War on the Rocks

Welcome to The Ukraine Compass, a weekly digest of Ukrainian commentary and analysis from across the political spectrum only for War on the Rocks members.Each Monday, we bring you a curated selection…

2d ago

Before the twentieth century gave armies antibiotics, the leading killer of American soldiers in wartime was neither enemy fire nor shrapnel. Two-thirds of the roughly 620,000 deaths in the U.S. Civil…

2d ago

It’s 2028, and the Fujian carrier strike group has just left Yulin, China, for an unknown destination. The U.S. Navy’s “Hedge Strategy” has let commanders disperse unmanned systems across regional cho…

2d ago

Waguih Ghali, Beer in the Snooker Club (Vintage International, 2014)The noise, the noise, the unrelenting noise of the world: How is any writer with an interest in the long view supposed to escape it,…

2d ago

The relationship between Congress and the Pentagon over the past year has been marked by public disagreements and frustrations over lawmakers’ concerns about the Iran War, and by what some lawmakers v…

3d ago

Nothing reveals truths more effectively than patterns. If you can identify a pattern, you can see what actions conceal, what statements leave unsaid, and what agreements postpone. Peace treaties and t…

3d ago

Editor’s note: This is the tenth article in an 11-part series examining how the United States should organize, lead, and integrate economic statecraft into strategy, defense practice, and the broader…

3d ago

In 2020, Austin Doctor wrote, “The Looming Influx of Foreign Fighters in Sub-Saharan Africa,” in which he predicted the region would see an influx of foreign fighters to aid Islamist extremist groups.…

4d ago

Editor’s note: This is the third article in a limited series celebrating American defense technologies born from wartime and their effects on broader national security, politics, and society. This ser…

4d ago

Earlier this spring, Claude’s developers found the cyber potential of Anthropic’s model, Mythos 5, hazardous enough to pump the brakes on model release, creating the Project Glasswing collaboration to…

4d ago

In January, Robson Henry died at the age of 66. Chances are, you have never heard of Henry. He was not famous, rich, or powerful. In many ways, Henry was no different from the thousands of young men a…

4d ago

On July 7-8, NATO held its 36th official summit in Ankara, Turkey. There were several consequential topics to discuss at this year’s meeting, chief among them the wars in Ukraine and Iran and the unce…

5d ago

Joseph Stalin famously said that quantity has a quality of its own. Yet the course of the Russo-Ukrainian War shows both the benefits and the eventual limitations of that approach. As the quantitative…

5d ago

Nineteen weeks ago, Iran faced the combined might of the most powerful country in the world and the most advanced military in the Middle East. Today, it is dictating the terms of the peace.When the me…

5d ago

Welcome to The Ukraine Compass, a weekly digest of Ukrainian commentary and analysis from across the political spectrum only for War on the Rocks members. Each Monday, we bring you a curated selection…

6d ago

On Feb. 28, 2026, President Donald Trump announced the commencement of Operation Epic Fury, a joint U.S.-Israeli military operation against Iran. Among the mission’s goals was the overthrow of the Isl…

6d ago

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 l…

Jul 10

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 we…

Jul 9

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…

Jul 9

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…

Jul 9

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…

Jul 9

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…

Jul 8

Editor’s note: This is the second article in a limited series celebrating American defense technologies born from wartime and their effects on broader national security, politics, and society. This se…

Jul 8

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 s…

Jul 8

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 bat…

Jul 7

To sustain future maritime operations, the U.S military will need to run supplies through an environment that spans thousands of miles of open ocean, denied ports, contested straits, and archipelagic…

Jul 7

Welcome to The Ukraine Compass, a weekly digest of Ukrainian commentary and analysis from across the political spectrum only for War on the Rocks members. Each Monday, we bring you a curated selection…

Jul 6

What do you do when two identities that make up your deepest self find themselves on opposite sides of a moral and spiritual battlefield?I am Catholic. I have been one for over 20 years since I made t…

Jul 6

Editor’s Note: Few rivalries in American history have been as consequential — or as personal — as the one between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.  The two men could hardly have been more different. A…

Jul 4

Editor’s note: This is the first article in a limited series celebrating American defense technologies born from wartime and their effects on broader national security, politics, and society. This ser…

Jul 3