Ryan Evans

Drones and long-range fires have made maneuver increasingly difficult in Ukraine. But the principles of offensive warfare have not disappeared. How is one Ukrainian corps adapting them to the modern battlefield? (Members Only) Listen here: warontherocks.com/episode/ther...

"Democracy is not a polite employer. The only way out of elective office is to get sick or die or get kicked out." -Herbert Hoover

Tech executives as famous talking heads is one of those things that I hope goes the way of the dodo. This should he obvious, but success at building or scaling a company is not evidence of wisdom about politics, history, family life, geopolitics, philosophy, etc.

Our Arsenal of Innovation series, celebrating wartime innovation, is complete. Readers can pick their favorites, with cash prizes for the top five. Voting happens exclusively through our free newsletter. Subscribe today to take part: warontherocks.com/cogs-of-war-...

Erecting a monument to ego so close to Arlington National Cemetery would dishonor the veterans buried there as well as our country. Any American who still understands the meaning of honor ought to oppose it.

Unlock exclusive access to The Russia Contingency with Michael Kofman, Thinking the Unthinkable with Ankit Panda, and The Iran Reckoning with Afshon Ostovar — available only to War on the Rocks members. Join today. warontherocks.com/membership/

A body blow: Mark Cancian, Mike Eisenstadt, @ryanevans.bsky.social, & me on how the war with Iran is draining the stockpiles and readiness the U.S. military needs elsewhere. New @warontherocks.bsky.social podcast warontherocks.com/a-body-blow-...

Marine at Kabul during evac: "As a boy, before I was a citizen, a U.S. consular officer stamped a rejection into my family’s passports... I could never have guessed that years later, I would become the man on the deciding side of the glass." warontherocks.com/the-wars-las...

The people who are putting our servicemembers and country at risk are those who ground our readiness down to the bone with an unwise and unsuccessful war. Not the people reporting on it.

Fiber optic drones are now patrolling the streets of Kramatorsk. What does that shift mean for one of the last major cities standing between Russian forces and the rest of the region? Listen here: pod.link/682478916/ep...

The real story isn't that Jennica Pounds (DataRepublican) was too stupid to be a useful idiot. It's that she along with at least three other major MAGA influencers seem to secretly work for the Department of Defense. Neither they nor the department have disclosed this. Makes you wonder.

Recently, ASML has been a lot in the news. In a new article, we explain why concerns about industrial espionage, reverse engineering and talent poaching miss the critical challenge that the production of lithography machines poses: systems integration. tinyurl.com/3u79rj7e

I’m shocked, shocked to learn that Trump maybe did not negotiate a perfect deal with Iran. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/12/u...

NATO leaders not accepting the gift of a customized revolver from Turkey at the NATO summit and leaving them in Ankara (UK and Germany) or handing them over to their police back home (Belgium and Canada) is impressively boring and lame. Modern officialdom can drain the romance out of anything.

Turns out the guy with the massive Nazi chest tattoo is a bad dude. If only there was some sort of sign.

There are those among you who explained away the Nazi tattoo, then explained away the past rhetoric like when he mocked a wounded soldier & blamed rapes on victims being drunk, and kept on explaining til we got to this. All you did was explain who *you* really are. www.politico.com/news/2026/07...

Don't miss this thoughtful article from a Catholic who is also a security scholar feeling through his obligations to his faith alongside AI military imperatives. warontherocks.com/a-catholic-s...

I am lucky I was born American and nothing has ever made me love my country less. To all my fellow Americans, no matter who you are -- from builder to banker, from teacher to trucker, from pauper to patron -- Happy Independence Day.

Yes, China still dominates a lot of supply chains for drone components, but American industry is working hard to catch up. Some analysis and infographics for your consideration from Cogs of War warontherocks.com/cogs-of-war/...

I devoured Lem's "His Master's Voice" last week. What a remarkable novel. I've never read anything like it

Does anyone in the DC area want to adopt a very cute and well-behaved cat that is affectionate and sweet to humans but can't get along with other animals?

Does anyone in the DC area want to adopt a very cute and well-behaved cat that is affectionate and sweet to humans but can't get along with other animals?

New summer, new @warontherocks.bsky.social fiction list warontherocks.com/the-2026-war...

Apropos of nothing, I was honored to have GEN Donahue on the show about a year ago warontherocks.com/gen-donahue-...

Wrote a thing on how DoD, Congress, and industry can approach wargaming to address industrial base and supply chain issues. Thanks again to @warontherocks.bsky.social and Jonathan Panter for letting me tackle this topic. warontherocks.com/cogs-of-war/...

Interesting breakingdefense.com/2026/06/the-...

"For the farmer who considers his field to be everything, the field is an empire. For a Caesar whose empire is still not enough, the empire is a field. The poor man possesses an empire, the great man a field." -Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

A maritime strategy without sound and useful metrics is just a wish in a pea coat. Ander Heiles proposes the Mahan Ratio, which compares military seapower to the merchant shipping and shipbuilding capacity that underpin it. warontherocks.com/the-maritime...

How failures of policy, service stagnation, and readiness challenges led to the end of an empire in the crucible of war. Apropos of nothing, of course warontherocks.com/cascading-fa...

"The greatest thing in the world is for a man to know that he is his own." -Montaigne hyperessays.net/essays/on-so...

There is so much wisdom on nuclear arsenals and use in this article by Jay Tilden warontherocks.com/contriving-i...

Credential inflation is really getting out of hand

This encyclical on AI might be the first w/ genuine geopolitical weight/importance since the 1991 encyclical issued by JP II, which sought to explain collapse of communism while warning the West not to mistake markets/consumption for a complete vision of freedom. And this one is far more ambitious.

All the turpitudinous hacks, brutish warmongers, well-fed chickenhawks & oily compradors who’ve spent their careers pushing for war w/ Iran & brought us to this ghastly wreck are already blaming everyone but themselves. Don't know what happens next but remember who built this coffin plank by plank

Marc Thiessen would find a way to add bombing Iran to a chocolate chip cookie recipe

Of note, the author of this piece was Lithuania's ambassador to NATO. I hope my European friends read it closely. warontherocks.com/europes-dang...

I pity those who go prospecting for geopolitical insights from techbro podcasts like the All In Podcast. It's like learning seamanship from a guy who once rented a jet ski in Cabo.

I interviewed the new Cogs of War host and executive editor Jonathan Panter in this latest episode. Get to know Jonathan, scholar, former surface warfare officer, and keen observer of #defensetech pod.link/1818133762/e...

Travis makes some good points here. We should not have published an article that directly encouraged an award to a specific FFRDC