Papers and Special Reports (2024)

This page collects our papers and special reports from 2024. It is arranged in reverse chronological order. Papers and special reports from 2025 can be found here.

  • Russian Efforts to Centralize Drone Units May Degrade Russian Drone Operations (December 12, 2024) — In August 2024, the Russian Ministry of Defense moved to centralize drone operations, aiming to control semi-independent operators, streamline procurement, and free up manpower for assault troops in Ukraine. This restructuring could hinder Russia’s drone effectiveness and slow innovation by disrupting the decentralized adaptability that has driven rapid combat advancements.
 
  • Likely Kremlin-Backed Election Interference Against Romania Threatens Bucharest's Continued Support for Ukraine and NATO (December 6, 2024) — A pro-Russian, anti-Western candidate unexpectedly won the first round of Romania’s presidential election on November 24, likely due to Russian interference and a large-scale TikTok influence campaign, while far-right parties gained ground in the December 1 parliamentary elections. After Romania’s Constitutional Court annulled the presidential vote on December 6 due to declassified intelligence on Russian meddling, a coalition of pro-Western parties formed in parliament, aiming to preserve Romania’s support for Ukraine and cooperation with NATO.
 
  • The Ukrainian Defense of Pokrovsk Has Compelled Russia to Change Its Approach in Eastern Ukraine (November 17, 2024) — In Spring 2024, Russian forces launched an offensive to seize Pokrovsk in Donetsk Oblast, exploiting Ukraine’s manpower and materiel constraints after the suspension of U.S. aid in Fall 2023. Despite months of costly advances, Ukrainian drone operations and Russia’s own resource limitations have forced the Kremlin to abandon a frontal assault, instead attempting an envelopment via Selydove and Vuhledar, but Ukraine’s defenses continue to hinder Russian progress.

 
 
  • Possible Russian Gains in Georgia and Moldova (October, 27, 2024) — Even as Russia wages war on Ukraine, the Kremlin continues its hybrid warfare efforts to regain control over former Soviet states, particularly Moldova and Georgia, where pro-Russian politicians exploit the implicit threat of Russian aggression. Through election interference and tailored information operations, Moscow seeks to consolidate influence in these countries, using their political outcomes to advance its broader objectives across the post-Soviet space.
 
  • Pro-Russia Georgian Dream Party Likely Wins Parliamentary Elections (October 26, 2024) — Preliminary results indicate that Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream party has likely secured a simple majority in the October 26, 2024, parliamentary election. The Kremlin will likely use this victory to expand its influence in Georgia and the South Caucasus while undermining Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations.
 
  • Russia or the West: The Stakes in Georgia’s Election (October 21, 2024) — The Kremlin will likely interfere in Georgia’s October 2024 parliamentary elections to secure a Georgian Dream victory and derail the country’s Euro-Atlantic integration. By capitalizing on Georgian Dream’s pro-Russia stance, Moscow aims to expand its control over Georgia and the South Caucasus as part of a broader effort to reassert dominance over post-Soviet states and weaken Western influence.
 
  • Russia Poses Long-Term Threats to Moldova’s European Integration Beyond the October Elections (October 15, 2024) — Moldova's October 2024 presidential election and EU referendum could advance its European integration, but the country will likely remain a battleground for Russian influence into the 2030s. While support for EU membership is growing, the Kremlin is expected to escalate its efforts to derail Moldova’s accession through political interference, exploiting ties to pro-Russian regions, and influencing EU decision-making, making Western support for both Moldova and Ukraine crucial to regional stability.
 
  • Israel is Defeating Hamas, But Destroying Hamas Will Require a Post-War Vision (September 19, 2024) — Defeating Hamas militarily requires additional Israeli or international measures to prevent its recovery and ensure its complete destruction as an organization. Israel’s military success against Hamas can create an opportunity for a post-war vision in Gaza, but achieving this goal depends on Israel’s political leadership defining a clear end state.
 
  • Interactive Map: Hundreds of Known Russian Military Objects Are in Range of ATACMS (August 27, 2024) — Hundreds of Russian military and paramilitary targets are within range of Ukrainian ATACMS, but US restrictions limit Ukraine’s ability to strike them. ISW provides a list and interactive map to illustrate how these restrictions constrain Ukraine’s operations, challenging assessments that dismiss their impact based solely on Russian air asset redeployments.
 
  • Exploring a PRC Short-of-War Coercion Campaign to Seize Taiwan’s Kinmen Islands and Possible Responses (August 21, 2024) — Kinmen and Matsu are uniquely vulnerable Taiwanese territories, located just miles off China’s coast, where the PRC has shifted from past military confrontations to sophisticated gray zone tactics, including economic enticements, legal warfare, and information operations to erode Taiwan’s control. Since Taiwan’s January 2024 presidential election, the PRC has escalated pressure on Kinmen, and this paper examines how these efforts could evolve into a short-of-war campaign to seize the island within six months.
 
  • Assessing the Significance of the Current Russian and Ukrainian Operations for the Course of the War (August 17, 2024) — Neither the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk Oblast nor Russia’s offensive operations in eastern Ukraine are decisive military operations that will determine the outcome of the war, as both sides lack the capability for a single war-winning operation and must instead pursue successive, limited-objective campaigns. The significance of these operations will depend on how each side leverages them in future offensives, and ISW will continue to assess their impact within the broader context of the war’s evolving dynamics.
 
  • Putin Is Vulnerable: Western Policy Masks Russian Weakness (August 14, 2024) — The West has not fully exploited Russia’s vulnerabilities, and US incrementalism has allowed the Kremlin to mask its weaknesses. A strong US strategy should focus on generating momentum against Russia, denying it opportunities to regroup, dismantling its narratives, and supporting Ukraine in battlefield successes, such as its offensive in Kursk Oblast.
 
  • Ukraine and the Problem of Restoring Maneuver in Contemporary War (August 12, 2024) — The war in Ukraine is reshaping modern warfare in ways that will influence future conflicts. This paper provides a framework for Ukrainian forces and their Western allies to break the current positional warfare and restore maneuver on the battlefield while also informing discussions within the United States, NATO, and allied Pacific militaries. Ukraine’s Kursk Campaign highlights the potential for operational surprise, even in an era of battlefield transparency, by exploiting Russia’s lack of readiness in its border areas. The paper argues that Ukraine can restore operational maneuver through successive counteroffensive operations, leveraging technological innovation and Russia’s overextension along the front line, offering critical lessons for the United States and its allies.
 
  • How Delays in Western Aid Gave Russia the Initiative: From the Ukrainian Counteroffensive to Kharkiv (May 22, 2024) — Ukraine and the West have successfully thwarted Russia’s months-long effort to erode Western support and collapse Ukrainian defenses, despite prolonged US debates over security assistance that may have initially emboldened the Kremlin. However, Russian President Vladimir Putin now appears convinced that continuous offensive operations and gradually weakening Western support will eventually allow Russia to dismantle Ukrainian statehood, leading him to persist in his pursuit of total victory.
 
  • Putin’s Safe Space: Defeating Russia’s Kharkiv Operation Requires Eliminating Russia’s Sanctuary (May 13, 2024) — US policy restricting Ukraine from using American weapons inside Russian territory is severely undermining Ukraine’s ability to defend against Russia’s renewed cross-border invasion in Kharkiv Oblast, effectively granting Russia a sanctuary to amass forces and launch strikes. Lifting these restrictions enough to allow Ukraine to counter immediate operational threats is essential to preventing Russia from exploiting its own aggression for strategic advantage.
 
  • Positional Warfare in Alexander Svechin’s "Strategy" (April 30, 2024) — Describing the war in Ukraine as a “stalemate” or “attritional” can be misleading, as neither side is solely focused on wearing down the other through losses, nor has the conflict reached a point where no further progress can be made. Instead, the war is best characterized as “positional,” with relatively static frontlines and continuous combat aimed at achieving small advances or setting conditions to restore maneuver, a concept explored in Soviet military theorist Alexander Svechin’s 1926 work, Strategy.
 
  • Why You Can’t Be an Iran Hawk and a Russia Dove (April 18, 2024) — A Russian victory directly strengthens Iran, as Moscow and Tehran have formed a military bloc aimed at challenging the United States and its allies globally. If Russia succeeds in Ukraine, it will gain the resources to rebuild its military and provide Iran with advanced aircraft and missile technologies, further empowering Tehran’s ambitions in the Middle East.
 
  • America’s Stark Choice in Ukraine and the Cost of Letting Russia Win (April 16, 2024) — The assumption that the war in Ukraine will remain stalemated regardless of US actions is false, as Russia is breaking out of positional warfare and restoring maneuver due to delays in American military aid. Without urgent US assistance—particularly air defense and artillery—Ukraine will struggle to hold its current lines, allowing Russian forces to accelerate their advances, which have already covered over 360 square kilometers since the start of 2024. The United States must either resume aid to stabilize the front or risk a Russian victory that would bring its forces to NATO’s borders, significantly increasing the threat to European security.
 
  • Russian Strikes More Effective as Ukraine Exhausts Defenses (April 12, 2024) — Delays in US military aid have exhausted Ukraine’s air defenses, allowing Russia to inflict increasing damage on Ukrainian infrastructure without significantly increasing the size or frequency of its missile and drone strikes. Since December 2023, Russian forces have maintained a steady strike campaign, first targeting industrial and military facilities and later focusing on Ukraine’s energy grid, while also adapting their tactics to exploit weaknesses in Ukrainian air defense. Without a rapid resumption of US aid, Russia will likely continue degrading Ukraine’s critical infrastructure and frontline defenses despite its limited missile stockpiles.
 
  • The Russian Orthodox Church Declares "Holy War" Against Ukraine and Articulates Tenets of Russia's Emerging Official Nationalist Ideology (March 30, 2024) — The Russian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate, a Kremlin-controlled institution and tool of Russian hybrid warfare, held the World Russian People’s Council in Moscow on March 27–28, where it approved an ideological document aimed at unifying Kremlin narratives into a broader nationalist framework supporting the war in Ukraine and Russia’s expansionist future. Chaired by Patriarch Kirill, a known Putin loyalist and former KGB officer, the council released "The Present and Future of the Russian World," a document that seeks policy changes aligning with Kremlin interests, likely to prepare the public for new policies or gauge reactions to potential state actions.
 
  • Taliban Governance in Afghanistan (March 29, 2024) — The Taliban achieved its main goal by seizing control of Afghanistan in 2021 but now governs a fragile state incapable of addressing long-term socio-economic and security challenges. Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada’s consolidation of power is deepening internal divisions within the Taliban and worsening the country’s economic crisis. Meanwhile, the Taliban’s tolerance of Salafi-jihadi groups it does not fully control increases the risk of Afghanistan becoming a launchpad for external terrorist attacks.
 
  • Denying Russia’s Only Strategy for Success (March 27, 2024) — Russia cannot defeat Ukraine or the West if the West fully mobilizes its resources, as its combined economic and military capabilities vastly exceed those of Russia, whose GDP is just a fraction of NATO’s. The true Russian strategy hinges not on battlefield dominance but on shaping Western perceptions to induce inaction, isolating Ukraine, and paving the way for future aggression.
 
  • The Leadership and Purpose of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (March 19, 2024) — The Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an Iraqi state security service, has been infiltrated by Iran, allowing Tehran to exert significant influence while obscuring its direct involvement in Iraq. Originally formed in 2014 to combat ISIS, the PMF institutionalized pre-existing Shia militias, many of which were mobilized by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and remain closely aligned with Tehran. 
 
 
  • The Russian Winter-Spring 2024 Offensive Operation on the Kharkiv-Luhansk Axis (February 21, 2024) — Russian forces are launching a coordinated multi-axis offensive in the Kharkiv-Luhansk sector, marking a significant shift in their operational approach for the first time in over a year and a half. Unlike previous offensives that either focused on singular objectives or spread forces too thinly across divergent axes, this campaign involves mutually supporting attacks aimed at achieving operationally significant gains. However, despite its improved design, persistent Russian tactical shortcomings may still lead to the offensive’s overall failure.
 
  • The Kremlin's Occupation Playbook: Coerced Russification and Ethnic Cleansing in Occupied Ukraine (February 9, 2024) — The war in Ukraine is fundamentally about controlling its people rather than its land. Russian President Vladimir Putin has invaded twice not just to seize territory, but to erase Ukraine’s distinct political, social, linguistic, and religious identity, as he outlined in his 2021 article justifying the full-scale invasion. Putin falsely asserts that Ukrainians are merely confused Russians, using language as a marker of ethnicity, and seeks to impose his vision by eliminating Ukrainian identity, language, and culture.
 
  • Ukraine’s Long-Term Path to Success: Jumpstarting a Self-Sufficient Defense Industrial Base with US and EU Support (January 14, 2024) — Ukraine is rapidly expanding its defense industrial capacity to reduce its long-term reliance on foreign military assistance. This effort focuses on strengthening its domestic defense industry, forging partnerships with European states, and co-producing defense materials with the United States and other international enterprises. While Ukraine will still require substantial Western support for years, its industrial base, technical expertise, and historical arms production capabilities provide a strong foundation for achieving self-sufficiency in the future.