ISA Virtual Conference 2026 Presentations

Two recent scholarly talks, and other developments this week.

A. I gave two presentations this week to the International Studies Association’s Virtual Conference 2026.

The first was on Strategic PSYOP (Psychological Operations). Here are the bare bones Presentation Slides, the Presentation Audio, and the Discussant Response Audio.

The second was on the Rules-Based International Order. Here are the bare bones Presentation Slides, the Presentation Audio, and my Q&A Response Audio (to Dr Andrew Goodhart of the University of Nebraska Lincoln - also see his Google Scholar profile).

My thanks to my ISA colleagues, organisers, and the technical moderators for your help. It was very collegial and supportive. It was also great to see Global South scholars represented.

B. Last year I provided a personal capacity response to a Parliament of Victoria inquiry into cults and fringe organised groups. My response (and some further clarifications / corrections made here) dealt with “lived experiences” in the Gurdjieff Work and the Temple of Set - and thus are in no way official or representative responses about those organisations and lineages. I differ from many cultic victim-survivors in terms of having a complex (and now public) history due to adverse childhood and subsequent betrayal experiences in a blended “family of origin”, that involved neglect, fraud and other behaviour. Much of this informed subsequent experiences with the Disinformation website based in New York City (1998-2008), my university studies, my work history, my journalism and academic research publications to date, and my 2020 conferred PhD dissertation from Monash University called The Development of Strategic Culture in Terrorist Organisations.

Yesterday, the Parliament of Victoria released two public reports: Volume 1 Crossing The Line and Volume 2 In Their Words, both available here. I have not yet read the public reports or the Inquiry’s recommendations and was not called to give public :on the record” testimony - but I commend the Inquiry on its actions and in raising public awareness of important issues. The Inquiry has responded proactively to a technical error that accidentally disclosed group emails: I deleted it immediately as a recipient, and my own affiliations have been public knowledge (for which I have been targeted at multiple employers and have been subject to adverse administrative action and credible threats). There have been further developments and fallout from this, concerning the Presidio case and other known instances of grievance / ideological motivated misrepresentation. This area involves significant psychosocial risks, out-group stereotypes and polarisation, and often, what are called Type I errors (false positives and anchoring, confirmation, groupthink, positive illusion, and representativeness based cognitive biases). There is a lot more that I could write, but I’ve not wanted my self-funded research program to fit into either the cultic studies or the new religious movements sub-fields, both which have respective original contributions to make, strengths, and weaknesses.

I’d rather go and rub some dog bellies.

To clarify my own position: I do support all credible, documented, and independently verified victim-survivors and the Inquiry’s aim to strengthen Australian legislation to counter coercive control (which can actually occur in many different contexts, including in interpersonal relationships, families, workplaces, and in mainstream religious and spiritual organisations). My preference is for medical and psychological condition issues to be dealt with by non-EAP medical treatment teams (qualified psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, and counsellors) rather than the attempt to professionalise the (allied health) role of exit counsellors (formerly known as cult deprogrammers).

One of the best ways to counter coercive control - or any other forms of manipulation - are to understand how this works, to develop situational awareness and counterdeception skills (you might start with a reading list corpus originally compiled by the Central Intelligence Agency’s Dr Barton Whaley), to become more risk (loss) aware, to conduct in-depth due diligence (involving primary sources and from a range of viewpoints), to set healthy boundaries (including “no contact” conditions), to invest in your own education, and to be financially independent - so that if needed you can exit a specific circumstance, and move on with your own life, on your own terms.

The Inquiry and many of its victim-survivor responses (and expert submissions) have importantly highlighted the critical role of what in Schema Therapy (Jeffrey Young & colleagues) are called abandonment, mistrust / abuse, failure, and subjugation schemas (amongst others). For victim-survivors in recovery, you might start with Young & Janet Klosko’s excellent book Reinventing Your Life (Brunswick, Australia: Scribe Publications, 2019). Be kind and compassionate to yourself. The kind of religious or spiritual self-work that you felt called to explore is often very tough. Dealing with human and organisational failings - and potential isolation and rejection from others - is even tougher. The ways that this is all understood, interpreted and portrayed is often highly simplistic: explanatory model risk, and even mirror-imaging, projection, blame-shifting, and (opportunistic) mobbing and scapegoating, in some cases. Fixes that fail (a common systems archetype) can make things even worse.

I may respond further in future, but at the moment have other priorities.

C. Annie Jacobsen is a veteran investigative journalist with a cumulative track record of excellent books on defence and national security issues. Her latest book Biological War: A Scenario (2026) is already out in some formats (Amazon Kindle and Audible audiobook), with hardcover and paperback editions to come very soon. The book is getting mostly rave reviews and has already been optioned for a television adaptation. BW of course is of interest to me due to my PhD dissertation case study of Japan’s Aum Shinrikyo.

The New Yorker’s Gideon Lewis-Kraus is skeptical in a lengthy review of scenarios and futures studies / strategic foresight oriented thinking: a deficit-based view that my mentors and colleagues noted almost 25 years ago as I entered the former Strategic Foresight program at Swinburne University of Technology, which discussed the Global Business Network (Peter Schwartz) and Oxford University based approaches to scenario planning. Do check the new book out - and Jacobsen’s other books are well worth a read. If you want to explore some of these issues, they are also very good exemplars for benchmarking, continuous improvement, quality assurance, and as reflective writing models.

D. The University of Chicago’s Professor John Mearsheimer has launched a new YouTube channel. The inaugural launch video is below. Professor Mearsheimer also has a Substack newsletter.

E. Palantir’s chief executive officer Alex Karp has now differentiated his company from Generative AI firms in terms of building ‘sovereign stack’ capabilities (such as in secure and war-fighting / combat based environments). At the very least this is an unfolding case study in competitive strategy, marketing, policy analysis, and opportunity evaluation - you could build a free, online MBA from such invited talks.

F. City University of New York’s Professor David Harvey has answered a few of my questions on Marxian political economy and capitalism, in a new talk (below) and in a Jacobin article. Versions of his long-taught classes are on YouTube for free.,

G. One of Yale University’s anthropology units is online for free (the first two lectures are at the bottom of the playlist).

H. Today’s MIT OCW free course is Identity and Difference, created by Professor Jean Jackson.