War on the Rocks

Welcome to The Adversarial. Every other week, we’ll provide you with expert analysis on America’s greatest challengers: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and jihadists. Read more below.***IranOver the last two weeks, President Donald Trump repeatedly threatened major attacks on Iran. Going into the weekend, multiple news outlets reported that he was mulling a major bombing ca...

In 2025, Matthew Fuhrmann wrote, “U. S. Allies and Adversaries Are Attempting Nuclear Deterrence Without Weapons – Will It Work?,” where he argued countries don’t always need to go as far as actually building nuclear weapons to reap the benefits of nuclear deterrence. A year later, we asked Matthew to revisit his arguments. Image: MidjourneyIn your 2025 article, you argued co...

When Anduril announced a $910 million drone production facility in Ohio, it was not politics as usual. The main message came from Ohio’s governor, Mike DeWine, while Representative Mike Carey’s press release thanked the governor. Members of Congress usually take substantial credit for defense industrial jobs, but Carey did not because he could not. Anduril sited Arsenal-1 nea...

In late June, cadets at the Israeli military’s officer training school sat through a lecture by Ofer Winter, a retired brigadier general and a polarizing figure in the Israel Defense Forces. According to Haaretz, Winter told the future officers that “there are no uninvolved civilians in Gaza” and accused two former chiefs of staff of politically blocking his career. Regulatio...

Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz and efforts to extract payments for safe passage — plus, more recently, the Houthis’ move to attack Saudi shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait — have highlighted the risks of maritime chokepoints to global shipping and raised questions about the future for freedom of navigation. The impacts extend beyond the Persian Gulf and the Red...