"The greatest thing in the world is for a man to know that he is his own." -Montaigne hyperessays.net/essays/on-so...

There is so much wisdom on nuclear arsenals and use in this article by Jay Tilden warontherocks.com/contriving-i...

Credential inflation is really getting out of hand

This encyclical on AI might be the first w/ genuine geopolitical weight/importance since the 1991 encyclical issued by JP II, which sought to explain collapse of communism while warning the West not to mistake markets/consumption for a complete vision of freedom. And this one is far more ambitious.

All the turpitudinous hacks, brutish warmongers, well-fed chickenhawks & oily compradors who’ve spent their careers pushing for war w/ Iran & brought us to this ghastly wreck are already blaming everyone but themselves. Don't know what happens next but remember who built this coffin plank by plank

Marc Thiessen would find a way to add bombing Iran to a chocolate chip cookie recipe

Of note, the author of this piece was Lithuania's ambassador to NATO. I hope my European friends read it closely. warontherocks.com/europes-dang...

I pity those who go prospecting for geopolitical insights from techbro podcasts like the All In Podcast. It's like learning seamanship from a guy who once rented a jet ski in Cabo.

I interviewed the new Cogs of War host and executive editor Jonathan Panter in this latest episode. Get to know Jonathan, scholar, former surface warfare officer, and keen observer of #defensetech pod.link/1818133762/e...

Travis makes some good points here. We should not have published an article that directly encouraged an award to a specific FFRDC

Under Starmer, the UK is steadily stripping itself of military power news.sky.com/story/uk-mil...

"A fresh approach could be to reach out to Pyongyang to articulate a stark choice: work collaboratively to ease tensions and normalize relations through arms control or continue down the path of arms races and deterrence" warontherocks.com/why-kim-jong...

People who make GPUs and LLMs are not good at predicting how it will impact jobs and career fields. I'm not the first person to make this point but it bears repeating.

No matter how horrific militant groups are, local populations more often than not will still side with them or at least tolerate them over the external powers bombing them. Israel has been uninterested in learning this lesson as long as it's existed www.nytimes.com/2026/05/01/w...

Did you know that Orban's son -- a Hungarian army officer -- was planning to deploy on a sort of crusade in Africa before his father lost the election? Neither did I until I recorded this podcast

Tell me you didn't read the book without telling me you didn't read the book

"The scenario in which a newly professionalized [Chinese] military gives Xi the confidence that he has the right force in place to win a war will not materialize." warontherocks.com/the-mountain...

This is truly shameful: "After halting a U.S. resettlement program for Afghans who helped the American war effort, President Trump is in talks to send as many as 1,100 of them to the Democratic Republic of Congo, an aid worker briefed on the plan said Tuesday."

This

Weekend listen: @warontherocks.bsky.social update on the war in Ukraine with @michaelkofman.bsky.social & @ryanevans.bsky.social. An invaluable resource since Russia launched its invasion over four years ago. This week: grey zones, Wagnerization, and drones. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/w...

War will forgive many sins, but not the confusion of aims and desired outcomes. The war on Iran follows an American tradition of striking with precision in the absence of strategy. But as with all these days, it's got that extra...je ne sais quoi warontherocks.com/tactical-suc...

The number of snarky comments ("hear about WWII? What about Ukraine") from people who clearly haven't read the article, which discusses these cases explicitly, is very on brand for this website

Russia needs to be punished for helping Iran target American forces. Here's how. warontherocks.com/2026/03/puni...

Getting death threats *over this* is absolutely insane

My X account has been suspended without explanation for most of the day now. No response from support. Feels quite intentional given the fracas over the weekend

Y'all are missing a real fun weekend on Xitter

"When a great power justifies entry into a conflict as unavoidable because an ally is acting, control over escalation and, indeed, foreign policy writ large has shifted." #Israel #IsraelIranWar #IranWar‌ warontherocks.com/2026/03/the-...

In the run up to the Iraq War, the Bush administration treated persuasion like a military campaign of its own. The president went to the UN in September 2002, addressed the nation in Cincinnati the next month (five months before the balloon went up), secured a formal authorization from Congress

Less than a year ago, @jjschroden.bsky.social wrote this important article: "A Strait Comparison: Lessons from the Dardanelles for a Strait of Hormuz Closure" warontherocks.com/2025/06/a-st...

#Khamenei seems to be dead. You can oppose the decision to go to war, as I do, and still say plainly that when a man who built a career on sanctifying repression and exporting violence finally meets his end, we have something to celebrate. Now let's see what happens next.

October 7 changed the Middle East forever. Just not how anyone expected.

INDOPACOM when asked for comment

My thoughts on the Anthropic-DoD dispute on X x.com/i/status/202...

If you log on just to torch people in public, don't be surprised when someone eventually connects the handle to the human. A pseudonym isn't a pass for being an asshole in public. If the mask of anonymity slips or gets ripped off your face, I'm not reaching for a tissue, no matter who you voted for.

The guy who wrote this appears to be Thomas Robb Anderson who went to law school after leaving the Army almost 20 years ago (logistics). He hasn't been at war college for something like two decades. amgreatness.com/2026/02/16/m...

"...for [the Athenians] brought their confederates under bondage, by which means Athens gave occasion of the Peloponnesian War, the wound of which she died stinking, when Lacedaemon, taking the same infection from her carcass, soon followed." James Harington, 1656

If you fear that AI will increasingly do our thinking for us and thereby deprive us of the capacity to reason, analyze, and create, the best thing you can do to forestall that in your own life is to read good books closely, often, and joyfully.

Do we know which Trump admin officials are going to the Munich Security Conference?

Not even the president's political allies understand his fixation on Greenland. Whatever Trump sees there is invisible to the rest of mankind. Madness travels alone.

This is the first time I’ve thought the Iranian regime might actually crumble. I’ve long believed it should fall not through externally imposed regime change, but at home, under the weight of its own contradictions and its own awfulness.

BTW one thing this article convincingly proves is that the Feb Oval meeting with Zelensky wasn't an ambush. As reported, the WH was hoping for a productive meeting and Zelenksy ignored pre-meeting advice from high level people close to the administration to avoid doing exactly what he did. (1/2)

Why did so many people think Trump wouldn't do a regime change op? My thoughts in article form here warontherocks.com/2026/01/trum...

A ten-part thread on misreading Trump: A number of thoughtful observers argued Trump would not pursue regime change in Venezuela. From the outset I argued that he would on the podcast and in private conversation.

I never thought I'd become an e-reader fan. It feels almost sacrilegious, but I've become quite attached to my Kobo reader. It doesn't require me to be locked into an ecosystem like Amazon, the UI is simple and uncluttered, and the notes function works well.

Reading this deeply reported article by Adam Entous on the US approach to Ukraine and Russia was painful for me as an American. I will provide some of my thoughts later on here. This is probably the most important piece of journalism in 2025 on foreign policy.

Occam's Razor points toward a clear conclusion: Putin's claim of an attempted Ukrainian drone attack on one of his homes is a fabrication. Why do I come to this conclusion

Perhaps worth revisiting as Trump and Zelensky convene today

What are your favorite short stories or novellas about war? (Please don't name your own)

This article by Justin Bronk is very important www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...