Send your submission to (theardentmind@proton.me) after reading the submission guidelines below.

Who Can Contribute

We welcome submissions from current and former professionals across the national security community, including:

•       Military officers and enlisted (all services and ranks)

•       Intelligence community professionals

•       Foreign Service Officers and State Department staff

•       DoD civilians and other national security agency personnel

•       Academics and researchers with direct practitioner experience

•       Contractors and personnel with direct involvement in National Security

All contributors publish without attribution. Your identifier — assigned upon first submission — is the only public marker associated with your work.

Contributor Identifiers

Upon acceptance of your submission, you will be assigned a randomized identifier tied to your professional community — for example, Army Officer 047 or Foreign Service 112. This identifier:

•       Provides readers with relevant professional context without identifying you personally

The editorial team is the only party that holds the link between your real identity and your identifier. Upon publishing of your piece, all email records will be deleted, and the link between your identity and contributor identifier will not be retained by The Ardent Mind.

Editorial Standards

We hold every piece to the same standard regardless of rank, agency, or experience: strong arguments, clearly made, grounded in evidence. Submissions will receive one of three responses: accepted with light edits for grammar and spelling and published without further review; returned with structural feedback and resubmission invited; or declined with brief feedback.

What We Publish

•       Policy analysis and argument on national security, defense, and foreign policy

•       Critique of doctrine, strategy, force structure, acquisition, or institutional culture

•       Perspectives on ongoing strategic challenges from those with direct experience

•       Dissenting views on conventional wisdom within the national security community

What We Do Not Publish

•       Classified, sensitive, or controlled unclassified information of any kind

•       Partisan political content or material supporting or opposing specific candidates or parties

•       Personal attacks on named individuals or companies

•       Operational details that could compromise personnel, missions, or sources

•       Content that violates the UCMJ or applicable federal law

If you are unsure whether your piece crosses any of these lines, feel free to send a summary of what you would like to submit, and we will advise. We would rather review and decline than have you self-censor a valuable contribution. 

Submission Guidelines

Length

800 to 2,000 words is the preferred range. Longer pieces may be considered if the argument requires it. We will always work with contributors to find the right length.

Format

Plain text or Word document. No special formatting required — we handle layout on our end.

Citations

All factual claims must be supported by publicly available sources. We do not accept citations to classified material, internal government documents, or non-public sources of any kind. 

•       Preferred: Inline hyperlinks for articles, reports, and web sources

•       Preferred: Short bibliography at the end for books and longer works

•       Not acceptable: Classified sources, internal documents, self-citation that could identify the author

Sources should be drawn from peer-reviewed journals, established think tanks, major news organizations, and official public government reports.

AI Disclosure Policy

Contributors are permitted to use AI tools in the development and drafting of submissions. The thinking, expertise, and argument must be genuinely your own. AI may assist the writing, but may not substitute for the experience and judgment that make a piece worth publishing.

All submissions must include a brief AI disclosure statement describing how AI was used, if at all. This statement is submitted to the editorial team and is not published. The editorial team will determine on a case-by-case basis whether any disclosure is included in the published piece.

There is no penalty for AI use. There is a penalty for misrepresentation.

How to Submit

Send your submission to (theardentmind@proton.me) 

Each submission should include:

•       Your piece as a plain text or Word attachment

•       A one or two sentence description of your professional background (community only, no identifying details)

•       Your AI disclosure statement

We aim to respond to all submissions within two weeks.

Our Privacy Commitment

The link between your real identity and your contributor identifier is the most sensitive information this publication holds. We treat it accordingly.

•       We will never voluntarily disclose contributor identities to any government, military, or civilian authority

•       No protection is absolute. Contributors should understand that no system is impenetrable and submit accordingly

We are committed to being honest with our contributors. If you have questions about our privacy practices before submitting, contact us.

The views expressed in all published pieces are those of the contributors and do not reflect the position of any government agency, military branch, or the editorial team of The Ardent Mind.