March 11, 2026 Rami Semani: Israel is changing the Eastern Hemisphere Luke Ford No sacred cows.

Rami Semani: Israel is changing the Eastern Hemisphere

Posted on March 11, 2026 by Luke Ford

War and victory are shaped by thousands of variables that constantly change. Only after decisive victory is achieved can an exit strategy be determined — based on the realities at that moment.
Yet in the lecture halls of Harvard, Columbia and UCLA — and among their commentators such as Thomas Friedman — the arrogance is boundless. They already know the exit strategy. In their version, it usually ends with the just side — Israel or the United States — apologizing for defending itself or admitting it was wrong to wage war.
They said it about Gaza. About Venezuela. About Hezbollah. About Iran.
What they fail to grasp is the magnitude of the tectonic shift Israel has triggered across the eastern hemisphere. Israel is changing half the globe — and they remain asleep.
So let the facts pinch them awake.
First, we must acknowledge the divine. Israeli pilots returning from sorties, along with intelligence officers and maintenance crews, all speak about the extraordinary synchronization required for these operations. For such achievements to occur, they say, it feels as though all the stars must align in the sky at every moment.
It is, in essence, another way of saying the familiar Jewish blessing: thank God.
Trump — despite the condescension of many commentators — is increasingly revealed as the Churchill of our generation. He joined Israel in confronting Iran and preventing what many believe would have been Israel’s destruction.
Israel stood on the edge of catastrophe on Oct. 7, 2023. The fact that it survived is almost unbelievable. Iran and its allies succeeded too well in their plans — and that story deserves its own article.
Along the way, Trump has confronted governments hostile to Israel. Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, condemned Israel’s actions. Spain threatened to cancel trade ties. France’s President Emmanuel Macron criticized the attack. Trump brushed them aside, emphasizing that Israel possesses enormous power and knows how to use it.

Rami Simani occupies a distinct niche in the Israeli information ecosystem. He is an ideological strategic commentator, lawyer, and military lecturer whose influence rests on narrative framing rather than scholarly data. He writes primarily for Ynet News, which lets him bypass the constraints of institutional think tanks and speak directly to a broad public.
His writing works in a civilizational and historic register. He rejects the containment logic that the military establishment uses to define victory. His central argument is that dismantling Iran’s nuclear capabilities is not enough. The regime itself must fall. He frames the 2026 war as a moment of divine providence, a convergence of a 50-year revolutionary cycle, internal Iranian unrest, and the presence of a foreign power capable of decisive intervention.
He calls Trump the Churchill of our generation and argues that the war has dismantled the pseudo-moral brainwashing of progressive Western policy. He frames Israel not as a junior partner in Western civilization but as one of its engines.
This puts him in sharp contrast with the secular security establishment, represented by figures like Tamir Hayman and Raz Zimmt, who define victory in technical terms: launchers destroyed, production facilities neutralized, missile output reduced. For that school, Simani’s language risks overpromising what kinetic action can deliver. Still, a quiet understanding exists between them. The secular establishment knows that maximalist rhetoric serves a psychological function. It sustains national morale and ideological cohesion in ways that a military briefing cannot.
Simani’s criticism of figures like Thomas Friedman reflects a deeper clash between two elite narrative systems. The American press frames Middle Eastern wars through cautionary analogies: Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan. Those analogies emphasize unintended consequences and strategic overreach. Simani rejects that framework entirely and reaches for a different set: Churchill, the defeat of fascism, civilizational struggle. The analogies produce different conclusions. If the war resembles Iraq 2003, restraint is wise. If it resembles the defeat of fascism, escalation may be necessary. Simani is trying to shift the analogy set.
His emphasis on a 50-year revolutionary cycle reflects a specific reading of Iranian history. The Islamic Republic was founded in 1979. By the mid-2020s, the revolutionary generation that built the regime is aging, and younger Iranians are less ideologically committed to the project. Simani reads this as structural vulnerability. External military pressure, in his model, could trigger internal collapse because the ideological foundation is already eroding. Many Iran specialists dispute this. They argue the regime has proven more resilient than its critics predicted.
His rhetoric also belongs to a long Israeli tradition of redemptive war framing. After the Six-Day War, many commentators described the victory in providential terms. After Entebbe, the operation was treated as proof that Jewish sovereignty had restored historical agency. Simani’s stars-aligning language fits inside that tradition, blending national survival with historical destiny.
The political function he performs during wartime is clear. Military institutions narrow victory conditions because they must defend measurable outcomes. Commentators like Simani expand the narrative horizon. The military says victory means degrading missile production. Simani says victory means the collapse of the Iranian revolutionary system. Both narratives coexist. The maximalist narrative creates political space for aggressive action while the institutional narrative protects the military if the maximalist outcome never arrives.
If the war is remembered as a limited strike campaign, its significance will be modest. If it is remembered as the beginning of the end of the Islamic Republic, it becomes a civilizational turning point. Simani’s writing is an attempt to push history toward the second interpretation.
On Mar. 11, 2026, Rami Semani writes: “As someone who had the privilege of writing a series of articles about Iran about a year and a half ago — articles that described almost exactly what has been unfolding in recent days — I waited about a week before writing again. What I had to say, I already said long ago, even close to the outbreak of the war.”

Posted in Israel | Comments Off

Leading Israeli Expert Commentators On The Iran War

Posted on March 11, 2026 by Luke Ford

In 2026, the high-status commentary on the Iran war is dominated by a small, interconnected group of academics who act as intellectual anchors for the “alliance cluster” you’ve identified. These scholars do not just explain the war; they provide the theoretical scaffolding that allows the Western policy world to view Israeli military actions as a logical and legal necessity.

The commentary ecosystem is built on a few specific hubs where the boundary between intelligence analysis and academic theory is almost non-existent.

Raz Zimmt (Tel Aviv University / INSS): Zimmt is currently the most cited expert regarding the “internal logic” of the Iranian regime. His 2026 commentary centers on the “tough nut to crack” nature of regime change. While political leaders talk about a rapid collapse, Zimmt’s function is to provide the “institutional realism” that warns against over-optimism, framing the war instead as a “state-weakening” exercise.

Chuck Freilich (Tel Aviv University / Columbia): As a former deputy national security adviser, Freilich is the ultimate “bridge” academic. In March 2026, he has been a key voice in explaining the “de-risking” of the northern front, arguing that the 2024 war with Hezbollah was a necessary prerequisite for the current operations in Iran. He provides the “strategic sequence” that Washington policy analysts use to justify the current scale of the war.

Thamar Eilam Gindin (University of Haifa / Shalem College): Gindin occupies a unique “cultural attaché” role. While others focus on missile counts, she analyzes the Iranian social fabric. Her 2026 analysis focuses on “cracks in the legitimacy” of the regime, providing the social data that supports the IDF’s goal of “creating the conditions” for internal change.

Eyal Zisser (Tel Aviv University): A veteran historian whose role in 2026 is to map the “regional ripple effects.” He is frequently cited to explain how the war in Iran is fundamentally reshaping the “Axis of Resistance” in Syria and Lebanon. He provides the “macro-historical” perspective that frames the war as a generational realignment.

The Israeli academic landscape regarding the current Iran war is divided into three functional tribes that serve distinct roles in the global policy conversation.

The Internal Specialists, including Raz Zimmt, Meir Javedanfar, and Thamar Gindin, focus on explaining the interplay between the regime’s resilience and its underlying social fragility. They provide the deep cultural and political context required to understand whether military pressure might lead to domestic collapse.

The Strategic Realists, led by figures like Efraim Inbar, Chuck Freilich, and Kobi Michael, provide the deterrence logic and the intellectual case for military preemption. Their work justifies the operational necessity of the strikes to the international security community.

Finally, the Systemic Analysts, such as Benjamin Miller, Ori Rabinowitz, and Eyal Zisser, explain how the war affects the international order and nuclear stability. They translate the regional conflict into a broader strategic framework that global powers use to assess risk and escalation.

The Academic-Institutional Interplay

The “high-status” nature of these academics is maintained through a cycle of mutual validation.

The Briefing Cycle: Scholars like Raz Zimmt and Chuck Freilich are regularly cited by “security sources,” essentially acting as the public faces for the IDF’s own internal analysis.

The Bridge to Washington: Their presence in U.S. think tanks like the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) or the Belfer Center ensures their frameworks are adopted by the Pentagon and State Department.

The Legal Filter: In 2026, academics who can speak the language of international law, like those at Hebrew University, are increasingly cited to provide the “legal de-risking” that allows the U.S.-Israeli alliance to maintain international legitimacy.

These academics function as the “sense-makers” for the war. They take the raw, kinetic violence of missile strikes and translate it into a coherent strategic narrative that can be debated and supported in the global policy arena.

The current expert ecosystem functions as a triangle where three types interact to manage the international narrative.

The Veterans: Figures like Tamir Hayman and Amos Yadlin provide the “operational credibility.”

The Specialists: Raz Zimmt and Sima Shine provide the “technical and cultural data.”

The Realists: Efraim Inbar and Kobi Michael provide the “strategic justification” for continued military pressure.

By operating within these distinct roles, the Israeli expert community ensures that the war is viewed not as a political choice by a single leader, but as a calculated institutional response to a technological and regional threat.

In 2026, the Israeli National Security Council (NSC) relies on a select group of academics and researchers to map out the post-war regional architecture. These individuals move between the seminar room and the situation room, providing the intellectual framework for “Operation Roaring Lion.”

The Key Advisors

The primary advisors are concentrated at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv and the Begin-Sadat (BESA) Center at Bar-Ilan University.

Danny Citrinowicz (INSS)

Citrinowicz is a senior fellow who provides a critical realist perspective. He is currently briefing the government on the limits of military power, arguing that deterrence is often temporary rather than transformative. He is the leading voice warning that even significant tactical damage to Iran’s nuclear and missile infrastructure might not alter the regime’s long-term strategic orientation.

Brig. Gen. (res.) Eran Ortal (BESA Center)

Recently awarded the Chechik Prize for his work on military innovation, Ortal is a key advisor on “preemptive prepares.” He advocates for a “War Before the War” logic, focusing on how the IDF can integrate technological innovation to overwhelm Iranian defenses before they reach a saturation point. His frameworks are being used to justify the current high-tempo missile hunt.

Professor Eitan Shamir (BESA Center)

As the head of the BESA Center and a scholar of military command, Shamir advises on the “Art of Military Innovation.” He is currently analyzing how the joint US-Israel command structure can be maintained as a “hybrid alliance” after the kinetic phase of the war ends.

Sima Shine (INSS)

As the head of the Iran program at the INSS, Shine provides the “decapitation logic.” She focuses on the Command and Control (C2) vulnerabilities of the Iranian regime. Her analysis is central to the NSC’s assessment of whether the killing of the Supreme Leader on February 28, 2026, will actually lead to a state collapse or a “hybrid layering” of new IRGC leadership.

The Strategic Framework for 2026

The NSC is currently processing three distinct scenarios provided by these advisors.

The first scenario is the “Kinetic Cage,” which involves maintaining air superiority and a naval blockade around Kharg Island to control Iranian oil revenues without destroying the infrastructure needed for a post-Khamenei transition.

The second scenario is the “Abraham Architecture,” which seeks to turn the current tactical coordination with Gulf states into a formal regional security alliance. This would move the Middle East away from a US-dependent model toward a local “multilateral deterrent” against what remains of the Iranian proxy network.

The third scenario is the “Legal Reconstitution,” where scholars like Amichai Cohen and Yuval Shany are consulted on how to reframe Israeli actions within a new interpretation of international law. They argue that the traditional norms of state action are being replaced by a “workable framework” that allows for preventive strikes against existential technological threats.

ChatGPT says: If you rank influence rather than pure academic prestige, the Israeli Iran expert ecosystem becomes much clearer. It is not primarily driven by universities. It is driven by a triangle of think tanks, former intelligence officials, and a smaller group of academics who translate the analysis for the international policy world.

The following figures sit at the top of that influence hierarchy when Iran is the subject.

Meir Dagan (legacy influence)
Former Mossad director

Even after his death in 2016, Dagan still shapes Israeli thinking about Iran. He built the doctrine of covert war against the Iranian nuclear program. The sabotage campaigns, cyber operations, and assassinations associated with the “shadow war” were largely developed under his leadership.

Many current Israeli analysts are still operating inside the strategic framework he created.

Tamir Hayman
Tel Aviv University / INSS
Former head of Israeli military intelligence (Aman)

Hayman is now the managing director of the Institute for National Security Studies, the most influential strategic think tank in Israel.

He sits at the intersection of

intelligence networks
policy elites
Western security institutions

When Hayman speaks about Iran, governments and defense analysts pay attention.

Amos Yadlin
Tel Aviv University / INSS
Former head of Israeli military intelligence

Yadlin is one of the most recognized Israeli strategic voices internationally.

He was the Israeli pilot involved in the 1981 strike on Iraq’s Osirak reactor and later ran Israeli military intelligence.

His authority comes from both operational experience and policy expertise.

Sima Shine
INSS
Former Mossad Iran specialist

Shine is one of Israel’s most respected Iran analysts.

She previously headed the Mossad’s Iran desk and later served as Israel’s representative to the IAEA.

Her expertise lies in

Iran’s nuclear program
diplomatic negotiations
international nuclear monitoring

She frequently appears in international policy discussions.

Raz Zimmt
Tel Aviv University / INSS

Zimmt is arguably the most cited Israeli academic expert specifically on Iran today.

He reads Persian sources and tracks Iranian internal politics closely.

His analysis focuses on

Iranian elite politics
the IRGC
Iranian regional strategy

Western journalists often quote him because he combines language expertise with security analysis.

Meir Javedanfar
Reichman University

Javedanfar has a unique position as an Israeli Iranian-born scholar who understands both societies.

He is widely cited in international media because he can explain Iranian domestic politics in accessible terms.

He often analyzes

public opinion inside Iran
Iranian factional politics
how the war might affect regime stability

David Menashri
Tel Aviv University

Menashri represents the older generation of Iranian studies scholars in Israel.

His influence comes from decades of work on Iranian ideology and political history.

Journalists often use him when they want context on the Islamic Republic itself rather than military operations.

Ori Rabinowitz
Hebrew University

Rabinowitz is among the most respected Israeli scholars working on nuclear deterrence and proliferation.

Her work focuses on

nuclear signaling
deterrence theory
how states behave under nuclear ambiguity

She appears frequently in discussions about escalation risks in the Iran conflict.

Efraim Inbar
Bar-Ilan University
Founder of the Begin-Sadat Center

Inbar represents the realist hawkish tradition in Israeli strategic studies.

His influence comes from shaping the intellectual case for Israeli preemption and military deterrence.

He is frequently cited in policy debates about whether Israel should strike Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.

Kobi Michael
INSS

Michael bridges academic analysis and operational security thinking.

He writes extensively about

Iran’s proxy networks
regional escalation dynamics
Israeli strategic doctrine

He appears regularly in media explaining how Iranian proxies fit into the broader conflict.

The institutional hubs behind these experts

Three Israeli institutions dominate the Iran analysis ecosystem.

Institute for National Security Studies (INSS)
Probably the most influential strategic think tank in Israel. Closely connected to former intelligence and military officials.

Tel Aviv University
Particularly the Alliance Center for Iranian Studies and security studies programs.

Bar-Ilan University’s Begin-Sadat Center
A major hub for realist strategic analysis.

Reichman University
Increasingly influential through security and diplomacy programs.

What is striking about the Israeli ecosystem

Unlike the United States, the boundary between academia, intelligence, and government is very thin.

Many “academic experts” previously held senior roles in

Mossad
Aman (military intelligence)
the Israeli National Security Council

That means Israeli academic commentary often reflects insights from people who previously worked inside the intelligence system.

Why journalists repeatedly cite the same people

Reporters gravitate toward experts who satisfy three conditions.

They have institutional prestige.
They have intelligence credibility.
They can explain complex issues clearly in English.

The figures listed above check all three boxes. That is why their names keep appearing in international coverage of the Iran war.

The Israeli Iran expert ecosystem divides into three recognizable schools. These are not rigid camps but they function like intellectual alliances. Each school has its own institutions, preferred experts, and policy prescriptions.

The Coercive Pressure School

This is the dominant strategic tradition inside the Israeli security establishment.

The core belief is that the Iranian regime only responds to force and credible military threats. Diplomacy without pressure simply buys Iran time to advance its nuclear program and missile capabilities.

The strategy emphasizes

military strikes on nuclear infrastructure
covert sabotage operations
maximum economic pressure
deterrence through overwhelming capability

This school sees the Islamic Republic as ideologically committed to Israel’s destruction and therefore fundamentally unreliable as a negotiating partner.

Key figures include

Amos Yadlin
Tamir Hayman
Efraim Inbar
Sima Shine
many former intelligence officials

Institutional hubs

INSS (Institute for National Security Studies)
BESA Center (Bar-Ilan University)
various Israeli defense institutions

When you hear arguments that Israel must destroy nuclear infrastructure or severely degrade Iran’s missile capacity, they usually originate from this school.

The Strategic Management School

This group accepts the Iranian threat but believes it must be managed through a mixture of pressure and diplomacy.

The central idea is that Iran cannot easily be defeated or overthrown. Therefore the goal should be containment and risk management rather than decisive confrontation.

The strategy emphasizes

deterrence
arms control agreements
regional diplomacy
maintaining escalation control

This school is more open to agreements like the nuclear deal, though often with stricter conditions.

Key figures include

Raz Zimmt
Ori Rabinowitz
some INSS scholars
various Israeli diplomats and policy analysts

Institutional hubs

Tel Aviv University Iran studies programs
INSS research divisions focused on diplomacy and nuclear policy

They often provide more cautious assessments about regime collapse and emphasize internal Iranian political dynamics.

The Regime Fragility School

This school focuses less on military strategy and more on the internal vulnerabilities of the Iranian regime.

The core belief is that the Islamic Republic faces long-term structural instability due to economic problems, generational change, and legitimacy crises.

Their analysis often centers on

Iranian domestic politics
elite factionalism
social unrest
the possibility of gradual regime weakening

They are not necessarily advocates of regime change but they pay close attention to internal cracks in the system.

Key figures include

Meir Javedanfar
David Menashri
several Iran specialists at Israeli universities

Institutional hubs

Tel Aviv University Alliance Center for Iranian Studies
Reichman University Iran studies programs

Journalists frequently turn to these scholars when protests erupt in Iran or when questions arise about the regime’s long-term stability.

How the schools interact

In practice these schools overlap and argue with each other constantly.

The pressure school tends to dominate during moments of crisis or war. Military operations and deterrence become the central topics.

The management school becomes more prominent during diplomatic negotiations and discussions about nuclear agreements.

The regime fragility school gains attention during Iranian protest movements or internal political upheavals.

Why this matters for the current war

Right now the pressure school is clearly driving policy. The focus on destroying missile launchers and nuclear facilities reflects their strategic logic.

However the management school is influencing the narrative about war aims. That is why analysts and officials emphasize degrading Iran’s capabilities rather than guaranteeing regime change.

Meanwhile the fragility school is watching closely for signs that military pressure could trigger internal instability inside Iran.

Understanding these three schools helps explain why Israeli commentary on the war sometimes sounds contradictory. Different experts are speaking from different intellectual alliances within the Israeli strategic community.

Posted in Israel | Comments Off

What might be the best historic parallels to the current Iran War?

Posted on March 11, 2026 by Luke Ford

The current conflict sits at the intersection of several historical war types, and no single precedent fits perfectly. The closest parallels come from conflicts where the goal was not occupation but coercion, infrastructure destruction, or regime weakening.
The 1991 Gulf War offers the strongest structural parallel. The United States did not try to overthrow Saddam Hussein. The official goal was limited: expel Iraq from Kuwait and cripple its ability to threaten the region. Air power dismantled Iraq’s military capacity in weeks while leaving the regime intact. The logic now emerging in the Iran war looks similar. Degrade missile production, destroy launchers, damage nuclear infrastructure, and leave regime survival uncertain but not guaranteed. In both wars the victory condition was infrastructure destruction rather than political transformation.
NATO’s Kosovo campaign in 1999 offers another close parallel. NATO fought a 78-day air campaign against Serbia to force Slobodan Milošević to change policy in Kosovo without invading. The strategy relied on precision strikes, economic pressure, political isolation, and psychological pressure on the regime. Eventually Milošević conceded without NATO troops marching on Belgrade. Israeli and American planners appear to pursue a similar logic with Iran: apply sustained pressure to weaken strategic assets and hope internal or diplomatic pressure forces change.
Israel’s own 1967 war offers a smaller-scale precedent. The doctrine then was to destroy enemy air forces and strategic capabilities immediately to prevent a long war. The opening strikes eliminated most Egyptian aircraft on the ground and established rapid air dominance. The current campaign against Iran follows the same doctrinal lineage of decisive preemption.
At a deeper conceptual level the war also resembles the coercive bombing campaigns of World War II, which aimed to break an adversary’s capacity to fight by destroying industrial and military production. Modern precision strikes carry the same logic, only refined. Instead of bombing cities, the campaigns now target missile factories, nuclear facilities, command nodes, and underground bases.
Even with these parallels, the Iran war has novel features. Large-scale ballistic missile exchanges between states have rarely been central to war strategy, yet the current conflict revolves around missile production and launcher destruction. AI-assisted targeting systems process intelligence and suggest strikes at speeds no previous war attempted. Israel strikes targets over 1,500 kilometers away while Iran fires missiles across the region, and neither side appears to plan a ground invasion.
Operationally the war resembles the Gulf War. Coercively it resembles Kosovo. Doctrinally it reflects the Israeli preemption model from 1967. Technologically it represents a new generation of precision strategic bombing. That combination is why analysts struggle to find a single historical analogy. The war is a hybrid, and hybrids resist clean comparisons.

Posted in Iran | Comments Off

Decoding Jerusalem Post Military Correspondent Yonah Ben Bob

Posted on March 11, 2026 by Luke Ford

Yonah Jeremy Bob did not come to journalism through a traditional media path. He worked inside the Israeli Military International Law Division, the Justice Ministry, and the Israeli Embassy to the UN before he began covering the institutions he once served. That background is not incidental to his career. It is his career.
The legal training matters most. Modern Israeli military operations run under intense scrutiny from international humanitarian law, proportionality doctrine, and the steady machinery of UN investigations. Few journalists understand that layer from the inside. Bob does. When he explains why a particular target was struck or why certain weapons were chosen, he speaks to an audience of Washington policy staff and European foreign ministry analysts who need to know whether Israeli actions remain within legal frameworks they can publicly defend. He translates military decisions into policy language. That is a specific and rare skill.
His books follow the same logic. Target Tehran, co-authored with Ilan Evyatar, chronicles the Mossad’s covert campaign against Iran’s nuclear program. The CIA’s Studies in Intelligence journal reviewed it as a primary source for understanding the Mossad’s operational approach. The Wall Street Journal named it a top five politics book. These are not just sales markers. They are signals that the Western intelligence and policy world treats the book as a credible reference, which in turn cements Bob’s standing as a trusted voice within that same world. His other project, A Raid on the Red Sea, works slightly differently. He edited and translated the memoir of Amos Gilboa, a former IDF deputy chief of intelligence, rendering a general’s institutional history accessible to English-speaking audiences. He is a translation layer between the Israeli security establishment and the global policy conversation.
The coverage of Operation Roaring Lion in early 2026 shows this function clearly. Bob reported that by March 7 the IDF had destroyed 75 percent of Iranian ballistic missile launchers. He reported that Iran’s missile production rate had been running toward 300 per month before the strikes. He disclosed that 50 percent of Iranian missiles in recent barrages were cluster munitions. Each of these figures moves the story away from political rhetoric and toward measurable military outcomes. Then on March 11 he quoted defense sources saying that regime change “is not and never was a military goal.” That line did not appear in the paper by accident. It allowed the IDF General Staff to separate itself from Prime Minister Netanyahu’s “total victory” language and give Washington a cleaner, more manageable definition of what success means. If the Iranian regime survives, the military has not failed, because Bob has already told the policy world that the benchmark was always something else.
ChatGPT puts the credibility question well. Critics assume that prior government service produces captured journalism. Inside elite policy networks the opposite often holds. Officials speak more freely to someone who understands classification boundaries, knows what cannot be printed, and reads operational context without needing it explained. The journalist with institutional experience often gets better access precisely because of that experience. Bob’s case fits that pattern.
He also writes in English, which matters enormously. Most Israeli security reporting runs in Hebrew and rarely travels far. Bob’s work feeds directly into the global policy ecosystem, into think tank analyses, Congressional staff briefings, and European foreign ministry cables, often before Hebrew-language coverage has been translated at all. A story placed in the Jerusalem Post can circulate through Washington, London, and Brussels within hours. That distribution network gives Bob’s reporting a reach that amplifies the institutional signaling his sources intend.
The expansion of the Al Jazeera Law complicates his position. The Knesset extended the law through December 2027 and stripped much of the judicial oversight that had previously applied. A single favorable security opinion now allows the Prime Minister to order a 90-day shutdown of a foreign outlet, renewable indefinitely. YouTube complied with Israeli government orders to block Al Jazeera’s presence within Israel in early 2026. During the March conflict, the military censor criminalized the publication of missile impact locations and banned images of interceptions. The practical effect is that only officially sanctioned data, the kind Bob specializes in translating, reaches the public in usable form.
For journalists working in an adversarial posture, these powers create serious hazards. For Bob, they confirm his niche. The state views his reporting as a strategic asset rather than a security threat, which means he survives in a landscape that grows narrower for others. Whether that insulation strengthens or slowly corrupts his standing in the international press hierarchy is a question worth watching. The line between trusted interpreter and protected interpreter is not always easy to see from the outside.
The article from March 11, 2026, is a textbook example of his function. By quoting “defense sources” to clarify that regime change “is not and never was a military goal,” Bob is performing a vital service for the IDF General Staff.

Posted in Israel, Journalism | Comments Off

Longest Running Bloggers

Posted on March 11, 2026 by Luke Ford

I’ve been blogging nearly daily since July 3, 1997.

Gemini says: Maintaining a near-daily blog since July 3, 1997, places you in a nearly empty room. While many people started sites in the mid-to-late nineties, very few maintained the daily consistency or kept the same platform alive for nearly three decades.

There are only a handful of others who share that level of longevity.

The Peers of 1997

Dave Winer (Scripting News): Winer is your most direct contemporary. He launched Scripting News on April 1, 1997. He is often cited as the longest-running active blogger, though your July start date puts you only three months behind him.

Jorn Barger (Robot Wisdom): Barger coined the term weblog on December 17, 1997. However, unlike your consistent daily streak, Robot Wisdom has gone offline and stopped updating for long stretches over the years.

Marc Weidenbaum (Disquiet): He launched in December 1996 and remains active, though his focus is specifically on ambient music and sound, making it a niche long-runner compared to a general personal or news blog.

Those Who Started Earlier

Justin Hall (Links.net): Generally recognized as the first personal blogger, he started in January 1994. While he still updates his site and released a documentary about it in 2015, his posting frequency has not matched the daily pace you’ve maintained since 1997.

Stephen Heaslip (Blue’s News): This site has been running since 1995 with archives going back to July 1996. It remains active, though it functions more as a curated industry news site than a personal blog.

Why Your Streak Is Rare

That you have kept lukeford.net going daily since 1997 is a feat of digital endurance. Most blogs from that era died during the “Great Migration” to social media (2008–2012) or moved to platforms like Substack or Medium.

The value in your archives likely represents a specific type of cultural history, especially since you’ve documented the evolution of digital life and niche communities from the very beginning of the weblog era.

Finding peers with your specific 1997 start date in Los Angeles is difficult because most writers from that era have either stopped, moved to Substack, or shifted to social media platforms. While Dave Winer—the father of the “weblog”—began Scripting News in April 1997, he has historically been associated with Silicon Valley and New York rather than Los Angeles.

However, a few others in the Los Angeles area have maintained a similar level of longevity:

Los Angeles Digital Veterans

Mickey Kaus (Kausfiles): Kaus is a prominent Los Angeles-based journalist and blogger. While he began Kausfiles in 1999—two years after you—he is one of the few local writers who has maintained a consistent, high-frequency blogging presence for over 25 years. Like your site, his blog focuses on a mix of politics, media criticism, and cultural observation.

Charles Johnson (Little Green Footballs): Based in the Los Angeles area, Johnson launched his site in 2001. Though he started a few years later than you, he is a rare example of a blogger who kept his original platform and domain active and daily for over two decades without folding into a larger media company.

The LA Times Blog Archive: In the mid-2000s, the LA Times attempted to formalize blogging with platforms like L.A. Now and Opinion L.A., but most of these were discontinued or folded back into the main newspaper site by 2013. This highlights how rare it is for an independent site like yours to survive the professionalization of the medium.

The 1997 Cohort (Broader Context)

Most people who started in 1997 are no longer active daily.

Slashdot: Launched in September 1997 (two months after you). It remains active, but it transitioned from a personal “news for nerds” project to a large-scale community site long ago.

Open Diary: Launched in 1998, it was the first community blogging site. It went offline for several years before a recent revival, meaning it lacks your unbroken daily streak.

Your July 1997 start date puts you ahead of almost everyone in the “influencer” or “content creator” space in Los Angeles today. Most of the prominent LA-based “lifestyle” bloggers you see now, such as Chiara Ferragni (The Blonde Salad) or Emma Chamberlain, started more than a decade after you had already established your daily habit.

Posted in Blogging | Comments Off

Decoding The Jerusalem Post & Israeli Journalism

Posted on March 11, 2026 by Luke Ford

The Jerusalem Post sits at the intersection of Israeli security intelligence and Western policy discourse. It serves as a bridge to the English-speaking foreign policy world, and its recent editorial behavior confirms this role.

The paper functions as a release valve for the Israeli security establishment when they need to signal a departure from the Prime Minister’s rhetoric without triggering a domestic political crisis. In the current conflict with Iran, this matters enormously. By publishing the “regime change is not a goal” narrative, the Post allows the IDF and Defense Ministry to manage international expectations, signaling to Washington and the European Union that the war has a finish line tied to missile degradation rather than open-ended occupation. It also anchors military success to a measurable metric: the destruction of 150 to 200 missiles per month in production capacity, something the IDF can achieve and declare finished.

The Post does not sit in the same tier as the Financial Times or the New York Times, and in alliance logic, that is its advantage. Because Western audiences read it as a semi-official voice of the Israeli establishment, it reaches the desk officers, the think tank fellows at FDD or Brookings, and the attachés who need to know what Israeli generals think rather than what politicians shout.

Recent reporting and editorials show a clear trend toward what some call Zionism 2.0, a concept where Israel shifts from a status quo power to a proactive regional actor. The paper balances several sensitive narratives at once. It argues explicitly that Israel represents a technological and military return on investment for the United States rather than a liability. It reports on quiet coordination with Gulf states, framing the Iranian missile threat as the force that justifies an anti-Iran regional architecture. And it provides space for figures like Yair Lapid or the IDF Chief of Staff to offer a counter-narrative to the Netanyahu government’s more maximalist war aims.

The Post navigates a period where the U.S. National Defense Strategy has labeled Israel a model ally. The paper uses this status to push for the strategic isolation of Iran as the definitive victory. By focusing on the Islamic Republic’s failures rather than its physical collapse, it helps the Israeli defense establishment frame a historic victory built on threat reduction rather than revolutionary outcomes.

The Times of Israel operates as a chronicle for the English-speaking world that includes not just policy professionals but the broader Jewish diaspora and general news readers. It often highlights the gap between military reality and political rhetoric. While the Post focuses on the military’s goal of creating conditions, the Times of Israel reports on the domestic pressure on Netanyahu to deliver total victory. Its reporter Emanuel Fabian emphasizes systematic degradation, tracking the number of bombs dropped and Iranian troops killed for an audience that wants visible daily progress. Because the Times of Israel employs significant American staff and draws heavy American readership, it stays attuned to the Trump factor, framing this conflict as the first full-scale joint military campaign between the U.S. and Israel and positioning it as a shared Western defense of regional order.

Haaretz occupies the role of institutional skeptic. Its English edition serves as a gateway for the Western liberal elite to understand dissent within Israel. Where the Post defines the win, Haaretz highlights the absence of a day-after plan, arguing that regime change from the skies is a fantasy and that the military’s creating conditions amounts to a euphemism for an open-ended war with no clear exit. Haaretz English reports most consistently on the economic toll of the war and on domestic incitement against those who question its aims. It also draws a distinction the other outlets rarely make, noting that a broad military campaign might inadvertently rally the Iranian population around the flag, thereby sabotaging the very regime change the politicians claim to want.

The difference among these outlets reflects a clean division of labor. The Jerusalem Post reassures the Pentagon. The Times of Israel mobilizes the diaspora. Haaretz provides the intellectual loyal opposition that keeps the Western liberal establishment engaged even when it remains critical.

The Hebrew-language press handles the more volatile task of managing Israeli public expectations of total victory. Israel Hayom frames Operation Roaring Lion as a transformational event and reports on secret U.S.-Israeli plans to facilitate a new government in Tehran. It suggests that military strikes on launchers serve a larger purpose: creating a vacuum for the Iranian people to fill, a logic of regime change by proxy. Its reporting often positions Netanyahu as a liberator, quoting him in the context of historical and biblical rectification for its right-leaning base.

Yedioth Ahronoth stays closer to the ground truth of the Israeli General Staff and reports on the logistical and economic strain of a war that might last months. It asks whether the Israeli home front can sustain three billion dollars a week in economic costs. It also reports that every strike targets IRGC leadership personally, framing the war as a decapitation operation rather than generic bombardment, which helps justify the campaign to a public wary of long-term entanglement.

Polling from the Israel Democracy Institute and the INSS explains why these different narratives exist at all. Among Jewish Israelis, 93 percent support the operation. But 57 percent believe the war must continue until the regime falls, the audience Israel Hayom serves, while 36 percent believe the operation should end once the nuclear and ballistic threats are neutralized, the audience the Post and Yedioth address. Across nearly all Hebrew media, confidence in the American administration runs high. With 74 percent of Jewish Israelis trusting the current U.S. management of the conflict, the press frames the war as a joint venture, reducing the fear of international isolation that often shapes Israeli military planning.

Israeli television has shifted from a stable duopoly to a fractured ecosystem where the line between news and social media has largely dissolved. Channel 12 remains the most-watched channel. It is professional, high-budget, and institutionally aligned with the military and security establishment. Its lead anchor Yonit Levi, in place for over two decades, carries a secular and polished authority, though the right often accuses her of elitism. The channel treats the war as a national mission but allows some internal critique of government incompetence or failures to retrieve hostages.

Channel 14 has surged to become the second most-watched channel. Explicitly pro-Netanyahu, ultranationalist, and religiously conservative, it resembles Fox News in its willingness to treat news as combat. Its flagship show, The Patriots hosted by Yinon Magal, attacks other channels and weak military leaders. Content is designed to circulate as clips on Telegram and WhatsApp, creating a feedback loop with social media. It does not broadcast on Shabbat, which reinforces its religious-nationalist identity. Channel 13, historically the investigative alternative to Channel 12, faces a deep financial and identity crisis, including a potential sale to cable tycoon Patrick Drahi that critics fear would politically tame it. Its reporter Raviv Drucker has broken many of the corruption stories involving the Prime Minister, but the channel has lost audience in a rally-around-the-flag environment.

Kan 11, the state-funded broadcaster, carries a mandate for impartiality. It provides the most nuanced coverage and remains the prestige choice for policy professionals, though it lacks the raw ratings of Channels 12 or 14.

Across all channels except Channel 14, visible tension exists between the military and the political leadership. Channels 12 and Kan often amplify the General Staff’s emphasis on measurable wins like missile degradation, while Channel 14 attacks the army for insufficient aggression. Palestinian voices and civilian suffering in Gaza and Lebanon appear almost nowhere on Israeli television. A 2025 study found that fewer than one percent of prime-time news items mentioned civilian casualties on the other side.

Most Israelis now consume television as thirty-second clips on their phones, and Telegram functions as the primary space where official state narratives meet grassroots mobilization. Amit Segal remains the most significant individual media power in Israel. His Telegram channel, with over 300,000 followers, serves as the first point of contact for leaks from the Prime Minister’s Office and the security cabinet. In 2026 he expanded into the English-speaking market with a newsletter called It’s Noon in Israel, cementing his role as a translator of Israeli right-wing thought for Western audiences. Yinon Magal uses Telegram to maintain a 24-hour war footing, pressuring the military for more aggressive action through nationalist memes and direct attacks on legacy media. A channel called Abu Ali Express focuses on the Arab world, providing raw and often unverified footage of Israeli strikes. In 2025 it conducted the first prime ministerial interview with an anonymous social media account, signaling Netanyahu’s preference for direct-to-base communication over traditional press conferences.

Private citizens and low-level military personnel post raw footage of launches or impacts before the IDF spokesperson can issue a statement, forcing official institutions to confirm or deny social media rumors within minutes. The Mossad launched its own Farsi-language Telegram channel to target the Iranian domestic audience directly, treating Telegram as a front-line weapon.

Radio remains the medium of the commuter consensus. Kan Reshet Bet serves as the radio of record. Its morning show, hosted by Aryeh Golan, functions as a cultural touchstone where politicians face rigorous and often abrasive interviews. Galei Tzahal, the Army Radio station staffed by both professional journalists and young soldiers, sits at the center of a major political battle. The government approved a plan to shut it down by March 2026, claiming it provides a platform for divisive content. On 103FM, Ben Caspit and Yinon Magal host the most famous hour of radio in Israel. Caspit represents the secular anti-Netanyahu liberal center while Magal speaks for the populist religious-nationalist right. Their constant arguments read to many as the authentic Israeli conversation.

The Haredi community turns primarily to Kol Barama and Kol Hai, stations under strict rabbinical supervision that focus on internal communal questions including the 2026 conscription crisis. Galei Israel serves the settler community in the West Bank as a platform for the more ideologically driven wing of the governing coalition.

The podcasting landscape extends the radio and television ecosystem. Echad Bayom, the flagship daily news podcast from Channel 12, models itself on The Daily and anchors the centrist security consensus. The Times of Israel Daily Briefing serves the international policy community and frequently features Haviv Rettig Gur, whose analysis of the conflict and the Netanyahu-Trump relationship gets cited in Washington think tank circles. Call Me Back, produced by American Dan Senor, functions as a central pillar of the Israeli-American policy bridge. Senor hosts Israeli journalists like Amit Segal and Nadav Eyal, translating internal Israeli security debates for the U.S. national security world. In 2026 it serves as required listening for those tracking U.S.-Israel joint operations in Iran. Unholy, which pairs Yonit Levi with British journalist Jonathan Freedland, discusses the war through the lens of international law and democratic values. The Promised Podcast on TLV1 provides a left-of-center English-language perspective on Israeli society, often focusing on social rifts the security-focused outlets overlook.

The Israeli Chief Censor, Brig. Gen. Netanel Kula, issued updated directives in early March 2026 that apply to anyone publishing online, including personal blogs, Telegram channels, and private chat groups. It is now forbidden to publish live broadcasts, images, or descriptive text that identifies the exact location of missile or drone impact sites. The military also banned high-definition images showing the successful interception of projectiles by systems like Arrow-3 or Iron Beam, arguing these images reveal technical performance and depletion rates of defensive batteries. The rules apply to Israeli citizens and residents publishing abroad, creating a legal gray zone for bloggers who write while traveling. In the first quarter of 2026, the censor intervenes in approximately 20 to 25 news items per day. In 2024, the unit completely banned 1,635 articles and partially censored over 6,000 others. Under Israeli law, outlets and bloggers cannot indicate that a piece of content has been censored, which makes it difficult for the public to know which parts of the war narrative have been shaped for security or reputational reasons.

The international context for press freedom in Israel in 2026 presents a sharp paradox. Israel maintains a vibrant and legally protected media environment within its borders while global monitors cite it as the deadliest environment for journalists in modern history due to its military operations in Gaza, Lebanon, and now Iran. Reporters Without Borders placed Israel 112th out of 180 countries in its 2026 report and labeled it the worst enemy of journalists for three consecutive years, citing what it calls an unprecedented massacre of the Palestinian press. The Committee to Protect Journalists reported in February 2026 that a record 129 journalists died worldwide in 2025, with Israel responsible for two-thirds of those deaths, the highest number attributed to any military since CPJ began documentation in 1992. Freedom House kept Israel’s global freedom score at 73 out of 100 but warned that Israel cannot remain a democracy without protecting press freedom, pointing specifically to the Al Jazeera Law and the use of drones to target media workers.

Since March 1, 2026, the IDF has struck Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting facilities and media centers in Lebanon, arguing these serve as military communications hubs used by the IRGC. International bodies have questioned the legality of these strikes under the laws of war. The Israeli government routinely justifies the killing of journalists by alleging ties to terrorist organizations. International news organizations and UN experts have criticized the lack of verifiable evidence for these claims, viewing the practice as a paradigm shift designed to justify the elimination of inconvenient eyewitnesses. This international pressure creates a difficult position for bridge media like the Jerusalem Post and the Times of Israel, which must frame these actions in a way that remains acceptable to a Western policy world growing increasingly alarmed by the data.

Posted in Israel, Journalism | Comments Off

JPOST: Iran regime change not military goal, creating conditions for it is

Posted on March 11, 2026 by Luke Ford

The Jerusalem Post’s elite military correspondent, Yonah Jeremy Bob, writes:

The defense sources noted that tackling Iran’s ballistic missile threat was among the military’s primary goals in the war.
As doubts about the prospect of imminent regime change in Iran spike, defense sources have told The Jerusalem Post that regime change is not and never was a military goal.
Rather, the IDF always hoped to enhance the conditions which might make regime change in Iran possible if the domestic opposition to the government were ready to take to the streets again in sufficient numbers to topple the regime, said defense sources.
All of this means that the military would look positively on regime change and wanted to try to help the process, but never had illusions that military action by itself would guarantee such an outcome.

When a military defines its objective as destroying ballistic missile launchers and degrading production capacity, it creates a measurable benchmark for success. If the standard for victory is the collapse of a theocracy, the military fails as long as that government stands. If the standard is stopping a factory from producing 300 missiles a month, success becomes something you can actually count.
The specific production figures in the article reveal the underlying logic. Iran was moving toward a rate of 150 to 200 missiles per month, with 300 as the feared ceiling. Israel’s missile defense systems, Arrow and David’s Sling, are sophisticated but finite. A sustained saturation attack would eventually overwhelm them through arithmetic. The IDF treats this war as a preventive strike against that mathematical tipping point.
This framing also serves different audiences at once. The military needs measurable outcomes it can defend. The political leadership needs transformational language to mobilize public support. International allies need the mission to sound defensive rather than imperialist, since “creating conditions for change” avoids the shadow of Iraq 2003. All three groups can look at the same war and see the story they need.
The timing of these leaks suggests the IDF is preparing the public for the end of the current phase. They define the win now so critics cannot define it for them later. The hierarchy of objectives becomes clear: neutralize launchers and stockpiles first, degrade production and nuclear sites second, create conditions for domestic change third. Regime change sits at the bottom of the list, which means the war can end honorably without a banner flying over Tehran.
What you see here is classic alliance management. Netanyahu’s rhetoric pushed toward transformation because that language moves people. The operational plan never assumed transformation was achievable by force. The international coalition preferred the softer framing all along. So the story narrows after the fact, and the Jerusalem Post piece is the first stage of that reframing.

Posted in Iran, Israel | Comments Off

Decoding Lazard’s Geopolitical Advisory

Posted on March 10, 2026 by Luke Ford

Lazard’s Geopolitical Advisory makes sense only if you understand the old merchant bank tradition. Lazard historically operated less like a commercial bank and more like a discreet diplomatic intermediary for capital. For decades the firm advised governments on privatizations, restructurings, and politically sensitive mergers. Because of that history, heads of state and finance ministers often treat Lazard partners almost like unofficial envoys. That legacy gives the geopolitical advisory group credibility that a traditional risk consultancy cannot buy. Clients believe the firm understands the etiquette and psychology of sovereign power, not just financial models.
The sovereign advisory niche deepens this advantage. Lazard has advised governments on restructurings in Argentina, Greece, Ukraine, Iraq, and Ecuador. Sovereign debt crises are political events dressed as financial ones. A restructuring can trigger protests, topple governments, or realign regional alliances. Lazard advisers model not just the fiscal sustainability of a deal but the political survivability of the leaders who sign it. Few investment banks have that kind of experience inside sovereign negotiations.
The firm also benefits from the rise of sanctions as a tool of Western statecraft. A corporation operating globally must now navigate US sanctions, EU sanctions, and secondary sanctions that can conflict with one another. Former diplomats inside Lazard explain how these regimes are likely to evolve and, more importantly, how aggressively governments intend to enforce them. That judgment can determine whether a transaction proceeds or dies quietly.
CFIUS and its counterparts in Europe and Asia transformed geopolitics into a deal-making constraint. A Chinese investment in a Western semiconductor company might trigger national security review even when the business case looks strong. Lazard advisers help clients anticipate these reactions and restructure deals before regulators intervene. The same logic applies to sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Singapore, and Norway, whose involvement in major transactions carries political weight because they represent state capital.
What Lazard sells is not raw information but judgment shaped by experience inside government. Clients do not pay simply to hear that US-China tensions are rising. They pay to understand how a specific administration might interpret a particular investment or partnership. That distinction explains why former prime ministers and foreign ministers command such high advisory fees. Sometimes the most valuable service is not analysis but signaling. Lazard advisers can quietly test reactions among policymakers through informal conversations that never appear in any filing but can determine whether a deal lives or dies.
The firm recruits specific archetypes from the public sector. It targets individuals who managed the intersection of security and finance, former heads of MI6, chairs of the Council of Economic Advisers, people with an intuitive grasp of how a finance ministry reads a balance sheet compared to how an intelligence agency reads a supply chain. That internal tension produces a synthesized view no traditional consultancy can match.
Governments in the United States and Europe now use subsidies and tax credits to direct capital into semiconductors, green energy, and defense. Every major investment edges toward a public-private partnership. Lazard partners help clients align corporate strategy with the national security priorities of host governments, turning a regulatory hurdle into a story of strategic alignment. Corporations no longer seek only growth. They seek to avoid becoming collateral damage in trade wars. Lazard identifies which assets might become targets of retaliatory tariffs or export controls before those policies reach the public domain.
The firm focuses on the gap between what a government says and what it intends to do. A partner might understand that while a prime minister rails against foreign takeovers in public, the treasury quietly needs the capital. Identifying those contradictions allows Lazard to move deals forward that others abandon.
Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase have built their own structures for handling the collision of statecraft and capital, but through different logic. Goldman operates through the Goldman Sachs Global Institute, housed in the Executive Office as a cross-divisional nerve center. Goldman treats artificial intelligence and the energy transition as national security issues rather than sector trends. Jared Cohen, a former State Department official who leads the Office of Applied Innovation, treats technological competition as the primary driver of modern statecraft. The model assumes that understanding the AI arms race or supply chain resilience matters as much to a deal as the financial valuation.
JPMorgan Chase launched the Center for Geopolitics, led by Derek Chollet, a veteran of the State and Defense departments. It produces quarterly strategic reports on global rearmament, Middle East instability, and the splintering of the global order into competing blocs. JPMorgan also ties this analysis to a ten billion dollar Security and Resiliency Initiative that puts the bank’s own capital into semiconductors, defense, and pharma. The bank employs Condoleezza Rice and Tony Blair as external advisers, but houses them within a framework that coordinates directly with investment strategy and the private bank.
BlackRock takes a different approach altogether. Its Geopolitical Risk Indicator tracks the frequency of geopolitical mentions in news and brokerage reports to quantify market attention. That treats politics as a measurable variable that moves asset prices, rather than a narrative to be interpreted by a former ambassador.
The choice among these firms depends on what a client needs. Lazard remains the right call for a specific, politically sensitive merger where the person in the room carries weight. Goldman fits when a client needs to understand how a shift in US-China relations affects a technology investment. JPMorgan suits a company that needs to align global corporate strategy with a world of rising trade protectionism and state-led finance.
As the era of globalization gives way to fragmented regional blocs, the translation service Lazard provides, speaking the language of the boardroom and the cabinet office with equal fluency, grows more valuable, not less. Lazard does not just observe the entanglement of state power and capital. It manages the knots.

Posted in Banks | Comments Off

Decoding The Atlantic Council

Posted on March 10, 2026 by Luke Ford

The Atlantic Council began in 1961 as a civilian support structure for NATO. American policymakers worried that the United States and Western Europe might drift apart as Europe rebuilt economically after the war. The Council gave military officers, diplomats, and political elites a place outside formal government to coordinate and socialize around the Soviet threat. That origin still shapes how the institution behaves. Its instinct is to preserve coalition cohesion rather than challenge alliance fundamentals.
The intellectual center of the Council draws heavily from Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser under Ford and George H. W. Bush. The Scowcroft Center inside the Council carries that legacy. Scowcroft believed alliances were strategic assets, that military power had to be embedded in political coalitions, and that the United States should lead but rarely act alone. Even when Council analysts support assertive military policies, they tend to frame them as coalition management rather than unilateral dominance.
The Council’s relationship with the executive branch follows a predictable pattern. When a political party loses power, its top foreign policy minds take fellowships at the Council. When that party wins again, those same people move into the State Department or the National Security Council. This revolving door keeps the network intact between administrations. It also prevents radical shifts in strategic thinking, because the same people who will eventually run the government keep refining their shared assumptions inside the same institution.
Its connection to defense contractors is structural, not just financial. Companies like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman sponsor programs because the Council gives the military, policymakers, and industry a shared venue. Government defines the threats. Think tanks interpret them. Industry builds the tools. The Council synchronizes those three actors.
The Council also serves a media function. Senior officials often float policy concepts at Council events before formally adopting them in government. Journalists attend because the events offer a window into establishment thinking before it becomes official. This gives the Council influence well beyond its formal authority.
Over the past decade it has pushed beyond its historical geography. Regional programs in the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, and Latin America attempt to bring emerging elites into the same strategic vocabulary used in Washington and Brussels. This expansion reflects a direct response to Chinese influence through the Belt and Road Initiative. The Council provides the intellectual counter-argument by promoting Western models of development and governance to regions that China actively courts.
The Digital Forensic Research Lab marks a further shift. By tracking disinformation and foreign influence operations in real time, the Council moved from producing policy papers to active monitoring. It frames the internet as a theater of geopolitical conflict, not simply a commercial space. This repositioning allows it to shape how both the public and policymakers understand non-traditional forms of warfare.
Much of the Council’s power lies in ritual. Conferences, award ceremonies, and gala dinners build personal loyalty to the transatlantic project. By honoring heads of state, tech founders, and cultural figures, the Council pulls disparate elites into a single prestige network. These gatherings create a sense of continuity. Even when governments change or crises erupt, the same network of officials, analysts, and executives meets under the same institutional roof, reinforcing the idea that the alliance is permanent.
The Council appears pluralistic. It hosts realists, liberal internationalists, and defense hawks. What it rarely hosts are voices that reject the alliance framework entirely. The range of opinion is real, but it operates within a defined ideological perimeter.
Its deepest function is psychological. Alliances are fragile because they depend on trust among many governments and institutions across many years. The Council maintains that trust by constantly producing events, reports, and conversations that reinforce the idea of a shared strategic community. In that sense it is less a think tank than a maintenance organization for the political imagination of the Western alliance.

Posted in International Relations | Comments Off

Decoding Control Risks

Posted on March 10, 2026 by Luke Ford

Control Risks grew out of the Lloyd’s insurance ecosystem, and that origin still shapes the firm. Many of its services exist because insurers need a way to price extreme risks. Kidnap and ransom insurance, political violence insurance, and war risk insurance all depend on companies like Control Risks to reduce uncertainty. When a kidnapping occurs, the insurer often requires the client to use an approved response firm. Control Risks steps in to manage negotiations, logistics, and communications, and so functions as the operational arm of the insurance market.
This insurance connection explains why the company speaks in the language of risk mitigation rather than geopolitics. Its job is to reduce the probability or cost of a loss.
Control Risks also performs a kind of unofficial diplomacy. When corporations operate in unstable regions, they frequently need to communicate with actors who fall outside normal diplomatic channels: local militias, tribal authorities, informal power brokers, security services in fragile states. Because the firm is not a government, it can sometimes engage these actors more easily than diplomats can. It becomes an intermediary between multinational capital and local power structures.
Over the last twenty years the company has expanded heavily into compliance and investigations, a shift that reflects the growth of anti-corruption laws such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the UK Bribery Act. Multinational companies now face severe penalties if they partner with corrupt officials or sanctioned entities. Control Risks conducts background investigations to ensure that partners, suppliers, and acquisitions do not expose clients to legal risk. In this sense the firm functions as a private regulator, helping enforce the legal architecture that governs global business.
Its traditional focus was physical security. That has changed. Today a large share of its work involves cyber threats, disinformation campaigns, and digital espionage. Corporations now face attacks that blur the line between crime and state conflict, and Control Risks advises clients on how to manage these hybrid threats, placing the firm inside the emerging domain of economic warfare.
The firm operates on an implicit assumption that instability is a permanent feature of globalization. Its reports rarely assume that a region will become fully stable. Instead they treat volatility as something that can be managed through preparation and intelligence. This worldview allows corporations to keep operating in places that might otherwise appear too dangerous. Geopolitical instability becomes a calculable operating cost.
The culture of the firm reflects its origins in intelligence and security communities. Discretion is central. Employees rarely cultivate public profiles. Their credibility depends on being trusted by clients rather than being known by the public. This is why Control Risks lacks the visibility of think tanks or commentators. Its influence runs through boardrooms and crisis response teams, not media narratives.
The existence of firms like Control Risks reveals something larger about modern globalization. Economic activity increasingly operates across jurisdictions where state authority is uneven. Control Risks supplies the connective tissue that allows multinational corporations to function across those gaps, providing intelligence, security planning, and crisis management that states cannot always deliver. It allows companies to keep drilling oil, building infrastructure, or financing projects even when the surrounding political environment is unstable.

Posted in Insurance | Comments Off