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.
Dec. 22, 2025
Biotechnologies and the Treaty Gap: Why Biological Weapons Governance Is Falling Behind; and Some Thoughts on How to Fix It
The Scottish ballad Auld Lang Syne, written in 1788 by poet Robert Burns is a tune traditionally played to ring out the passing year and herald in the new. The lyrics offer an invitation to celebrate that which was good, and toast to what may come.
Dec. 17, 2025
Biotechnology in the FY 2026 NDAA: Strategic Implications — and Recommendations — for Joint Force Readiness
The newly released FY 26 NDAA places explicit emphasis upon the increasing involvement of biotechnology in US military missions. As 2025 comes to a close, and we look ahead to the new year, Dr. James Giordano, Director of the CDTFW, offers a view to why biotechnology is — and will be ever more — intrinsic and important to national defense and offers a set of recommendations for fortifying Joint Force engagement in the biotechnological domain.
Dec. 15, 2025
Artificial Intelligence: A Double-Edged Sword in Support and Subversion of the Biological Weapons Convention; Part Two: Implications and Recommendations
As we noted, the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into biosurveillance and biodefense architectures to strengthen verification and enforcement mechanisms associated with the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) can also enable state and non-state actors to obscure, circumvent, or strategically exploit the very compliance frameworks that AI is intended to enhance.
Dec. 8, 2025
Artificial Intelligence: A Double-Edged Sword in Support and Subversion of the Biological Weapons Convention Part One: Framing the Issues
The recent announcement that artificial intelligence (AI) will be employed to surveille and support compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) reflects both the capabilities for data collection, integration and analysis that such systems enable, and the iterative integration of AI within biodefense ecologies and operations.
Nov. 24, 2025
Critical Technology Areas Part 2: Implications and Recommendations for the Warfighter and Warfighting
As noted in last week’s special edition Strategic Insights, the Department of War will focus upon furthering research, testing and use of six key domains of disruptive technology (viz., applied artificial intelligence [AI], biomanufacturing, contested logistics technologies, quantum and battlefield information dominance, scaled directed energy, and scaled hypersonics).
Nov. 18, 2025
Convergent Critical Technologies Part 1: The Integrative Transformation of Warfighting
The Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering’s designation of six Critical Technology Areas (CTAs; viz., Applied Artificial Intelligence, Biomanufacturing, Contested Logistics Technologies, Quantum and Battlefield Information Dominance, Scaled Directed Energy, and Scaled Hypersonics) constitutes a fundamental conceptualization of how power will be projected, contested, and sustained across the conflict spectrum.
Nov. 17, 2025
The Agentic Database and Military Command: A Perspective on Autonomous C2 Systems
The shift from passive databases to “active reasoning engines” in commercial agentic AI signals a fundamental transformation in how decisions are made, authority is exercised, and accountability is maintained.
Sept. 24, 2025
Beyond Mechanistic Control: Causal Decision Processing in Neuromorphic Military Artificial Intelligence
As we transition from traditional mechanistic AI architectures to those that are designed and developed to more closely mirror the complex causal dynamics of neural systems, military stake and shareholders (and oversight organizations) must confront new paradigms of autonomous decision-making that can challenge conventional understandings of predictability, command control, and accountability in AI.
Sept. 17, 2025
Autonomous Artificial Intelligence in Armed Conflict: Toward a Model of Strategic Integration, Ethical Authority, and Operational Constraint
Artificially intelligent systems are being developed to have iteratively autonomous function, and these systems are increasingly being considered for use in military settings, weapon platforms, and operations.
Sept. 8, 2025
Tiny Particles, Big Stakes: The Strategic Implications of Micro‑ and Nanoplastics
During World War II, plastic production was ramped up to meet demands from the defense industry. In the post-war consumer culture, using technological innovations and advanced synthesis methods to create and manipulate isomers, synthetic polymers became an integral part of our daily existence. Since then, global plastic production has increased exponentially, and current production is over 502.5 million tons (MT) worldwide. At this trajectory and barring any binding treaty to limit plastic production, the number is on track to more than double by 2050.