Two properties, one operation. Long-form geopolitical, defence and energy security analysis through the Information Warfare Initiative; tactical and strategic battlefield analysis through Indications & Warnings. Different formats, common spine, no compromise on either.
iWi & Co. OÜ is an independent strategic-affairs practice, founded and run by principals with decades of professional experience across defence, intelligence, journalism, and finance: rigorous in its work, unsoftened in its conclusions, and deliberate in its courtesies.
We write at length when length is what the subject demands. We speak briefly when brevity tells the truth more honestly. We do not chase clicks. We do not soften conclusions to suit prevailing weather. We do not pretend that consensus is the same thing as accuracy.
The two properties under this roof — the Information Warfare Initiative and Indications & Warnings — are deliberately different in format and register. One is the working paper; the other is the briefing. Neither absorbs the other. Both are the same operation in different voices.
iWi · Long-form analysis
The written estate. Working papers, scenario analyses, policy reviews, and long-form essays across geopolitics, European and transatlantic defence, and energy security. Footnoted where it matters, sober in voice, addressed to senior policy, military, and intelligence audiences who read with a pencil in hand.
Hosted by Chuck Pfarrer & Alan Brewer
The videocast. Geopolitics through the primary lens of Ukraine’s war against the Russian invasion: tactical and strategic battlefield analysis, daily and weekly briefings, expert interviews, and live community Q&A. Built on depth of research, decades of operational and analytical experience, and the kind of presenter authority that does not require raised voices.
Former U.S. Navy SEAL — SEAL Team Six assault element commander — author, screenwriter, and military consultant whose decades in special operations and strategic planning give Indications & Warnings its operational spine. His writings and contributions to defence publications have shaped public understanding of military strategy and security affairs.
Co-host and operational lead of Indications & Warnings; co-owner of iWi; contributing voice across the written estate.
Seasoned journalist and political strategist with over four decades of experience. Career spans early reporting for Politicks Magazine and New Times Magazine, work as a press secretary on Capitol Hill, and campaign consultancy for the ACLU and Amnesty International among others.
Co-host and co-producer of Indications & Warnings; an active and engaged voice on Russia’s genocidal invasion of Ukraine, and an occasional volunteer host for Volya Radio delivering news, analysis, and commentary on the war.
Editorial lead for the Information Warfare Initiative; once in the German Luftwaffe; aviation, military history, physics, co-owner of iWi; based in Tallinn.
A strategist and commentator on European defence, nuclear policy and strategic affairs, with active mandates across the defence-industrial and SMR-nuclear sectors. Writes the Substack Baltic Snow Tiger on political economy and German strategic history.
Independent Security Policy Advisor, with twenty-five-plus years’ continuous concentration on the Russian, Baltic, Nordic and Arctic files. Fifteen years at Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste (FE), the Danish Defence Intelligence Service, where he served successively as analyst, Head of Middle East Analysis, Deputy Head of Counter-Terrorism and Head of Quality Management; and two years with the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Denmark’s UN Security Council seat. Read political science at Aarhus University (MA, 1997).
He writes the Substack Intelligence and international security and is a frequent commentator across Danish broadcast and print media, the Anglophone defence press, and Nordic and European specialist outlets — among the small group of European intelligence-community alumni whose public voice carries genuine analytical authority on both sides of the Atlantic.
Director and founder of Objective Ukraine Ltd. and sole defence and security advisor to the British Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce. From March to September 2022 he led an independent international volunteer team under Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (HUR), training Ukrainian SOF units — including SBU Alpha and 73 Naval Centre — alongside regular infantry, advising staff officers up to brigade-commander rank, and planning and executing independent missions in the Mykolaiv area of operations. He is the first non-Ukrainian ever awarded the Defence Intelligence Medal, presented by Major-General Kyrylo Budanov, head of HUR.
A former British Army Captain (Devonshire and Dorset Regiment) and Senior Operations Manager at Aegis Defence Services, his proposal to reshape Ukrainian infantry battalions into a ranger formation was passed to SOF HQ and became the basis for Ukraine’s first Ranger Regiment. He brings to iWi a Kyiv-based network across defence, government and the diplomatic corps, and direct operational standing inside Ukrainian intelligence and special operations.
Chairman and CEO of the Cyber Security Association and Sales Director at UK Cyber Security Group — partnered with YouControl on sanctions screening and Osavul on counter-propaganda — with over three decades in sales, strategy and partnerships across the IT and cyber security sectors. A Royal Navy veteran and Varangian Guard Commander whose national and global membership organisation reaches a LinkedIn subscriber base in excess of eleven thousand.
Since 2022 he has made the support of Ukrainian cyber his personal mission. He brings to iWi an operator’s command of the cyber industry — its sanctions, counter-propaganda and operational toolsets — and a deeply built network of stakeholders, partners and investors across the sector.
Serial entrepreneur and former senior Illinois state official — Associate Director of the Governor’s Office of Management (Budget Office) and subsequently Chief Financial Officer of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, with deep engagement across the legislative appropriations process. Founder of Closer Look, the healthcare-sector strategic marketing consultancy he grew from two partners to a fifty-strong team; currently COO of EagleRail Container Logistics. PhD in philosophy (Oxford, 2013), dissertation Implications of Evolutionary Biology for Social Ethics; MBA (Chicago Booth).
Since 2022 he has volunteered repeatedly in Ukrainian villages near the front line and worked with two non-profits supporting Ukraine — most recently as Executive Director of Defense of Liberty Foundation, leading a team of volunteer broadcasters countering Russian disinformation around the clock on social media. A Senior Contributor at the Kyiv Post, he brings to iWi executive operating depth, government-finance discipline, and a philosophically rigorous read on the moral stakes of the war.
Decades of television and radio production experience. Culture critic. Ukraine connoisseur. Producer of Indications & Warnings and operator for the X and Substack Live spaces & podcasts of iWi.
Indications & Warnings — short-form video updates as the picture moves. The first cut, properly read.
Long-form video on a single thread of the war or the wider strategic field. Expert interviews and community Q&A.
iWi long-form pieces — Article 5, European strategic autonomy, the Hegseth memoranda, the Pokrovsk File, and what comes next.
Based on countless expert interviews, discussion, data review and analysis: structured forward looks across geopolitics, defence and energy security.