Through its publications, INSS aims to provide expert insights, cutting-edge research, and innovative solutions that contribute to shaping the national security discourse and preparing the next generation of leaders in the field.
July 6, 2025
A Better Way to Talk About Risk
Defense planners are prepared to accept risk to deter China, but what does that mean for counterterrorism?
March 31, 2025
What Would a Military Strike on Iran Mean for the Middle East?
An attack by the United States or Israel would have profound effects on domestic Iranian politics, the strategy of U.S. Gulf allies, and broader regional dynamics.
July 5, 2024
The Elusive Promise of “Over-the-Horizon” Counterterrorism
Dr. Kim Cragin, INSS Distinguished Fellow for Counterterrorism, has a new journal article on the opportunities and challenges posed by an over-the-horizon approach to counterterrorism.
Small, smart, many and cheaper: Competitive adaptation in modern warfare
Q&A with T. X. Hammes, a nonresident senior fellow in the Forward Defense program of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and a distinguished research fellow in the Center for Strategic Research.
Lethal Targeting and Adaptation Failure in Terrorist Groups
This study argues that terrorist groups’ command relationships and resources bases can hinder their ability to adapt to lethal targeting. It evaluates this argument by examining Arabic language correspondence from Usama bin Ladin’s compound related to the drone campaign in Pakistan.
March 7, 2024
The Russo-Chinese Alliance and Great Power Competition with Dr. Tom Lynch
March 7, 2024 — Dr. Tom Lynch offers us a Great Power Competition understanding of the evolving Russo-Chinese strategic partnership on the Georgetown University “Diplomatic Immunity” podcast. His 30-minute podcast conversation, posted on March 7, 2024, tells us why China and Russia now appear more strategically aligned than they actually are and why they are not destined to be formal allies into the future.
March 6, 2024
America’s New Twilight Struggle With Russia
March 6, 2024 — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine forced Washington to rethink its fundamental assumptions about Moscow. Every U.S. president from Bill Clinton to Joe Biden had sought some degree of engagement with Russia. As late as 2021, Biden expressed hope that Russia and the United States could arrive at “a stable, predictable relationship.” But Russia’s brutal war on Ukraine has radically altered that assessment. It is now clear that the two countries will remain antagonists for years to come. The Kremlin possesses immense disruptive global power and is willing to take great risks to advance its geopolitical agenda. Coping with Russia will demand a long-term strategy, one that echoes containment, which guided the United States through the Cold War, or what President John F. Kennedy called a “long, twilight struggle” against the Soviet Union.
Dec. 11, 2023
Imagining the Future of Landpower
Book review of The Arms of the Future: Technology and Close Combat in the Twenty-First Centry by Jacking Watling.
Dec. 4, 2023
AI’s Impact on War’s Enduring Nature
Despite the remarkable progress in generative AI, the authors contend that war’s essential nature will be impacted to a degree but will not be substantially altered.
Dec. 1, 2023
Assessing Russian Cyber and Information Warfare in Ukraine
This article examines Russian use of cyber and information capabilities to influence the course of the Ukraine war by analyzing prior expectations, public knowledge of wartime realities, potential reasons for disparity between the two, and the distinct and sometimes contradictory takeaways that have been drawn to date within the analytical community.