Heightened ICE Enforcement Harms U.S.-Born Workers, Shrinks Workforce
Heightened immigration enforcement during the second Trump administration has not expanded job opportunities for U.S.-born workers and is associated with a reduction of employment for U.S.-born men with no more than a high school degree.
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Trump’s New Conditions on DEI, Immigration Could Cut Off States’ Wildfire Funding
A new effort to force states to affirm the Trump administration’s views on DEI, transgender athletes and immigration when signing contracts with the U.S. Forest Service is threatening millions of dollars in wildfire grant funding and fire reduction projects on federal lands. Liberal states may be barred from Forest Service grants and projects if they don’t sign the new terms.
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The Price of Strategic Hubris: Hell in a Very Small Place
Victory goes to the side that correctly identifies its strategic problem, masses the right technology and combined arms advantages, and fully resources the will to win.
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The Quad Should Share Intel on Critical-Mineral Supply Risks
With China increasing restrictions on critical minerals trade, including tighter export controls on rare earth elements announced in March, the United States and allied countries are trying to bring more mineral supply to market. To succeed, they need to start with more structured information sharing and fusion.
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Fear and Opportunity: Immigration Scams Surged as Trump’s Sweeps Lured Desperate People to Eager Defrauders
Con artists posing as ICE agents and immigration officers are using WhatsApp and fake court hearings to bilk vulnerable people out of their savings with empty promises to fix immigration problems. As mass deportations continue, scam complaints soar.
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Why the U.S. Military Is Stuck Using $1 Million Missiles Against Iran’s $20,000 Drones
It may sound hard to believe, but the almost trillion-dollar U.S. military is struggling to fight cheap drones in its war with Iran. The drones Iran uses cost between US$20,000 and $50,000 to build. In response, the U.S. military sometimes fires missiles worth more than $1 million to shoot one down.
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Civil–Military Relations under Strain in the U.S.
President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dismissed or forced the retirement of more than a dozen senior commanders across the US military since 2025. The scale and timing of the purge are almost unprecedented in US history.
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Latest Attack Threatening President Trump Reflects Rising Political Violence in U.S.
The events of April 25 underscore how dangerous this political moment is in the United States. For the past several years – certainly since Jan. 6, 2021 – the U.S. has been experiencing a period of increased political violence.
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U.S. Supreme Court Weighs How Far Police Investigations Can Go in Using Cellphone Location Data
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday appeared likely to allow law enforcement to continue seeking warrants for the location history of cellphones near crime scenes, even as the justices wrestled with how far the government must go to protect Americans’ privacy. 31 states and DC argue that geofence warrants can be more precise than many traditional investigative methods.
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Golden Dome's $185 Billion Price Tag Faces Uncertain Funding
The general leading President Donald Trump’s ambitious Golden Dome missile shield said a key part of the program, with uncertain costs, could be scrapped in favor of lower-cost options as lawmakers turn their focus to the president’s proposed $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget for 2027.
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The long view
The Drone Threat to America’s Cities
Drones are coming for our cities. The tech is cheap, the threat is real, and our defenses are nearly nonexistent. To avoid that ugly reality, we need to come up with better ideas, and we need them fast. Because ready or not, the drones are coming.
Remotely Coerced Violence: 764, The Com Network, and the Hybridization of Threats
Nihilistic violent extremism is best understood as a victim-driven, youth-centered online ecosystem in which status, belonging, and identity are earned through the production, circulation, and escalation of harm. It combine sadistic online exploitation, cybercrime, self-directed violence, animal abuse, school-violence threats, and terrorist or violent-extremist conduct.
The U.S. Murder Rate Fell to Historic Lows in 2025 – Here’s Why
The murder rate in 2025 was the lowest in modern American history. Homicide rates have closely followed three trends over the past decade: alcohol consumption, drug abuse and firearm purchases. Now that the drug and alcohol crises are waning and gun purchases are falling, so too is the murder rate.
Combat Experience as a Strategic Resource: Lessons of the Red Army Purges
Since January 2025, the Defense Department has removed, replaced, or forced the early retirement of a remarkable concentration of operationally experienced senior officers. What is the impact of these removals on combat effectiveness, which is Secretary Hegseth’s own widely shared standard? I believe the impact is negative. In fact, the impact of those decisions on combat effectiveness constitutes a strategic liability of the Defense Department’s own making – the depletion of a vital resource central to the Secretary’s sought-after lethality.