The Japanese Prime Minister’s Washington Visit: Converting Gulf Shock into a China Strategy

03/26/2026 By Robbin Laird The week Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi arrived in Washington, the news cycle was fixated elsewhere. Missile trails over the Gulf, images from the Iran war, and oil price charts spiking on every financial screen dominated the coverage. Yet in that same window, the Japanese leader walked into the White House carrying a portfolio of long-term energy and… Read more »

Brazil Between Hegemons: Anti Imperialism, Sovereignty, and the New Asymmetries of Its Foreign Policy

03/25/2026 By Kenneth Maxwell Brazilian foreign policy has long prided itself on a distinct grammar: sovereignty, non‑intervention, dialogue with adversaries, and strategic autonomy rather than bloc alignment. Layered on top of that diplomatic tradition, especially within the Brazilian left, sits a powerful anti‑imperialist political culture that reads world politics primarily through the lens of resistance to hegemonic power, above all that… Read more »

Admiral Brad Cooper: A Kill Web Practitioner

03/23/2026 By Robbin Laird The kill web concept, which Ed Timperlake and I have been developing and writing about for more than a decade, is fundamentally about replacing the linear kill chain with a distributed, interactive combat architecture. Rather than sequencing effects through a fixed hierarchy of platforms, the kill web operates through interlocking nodes, sensors, shooters, decision-makers, and enablers ,… Read more »

The Maritime Regime: Autonomous Systems and the Enforcement of Iranian Demilitarization at Sea

03/23/2026 By Robbin Laird No strategy to structurally constrain Iran’s military options is complete without the maritime dimension. For decades, Tehran has treated the Strait of Hormuz, the northern Gulf, the Bab al-Mandab, and the Red Sea as chronic pressure points, instruments of coercion against adversaries and leverage over the global economy. The IRGC Navy and affiliated forces have harassed commercial… Read more »

The 2025 Books: Contributions to Portuguese and Brazilian History

03/22/2026 By Robbin Laird The 2025 publications in the Portugal and Brazil Confront the Contemporary World series represent a pivotal consolidation of an ambitious intellectual endeavor, one that repositions Portuguese and Brazilian historical experiences as central rather than peripheral to understanding global modernity. Three substantial volumes appearing this year demonstrate how historically grounded scholarship can illuminate contemporary global disorder while challenging… Read more »

Building the Kill Web: GCC-Israel Security and Deterrence Architecture

03/21/2026 By Robbin Laird If the first strategic challenge is to define the demilitarization objective and the coalition that enforces it, the second is to build the kill web that gives that coalition real deterrent teeth. Deterrence in the post-war Middle East cannot rest on declarations or episodic deployments. It requires persistent, integrated, and credible architecture or security, deterrence and kill… Read more »