This article is presented in a question-and-answer format, with the Irregular Warfare Initiative’s Maritime Program’s ...

Owen West’s brief remark during the 2026 AUSA Project Agincourt autonomous warfare panel deserves attention beyond the room.

Bridging the gap between irregular warfare scholars, practitioners, and policymakers.

“Every intervention begins as a story of liberation. Without adaptation, it ends as a story of occupation.” Why do militarily superior forces consistently win the fight—but lose the peace? This is not ...

Editor's note: The "Short of War" Podcast discussing this article is AI-generated. While global chaos mounts with lingering conflict in the Middle East, Russia’s war in Ukraine, and shifting U.S.

Throughout the summer and fall of 2023, People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and China Coast Guard (CCG) vessels have repeatedly blockaded Filipino shoals and naval outposts in the South China Sea, ...

The "Short of War" Podcast discussing this article is AI-generated. In August 2021, Afghan National Security Forces collapsed in a mere eleven days following the withdrawal of the United States ...

The ANSF’s collapse was not a military defeat. It was the final, visible stage of an institutional failure that had been running for two decades. Following the 2021 Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, ...

This article originally appeared in the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings. Copyright U.S. Naval Institute. Reprinted with permission. Can a small state successfully ...

Editor’s note: This article is part of Project Air Power, which explores and advocates for the totality of air, aviation, and space power in irregular, hybrid, and gray-zone environments. We invite ...

The Irregular Warfare Initiative (IWI) provides a reading list curated by its leadership and editors. It features a diverse mix of fiction and nonfiction spanning irregular warfare, history, memoirs, ...

Before Iran laid mines in the Strait of Hormuz and before the IRGC began striking tankers with drones, the strait had already been effectively closed. Within 48 hours of coordinated U.S.–Israeli ...