Shortly after midnight on September 26, 1983, Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov sat at his console at the Serpukhov-15 command center outside Moscow and watched his early warning system report that the United States had launched five intercontinental ballistic missiles. The screen flashed “launch.” The siren howled. The automated alert registered at the system’s highest confidence level.
In a move to harden the nation’s skies against evolving global threats, the Irregular Warfare Center (IWC) recently collaborated with American Airlines during a high-level strategic security meeting with regional airline partners and specialists, January 15, 2026. The summit shifted the focus from traditional security protocols to the complex realities of irregular warfare (IW), specifically addressing the proliferation of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and their potential to disrupt domestic aviation and transportation infrastructure.
On March 13, 1881, a young man named Ignaty Grinevitsky stood outside the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg and watched his accomplice throw a small bomb at the convoy of Tsar Alexander II. The Tsar stepped out of his carriage, unhurt. Grinevitsky rushed forward and dropped a second bomb at Tsar’s feet. Both men died.
The ongoing conflict in West Asia has caught global attention for many reasons. In the domain of warfare however, the emergence of drones as central systems for offsetting technologically advanced adversaries appears to be one of the most consequential takeaways from this conflict.
Diplomacy in irregular warfare (IW) is not a supporting act; it is one of the main ways the United States competes for power and legitimacy below the threshold of conventional war. That claim matters even more now because the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war has shown that contests over legitimacy, sanctions, coalition management, information, logistics, and economic resilience are not ancillary to war; they are central to it.
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The contemporary space race is primarily about securing strategic, military, technological, and economic advantages over rivals, more than scientific discovery or symbolic status. Although space has often been portrayed as a domain of international cooperation – embodied most visibly by the International Space Station – competition has always remained central to humanity’s expansion into orbit.
Today’s world is rife with flashpoints for future conflicts, and America’s baptism by fire into drone warfare, such as we’ve seen in Ukraine, may be close at hand. Tactics and technologies born in the Russo-Ukrainian war have already appeared in Myanmar, Colombia, and Mexico, as well as in Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, and Iraq.
Militaries around the world have always mapped the world in terrain features, borders, and lines of advance. Yet in recent crises, the most consequential pressure has often been applied elsewhere – shipping slows without a port being seized; energy prices spike without a pipeline being destroyed; and supply chains fracture without a factory being struck.
For decades, U.S. policymakers have returned to a familiar operational formula in the Middle East: American airpower, intelligence, and advisory support paired with local ground forces willing to do the hardest fighting. Kurdish partners fit that formula in Iraq and Syria, where their battlefield effectiveness gave Washington a relatively economical way to generate pressure without introducing large conventional formations.
August 4-6, 2026
IW Symposium: Irregular Warfare in the Homeland:
Adapting for a Secure Future
The Irregular Warfare Center (IWC) is hosting a 2.5-day symposium on the Defense of the Homeland. This symposium embodies the NDS's call for a clear-eyed realism that leverages all elements of national power.
