Iran’s Shadow Weapons: Covert Action, Intelligence Operations, and Unconventional Warfare

Surveillance, assassination, and war by proxy—ingredients for an unending disaster that never seems to end for those exposed to the wrath of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Despite the prevalence of these and other malign acts, few observers understand why and how the regime chooses these tools of fear and disruption. Even fewer can foil them. This book reveals how the regime’s shadowy work is driven by a warring mixture of rampant paranoia, unshakable greed, and cold rationality.

Publisher: McFarland and Co. (2025)

Theory of Irregular War

In this path-breaking book, Jonathan Hackett methodically lays out how dysfunctional governments disrupt social orders, make territory insecure, and interfere with political-economic institutions, giving rise to a form of organized violence against the state known as irregular war. His penetrating research reveals why this frequent phenomenon is so poorly understood among conventional forces participating in those conflicts and the states who send their children to die in them.

Publisher: McFarland and Co. (2023)

Covert Action in Irregular Wars

Unraveling the Case of Timber Sycamore in Syria (2012–2017)

Jonathan W. Hackett employs content analysis and descriptive inference to analyze a CIA covert action run in Syria from 2012 to 2017 called Timber Sycamore. He shows how the operation suffered from numerous challenges stemming from oversight shortfalls, limited vetting, and accountability problems. Some weapons disbursed under the program were diverted to groups like the Islamic State, while a number of groups trained in the program subscribed to the very Salafi-jihadist ideologies that U.S. forces were deployed to the Middle East to counter. This case provides critical lessons on the complications that Title 50 and Title 10 programs pose while training, equipping, and controlling irregular forces beyond the contours of ordinary security cooperation programs.

Bridging the Looming Gap

Achieving Integrated Deterrence with Marine Advisors

While wars end, partnerships endure. As such, Marine Corps advisors are caught at a crossroads. Should the force deliberately divest this long-held competency or instead seize the opportunity to carve out a unique place in a new era of security cooperation?

Irregular Warfare Initiative Podcast – Episode 122

Hosts: Frank Struzinski and Julia McClenon

A collaboration between the Modern War Institute at West Point and the Empirical Studies of Conflict Project at Princeton University.

The Dead Prussian Podcast – Episode 117

Host: Mick Cook

New Books in National Security Podcast

Host: Stephen Satkiewicz

Published by: New Books Network