Publications

From Wartime Leverage to Post-MOU State Capacity:

Iran’s Reconstruction, Institutional Recovery, and Strategic Network Rebalancing

This working paper examines whether Iran can convert wartime leverage into durable post-MOU state capacity. It argues that the reported U.S.–Iran MOU may reduce direct escalation but does not resolve the wider conflict system involving U.S.–Iran bargaining, Iran–Israel deterrence, U.S.–Israel alliance management, sanctions sequencing, Hormuz governance, and proxy discipline. The paper frames Iran’s post-MOU challenge as a strategic conversion problem: transforming wartime endurance into reconstruction, institutional recovery, managed external leverage, disciplined proxy governance, and sustainable strategic positioning between Eastern alignment, Western-linked recovery channels, and national autonomy.

The War That Measured America: 

Why Washington Entered the U.S.–Iran Conflict, What It Revealed,  and How It Accelerated a Eurasian Counter-System

This working paper examines the U.S.–Iran conflict as a strategic exposure event that revealed the operating limits, cost structure, alliance constraints, and systemic vulnerabilities of U.S. power without producing a simple American defeat. It argues that Washington entered the conflict less from a clear theory of victory than from fear of inaction, and that the war made U.S. forward basing, air-defense costs, settlement-control limits, alliance divergence, and multi-theater bandwidth constraints more visible. The paper also introduces the concept of a Eurasian Counter-System, a modular China–Russia–Iran structure linking resources, production, logistics, technology, finance, and political narratives in ways that dilute U.S. coercive leverage.

A Systemic Theory of Escalation and the Loss-of-Control Threshold in Networked Conflict

This working paper develops a systemic theory of escalation centered on the loss-of-control threshold (LoCT) as a dynamic state-transition condition. It models escalation as an endogenous process driven by systemic pressure, structural node criticality, and perception feedback. Strategic success is redefined as temporal control—the ability to remain below the LoCT—making conflict a competition over sustained controllability rather than decisive victory. 

Who Loses Control First?

Threshold Competition in the 2026 U.S.–Israel–Iran Conflict

This working paper analyzes the 2026 U.S.–Israel–Iran conflict as threshold competition rather than decisive war. It introduces the loss-of-control threshold (LoCT) to explain escalation failure under systemic pressure. The United States faces overextension, Israel escalation lock-in, and Iran a retaliation loop. Outcomes depend on resilience in delaying loss of control rather than battlefield superiority.

Systemic Warfare in the Networked Age: 

Operational Systems, Information Competition, and Cumulative Pressure

This working paper introduces systemic warfare as a framework for understanding how contemporary conflict operates through cumulative pressure across interconnected operational systems and networked information environments. It integrates Operational System Warfare and information competition, and proposes two analytical constructs: the Operational Node Criticality Score (ONCS) and the Systemic Pressure Index (SPI). Drawing on an illustration from the 2026 U.S.–Israel–Iran confrontation, the paper shows how disruptions propagate and generate nonlinear effects, offering a theoretically grounded model with testable implications for future research.

Industrial War and Network War: 

Operational Logics in the Russia–Ukraine War and the U.S.–Israel–Iran Conflict

This working paper compares the Russia–Ukraine War and the 2026 U.S.–Israel–Iran conflict as two distinct operational logics of contemporary warfare: industrial warfare centered on territorial control and network-oriented warfare aimed at imposing systemic pressure on distributed military infrastructure. It argues that modern conflicts increasingly operate through networked operational systems in which repeated strikes impose cumulative costs, operational nodes become critical targets, and globally deployed powers face growing vulnerability to cross-regional pressure. 

Cloud Under Fire:

Hyperscale Data Centers and the Rise of Cyber-Physical Warfare

This working paper examines the strategic significance of hyperscale cloud infrastructure in modern conflict. Using the concept of Digital Strategic Nodes (DSNs) and the reported strikes near AWS facilities during the 2026 U.S.–Iran conflict as a case study, it analyzes how concentrated cloud infrastructure may create systemic vulnerabilities. The study maps 28 regional digital nodes and highlights the growing role of cyber-physical disruption in warfare. 

Losing the Narrative:

Communication Tempo, Expectation Asymmetry, and Perception Effects in the First Week of the 2026 U.S.–Israel–Iran War

This working paper analyzes why the United States appeared to lose narrative momentum in the information environment during the first week of the 2026 U.S.–Israel–Iran war despite contested battlefield outcomes. Using a best-effort estimate of visible official communication outputs (Feb 28–Mar 6, 2026), it argues that differences in disclosure tempo, narrative continuity, media-format compatibility, and expectation asymmetry significantly shaped early-phase perception dynamics. 

The Global Strategic Chain Reactions of the U.S.–Iran War:

East Asia as the Next Plausible Capability-Revealing Theater

This working paper argues that the U.S.–Iran war should be understood not only as a regional conflict, but also as a source of wider strategic chain reactions across other theaters. It identifies East Asia as the most plausible next capability-revealing theater and assesses Taiwan-centered coercive confrontation as the most likely pathway. The paper contributes to the study of strategic risk, alliance strain, and AI-mediated conflict by examining how contemporary wars reveal the limits of military power and multi-theater coherence under operational stress. 

Derivative-State Drift: 

A Continuous-Time Model of Constraint Erosion in Elite and Artificial Optimization Systems

This working paper develops the Derivative-State Drift (DSD) framework as a continuous-time structural model of cumulative misalignment in derivative-based optimization systems. It explains how systems can remain locally coherent and dynamically smooth while gradually diverging from normative reference states when constraints are soft, enforcement is incomplete, and resource buffering attenuates penalties. The framework is applied symmetrically to elite institutional environments and artificial optimization systems, emphasizing architectural isomorphism rather than anthropomorphic analogy. 

When Decapitation No Longer Matters: 

AI-Delegated Execution and the Potential Failure of Preemptive Strike Logic

This working paper examines how AI-enabled delegated execution can undermine the risk-reduction logic of preemptive strike. It argues that preemptive strike depends on a disruptable human decision bottleneck, and that when retaliatory execution is pre-authorized, institutionally insulated, and no longer contingent on leadership survival, decapitation loses strategic leverage. The paper develops the concept of decapitation irrelevance and reframes deterrence stability around pre-crisis institutional commitment rather than crisis-time leader discretion. 

Strategic Discontinuity in AI-Enabled Warfare:

Machine-Speed vs Human-Speed OODA

This working paper develops the concept of strategic discontinuity in AI-enabled warfare, defined as the structural mismatch between machine-speed OODA cycles and human-speed legal, doctrinal, and institutional oversight. It analyzes how autonomous weapon systems, algorithmic command-and-control, missile-defense automation, kill-chain acceleration, and swarm-based autonomy challenge meaningful human control, international humanitarian law, command responsibility, and strategic stability. 

Unmanned Algorithmic Warfare and Human Role Reconfiguration:

An International Law Perspective

This working paper examines how artificial intelligence, autonomous weapon systems, and algorithmic command-and-control architectures reconfigure warfare and strain the operational foundations of international humanitarian law, state responsibility, use-of-force analysis, and meaningful human control. It argues that international law remains applicable, but that AI-enabled conflict creates an operationalization crisis by eroding the factual conditions required for foreseeability, attribution, proportionality assessment, and accountable human judgment. 

Single-/Few-Human–AI Firms and Single-/Few-Human–AI–Robot Firms

 This working paper introduces Single-/Few-Human–AI Firms (S/F-HAI-F) and Single-/Few-Human–AI–Robot Firms (S/F-HAIR-F) as distinct micro- and mini-scale firm archetypes under the MMC framework. It examines their production functions, capital structures, platform dependencies, sectoral boundaries, risk profiles, evolutionary paths, and implications for firm theory and public policy. 

Gray-Zone Maritime Rights-Protection Strategy

This working paper develops a Cost–Distance–Frequency (CDF) framework for evaluating gray-zone maritime rights-protection operations under asymmetric geography. Using the China–Philippines dispute over Scarborough Shoal as a case study, it models cost per effective hour of presence, risk expectation, sustainability thresholds, and manned–unmanned substitution conditions to assess how sustained presence, operational tempo, and cost compression shape long-term strategic symmetry.