Captain Mathew Golsteyn waited in the shadows, a knot of dread tightening in his stomach. He was deep in insurgent territory in Marja, southern Afghanistan, with only one teammate, a move that risked not only their lives but also his entire career as a Special Forces officer.
Then, Rasoul appeared—a slender, unarmed figure clad in black. Just hours before, in February 2010, he had been Golsteyn’s prisoner. Golsteyn was certain Rasoul was a Taliban bombmaker, responsible for the deaths of two of his soldiers. Yet, in the chaos of guerrilla warfare, without uniforms to distinguish enemies, Rasoul remained silent.
In a recent interview, Golsteyn detailed the harrowing moments that followed. He consulted a key tribal ally, an opponent of the Taliban, who corroborated his suspicions about Rasoul. However, a critical error occurred: the Green Berets accidentally exposed their informant to Rasoul. Overcome with terror, the informant pleaded with Golsteyn: “If he leaves here, me and my family are dead.”
Golsteyn found himself trapped in an impossible situation. American policy mandated transferring prisoners to Afghan allies, but Golsteyn’s Afghan counterparts lacked the means to transport Rasoul from the frontline to a detention facility. Even if they could, Golsteyn believed Rasoul would quickly be freed by Afghanistan’s notoriously corrupt and inefficient justice system. The loyalty of the informant’s tribe was paramount to the Green Berets’ safety and the mission’s success. “That was the mission,” Golsteyn asserted. “The whole mission.”
His mind made up, Golsteyn concluded that Rasoul had to die. Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to shoot an unarmed man in handcuffs—it would implicate his team and felt morally wrong. He rationalized that releasing Rasoul only to ambush him as he walked away, defenseless, was somehow different. For Golsteyn, it was a crucial distinction.
He ordered his men to release the detainee through the main gate. Meanwhile, Golsteyn and another Special Forces operative discreetly positioned themselves along Rasoul’s likely escape route. Golsteyn watched as Rasoul approached. When the target was a mere 15 yards away, Golsteyn emerged, raising his rifle. Their eyes met for a fleeting second before Golsteyn fired.
Every conflict gives rise to its own distinct heroes. World War II celebrated the common G.I., Korea hailed its fighter pilots, and the Persian Gulf War brought forth brilliant generals like Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell. However, across two decades of relentless warfare in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other global hotspots, a new archetype emerged: the Special Operations ‘operator’ became America’s definitive fighter.
Following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, elite teams of Special Forces and CIA operatives spearheaded operations in Afghanistan, often on horseback, uniting local militias and directing airstrikes to dismantle the Taliban and disrupt Al Qaeda. This era marked a significant rise in the cultural and political standing of U.S. Special Operations. Despite comprising only three percent of the armed forces, these operators bore a disproportionate burden during America’s longest war, suffering half of all casualties at one point. Their often-secretive but sometimes publicized feats permeated American culture, fueling blockbuster films like “American Sniper,” “Lone Survivor,” and “Zero Dark Thirty.” Their specialized gear and methods were even adopted by law enforcement and marketed through a booming industry of podcasts, fitness regimes, and tactical equipment.
Yet, this heroism harbored a shadow: the fine legal and moral lines operators often blurred, or outright crossed, in their fight against terrorism. One Special Forces battalion’s chilling motto—’We do bad things to bad people’—encapsulated this ethos. This vigilante impulse sets these modern warriors apart from earlier generations and directly conflicts with the military’s bedrock principles of discipline and adherence to law.
A featured interactive section, America’s Vigilantes, delves into a four-part investigation exploring the culture of impunity within the U.S. Special Forces. This interactive element further explores the themes of the article.
Golsteyn himself was once revered as an American icon, decorated for valor after his Marja mission and celebrated in a best-selling book. However, in 2011, the Army uncovered the killing, initiating an investigation that resulted in his reprimand and expulsion from the Special Forces. Convinced his punishment was unfair, Golsteyn went public, confessing to the killing in a 2016 TV interview and defending it as justified. This prompted the Army to pursue a court-martial. His case, alongside others such as that of Edward Gallagher, a member of the Navy SEALs who was accused and acquitted of murdering a detainee, exploded into national controversy. Ultimately, conservative activists championed these men as heroes, claiming they were unfairly persecuted by a flawed legal system and self-serving generals for eliminating terrorists.
Golsteyn’s saga vividly illustrates how this ‘outlaw’ mentality was forged in the ambiguous landscape of irregular warfare. Operating deep behind enemy lines, from isolated firebases far removed from official oversight, many operators adopted the belief that bending or breaking rules was acceptable, even necessary, to achieve the mission’s greater good.
Speaking from his home in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, Golsteyn maintained that his decision to kill Rasoul was righteous. “You’ve got to be able to look in the mirror, right?” he stated. “I believe I did the right thing.”
His actions found widespread support, notably from Fox News host Pete Hegseth, who gained prominence through his fervent defense of service members like Golsteyn and Gallagher. “They’re not war criminals,” Hegseth declared on “Fox & Friends.” “They’re warriors.” As the Army prepared to court-martial Golsteyn in 2019, Hegseth implored President Trump to issue pardons, arguing it was not only morally correct but also politically astute, appealing to a nation that revered its special operators. “To the people in Middle America who respect the troops and the tough calls they make,” Hegseth predicted, “they’re gonna love this.”
For President Trump, this case marked his initial significant confrontation with military leadership, who insisted on Golsteyn’s accountability, citing lawful warfare as a core American value. Trump, however, saw operators as battling not just the enemy but a flawed system. Disregarding the generals’ objections, he granted pardons to Golsteyn and several others.
“I stuck up for three great warriors against the deep state,” Trump proclaimed at a campaign rally that year.
In hindsight, these war-crimes pardons were merely the prelude to a larger battle over military legal boundaries. During Trump’s second term, with Hegseth now leading what the administration renamed the Department of War, these limits have been aggressively challenged. This includes the purging of top military lawyers, the deployment of armed forces in American cities, and orders to kill foreign drug-smuggling suspects labeled “narco-terrorists.” Unlike the military’s initial resistance to Trump, Hegseth has enthusiastically supported these actions. “Maximum lethality, not tepid legality,” he asserted at an Oval Office ceremony in September, celebrating his department’s new name. “Violent effect, not politically correct.”
Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, stated in response to inquiries for this article, “Our secretary of war is serious about having the backs of our war fighters and wants them to engage with clarity on the battlefield.”
Today, the operator as a vigilante—one whose fight against evil justifies actions outside the law—has become a blueprint for unchecked force, both internationally and domestically. Golsteyn’s case is crucial for understanding how this cultural and political transformation took root during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, fostering a pervasive pattern of rule-breaking and outright criminal behavior within America’s elite military units.
Golsteyn’s unit, the Third Special Forces Group, saw extensive deployment and earned numerous decorations during the Afghanistan war. However, its soldiers were also implicated in unlawful killings, widespread fraud totaling millions, and an airstrike that leveled a civilian hospital. Those involved frequently evaded severe penalties as leaders prematurely closed investigations, reversed administrative sanctions, and shielded careers. This pattern of misconduct even infiltrated the United States, manifesting in a troubling surge of crimes by Army Special Operations personnel, including drug trafficking, murder, and a January bombing in Las Vegas perpetrated by a Green Beret.
While some of these incidents have surfaced publicly, their links to systemic breakdowns in military accountability have remained largely unexamined. Despite the notoriety of Golsteyn’s story, much remains undisclosed, including graphic evidence from the second phase of the Army’s criminal investigation into the killing and the commanders’ significant efforts to pit his former teammates against him.
Yet, even as Army Special Operations leaders pushed for Golsteyn’s trial, they discreetly terminated another war-crimes investigation concerning the same Special Forces unit. This case involved a team deployed to the Afghan district of Nerkh in 2012, accused of abusing and killing nine captives. Both investigations stretched for almost a decade, and comparing their hitherto unrevealed histories offers critical insight into the system of impunity prevalent within the Army’s elite forces.
To connect these disparate events, I spent four years interviewing two dozen active and former Army Special Operations members, including high-ranking Third Group officers. While some vigorously defended their organization, others provided critiques only under anonymity. It is exceptionally rare for individuals from elite Army units to speak out in the media; those who break the ‘Green Beret code of silence’ risk being ostracized by their peers. Nevertheless, a few former operators courageously spoke on the record about the alleged crimes and cover-ups they witnessed during their service, some doing so after facing their own career disciplinary actions.
To verify these testimonies, I cross-referenced them with public records and thousands of pages of unreleased military documents obtained through numerous Freedom of Information Act requests and three lawsuits filed by The Times. I also undertook multiple journeys to remote regions of Afghanistan to find and interview numerous witnesses. In the United States, my research extended to court and vital records, and interviews with former law enforcement officers and military lawyers.
This investigation reveals that actions like Golsteyn’s were not isolated incidents but rather symptomatic of an irregular war rife with moral and legal paradoxes. Other nations’ militaries in Afghanistan similarly grappled with systemic war crimes. Recent government probes in Britain and Australia have demonstrated how their special operations forces, under comparable battlefield stresses, resorted to tactics escalating to outright murder—detainees shot in handcuffs or forced off cliffs—and how commanders subsequently concealed these atrocities. As a result, British operators now face criminal charges, while an entire Australian squadron has been disbanded.
However, no such comprehensive reckoning has occurred in the United States, leaving the full scope of these Special Operations practices largely unknown. Notably, just this September, Trump nominated Lt. Gen. Jonathan Braga, Army Special Operations commander since 2021, for promotion to lead the Joint Special Operations Command—responsible for the military’s most sensitive classified missions. In response to The Times’s inquiries, Braga’s spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Allie Scott, defended their record, stating, “We have fully investigated and adjudicated the cases you cover. We are confident our actions stand up to the strictest scrutiny.”
To date, any public disclosure of these incidents has been obstructed by the Army’s pervasive secrecy surrounding its elite units. This project aims to illuminate a dark but fundamental aspect of the war, demonstrating its enduring repercussions: how impunity for these units persists, how future conflicts might be waged by our armed forces, and how, under the command of figures like Trump and Hegseth, these forces could potentially be deployed within the United States itself.
Mathew Golsteyn always possessed a confidence that both attracted and repelled. Some saw it as integrity, others as sheer arrogance. A bright Florida high school student, he was intrigued by a line in William Faulkner’s ‘The Sound and the Fury’: ‘Every man is the arbiter of his own virtues.’ He puzzled over why one would choose between virtues, recognizing in that phrase a moral complexity far beyond his sheltered upbringing—a world he yearned to discover.
His father, Jerry, was a former NFL quarterback, and Golsteyn, too, was a large child until his growth stalled in eighth grade, leaving him just under 5-foot-9—a fact he jokes about readily. Baseball was his passion, earning him a sports scholarship to West Point. Arriving at the Army academy in 1998 with no clear career path, he often found its traditions and personnel pretentious. Yet, he soon found himself drawn to the infantry’s rigorous demands, particularly the grueling Ranger School. “You want to test yourself,” he explained. “I wanted to see it.” He was a senior when the Sept. 11 attacks struck, propelling him and his classmates into war. “I look at it like, My timing is impeccable,” he quipped.
In 2003, he deployed to Iraq as a platoon leader with the 82nd Airborne Division during the quiet period between the invasion and the civil war’s eruption. There, he became increasingly frustrated by the Army’s rigid adherence to rules and authority, which he felt often compromised missions and soldier well-being. Inherently rebellious, he found it impossible not to challenge superiors when he believed they erred. Eventually, a seasoned sergeant suggested he try out for Special Operations.
Upon returning from Iraq to Fort Bragg, North Carolina—home to both the 82nd Airborne and the Army’s Special Operations Command—Golsteyn tried out for and was selected into the Special Forces. “I had found my tribe,” he declared.
Within the U.S. military, numerous Special Operations units exist, such as the Navy SEALs. However, ‘Special Forces’ specifically designates an elite Army regiment, whose soldiers—the Green Berets—are trained to operate alongside foreign allies. Formed during the Cold War, their units assisted anti-Communist factions from Central America to Southeast Asia, engaging in counterinsurgency against both guerrillas and established governments. This sustained, local counterinsurgency work, rather than high-profile missions like the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden, defined most of the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Green Berets excel in what the military terms ‘unconventional warfare,’ a form of combat vastly different from traditional battles between uniformed armies in Europe, which shaped modern laws of war. Prior to 1949, the Geneva Conventions did not cover civil wars, and summary executions of captured guerrillas were common. The cycles of massacres, hostage-taking, and retaliatory violence characteristic of irregular conflicts throughout history have earned them the grim title of ‘dirty wars.’ Political scientists like Stathis Kalyvas contend that violence against civilians is inherently central to their dynamic, as factions vie for control over both territory and the populace. Consequently, success in such wars often deeply challenges liberal democratic principles.
A core component of Green Beret training involves preparing them for the intense ethical and strategic dilemmas at the forefront of U.S. foreign policy. During the culminating exercise of his Special Forces course, ‘Robin Sage,’ Golsteyn infiltrated the fictional ‘Pineland’ (North Carolina), joining guerrillas resisting foreign occupation. His primary instructor, Major Jim Gant—a legendary figure for his exploits in Afghanistan—reportedly placed trainees in scenarios where they observed war crimes committed by their insurgent allies. (Gant was later dismissed from Special Forces due to drug use and misconduct during deployment, and did not comment for this article). Golsteyn’s apparent lack of reaction to one such execution reportedly concerned other instructors, who considered failing him until a psychologist cleared him. For Golsteyn, applying domestic moral frameworks to foreign conflicts was a mistake. “I’m not in America. I’m not a cop. I’m not here to judge you,” he declared. “I am an imperial stormtrooper. Let’s get it done.”
Upon his 2008 graduation, Golsteyn joined Gant’s former unit: Third Group, based at Fort Bragg. The five active-duty Special Forces groups, comprising roughly 21,000 personnel, each cover a distinct global region. Third Group, responsible for Africa and the Caribbean, was once considered a less prestigious assignment. However, after leading much of the initial decade of the war in Afghanistan, its standing and influence soared. Many of its leaders ascended to high-ranking Army positions, and its soldiers accumulated numerous valor awards—yet at a heavy cost, with 64 killed and many more wounded.
Third Group operators endured an unrelenting deployment schedule. Despite Army policy dictating twice as much rest and training time as deployment, these soldiers frequently spent a full half of each year serving overseas.
Within Third Group, the First Battalion, or ‘Desert Eagles,’ distinguished itself for fierce engagements in southern Afghanistan’s Taliban stronghold. Each battalion consisted of three line companies, each with about 70 operators. Bravo Company of the Desert Eagles was considered the most battle-hardened. Golsteyn often heard extraordinary stories from Uruzgan Province’s remote mountains, where Bravo operated from isolated firebases named Anaconda and Cobra.
“That’s where the heroes were,” Golsteyn reminisced. “It’s almost like Achilles and the Myrmidons.”
Thrilled by his assignment to Bravo, Golsteyn soon found himself plunged into the heart of the operators’ war.
As a newly minted Special Forces captain, Golsteyn was put in charge of one of Bravo Company’s six Operational Detachment Alphas (O.D.A.s), also known as A Teams. These teams, the fundamental units of Special Forces, comprised 12 operators, each with specialized skills in areas like engineering, intelligence, and communications. Each O.D.A. operated as a self-contained entity, its members relying entirely on one another for survival and bound by an unwritten code of brotherhood and absolute silence.
Golsteyn’s inaugural deployment with O.D.A. 3121 in 2009 involved advising Afghan National Army commandos on nationwide raids, frequently engaging in intense combat. The next year, he and his team were tasked with mentoring an entire Afghan battalion in Uruzgan, an assignment that pulled them into a high-stakes mission and starkly exposed the war’s inherent political contradictions.
Under newly elected President Barack Obama, the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan underwent a dramatic shift. Once secondary to the Iraq conflict and largely fought by Green Beret operators, the war now faced a resurgent Taliban. Pressured by his generals, Obama authorized a troop and funding surge, which in turn led to a sharp increase in violence and casualties.
To legitimize an increasingly unpopular war, both the President and much of the U.S. national security apparatus clung to two flawed convictions. First, they believed their counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, far from a brutal civil war, was a benevolent mission to win hearts and minds, where civilian harm was counterproductive. Yet, while General Stanley McChrystal, the new U.S. commander, curbed airstrikes and conventional troop actions, he simultaneously intensified the same secretive manhunting operations he oversaw in Iraq—a relentless campaign of drones and special operators striking from the shadows. Concurrently, the U.S. supported allies like Gen. Abdul Raziq, whose forces were notorious for widespread abuses, including torture and forced disappearances.
The second article of faith was the conviction that Afghanistan’s own army and police could eventually assume control of the conflict and operate independently. Over time, both these beliefs proved increasingly unsustainable, yet Washington and Pentagon leaders persisted in upholding them. The pressure to reconcile public narratives with grim realities on the ground fostered a pervasive culture of dishonesty within the military, a burden that heavily impacted frontline commanders such as Golsteyn.
In early 2010, McChrystal’s strategy culminated in Operation Moshtarak, meaning ‘together’—a major assault on the Taliban stronghold of Marja, envisioned as a joint effort by Afghan government forces and U.S. Marines in southern Afghanistan. In practice, the Marines largely led the operation, struggling to secure adequate Afghan military participation. When they requested a battalion, the Afghan Army leadership assigned Golsteyn’s mentored unit to the southernmost sector, while the Marines attacked further north. This propelled Golsteyn and his team into a nationally significant mission, a prominent role he eagerly embraced.
As Operation Moshtarak commenced, Golsteyn recounted how the Green Berets were forced to reconcile political limitations with operational necessities. To secure air support despite McChrystal’s restrictions, Golsteyn admitted he often creatively rephrased situations. “How do I get the resources?” he asked. “How do I get bombs to fall?”
The Afghan battalion he advised lacked a functional supply chain, prompting Golsteyn to break regulations by using personal funds for their food and provisions. “My Afghans ate gravel,” he recalled, “Some days they ate lumber.” He noted that his superiors frequently understood the underlying reality, and he adapted to the mission’s prevailing ‘wink-and-nod’ culture. “I have an incredible discomfort with lying,” he confessed. “I had to get good at it.”
After battling their way into their assigned Marja sector, Golsteyn’s combined force—Green Berets, Marines, and Afghan Army—established a temporary base within a large compound dubbed the ‘Thunderdome.’ As they worked to clear minefields and roads to the north, Golsteyn and his team faced relentless gun battles against a deeply entrenched enemy. “We fought sunup to sundown,” Golsteyn stated. “We were alone.”
Operating far from headquarters and isolated from friendly units, the Green Berets found a level of autonomy rare at that point in the conflict. “The gloves were kind of taken off,” recalled Kevin Kilgore, a former Special Forces staff sergeant on Golsteyn’s team. On missions, they often presumed any military-aged male they encountered was hostile. At their outpost, despite alcohol being prohibited on deployment, the team brewed beer and consumed black-market liquor. “We were all running wild,” Kilgore admitted.
On February 18, Kilgore was part of a unit, led by Master Sgt. Grady DeWitt, the team’s senior enlisted operator, that came under insurgent attack. DeWitt orchestrated a counterassault, successfully overtaking the enemy position. While clearing the area, Green Berets ordered two local men to open shops in the bazaar. A hidden booby trap detonated, killing both Afghans and two young Marines attached to Golsteyn’s force.
The loss of two of his men deeply affected Golsteyn. That evening, he delivered a poignant speech to his Green Beret and Marine troops, sharing a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. “The Marines all started telling stories about the guys who were killed,” Kilgore remembered. “That was a time when leadership was needed, and he did what was necessary.”
Golsteyn vowed to his men that he would locate the insurgent responsible. According to Kilgore, who managed the team’s intelligence and interrogations, the Green Berets apprehended Rasoul a few days later. (Golsteyn claims it was the same day as the bombing.) Kilgore—later discharged from the Army due to addiction struggles—expressed skepticism about Golsteyn’s tribal informant and never personally saw evidence confirming Rasoul as the bombmaker. However, Golsteyn firmly believed in the man’s guilt.
Nevertheless, Kilgore stated he complied with the plan to release Rasoul, knowing Golsteyn intended to ambush him down the road. “It wasn’t even questioned,” he remarked.
While Golsteyn declined to detail his fellow Green Berets’ involvement, I cross-referenced public data with military service records and previously unreleased criminal investigation files. These documents reveal several teammates assisted him. His team sergeant, DeWitt, joined Golsteyn during the ambush (DeWitt offered no comment). Hastily, they buried Rasoul in a shallow grave nearby and returned to base. Golsteyn feared the body’s discovery by insurgents, potentially for propaganda. “What would have happened if the Taliban got a hold of it?” Golsteyn mused. “They knew he was missing.”
Later that night, with Golsteyn still at the base, DeWitt and three other teammates returned to the grave in an armored vehicle. They exhumed the body, brought it back to the base, and, as documented in the case file, dismembered it before incinerating the remains in a burn barrel.
Concluding their Marja mission, Golsteyn and his team returned to the U.S. to heroic acclaim. Bing West, author of the best-selling ‘The Wrong War,’ who was embedded with U.S. forces, lauded Golsteyn as a committed leader. West depicted him as an ‘Energizer bunny with a scruffy beard,’ portraying him as a man who fearlessly defied rules, even toasting fallen Marines with illicit whiskey.
Conversely, West, a former assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan administration, sharply criticized the military leadership’s overly optimistic ‘hearts-and-minds’ approach to counterinsurgency, labeling it a ‘metaphysical evasion.’ He contended this vision clashed with the harsh realities of how such wars are typically won: ‘When generals bemoaned killing, they were trying to make themselves seem morally and intellectually enlightened, while indicating their shallow understanding of what their own grunts were doing day after day.’”
Remarkably, despite the public attention, Golsteyn successfully kept the killing a secret. He and his teammates were recognized for their bravery; he earned the Silver Star and was approved for an upgrade to the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army’s second-highest decoration. Promoted to major, he was told by his Pentagon-based mentor, Gant, that his name resonated throughout Washington’s military elite. His Special Forces career was accelerating, but Golsteyn preferred frontline action to a desk job at headquarters.
With a recommendation from West, Golsteyn was recruited for a highly sought-after position in the CIA’s Ground Branch, responsible for covert paramilitary operations globally. (A CIA spokesperson declined to comment.) On September 6, 2011, he arrived for his agency interview, where an admission would ultimately dismantle his career and spark a protracted conflict with the Army.
Despite his outward confidence, Golsteyn inwardly yearned for external validation. He confessed that the killing had troubled him from the outset, not the act itself—as a soldier, he felt neither sorrow nor elation in taking a life when necessary. “It’s not good or bad,” he stated. “It just is.”
Instead, it was the necessity of lying that gnawed at him. This felt like the ultimate expression of the dishonesty that had tainted the war from its inception, alienating him from his own chain of command. Would he be seen as a rogue, a vigilante, for his actions? “It was the sense that your tribe, the people you trust, may not back you, right?” he reflected. “That makes it harder.”
Golsteyn should have exercised caution entering the agency that day. “I was very naïve,” he admitted. “I thought we were still playing on the same team.”
He was mistaken. To piece together the events, I acquired a partial, unpublished transcript of Golsteyn’s interview and spoke with a military official who viewed the video. After a seemingly innocuous conversation about his service and psychological profile, designed to build rapport, Golsteyn was connected to a polygraph. The interviewer repeatedly implied the machine detected deception, subtly prompting Golsteyn. ‘What was going on? Was there something he should know?’ he gently prodded, promising they would navigate it together. With a sigh, Golsteyn finally revealed the killing.
The CIA interviewer pressed him for details twice, assuring him that the agency had encountered far graver admissions from successful candidates. “I’ve had people come in and talk to me about the field decisions they’ve made to — I don’t want to use the word ‘massacre,’ but there’s no other word — to commit nonjudicial kills of entire tribes in Africa.”
Though he refused to identify them, Golsteyn conceded that teammates had assisted in disposing of the body by burning it. He justified the killing by explaining that, while legally wrong, he considered Rasoul a combatant who would undoubtedly have rejoined the insurgency.
“What letter of the law do you feel you violated?” the interviewer probed.
“You can’t assassinate people,” Golsteyn responded candidly.
At some point, Golsteyn realized with a sickening sensation that the interview had morphed into an interrogation. He had made a grievous error, understood he was in deep trouble, but had no inkling of the full extent of the consequences that awaited him.
Camille Baker and Victor J. Blue contributed reporting. Matthieu Aikins is a contributing writer for the magazine and a fellow at Type Media Center. Victor J. Blue is a photographer and a 2024 New America Future Security fellow.