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Total Defense for an Era of Total War Alexander Noyes January 9, 2026 At the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center in Arlington, Virginia, January 2015 Larry Downing / Reuters ALEXANDER NOYES  is a fellow in the Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology at the Brookings Institution. He served as Senior Adviser in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy during the Biden administration. When federal agents walked into the municipal utility building in Littleton, Massachusetts, in late 2023, they carried a warning that should have wounded Americans’ sense of security. Chinese state-backed operators had penetrated the town’s water system, quietly compromising its control network for years. Their goal was not espionage or theft but leverage—the ability to sow chaos in the United States and deter U.S. action abroad in the event of a future conflict. Littleton was not an isolated event. In February 2024, U.S. federal agencies disclosed new deta...
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  What Makes the Iranian Protests Different This Time Unrest has spread across the Islamic Republic as it faces economic disaster at home and a profound weakening of its network of regional allies. Photograph by MAHSA / Middle East Images / AFP / Getty On Friday, the Supreme Leader of Iran,  Ayatollah Ali Khamenei , threatened to continue cracking down on protesters who have risen up against his regime, calling them “vandals” working for the Americans. Years of Western sanctions and internal mismanagement have caused Iran’s economy to crater; in response to increasing domestic anger, Iran’s government has cut off access to the internet, and protests have been met violently by security forces. (Rights groups have reported dozens of deaths; a doctor  told   Time  magazine that six hospitals in Tehran alone had recorded more than two hundred protester deaths.) The protests are only the latest problem facing Khamenei’s regime, which had much of its leadership assass...
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  REVIEW & OUTLOOK The Iranian People Answer the Call Reza Pahlavi took a risk. From exile, the Shah’s son called on Iranians to rally against the regime at 8 p.m. on Thurs--day  and Friday. If few had showed, Mr. Pahlavi would have been exposed as another big talker from safety abroad. Instead the Iranian people answered his call. The protest wave accelerated, with the largest demonstrations in years in Tehran, Mashhad and across the country. Anti-regime protesters ruled the streets for hours, even in affluent areas in the capital, shouting “down with the dictator,” “freedom” and “ long live the Shah.” Police vehicles were abandoned and set ablaze. Regime flags were ripped up. Several state buildings were burned in Tehran, along with a state propaganda building in Isfahan. A few security forces were killed, reportedly along with many protesters. A video has emerged of bodies strewn on a hospital floor. More details are hard to come by because on Thursday the regime cut of...
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The Iranian regime is caught in a death spiral But President Masoud Pezeshkian and his colleagues can see the same  videos of violent rebellion  that are circling the globe. They must understand that these protests keep happening because the regime is rotting, politically and economically, and the whole country knows it. Every wave of repression spawns future protest. The regime can put out this fire, but what about the next one, and the one after that? The Iranian regime is on a one-way street to disaster. A senior European diplomat in Tehran shared that assessment with me several years ago, and it remains true. Iran has powerful security tools, but they’re getting rusty. The regime couldn’t protect its proxies Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. And most important, Iran couldn’t shield itself from Israel’s systematic assault in June. The regime is on a losing streak. “The Islamic Republic is today a zombie regime,” argues Karim Sadjad...
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  Iran tensions New Trump warning to Tehran as 62 killed in Iran anti-government protests "You better not start shooting because we'll start shooting too," U.S. president says Protesters gather as vehicles burn, amid evolving anti-government unrest, in Tehran, Iran, in this screen grab obtained from a social media video released on Jan. 9. © Reuters January 10, 2026 11:49 JST DUBAI (Reuters) -- U.S. President Donald Trump issued a new warning to Iran's leaders on Friday as videos showed anti-government protests raging across the country, and authorities blacked out the internet to curb growing unrest. Rights groups have documented dozens of deaths of protesters in nearly two weeks and, with Iranian state TV showing clashes and fires, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported that several police officers had been killed overnight. Trump, who bombed Iran last summer and warned Tehran last week the U.S. could come to the protesters' aid, issued another warning on...
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