From Decisive Victory to Narrative Victory: War in the Age of Permanent Competition
For more than two centuries, Western strategic thought rested on a relatively stable grammar: wars began,…
Read More »Australia’s Drone Wake-Up Call: The Lessons Are Already Written
Iran’s drone and missile campaign against the U.S. and U.S. allies has once again focused attention…
Read More »Lessons from the Drone Wars: Maritime Autonomous Systems and Maritime Operations
The battlefield has been transformed. Not gradually, not theoretically, but demonstrably, operationally, and at a pace…
Read More »From Red Sea Defense to Epic Fury: How the U.S. Flipped the Drone Cost Equation
When U.S. destroyers first found themselves in the high-tempo contest with Houthi missiles and drones in…
Read More »Built in the Foundry: Robotic Maintenance and the Future of a Warfighting Navy
Adm. Daryl Caudle’s Foundry–Fleet–Fight construct is more than a slogan for a new Chief of Naval…
Read More »Enabling the Marine Corps Transition to Distributed Maritime Operations
The United States Marine Corps stands at a strategic inflection point. Facing peer competitors with advanced…
Read More »
The air campaign over Iran has given the F-35 something no procurement debate, war game, or congressional hearing could ever deliver: a sustained, high-tempo combat test against a real integrated air defense system protecting a real state. The aircraft is passing that test. Whether operating as a penetrating striker, a sensor-fusion quarterback, or a coalition battle-management node, the F-35 is validating and in some respects extending the operational concepts that have driven fifth-generation modernization for two decades. That validation matters not just for the current campaign but for the broader debate about how Western air forces will fight the next major contingency. What is emerging over Iran is a template, imperfect, contested, still unfolding, for how stealth, networking, and distributed fires can be woven together into something more...