The Defence Horizon Journal - Podcasts

Seabed warfare is transforming maritime strategy by shifting competition from platforms and manoeuvre toward infrastructure, connectivity, and persistent monitoring, influence and selective control over the benthic domain. Growing dependence on critical undersea infrastructure, combined with advances in autonomous systems and distributed sensing, is turning the seabed into an active and contested battlespace. This article argues that traditional concepts of sea control and deterrence are increasingly insufficient for understanding conflict in this evolving environment. Building on the concepts of seabed control and liminal warfare, it examines how technological change, infrastructural vulnerability, and legal ambiguity reshape maritime strategy and enable persistent competition below the threshold of open conflict. The article concludes that adapting to seabed warfare requires doctrinal innovation, resilience, and closer integration between military, civilian, and alliance structures.
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Maritime chokepoints are commonly portrayed as critical vulnerabilities capable of triggering systemic disruption across the global economy. The concentration of trade and energy flows through corridors such as the Suez Canal, the Strait of Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb, the Strait of Malacca, and the Panama Canal has reinforced concerns regarding the fragility of contemporary globalisation. This article argues that contemporary maritime chokepoints create significant strategic vulnerabilities, but they do not necessarily render the global trading system fragile. Drawing on recent disruptions, including the Evergiven blockage, the Red Sea security crisis, and operational constraints affecting the Panama Canal, the article distinguishes between exposure to disruption and systems' capacity to absorb, adapt to, and recover from shocks.
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An increasing number of contemporary conflicts appear to resist decisive resolution under specific structural conditions. This argument does not suggest that all wars follow the same trajectory. Rather, it identifies specific structural configurations under which decisive outcomes become less likely. For the purposes of this article, “strategic closure” refers to the production of a durable political outcome through military action, whether by decisive battlefield victory, negotiated settlement, regime collapse, or the consolidation of a new strategic equilibrium. The argument advanced here is not that all wars become stalemated, but that under certain structural conditions, the probability of achieving such strategic closure declines significantly. Nuclear deterrence, technological transparency, alliance commitments, and economic interdependence constrain pathways toward decisive military resolution without ending conflict. Conflicts such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and escalating confrontations in the Middle East are used here as illustrative cases of a broader phenomenon in which multiple escalation-constraining mechanisms operate simultaneously. They do not, by themselves, establish a universal trend, but they help illuminate the conditions under which prolonged strategic inconclusiveness may emerge. Nuclear deterrence, technological transparency, alliance commitments, and economic interdependence may, under particular geopolitical conditions, constrain pathways toward decisive military resolution without necessarily ending conflict. As a result, such conditions may prolong the conflict while reducing the likelihood of strategic closure. »» TDHJ «« » patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedefencehorizon » donate: https://tdhj.org/about/#donation
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The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into strategic command reconstitutes rather than augments command judgement, placing systematic pressure on what Clausewitz identified as the essential intelligence of command: coup d’œil, the cultivated capacity for rapid holistic synthesis that distinguishes the formed commander from the competent administrator. This article argues that command intuition develops through practice and is sustained through experience, yet three compounding pathologies in AI-augmented environments progressively erode its development and exercise. Drawing on Clausewitz’s analytical framework, the article identifies these pathologies as automation bias, which substitutes deference for judgement; algorithmic monoculture, which collapses cognitive diversity through which actors recognise what shared models cannot perceive; and delegated infopolitik, which embeds consequential political choices within system architecture, rendering them invisible to commanders and severing the accountability chain that war as an act of policy requires.
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Modern conflicts are increasingly fought in the cyber and information domains, where effects unfold primarily in the cognitive rather than the physical sphere. Addressing such non-kinetic threats requires multidisciplinary expertise and close cooperation between public defence institutions and private-sector innovators. This paper outlines key factors for efficient cooperation and proposes a criteria-based framework that systematically defines the knowledge, skills, and capacities needed to counter Cognitive Warfare.
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Despite two centuries of technological progress, Clausewitz’s concept of friction remains a vital analytical lens for warfighting in the age of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. This article interprets friction in the context of cognition, focusing on algorithms and human-machine miscommunication to address the gap between educational practice and officers’ preparation for operational reality.
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The Shahed-136, an Iranian-manufactured loitering munition built largely from foam and plywood, has emerged as a very effective weapons system. The Shahed-136 drone has demonstrated that low-cost, mass-produced aerial munitions can systematically overwhelm sophisticated and expensive air defence architectures. Iran's direct deployment of Shaheds against Israel in 2025, followed by Russia's relentless campaign averaging 140 drone strikes per day over Ukraine, established saturation as a viable operational method. Now in February 2026, the use of Shahed-136 by Iran and LUCAS by the U.S. revealed a new doctrine of attrition warfare centred on saturation and economic exhaustion.
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Since the 2023 Vilnius Summit, NATO has recognised industrial capacity as a core element of deterrence. The Alliance has endorsed the Defence Production Action Plan, adopted the Industrial Capacity Expansion Pledge, and aligned with parallel US and EU initiatives, the National Defence Industrial Strategy and the Act in Support of Ammunition Production to accelerate output, standardisation, and supply-chain resilience. Yet policy vocabulary has advanced faster than procurement logic. The return of industrial war, combined with a sensor-saturated battlefield, means that design choices now carry direct operational consequences. Manufacturability, supply substitution, repairability, and distributed production potential are variables of combat endurance. This article argues that NATO's real gap is not only an industrial-capacity gap, but also an industrial-operational doctrine gap: the Alliance has not yet fully integrated production resilience and battlefield transparency into a mature procurement doctrine suited to prolonged high-intensity conflict.
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The 2026 Hormuz Crisis is often misinterpreted as a fraying of Western influence; however, a closer look reveals a calculated recalibration of U.S. power. This article examines Washington’s pivot toward "Strategic Autonomy", a move that shifts the burden of regional stability onto competitors while insulating Western markets.
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The People’s Republic of China’s contemporary power strategy extends beyond military modernisation. It integrates overt strategic signalling, digitally amplified emotional storytelling, and Confucian moral framing into a unified hybrid model of influence. Through spectacles such as the 2025 Victory Day Parade, curated soldier narratives, and globally celebrated athletic achievements, Beijing projects deterrence while cultivating legitimacy. Understanding this fusion is essential for policymakers navigating twenty-first–century competition.
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