I don’t know what to say. I’ve been thinking about how to write this editorial letter for a week and, not wanting to give in to the anxieties of the new headlines, I’m coming up empty. Which is ironic, given that the general theme of the articles in this issue is communication: what makes it effective, how word choice affects emotional responses, how messaging can be used—and not used—to manipulate outcomes, how a story can affect the course of a war.

Two pivotal moments of the last millennium started in Germany, about seventy years and 250 miles (400 km) apart: the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1450, and the Protestant Reformation, which became a Europe-wide movement when Martin Luther wrote and circulated his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517.

It is difficult to imagine any commonalities between California yogis and German right-wingers -or between new-age hippies, senior military leaders, US elected politicians, and French influencers.

The world is changing and with it the threats to US national security. For nearly two decades, the Department of Defense (DoD) has been primarily concerned with counterterrorism. Now the focus has shifted to competition with near-peer nation-states, and DoD priorities for resources and training guidance have changed accordingly: more emphasis is being put on large-scale combat operations involving the deployment and maneuver of complex joint forces.

I stare out of my office window. The clouds and rain in Paris seem relentless. It has been overcast for a week now and the deluge this afternoon is supposedly the heaviest Paris has experienced since 1880. I know it makes no sense, but I cannot escape the thought that somehow all of this, even the weather, is connected.

On 27 April 2021, Brigadier General Manuel Alvarez, retired, of the Peruvian Army, was interviewed virtually by Sally Baho of Global ECCO. They discussed General Alvarez’s role in combating the violent revolutionary group Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso in Spanish), starting in the early 1980s, and his observations on the current social and political situation in Peru.

John Steinbeck’s The Moon is Down is a “meta” example of motivating a resistance movement. Originally published in 1942, this novel of invasion and occupation provides instruction for resistance techniques while leveraging cunning translation methods to encourage mobilization amongst its audience.

How did the US Navy—the branch of the US military tasked with patrolling the oceans—ever manage to produce a unit of raiders trained to operate on land? And how, against all odds, did that unit become one of the world’s most elite commando forces, routinely striking thousands of miles from the water on the battlefields of Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, even Central Africa?