Author Archives: Haig Hovaness

War Power has long served civilization as the primary institution for managing consequential international conflict. But as the destructive costs of modern warfare continue to rise and advances in communications, sensing, verification, and artificial intelligence expand humanity’s capacity to produce calibrated trust, a new possibility, Peace Power, emerges.

Nuclear war is often discussed as a weapons problem. It is more accurately understood as a trust problem. As trust between adversaries deteriorates, relationships can move through a predictable sequence of rivalry, suspicion, distrust, hostility, and ultimately existential threat perception. Each stage generates evidence that justifies the next, creating a self-reinforcing cycle that expands the influence of what may be called the War Power ecosystem. In a world of nuclear-armed states, the cycle of trust destruction results in repeated games of nuclear roulette in which global catastrophe is at risk with each spin.

A growing chorus of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and venture capitalists argues that the U.S. defense establishment is overdue for disruption. Defense technology unicorns promise to bring the speed, innovation, and entrepreneurial dynamism that transformed commercial markets. Yet they face a formidable obstacle: one of the most durable institutional ecosystems ever created.

Israel’s pursuit of security buffer zones reflects a rational response to decades of military threats, terrorism, and geographic vulnerability. Yet tactical success does not necessarily produce strategic success. As hostile forces regenerate beyond new frontiers, long-range weapons diminish the value of territorial depth, and regional powers react to expanding security perimeters, buffer defense may become increasingly costly and less effective.