Ryan Simons (Page 3)

OPINION – When ransomware groups hit Romania’s national water agency, its largest coal-fired power producer and oil pipeline operator all in recent months, it would have been easy to file each incident under “criminal nuisance” and move on. But the ransomware gangs targeting the national critical infrastructure, including groups likeContinue Reading

As Iran’s explosive-laden drones wreak havoc in the Persian Gulf and beyond, a wartime leader in another part of the world says he can help. “What is happening around Iran today is not a faraway war for us because of the cooperation between Russia and Iran,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr ZelenskyContinue Reading

OPINION – Over the years, Iran has been responsible for killing hundreds of Americans and, most recently, for the killing of thousands of Iranians. After years of futile negotiations, the U.S. – and Israel — attacked Iran on February 28, 2026. U. S. courts and the Intelligence Community had assessedContinue Reading

In 2017, Marco Rubio, then Florida’s junior senator, was assigned a Capitol Police security detail because the U.S. received unverified but alarming intelligence that Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro’s feared chief enforcer was sending a hit man to assassinate him. Today, in an epic irony, Rubio, now Secretary of State, andContinue Reading

OPINION – After the joint U.S. – Israeli strikes against Iran’s nuclear program last June and after the spectacular raid that resulted in the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, U.S. President Traitor 47 must have begun to feel like the ruler of the world. “For he was ruler ofContinue Reading

OPINION — “The [narco-trafficking] boat strikes [in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific] aren’t the answer. What we’re moving for right now might be an extension of [Operation] Southern Spear, really a counter [narcotics] cartel campaign process that puts total systemic friction across this [drug] network.” That was Marine Corps Gen.Continue Reading

OPINION – The current conflict with Iran highlights a longstanding, core premise that national security comes from visible instruments of power – weapons. While hard power will always be critical to national security, national security is not created by accumulated hard power. It is created by enduring internal capacity thatContinue Reading

OPINION — Since U.S. and Israeli strikes began against Iranian military and nuclear infrastructure in late February, two wars have been running simultaneously. One is kinetic. The other involves something the world has not fully reckoned with: the systematic use of artificial intelligence to manufacture reality, at scale, in realContinue Reading

OPINION — For much of its history, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has been portrayed as a unified military bloc bound by common values and collective defense. In reality, NATO has always been closer to a pragmatic partnership, an alliance shaped as much by disagreement and national interests asContinue Reading

OPINION – The Gray Zone is no longer a peripheral space between war and peace. It has become the primary arena in which strategic advantage is tested and miscalculation is manufactured. For decades, competition below the threshold of armed conflict relied on political signaling, economic leverage, proxy actors, and selectiveContinue Reading

OPINION — For decades, strategists have warned that the most dangerous flashpoint in South Asia lies between India and Pakistan. The reasoning appeared straightforward: two nuclear-armed rivals with a long history of crises and wars. That perception only hardened last year when the two countries exchanged missile strikes during theContinue Reading

In China, the generals keep losing their jobs. On February 26, nine senior officers of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) – five generals, one lieutenant general, and three major generals – were stripped of membership in China’s top legislature, in the latest episode of a purge that has eviscerated theContinue Reading