Jonathan W. Hackett

• Comment: If you can show substantial reviews for both of the books in reliable, secondary sourcce then this might pass our notability guidelines. Sulfurboy (talk) 01:12, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

• Comment: In accordance with Wikipedia's Conflict of interest guideline, I disclose that I have a conflict of interest regarding the subject of this article. Jwhacke (talk) 00:22, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

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Jonathan W. Hackett
Born	United States
🏫 Education	Naval Postgraduate School; Yale Law School
💼 Occupation	Author, national security analyst, retired Marine
Notable work	Theory of Irregular War (2023) Iran's Shadow Weapons (2025)
🌐 Website	jonathanwhackett.com

Jonathan W. Hackett is an American author, national security analyst, and retired United States Marine Corps master sergeant. Over a twenty-year military career he served as an interrogator, counterintelligence agent, and special operations capabilities specialist, with postings that included the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and Marine Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC). He is the author of two books published by McFarland & Company, Theory of Irregular War (2023) and Iran's Shadow Weapons: Intelligence Operations, Covert Action, and Unconventional Warfare (2025), and is a senior editor at the Irregular Warfare Initiative. He is a frequent media commentator on Iran and the Middle East and attended Yale Law School.

Early life and education

Hackett holds advanced degrees in history, intelligence studies, and military strategy, and attended the Naval Postgraduate School where he advocated for expanded security cooperation approaches while a student. As of 2026, he studies at Yale Law School.

Military career

Hackett served in the U.S. Marine Corps for approximately two decades, retiring at the rank of master sergeant. During that time he worked as an interrogator, counterintelligence agent, and special operations capabilities specialist, managing special activities in conflict zones, sensitive locations, and denied areas in dozens of countries across four continents. He held assignments with the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, MARSOC, and Marine Corps operating forces, and later taught full-spectrum human intelligence operations and security cooperation at Dam Neck, Virginia. He has written about Marine Corps security cooperation and advisory missions, including a co-authored October 2023 piece in Marine Corps Gazette, "Bridging the Looming Gap: Achieving Integrated Deterrence with Marine Advisors."

Writing and theory of irregular war

Hackett's first book, Theory of Irregular War (McFarland, 2023), proposes an original framework for explaining why irregular warfare occurs and why conventional military forces frequently struggle to prevail in it. Central to his argument is the concept of the "dysfunctional sovereign": Hackett argues that irregular war arises from the relationship between governments that fail to meet the expectations of the people they govern and three underlying conditions: social order, sovereign territory, and political-economic institutions. He further breaks irregular conflict down into three elements: people, politics, and propaganda. Hackett argues that U.S. military doctrine, built around a Westphalian, state-versus-state model of war, is poorly suited to conflicts that unfold beneath that threshold.

Reviewing the book for Military Review, the journal of the U.S. Army University Press, Sean R. Kentch described it as a scholarly work whose central argument, that doctrine premised on Westphalian statehood has repeatedly led to costly strategic mistakes, was "compelling," while noting that the book's extensive historical detail occasionally comes at the expense of focus. The book was also reviewed in the academic journal Democratization, published by Taylor & Francis. Hackett has discussed and debated the book's framework in various forums, including a recorded exchange with irregular warfare scholar Dr. Sandor Fabian on the Irregular Warfare Podcast, titled "Theory vs. Practice: What Is Irregular War?"

His second book, Iran's Shadow Weapons: Intelligence Operations, Covert Action, and Unconventional Warfare (McFarland, 2025), examines the structure, strategy, and operational history of Iran's foreign intelligence and covert-action apparatus, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), drawing on declassified reporting and Hackett's own background in intelligence work. Writer Arash Azizi, a contributing writer at The Atlantic, praised the book as likely to become a standard reference on Iran's security services.

The book was reviewed in Intelligence and National Security, a peer-reviewed journal published by Taylor & Francis. The review credited the book with bringing readers closer than prior published work to understanding the foreign intelligence capabilities of the Islamic Republic of Iran, describing it as the first detailed English-language study of the subject. It characterized Hackett's approach as organized around three themes: Iran's external intelligence activities, including assassination and kidnapping operations; covert action such as subversion and disinformation campaigns; and unconventional warfare conducted through proxy groups including Hezbollah and the Houthis. The reviewer highlighted Hackett's use of captured Iraqi and Iranian intelligence documents as source material, noting that he acknowledged their potential biases while working to corroborate the information they contained, and praised the book's account of the institutional evolution and internal power dynamics between Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security and the IRGC's intelligence organization. The review suggested a more extensive analysis of the relationship between Iranian opposition networks abroad and the groups Iran perceives as second-tier threats could have strengthened the book further.

Beyond his books, Hackett has written articles and commentary for outlets including Small Wars Journal, where he has covered the CIA's Timber Sycamore program and the collapse of Syrian government forces, and the Inter Populum journal of irregular warfare and special operations.

Media commentary and analysis

Hackett is a regular on-air commentator on Iran and the Middle East. CBC News has interviewed him on multiple occasions during the 2026 escalation between the United States, Israel, and Iran, identifying him on-air as a retired Marine intelligence officer discussing the war and its ceasefire developments. Sky News has also interviewed him on the conflict. The Jerusalem Post has separately quoted him by name analyzing Iranian military preparations and doctrine.

In May 2026, Hackett was hosted at Westminster by Labour MP David Taylor, who described him in the House of Commons as "a marine veteran and expert on counterintelligence and intelligence operations" during a debate on defense readiness. The Cipher Brief also published an op-ed by Hackett arguing for proscription of the IRGC.

Iranian intelligence tradecraft and sanctions evasion

Much of Hackett's commentary applies the framework of his books to specific, ongoing cases of Iranian covert activity. In March 2026, The Daily Telegraph reported his assessment that Press TV, the London studio of Iran's state broadcaster, had been used to identify and cultivate potential intelligence assets under journalistic cover, a claim also covered by The Jerusalem Post, the Jewish Chronicle, and GB News. He cited the 2013 defection of former U.S. Air Force counterintelligence specialist Monica Witt as an example of the same recruitment pattern. In May 2026, the Telegraph separately reported his analysis that Iran-linked media and cultural organizations in Britain could exploit the UK's skilled worker visa system as cover for intelligence-related entry into the country. LBC separately quoted Hackett arguing that cryptocurrency transactions were increasingly displacing informal hawala networks as a means for the Iranian regime to move money across borders while evading sanctions.

U.S. and Israeli military options against Iran

Hackett has also been cited by Semafor and Al Jazeera on the military and logistical dimensions of the 2026 war between the United States, Israel, and Iran. In a March 2026 Semafor report on possible U.S. special operations raids to seize or destroy Iranian nuclear material, Hackett described U.S. Army "counter-WMD" mission sets, colloquially "loose nukes operations," that could be used to recover fissile material or centrifuges, while noting Iran's nuclear sites could also be rendered inaccessible short of a raid by damaging the surrounding terrain. Later that month, Semafor quoted him interpreting the Trump administration's on-again, off-again ceasefire signaling as a deliberate pattern rather than genuine de-escalation. In May 2026, Al Jazeera cited his assessment of "Project Freedom," the U.S. Navy operation to escort stranded shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, in which he questioned whether the available number of U.S. Navy escort vessels was sufficient given pre-war transit volumes through the strait.

Commentary beyond Iran

Hackett's commentary has extended to other authoritarian states. In May 2026, Daily Mail quoted him on internal dissent in Russia, where he argued that internet and communication restrictions imposed by the Putin government would not resolve the underlying causes of public discontent and, historically, tend to push dissent toward more disruptive forms of expression rather than suppress it.

He has also appeared on numerous podcasts and radio programs discussing irregular warfare and Iran, including the New Books Network, School of War, The Team House, and the BICOM Podcast.

Publications

Books

• Hackett, Jonathan W. (2023). Theory of Irregular War. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-1-4766-8905-0 Search this book on ..
• Hackett, Jonathan W. (2025). Iran's Shadow Weapons: Intelligence Operations, Covert Action, and Unconventional Warfare. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-1-4766-9693-5 Search this book on ..

Selected articles

• "Covert Action in Irregular Wars", Small Wars Journal (March 2025)
• "Bridging the Looming Gap: Achieving Integrated Deterrence with Marine Advisors", Marine Corps Gazette, Vol. 107, No. 10 (October 2023); also archived on ResearchGate.
• "Proscribing the IRGC Will Make Britain Safer", opinion, The Cipher Brief (May 2026)
• "The IRGC Is a Starfish, Not a Spider: Iran's Power Network Can't Be Killed With One Strike", opinion, LBC (April 2026)

External links

• Official website
• Jonathan Hackett at the Irregular Warfare Initiative
• Author page at Small Wars Journal
• Author page at The Cipher Brief

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