The Institute for National Strategic Studies serves as a focal point for analysis of critical national security policy and defense strategy issues.
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July 16, 2025
INSS joins Power Vertical Podcast to talk rising tensions between Russia, Azerbaijan
In this episode of The Power Vertical Podcast, host Brian Whitmore speaks with Jeffrey Mankoff about rising tensions between Russia and Azerbaijan following a brutal crackdown and arrests on both sides.
Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Geopolitics in the South Caucasus
Jeffrey Mankoff, a Distinguished Research Fellow in the INSS Center for Strategy and Military Power (CSMP), joined The Russian Roulette podcast.
July 14, 2025
Major Concerns About Microelectronics
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is decisively shaping the future of warfare. It accelerates decision cycles, extends operational reach, and enables exercised control of the informational, and cognitive dimensions of engagement.
July 8, 2025
Strategic Innovation in the DoD FY 2026 RDTE Budget: Leveraging Disruptive Technologies for Deterrence, Defense, and Command and Control
The Department of Defense FY 2026 Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDTE) budget request marks a strategic inflection that reflects a doctrinal shift toward convergent disruptive technologies, and with it, a re-posturing of how deterrence, defense and decisive command will be engaged on the near-future battlefield.
July 7, 2025
Super Soldiers or Social Burden? Ethical Exploration of the Benefits and Costs of Military Bioenhancement
Biotechnological enhancements for military personnel arouse scrutiny, beyond the ethics of experimental research and due care during operational service, to the eventual return to a civilian life.
Iran’s Strategic Crossroads: Options Beyond the Axis?
Events of 2023-2024, culminating with the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, have brought Iran’s regional strategy—a triad of ballistic missile capabilities, nuclear latency, and a decentralized network of regional armed partners—to a moment of reckoning.
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?
July 5, 2025
China’s Military Diplomacy in the New Era
Military diplomacy — including senior-level visits, port calls, and joint exercises — has become a vital tool of Chinese statecraft.
July 1, 2025
The Orb’s Eye: Seeing the National Security Implications of Iris Based ‘Proof of Humanity’
As recently reported in the cover story of Time[JG1] magazine, the launch of The Orb — a beach‑ball‑sized biometric device developed by Tools for Humanity (co‑founded by Sam Altman) — marks a paradigmatic shift in digital identity and biosecurity technology and its implications.
June 24, 2025
Brain Scanning: Assessing Emigration of U.S. Scientific Talent to Surveille Strategic Implications for China’s Dual-Use Technological Capabilities
Intensifying global competition in science and technology (S/T), particularly in fields with considerable disruptive potential - such as artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, synthetic biology, and neurotechnology—has become a defining feature of 21st-century geopolitical dynamics.