IWI’s Economic and Legal Warfare Team Published by Joint Special Operations University Press on Contingent Capital and Economic Statecraft
IWI’s General Counsel and Co-Director of the Economic and Legal Warfare (ELW) Project, Matt Flug, together with fellow Co-Director Thomas Johansmeyer, published a piece in the Joint Special Operations University Press introducing the concept of insurfare. The article highlights the use of contingent capital—such as time-based or performance-triggered
Past, Present, and Beyond: Belgian Perspectives on Irregular Warfare
This IWI Project Europe Fireside Chat takes a closer look at Belgium’s experiences and perspectives on Irregular Warfare. We do so by inviting two key figures within the Belgian Special Operations Forces community: the Director of the Belgian Special Forces Command (Colonel Wim Denolf) and the Commander of the
The Boiling Moat: Urgent Steps to Defend Taiwan
Episode 134 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast explores the rising risks of conflict over Taiwan and how the United States and its allies can strengthen deterrence against Beijing. Our guests begin by assessing why deterrence is faltering globally, from the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan to Russia’s invasion of
The Inevitable Invasion is Over, Now What? Resistance in a Post-Invasion Taiwan
Editor’s Note: this article is being republished with the permission of Small Wars Journal as part of a republishing arrangement between IWI and SWJ. The original article was published on 08.18.2025 and is available here. Introduction What if China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) successfully invaded
From Tanks to TikTok: Adapting Article 5 for Graduated Responses to Hybrid Warfare
Editor’s Note: this article is being republished with the permission of Small Wars Journal as part of a republishing arrangement between IWI and SWJ. The original article was published on 07.15.2025 and is available here. The Soviet-era bronze statue in Tallinn was relocated long ago, but the
The History of U.S.-Iranian Irregular Warfare
The relationship between the United States and Iran is far more intricate than a conventional bilateral conflict. Dubbed the “twilight war,” U.S.-Iranian relations is replete with examples of Irregular Warfare (IW), including events of the recent past like the U.S.-Russia-Iran proxy war in Syria, the Yemeni
Winning Without Fighting: Economic Power and Information Warfare (Part 2)
Episode 133 is the second installment in our two-part series exploring how the United States can leverage non-kinetic instruments of power to compete effectively without resorting to military force. Building on our previous discussion, our guests examine America's strategic blind spots in treating economics and information as support
Preparing for the Silent Surge: Countering North Korea’s Gambit in a Dual Contingency
Strategic planners across the Indo-Pacific must reckon with an increasingly plausible scenario: a dual contingency in which North Korea opportunistically launches a full-scale war against South Korea while China conducts military operations against Taiwan. Such a scenario, discussed in a recent Atlantic Council report, represents an acute test of U.
Rebuilding Combat Electromagnetic Warfare for U.S. Ground Forces
From Ukraine to the South China Sea, the electromagnetic spectrum is no longer an ancillary support function. Russian forces in Ukraine deploy systems like Zhitel, Krasukha and Leer-3 to jam communications, spoof GPS, and locate command posts in near real time. These capabilities enable rapid precision fires and drone strikes
Democratized Intelligence: How Open-Source Intelligence is Reshaping Asymmetric Advantage
Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 crashed in eastern Ukraine in 2014, killing all 298 passengers. Russian-backed separatists and the Russian government denied involvement despite the world pointing in their direction. Russia promoted multiple alternative explanations, which a small team of online investigators at Bellingcat systematically disproved. Using only publicly available satellite
Bridging the gap between irregular warfare scholars, practitioners, and policymakers.
