Geneva, Switzerland

Several series are running in parallel here. They are different angles on the same problem: a deniable suppression system that grew in the gaps of export controls and security doctrine and is now embedded inside civilian infrastructure.

No single article can carry that weight without losing nuance, safety, or usability. To understand how a plausible deniable, chemically mediated, counterinsurgency derived system operates in everyday life, you need separate vantage points. Each series exists to hold one of those lines.

The core claim

The core claim underneath all of this work is simple and uncomfortable.

A privatized, deniable suppression system has grown out of defects in export control frameworks, counterinsurgency doctrine, and domestic security practice. It uses tools and methods that were developed for war and national security and applies them to civilians under conditions of plausible deniability. It is already embedded in civilian institutions and infrastructure, which is why it can operate in plain sight.

The harm is real. The architecture is real. There is now a named field, Global Repression Studies, and an emerging discipline around it. What is still missing are mature institutions, guardrails, and enforcement mechanisms that can constrain this system and build real protection around civilians.

Why there are multiple series

Because the problem is multi-layered, the work has to be multi-series.

• Some series map the architecture and contractor chains: how data flows, how targeting logic works, how cross border suppression is coordinated.

• Some unpack legal and treaty gaps, including the ways export control regimes and oversight frameworks have failed to keep pace with modern capabilities.

• Some explain pattern analysis, counterinsurgency methods, and chemical suppression in plain language so civilians, journalists, lawyers, and clinicians can see what is happening.

• Some document what victims experience day to day, including how this appears inside homes, workplaces, schools, and public space.

• The new series, Staying Operational, exists to provide survival skills while institutions are still slow to recognize, measure, or stop what is happening.

These are not interchangeable. They are interlocking. Together they form a map that can be used by victims, advocates, researchers, and policymakers.

What each track is doing

Without trying to list every title, the major tracks fall into a few categories.

• There are series that focus on systemic architecture: tracing how global repression and transnational targeting are organized, financed, and justified, including how private actors and state clients work together.

• There are series that focus on legal and policy architecture: examining export controls, agreements like the Wassenaar Arrangement, and related regimes to show how gaps and outdated assumptions created space for this system to grow.

• There are series that focus on operational logic and tools: pattern of life analysis, data driven risk scoring, counterinsurgency techniques, and the use of chemical suppression and environmental pressure as deniable weapons.

• There are series that focus on lived experience: what it means to be treated as a combatant in a civilian setting, how medical and legal systems currently misread these patterns, and what it feels like to navigate that without infrastructure.

• Finally, there is Staying Operational: a survival track that translates elite military and emergency training principles into civilian protocols so people can stay functional long enough for recognition and protection to catch up.

Any one of these could be a standalone project. Together they describe how the system works, where it came from, what it does to human beings, and how people can endure it.

Why this is not “one person’s story”

There is now an institute devoted to this problem. There is a place to submit victim testimony. There is systematic work underway to map the architecture, document cases, and frame legal and policy interventions. That is victim infrastructure in its earliest form.

At the same time, this work is also entering formal academic channels. A doctoral supervisor in the field has requested a research proposal specifically in this area. That does not confer protection. It does, however, signal that the questions are legible and serious to people who understand export controls, security doctrine, and institutional design. This is a field in formation, not a private narrative.

What readers can expect

Going forward, new sections will continue to appear across these tracks. Not every series will move every week, but each one will be taken forward and brought to completion.

The pattern is straightforward:

• Architecture and doctrine series will keep mapping how the system operates.

• Legal and policy series will keep tracing how it became possible and what needs to change.

• Lived experience series will keep documenting what this looks like on the ground.

• Staying Operational will keep building practical survival infrastructure for victims and anyone under prolonged asymmetric pressure.

If you are here for the systemic analysis, those series will continue. If you are here because you are living inside the system, Staying Operational exists for you.

These series are part of Global Repression Studies: they put the architecture on paper, equip others with the sources to prove it, and build the tools needed to dismantle a structural threat to the rule of law and democratic agency in every society that adopts it. It is one of the most dangerous long-term threats to democratic self-rule in the post Cold War era.

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