“The United States Munitions Stockpiles have, at the medium and upper medium grade, never been higher or better … Wars can be fought “forever,” and very successfully, using just these supplies…”
-President Trump
March 3, 2026 — The kinetic decapitation strikes (capture/kill) that targeted Venezuela and Iran indicate that the US has adopted networked systems disruption (the disruption of critical nodes to cause systemic collapse) as its new national security doctrine. Here’s why;
- Networked systems disruption has a high ROI (return on investment). In a complex, networked world, relatively inexpensive attacks on critical nodes can collapse large networks (in this case, a state), causing massive damage.*
- It’s safe, particularly if you don’t care about the damage it does to the people in the targeted state. In fact, it is becoming safer and more effective as technology advances, such as autonomous drones and AI-fueled intelligence-gathering.
- This makes it a repeatable model. Rinse, repeat against new foes or against the same foe if they resist coercion with very little delay or expense (all while operating business as usual at home).
How Did We Get Here?
Here’s how our path to network systems disruption began;
- Between 2003 and 2005, we toppled weak, hollow states (illegitimate, corrupt, and unable to deliver prosperity) in Russia’s orbit with color revolutions (Rose in Georgia, Orange in Ukraine, Tulip in Kyrgyzstan, plus precursors like Serbia’s Bulldozer in 2000).
- These ‘organic’ ‘open source revolutions’ were designed and funded by US intelligence agencies to roll back Russia after the Cold War ended. This was an inversion of the Containment Strategy that won the Cold War, and as predicted by Kennan, inevitably turned a democratic Russia into a ruthless enemy decades later.
- However, countries rapidly learned to counter these revolutions by cracking down on NGOs, imposing internet controls, raising large loyalist militias, etc. In short, the hollow states we wanted to target built an armored core to protect themselves. As a result, subsequent similar efforts like Iran’s Green in 2009, Belarus in 2020, Venezuela in 2014→2026) failed repeatedly.
Belarus 2020
Iran 2009
Venezuela 2014 on
Standards of Care
The standards of care (for civilian populations impacted by US military power) diminished during the Iraq War. Powell’s Pottery Barn rule, “you break it, you own it,” a rule that justified massive, costly, and ultimately unsuccessful nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan, was informally rejected as unnecessary and outdated.
In the wake of that rejection, decapitation strikes were increasingly seen as a way to conduct ‘costless’ regime change operations. This thinking led to the assassination strike against Libya’s Gaddafi. However, it didn’t prove to be costless. It led to;
- State collapse (starvation, etc.).
- The revival of slavery.
- An illegal immigration corridor straight from Africa into the heart of Europe (~50k have used this route in 2025 alone).
The Gaza War
Israel’s actions during and after the Gaza war provided the final push to adopt networked systems disruption.
- Israel’s actions, combined with the US defense of those actions, led to the collapse of the international rules-based order (rules that limited state behavior to avoid a repeat of World War II). One of those rules was the prohibition against the assassination of a nation’s top leaders.
- Israel demonstrated the effectiveness of assassination when it decapitated Hezbollah with its strikes against Nasrallah and Haniyeh. It also demonstrated scalability when applied to guerrillas embedded in a civilian population (if you were insensitive to civilian casualties).
- Israel (and Ukraine) also demonstrated that this type of operation had a strong technological growth curve (speed, ease, scalability). Israel demonstrated the efficacy of semi-autonomous drones with its precision strikes in Tehran (“Rising Lion”) in 2025. Ukraine demonstrated it with drone attacks against Russian bombers in 2025 as well (“Spider’s Web”).
What it Means
Here’s some thinking on where it goes from here.
- Iran will use networked systems disruption against US interests.
- It is already widening the conflict (strikes against small Gulf states). Even a low level of attacks will drive away foreign workers needed for the states to operate.
- It can use drones to impair Persian Gulf shipping (tankers). It doesn’t need to blockade the Straits of Hormuz; it just needs to make it risky enough that commercial shipping will avoid it. The Houthis pioneered this with their drone strikes in the Red Sea/Gulf of Aden (it turned the Suez Canal into an empty parking lot). In this tight oil market, a sustained disruption of even 5% (energy is inelastic) could drive oil prices to a level needed to trigger a global recession or financial crash (as we saw in 2007/08, when similar disruptions drove oil to $147 a barrel).
- It will enlist the Houthis to resume their disruptive attacks against commercial shipping and attempts to evade Iran’s efforts in the Persian Gulf by sending oil to the Red Sea ports.
- Trump’s variant of regime change doesn’t include the messy, open-source revolutions from below (color revolutions). No notable effort was made in Iran or Venezuela to replace the current government with a democratic alternative. Instead, it’s all kinetic networked systems disruption. However, to avoid a repeat of Libya, Trump is making efforts to negotiate with the insiders of the authoritarian regime that it just decapitated. The administration is doing that in Venezuela with Chavista insiders right now (after rejecting the outsider Machado), and they will likely do it with Iran’s government as well.
- All of the prohibitions against decapitations or other catastrophic, disruptive attacks against opposition networks have evaporated. Everyone is now free to do it, and in most cases, there won’t be a response. Not only that, it’s not hard to do, so nearly everyone can (which is the reason this prohibition was put in place). Furthermore, the arrival of inexpensive, autonomous drones manufactured at scale will make system disruption from a distance very, very easy. Drone assassinations will become commonplace as this becomes an accepted method of resolving disputes, and if the country is capable enough, the nearly simultaneous decapitation of an entire ruling elite or the catastrophic disruption of its critical infrastructure is not out of the question. Brave New War has arrived.
*If you want to dig in, I’ve been writing about extensively networked systems disruption since ~2005 (blog, book, and report). The book is a good place to start.
John Robb
Global Guerillas & Grey Swan Investment Fraternity
Continued Below…
P.S. from Addison: Thank you if you joined us on Friday for a special Grey Swan Live! from inside the Rarcoa Vault in Chicago. The reserved Silver Eagle set we had reserved was quite popular, and just a few more remain.
Grey Swan Live! returns to its regular time this week, 2 p.m. ET on Thursday.
John Robb, author of Brave New War and Grey Swan Investment Fraternity contributor, joins us for a discussion on the war with Iran, how it’s being fought, and what it means for the dollar and other assets.
With market volatility on the rise and a new set of global challenges arising from this conflict, you won’t want to miss out on this week’s Grey Swan Live!
Robb’s expertise on network warfare is central to understanding the Trump strategy for disrupting operations by killing 40 top Iranian leaders. In a globally-connected tech economy in the 21st century, the strategies and weapons of warfare are evolving rapidly.
