What happens when war doesn’t look like war?

In EP 197 of The Security Circle Podcast, Yolanda welcomes Dr John Pennell, former senior US diplomat, for a revealing conversation about grey zone warfare—and how deception, disinformation, cyber threats and sabotage shape conflict beyond the conventional battlefield.

John began his Foreign Service career on 10 September 2001. His second day was 9/11. Drawing on his experiences in Iraq, Afghanistan and Ukraine, he shares the realities of diplomacy under pressure: adapting to dangerous environments, building resilience and delivering difficult truths to senior decision-makers.

Together, they explore how states and their proxies use influence campaigns, criminal networks and threats to infrastructure to pursue their objectives while maintaining plausible deniability. From undersea cables to social media feeds, the conversation examines how these tactics reach businesses, communities and individuals.

John also considers how drones, AI and deepfakes are changing the character of warfare, why fact-checking alone may fail to change deeply held beliefs, and what the conflict in Ukraine reveals about sovereignty, technology and the challenges of finding a peaceful settlement.

An engaging episode connecting a diplomat’s extraordinary career with the security challenges of a world where the boundaries between peace and conflict are increasingly difficult to distinguish.

Dr. John A. Pennell is a contractor with the US Department of War’s (DoW) Irregular Warfare Center (IWC) as Editor-in-Chief of PRISM: The Journal of Emerging Threats | Complex Statecraft and as an Instructor, Course Developer, and Senior Scholar. He’s a Research Fellow with Arizona State University’s (ASU) Future Security Initiative and Professor of Practice with ASU’s School of Politics and Global Studies; a Non-Resident Senior Fellow with the Global & National Security Institute (GNSI) at the University of South Florida (USF); a Non-Resident Fellow with the Irregular Warfare Institute (IWI)-Europe Program; and a Senior Diplomacy Fellow with Narrative-Strategies. Dr. Pennell is also an Area Studies Course Instructor (contractor) with the US State Department’s National Foreign Affairs Training Center (NFATC), where he teaches on East Central Europe, and a guest speaker and lecturer on information operations, hybrid warfare, and new technologies with US and international universities, the US government, and US professional military education institutions. He’s a published author, including a 2024 book on Russia’s irregular activities in Syria and Ukraine. He holds a PhD from King’s College London and masters degrees from the National War College and American University. Lastly, Dr. Pennell is a retired US Senior Foreign Service Officer (Minister-Counselor rank) with 25 years of experience in all regions of the world including in active combat and/or hybrid warfare zones.