Their Service. Their Sacrifice. Our Commitment.

The world is sliding into a long political war. It moves without ceremony across the seas and archipelagos of the Asia-Indo-Pacific. Its front lines run through villages, ports, digital networks, and the minds of men and women who live under pressure from four authoritarian powers that now operate with shared purpose. China, Russia, Iran, and north Korea have fused their ambitions into an informal alignment that has become known as the Dark Quad or CRInK. Their collaboration links the Eurasian landmass and the Asia-Indo-Pacific into one contested system. They do not see separate theaters. They see one struggle, connected across geography and ideology.

As Russia continues a long-running campaign of irregular warfare against the United States and its European allies, it has increasingly turned to criminal elements to carry out kinetic sabotage operations and attacks on people. Thus far, the U.S. government has failed to adequately counter this tactic, which Moscow uses as part of a broader strategy to impose costs on its adversaries and shape policymakers’ strategic perceptions while staying below the threshold of armed conflict. While significant attention has been paid to other gray zone tactics, including cyberattacks and electronic warfare, the evolving nature of this kinetic sabotage campaign requires closer examination.