Below the Threshold: China's Strategy of Armed Coercion

Episode #167 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast grapples with the role cyberspace should play in the broader coercion toolkit. The conversation considers why cyber has remained a go-to tool for shaping adversary behavior even as research has cast doubt on its coercive effectiveness. We explore the practical challenges of signaling credibly in a secretive domain, unpacking what cases like the 2014 Sony Pictures hack and the discovery of Volt Typhoon reveal about cyber coercion in practice. Our guests close by discussing a fundamental question: if cyber isn’t the coercive silver bullet it’s often made out to be, what is cyber actually good for? This episode is anchored in the article Minding the gap? The strategic logic of cyber coercion in theory and practice by Dr. Erica Lonergan. Dr. Erica Lonergan is an Assistant Professor in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, where she focuses on research and teaching related to emerging technologies, strategy, and international security. She was previously on the faculty at West Point, and also served as a Senior Director on the Cyberspace Solarium Commission. Erica's second book, Open Secrets: Power and Influence in Proxy Alliances, is forthcoming next month with Oxford University Press.

Summary Why does providing aircraft so often fall short of building an effective air force? Retired Lieutenant General Anthony Rock, Michael Horowitz, and Tobias Switzer join Kyle Atwell to examine the gap between acquiring technology and turning it into military power. Drawing on Switzer’s RAND report, Build Partner Airpower, Not Air Forces, the conversation explores what American air advisors learned in Iraq and Afghanistan and what future missions should do differently. The guests discuss the appeal of prestige aircraft, the organizational demands of modern aviation, and the case for affordable equipment that partners can put to use quickly. They examine dependence on contractors, the risks facing advisors, and the tension between building partner forces and planning a complete U.S. withdrawal. Throughout, they ask how policymakers should define success when useful combat capability may still require years of outside support. Takeaways

U.S. military assistance often has a bad reputation, but it isn’t doomed to failure. This episode examines why security assistance succeeds with some partners and falls short with others, and what it takes to turn weapons and training into lasting military capability. Lieutenant General (Ret.) Charles Hooper, Dr. Richard Bennet, and Dr. Alexander Noyes are the guests. Today’s episode explores how the United States can build effective military partners, drawing on Richard Bennet and Alexander Noyes’s book, War at Arm’s Length: How America Can Build Effective Partners Through Military Assistance (Yale University Press, 2026). Our guests begin by asking what effectiveness means, when security assistance advances U.S. interests, and how Washington should assess the results. Bennet and Noyes explain the book’s central argument that shared security interests and capable defense institutions make assistance more likely to succeed. The discussion then examines how far sustained assistance and personal relationships can bring partners’ interests closer together, and how much alignment is needed at the outset. Drawing on cases including Ukraine and Colombia, the guests explore the importance of partners’ willingness to reform and the limits of externally imposed change. The episode closes with recommendations for choosing partners, coordinating U.S. assistance, and sequencing support so that institutions can sustain the capabilities Washington helps provide. Lieutenant General (Ret.) Charles W. Hooper is Senior Counselor at The Cohen Group and a former director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency. In this role, he led the agency responsible for the sale of all US weapons, military equipment, support services, and training packages to foreign governments, which included oversight of 20,000 people globally and over $50 billion in annual sales. During his 41-year military career, he served as the Senior U.S. Defense Official in Egypt, U.S. Defense Attaché to China, and Director of Strategy, Plans, and Programs at US Africa Command and Deputy Director for Strategic Planning and Policy at US Indo-Pacific Command. He speaks fluent Mandarin and is a graduate of West Point and Harvard’s Kennedy School. Dr. Richard Bennet is a senior research associate at the Center for International and Security Studies in the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy. His work examines strategic competition and the effectiveness of defense activities, drawing on experience coordinating assessments and program evaluation at multiple U.S. combatant commands. He earned his doctorate in war studies at King’s College London and is coauthor of War at Arm’s Length. Dr. Alexander Noyes is a fellow in the Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology at the Brookings Institution and coauthor of War at Arm’s Length. From 2021 to 2023, he served as a senior advisor and then deputy director in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy, leading efforts to evaluate security cooperation and providing policy oversight for institutional capacity building programs. He earned his doctorate at the University of Oxford. Alexandra Chinchilla is the host for this episode. Please reach out to her with any questions about the episode or IWI. The Irregular Warfare Podcast is a production of the Irregular Warfare Initiative (IWI). We are a team of volunteers dedicated to bridging the gap between scholars and practitioners to support the community of irregular warfare professionals. IWI generates written and audio content, coordinates events for the IW community, and hosts critical thinkers in the field of irregular warfare as IWI fellows. You can follow and engage with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn. Subscribe to our monthly newsletter for (always free!) access to our written content, upcoming community events, and other resources. All views expressed in this episode are the personal views of the participants and do no

Episode 164 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast grapples with the hidden costs of precision warfare, looking at how drone strikes affect civilian populations well beyond their immediate lethal footprint. Anchored in a study using twelve billion geocoded cell phone records from Yemen, the conversation explores how drone strikes trigger sharp spikes in civilian mobility and communication—disruptions on a scale comparable to major natural disasters—even when no civilians are physically harmed. Our guests unpack what these findings mean for the strategic logic of precision airpower and discuss the tension between tactical accuracy and perceived legitimacy on the ground.

This episode of the Irregular Warfare Podcast concludes our four-part Future of War series, pairing author and futurist August Cole with senior special operations leaders to explore how tomorrow’s conflicts may unfold.