This article was originally published on FORUM, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command magazine, on March 12, 2026. The synthetic drug trade, spearheaded by fentanyl and methamphetamine, has metastasized from a criminal enterprise into a complex geopolitical phenomenon, demanding an expansive, multidimensional international response. This global crisis hinges on the ready supply of precursor chemicals — primarily from China — driving two distinct but connected epidemics across the Indo-Pacific. It is defined by trafficking, mislabeling, the use of front companies, and exploitation of legal ambiguities and variance between nations and fragile state institutions. Synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, account for tens of thousands [ … ]

This article was originally published on the U.S. Africa Command’s Magazine ADF, on November 6, 2025. Africa loses an estimated $11.2 billion in annual revenue to illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. The challenge is particularly acute in West Africa, which loses up to $9.4 billion to the scourge. Illegal fishing by foreign industrial and semi-industrial trawlers, particularly from China, has driven food insecurity and threatened the jobs of more than 10 million men and women who work in Africa’s artisanal fisheries. Security professionals recognize the threat. Col. Roland T. Bai Murphy, commander of the 23rd Infantry Brigade of the [ … ]

  This article was originally published on U.S. Africa Command magazine ADF, on March 11, 2026. As foreign powers sign business deals and deepen diplomatic ties in Africa, one foreign player operates mostly behind the scenes: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). “The IRGC, the regime’s military-intelligence empire, has spent 40 years constructing a shadow network across Africa, embedding itself in local conflicts, recruiting ideological loyalists, arming insurgent movements, and turning entire regions into extensions of Tehran’s strategic project,” according to a blog post by Iranian-born journalist Shabnam Assadollahi. The group’s many efforts include ideological indoctrination in northern Nigeria, arms [ … ]

  This article was originally published on U.S. Space Command magazine Apogee, on March 4, 2026. In the predawn darkness before Operation Epic Fury burst into public view, the first blows against Iran were struck by forces orbiting hundreds of miles above Earth. What unfolded, before the obliteration of hundreds of targets, Pentagon officials say, was the onset of major combat operations in space and cyberspace. “As always, operational security was paramount as we sought to maintain and sustain the element of surprise,” U.S. Air Force General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Pentagon [ … ]