Choose Your Path
Power, alliances, state behavior, conflict, and the choices reshaping the international environment.
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AQIS is using the 25th anniversary of 9/11 to explain to a younger audience why it believes America should remain the priority and to connect September 11, Gaza, and October 7 inside one continuing jihadist narrative.
Read briefBriefing work
Current assessments and intelligence-style work connected to this subject.
ISIS’s global spokesman reportedly surfaced in a mud-brick house in Yemen. The bigger intelligence question may be what was recovered inside and what it reveals about…
Read briefThe House is back after the August recess, the Senate returns for regular business September 14, and Washington is beginning to move again. The useful things…
Read briefA Chinese university student studying in Canada is in U.S. custody after the FBI says he admitted photographing specific aircraft and airport facilities for a contact…
Read briefThe fighting around the Strait of Hormuz and Washington’s new Venezuela oil agreement look like separate stories. Viewed through energy security, they are part of the…
Read briefA catastrophic glacier collapse along the Nepal-Tibet border left thousands dead or missing, including approximately 85 Americans. Many of the Americans were pilgrims traveling to or…
Read briefJust after midnight Monday, an alarm sounded at a WB Electronics facility in Skarżysko-Kamienna, Poland. Local reporting said a masked person carrying a backpack was captured…
Read briefTens of thousands of people converged on Ceuta after a legal ruling was distorted online, social media amplified the perception of an open border, and authorities…
Read briefGrowing anti-Taliban resistance in northern Afghanistan is doing more than testing the battlefield. It is exposing tensions between the movement’s southern Pashtun leadership and influential Tajik,…
Read briefAs of this week, the United States and Iran are operating under an interim memorandum of understanding reached following the 2026 conflict. Despite some headlines suggesting…
Read briefThe recent federal indictment of former Cuban leader Raúl Castro over the 1996 shootdown of two civilian aircraft operated by Brothers to the Rescue is being…
Read briefThe current global environment is no longer defined by isolated crises. It is defined by convergence. What analysts now describe as a polycrisis is not a…
Read briefA cardboard box rarely looks like a weapon. That is exactly what makes this story worth paying attention to. European investigators recently uncovered a covert operation…
Read briefWe are at a consequential moment. Credible indicators suggest Ali Khamenei is likely dead, creating a destabilizing shock within the Iranian regime. Leadership transitions in hardline…
Read briefIntro When we talk about the Middle East, countries like Syria, Iran, and Israel dominate headlines. Lebanon? Not so much. And yet, today Lebanon sits at…
Read briefThe release and transfer of ISIS-affiliated women from detention facilities in Syria by forces aligned with Abu Mohammad al-Julani represents a material and underrecognized security threat.…
Read briefIran is experiencing one of the most widespread and sustained protest waves in recent years. Beginning in late December 2025, demonstrations quickly expanded from isolated shop…
Read briefIsrael’s recent recognition of Somaliland formalizes a political reality that has existed since 1991 and highlights a long-standing gap between international policy and what actually happens…
Read briefBetween January and October 2025, Africa has witnessed a sharp escalation in targeted killings of Christians, with concentrated violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC),…
Read briefNew reporting from June 15th, 2025, has reignited outrage over the fate of missing American journalist Austin Tice, who disappeared in Syria in 2012. According to…
Read briefWhile most of our attention has remained fixed on al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and the Islamic State—Khorasan Province (ISKP), there is an increasingly dangerous layer of transnational…
Read briefOn April 22, 2025, several terrorists carried out a deadly assault primarily targeting Hindu tourists in the Baisaran meadow near Pahalgam, in Jammu and Kashmir, India.…
Read briefIn a stunning example of terrorist misinformation shaping U.S. policy discussions, the head of United States Africa Command (USAFRICOM), General Michael E. Langley, testified before the…
Read briefAl-Qaeda is increasingly encouraged by the momentum of its affiliate in Somalia, al-Shabaab, as the group makes a calculated push toward Mogadishu. This is not merely…
Read briefIn January 2025 alone, Sweden recorded 32 bombing incidents, marking a sharp increase in such attacks. This alarming trend is closely linked to criminal gang activity,…
Read briefAl-Qaeda and its newly formed Islamic Army have declared their intent to restore the Islamic caliphate. This concept refers to a unified Islamic state governed by…
Read briefResearch & source work
Investigations, reports, letters, source work, and earlier research that add context.
A detailed examination of Islamic State Khorasan Province, its networks, and the Taliban’s public claims about fighting it.
Open investigationOutside publications
Magazine, journal, and outside publication work that belongs on this path.
A reconstruction of the Taliban intelligence operation that penetrated resistance contacts, tracked Hasib Panjshiri’s movement, and led to the August 20 ambush in Salang.
Read investigationA shootout between Ukraine’s SBU and military intelligence exposed something more dangerous than bureaucratic rivalry: a breakdown in operational deconfliction during an active intelligence war with…
Read articleRecent fighting suggests sustained resistance pressure is reshaping the Taliban’s military campaign and its use of allied jihadist organizations.
Read articleA closer look at the Taliban’s evolving military posture, regional pressure, and the networks shaping the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
Read articleAn examination of the Islamic State’s effort to reposition leadership and revive its operations in Libya.
Read articleAn analysis featuring Sarah Adams on the actors, networks, and warning signs surrounding violence against Kurdish communities in Syria.
Read the interviewBooks & enduring work
Books, collaborations, and other enduring material that helps round out the subject.
Alex Joske examines Chinese intelligence and influence networks through open-source research into the Ministry of State Security and its global fronts.
View bookEva Dou traces how technology, industrial strategy, state power, intelligence collection, and one company became intertwined in geopolitical competition.
View bookHamidreza Azizi traces the rise, transformation, and fragmentation of Iran’s regional network and its struggle with Israel and the wider Middle East order.
View bookAllie Mellen examines how nation-state cyber operations function as instruments of power and how geopolitics shapes the digital battlefield.
View bookAn oral-history project preserving firsthand accounts from people who experienced the war, rebuilding efforts, withdrawal, and Taliban takeover.
Explore HARTA Pineapple Press project examining Afghanistan, the withdrawal, and the people who carried its consequences.
View the bookSarah Adams examines how Ukrainian artists documented war, preserved culture, countered disinformation, and used art to support a country under attack.
Read the articleKeep the thread
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