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Apologies for the major misfire this morning. Not sure of my cut and past skills today.
(Or I could say I was testing to see who reads this).
Quotes of the Day:
“You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.”
– John Bunyan
“The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, and the capacity for sacrifice.”
– Ernest Hemingway
"Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways he exists, to make his life full, significant, and interesting."
– Aldous Huxley
1.Hamas Says It’s Ready to Hand Over 20 Living Israeli Hostages
2. As Truce Takes Effect, Israelis and Gazans Allow Themselves to Hope
3. A Test Now for Israel: Can It Repair Its Ties to Americans?
4. We're grateful for what Trump is doing for peace, Nobel winner Machado tells BBC
5. China issues bounty for Taiwan PsyOps unit for 'separatism'
6. Sheriff Says 16 Dead in Blast at Tennessee Explosives Plant
7. Down but Not Out? Russia's Future Military Capacity in the Shadow of its War on Ukraine - CSDS
8. China Detains Prominent Underground Pastor, Complicating Ties With U.S.
9. The Former Navy SEAL Who Built a Powerhouse Podcast
10. The Laws of Armed Conflict: A Norm and Standard US Armed Forces Must Follow
11. How China waged an infowar against U.S. interests in the Philippines
12. AI Models Need to be Disinfected — Or George Orwell’s “1984” Will Come True
13. Kelly Secures Major Arizona and National Priorities in the Senate Passed Annual Defense Bill - Senator Mark Kelly - McCain Irregular Warfare Center – Center of Excellence
14. The Sneaky Reason China Wants a Big Fleet of Aircraft Carriers
15. China honing abilities for a possible future attack, Taiwan defence report warns
16. Taiwan says it's still assessing impact of China rare earths curbs on chip industry
17. Beijing blames US for raising trade tensions, defends rare earth curbs
18. China, Philippines trade blame over boat collision in disputed sea
19. UN to slash a quarter of peacekeepers globally over lack of funds
20. NBA’s China comeback: After a six-year timeout, the league looks to rebound
21. Have we passed peak social media?
22. The Viral MAGA Accounts Run by a Man Who Has Never Been to America
23. Ancient Wisdom: A Middle Digit to the Digital Age
1. Hamas Says It’s Ready to Hand Over 20 Living Israeli Hostages
Some good news that I hope comes to fruition soon.
Hamas Says It’s Ready to Hand Over 20 Living Israeli Hostages
Militant group and Israel prepare for captives to be released as early as Sunday, though timing could slip
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-says-its-ready-to-hand-over-20-living-israeli-hostages-8bf40741
By Summer Said
Follow, Anat Peled
Follow and Dov Lieber
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Updated Oct. 12, 2025 7:04 am ET
Hamas confirmed it has 20 living hostages in Gaza. stoyan nenov/Reuters
Quick Summary
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Hamas informed Israel it holds 20 living Israeli hostages and is prepared to release them as early as Sunday.View more
Hamas has told Israel it has 20 living Israeli hostages in hand and is ready to begin releasing them as early as Sunday, people familiar with the matter said.
The message, which the militant group sent through Arab mediators, marked the first time Hamas has confirmed that it has 20 living Israeli captives.
It also addresses the uncertainty around whether Hamas would be able to assemble all the living hostages quickly in its battered and fragmented state and points to a possibly accelerated timetable for their release.
“Israel is prepared and ready for the immediate reception of all of our hostages,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday afternoon.
Israel’s military is preparing to receive the hostages as early as Sunday night, though it still expects the handover is more likely to happen Monday, when President Trump is slated to visit Israel and Egypt, an Israeli official said.
Under the agreement brokered by President Trump and sealed just ahead of the weekend, Hamas is to release all of the hostages it holds. Israel had believed that as many as 20 hostages remained alive in Gaza, along with the bodies of roughly 28 others.
Hamas told mediators and Israel that it doesn’t know the location of some deceased hostages and that it will struggle to meet the Trump plan’s 72-hour deadline to deliver them. Israel’s intelligence services also believe the group doesn’t know where all of the bodies are, and Israel has acknowledged it will likely take more time for the bodies to be collected.
A joint multinational task force is being established to locate the bodies of Israeli hostages whose locations are unknown, the people said. It will include Turkey, the U.S., Qatar and Egypt, they said.
Also on Sunday, a large influx of humanitarian aid was being prepared to enter the Gaza Strip as part of the cease-fire agreement. The Egyptian Red Crescent said it dispatched 400 trucks loaded with more than 9,000 tons of humanitarian aid slated to cross into Gaza on Sunday. The aid includes food baskets, flour, fuel and medical and relief supplies, such as tents, blankets and mobile bathrooms.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Sunday that Israel was going to insist that its military be allowed to destroy what’s left of Hamas’s extensive tunnel system underneath the Gaza Strip once the hostages are returned. Katz called the endeavor “the greatest challenge” for Israel going forward after the release of the hostages. He added that the Israeli military would work in conjunction with a U.S.-led international mechanism for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.
Israel has only destroyed around 30%-40% of the hundreds-of-miles-long tunnel system underneath Gaza, according to Israeli and Arab officials. Any attempt by Israel to destroy the rest of the subterranean infrastructure would be a highly contentious issue going forward as it would lead to even more destruction in Gaza.
Write to Summer Said at summer.said@wsj.com, Anat Peled at anat.peled@wsj.com and Dov Lieber at dov.lieber@wsj.com
2. As Truce Takes Effect, Israelis and Gazans Allow Themselves to Hope
As Truce Takes Effect, Israelis and Gazans Allow Themselves to Hope
Deal to halt fighting after two years of war brings relief, questions about what comes next
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/as-truce-takes-effect-israelis-and-gazans-allow-themselves-to-hope-1f76e366?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=ASWzDAicpR3kR2mQFzjzMrcI_Uh_8ankdoHflKs06i4ijIfRBKoUFz29FwKUCQ9vi8I%3D&gaa_ts=68ebd71b&gaa_sig=pJV5jvBx1buBjaq0nYufK1_C-lvwU_e-nmjAdMK-PfPw7mKsn4e1pnSh789SPvu9dAR_SApOK27Eq3QlFw6j3Q%3D%3D
Palestinians walk toward Gaza City Friday after Israeli forces declared a cease-fire and withdrew from some positions in Gaza. Photo: bashar taleb/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
By Suha Ma’ayeh and Feliz Solomon
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Oct. 10, 2025 10:51 am ET
TEL AVIV—For a short while on Thursday, Jaber Madhoun caught a glimpse of something he doesn’t often see at the community kitchen he runs with his wife in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah: relief.
Negotiators said they had reached a deal to exchange the remaining hostages for Palestinian prisoners and halt the fighting. The war that had upended life for two years and devastated Gaza appeared as though it would stop—at least for now.
Outside the kitchen, men fired celebratory gunshots in the air. Women ululated—a rousing, high-pitched vocal sound usually reserved for joyous events like festivals and weddings. Crowds clapped and cheered, singing praises to Allah, Madhoun recalled.
“They needed hope,” he said.
From the streets of Israel’s main cities to the dismal displacement camps of the Gaza Strip, this week’s deal was cause for celebration. After a monthslong deadlock, Israel and Hamas agreed to an initial phase of a plan brokered by President Trump that promises to pave the way toward peace.
As the truce takes hold, the euphoria that swept across a war-weary land is now giving way to a realization that Israelis and Palestinians now must confront the toll of the war and questions over what comes next.
Israeli troops have been ordered to halt their fight against Hamas and begin a staged withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. atef safadi/epa/shutterstock/Shutterstock
Both Israel and the Palestinian territories have been forever changed by the conflict, sparked by the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Gaza is in ruins and almost its entire population is displaced. Israel is more divided within and more isolated abroad.
People on both sides are also tempering their hopes that the deal will hold.
“We learned the hard way to be careful, there’s been a lot of false hope in the past,” said Rotem Cooper, whose parents were both kidnapped by Hamas from their kibbutz of Nir Oz. His mother was freed in late October 2023. His father later died in captivity. Cooper hopes the new agreement will finally bring him home to rest.
For Madhoun, 56, whose home in Gaza City was destroyed after he fled this summer with his wife and seven children, the challenges ahead seem more manageable than those behind him. As fighting neared, the family moved from place to place, settling each time in a flimsy tent only to be forced to pack up and flee again.
“If the war hadn’t stopped, things would’ve been even worse,” he said.
The war in Gaza has been the longest, deadliest and most destructive in a decadeslong cycle of conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians. The 2023 attack by Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group, killed about 1,200 people while 251 others were taken hostage. Since then, fighting has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who don’t say how many were combatants.
The human toll of the war, and a defiance in the face of international criticism over it, led some of Israel’s traditional Western allies to turn against it. Israel’s growing isolation has widened fissures between its far-right and more globalist left, and caused soul-searching over how far a nation should go to defend itself.
Under this week’s agreement, Israeli troops have been ordered to halt their fight against Hamas and begin a staged withdrawal from the enclave. In the coming days, Hamas must return all 48 remaining hostages, starting with 20 who are still alive and then the bodies of the rest, which may take more time to locate and recover. In exchange, Israel will free some 2,000 Palestinians held in its prisons.
A woman and a child in Tel Aviv walk past posters of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. ahmad gharabli/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Palestinians gather in central Gaza Strip after the announcement that Israel and Hamas reached a Gaza cease-fire deal. Rizek Abdeljawad/Zuma Press
Meanwhile, negotiations will continue toward a more permanent settlement. Much is unresolved.
In Gaza and in Israel, joy and relief at the step toward peace—however piecemeal and fragile—burst out into the open. Thousands of people poured into a courtyard in Tel Aviv known as Hostage Square to bang on drums, dance and sing with strangers. They waved Israeli and American flags, one woman held a sign reading: “WE TRUMP, He who saves just one life saves an entire world.”
“I came to celebrate, with everybody else who’s here, to feel the joy that has come from so many months and months of pain,” said Caroline Glasser, a 64-year-old retiree who joined the crowds on Thursday.
Many Israelis feel that returning every last hostage should have been the nation’s priority since the Oct. 7 attack. Udi Goren, whose cousin, Tal Haimi, died defending his kibbutz, said the government must bring the hostages home after failing to protect them that day.
“The most basic thing these communities and our families need to recuperate from that and rebuild is bringing back everybody that was taken,” he said.
In Gaza, some said they felt a sense of disbelief. The cease-fire that took effect midday Friday is the third pause in fighting since the war began. Earlier truces, in late 2023 and early 2025, collapsed and were followed with even more intensive conflict.
The war in Gaza has been the longest, deadliest and most destructive in a decadeslong cycle of conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians. jack guez/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
The reprieve has also given Gazans a moment to take stock of their surroundings, and to despair at what they see. Ahmad Tanini, a 34-year-old father of three who lives in a tent camp in the coastal area of al-Mawasi, said that even if the fighting stops, much of Gaza is already destroyed.
“We still have no functioning hospitals, no homes, no minimum conditions for human life,” he said. He and his family didn’t take part in celebrations.
Still, for young Gazans like Hazem Srour, hope is the only option. At 22, he says he got through the war by focusing on his accounting studies—even when his university was forced to shut down and he had to adjust to irregular, remote courses—and founding a co-working space with a friend to foster community for others like him who have struggled to keep some semblance of a normal life.
If peace can last, he said, he wants to revive his business so he can settle in a house, buy furniture, get married and build a family.
“Those are the goals I have right now,” he said.
3. A Test Now for Israel: Can It Repair Its Ties to Americans?
A Test Now for Israel: Can It Repair Its Ties to Americans?
NY Times · David M. Halbfinger · October 12, 2025
Israel’s advocates fear that its conduct of the war has cost it the support of an entire generation of U.S. voters.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/12/world/middleeast/israel-us-polls-support.html
Listen to this article · 8:46 min Learn more
A vigil last Tuesday in Manhattan for Palestinians and Israelis killed during the war between Israel and Hamas.Credit...Dave Sanders for The New York Times
By
Reporting from Jerusalem
Oct. 12, 2025, 5:01 a.m. ET
The war in Gaza may finally be ending, after two years of bloodshed and destruction. But among the damage that has been done is a series of devastating blows to Israel’s relationship with the citizens of its most important and most stalwart ally, the United States.
Israel’s reputation in the United States is in tatters, and not only on college campuses or among progressives. For the first time since it began asking Americans about their sympathies in 1998, a New York Times poll last month found that slightly more voters sided with the Palestinians than with Israelis.
American Jews, long Israel’s strongest domestic backers, have turned sharply critical of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government over the Gaza conflict. A majority believe Israel has committed war crimes as it has killed tens of thousands of civilians and restricted food aid, and four in 10 believe it is guilty of genocide, a new Washington Post survey found — a charge Israel denies. The shift has created new incentives for even moderate Democrats in Congress to get tough on Israel, including by curtailing U.S. military aid.
The damage is also increasingly bipartisan. Despite Republican efforts to identify their party with Israel and to tag Democrats as providing aid and comfort to its enemies, younger evangelical Christians are breaking with their parents on the issue, seeing Israel as an oppressor rather than as a victim. And the breakup extends beyond evangelicals.
“Everybody under 30 is against Israel,” the conservative commentator Megyn Kelly offhandedly told Tucker Carlson on his podcast last month.
The question is whether those younger Americans will be lost to Israel long-term — and what Israel’s advocates will do to try to reverse that.
Shibley Telhami, a pollster and scholar of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the University of Maryland, argues that it’s too late.
“We now have a paradigmatic Gaza generation like we had a Vietnam generation and a Pearl Harbor generation,” he said. “There’s this growing sense among people that what they’re witnessing is genocide in real time, amplified by new media, which we didn’t have in Vietnam. It’s a new generation where Israel is seen as a villain. And I don’t think that’s likely to go away.”
Pro-Palestinian activists in Manhattan on Tuesday.Credit...Vincent Alban/The New York Times
Yossi Klein Halevi, an American-born Israeli writer, said he was struck on a recent campus tour in the United States not so much by the rhetoric of the anti-Zionist activists he met, but by the degree to which they appeared to be influencing their apolitical peers.
“They’re absorbing this toxic idea that there’s something basically illegitimate about a Jewish state,” Mr. Halevi said. “That’s my concern: this general perception that Israel has a bad odor attached to it.”
Others argue that an end to the fighting, and to the horrific images from Gaza that have flooded social-media feeds for two years, could allow American boosters of Israel to regain their footing.
“I do think there would be a bit of a reset in the way Israel is viewed,” said Halie Soifer, chief executive of the Jewish Democratic Council of America.
“There is room for a bounce-back,” said Dahlia Scheindlin, an American-born Israeli pollster who is a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. “People tend to overestimate how bad the damage has been. Just stopping the slaughter will allow some people to go back to their comfort zone of being supportive.”
What undergirds that more sanguine view is a belief that the foundation of the U.S.-Israeli relationship remains solid.
That is most persuasive when it comes to shared national interests, like the deep, mutually beneficial collaborations between the two countries’ intelligence communities, militaries and technology sectors — collaborations that may be more visible to government officials than to the public at large.
“We’re an asset in the great-power competition against China. We’re at the core of American interests in the Middle East,” said Avner Golov, a former official on Israel’s National Security Council who tracks the Israeli-American relationship for MIND Israel, a Tel Aviv think tank.
“When my grandfather came here, he only wanted a safe haven for the Jews,” Mr. Golov added. “He never dreamt that Israeli technology would be able to play a significant role in shaping the world order and preserving U.S. superiority over its adversaries.”
A woman looking into Gaza from the Israeli side of the border on Friday.Credit...Amit Elkayam for The New York Times
It is less clear, however, that the two countries, which long shared similar aspirations — to be a promised land for the persecuted, to be a gleaming city on a hill and an example for other nations — can count on those ideals as a basis for continued close ties.
Mr. Halevi, a fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, said such aims were now up for debate in both countries, riven as they are by political polarization.
On one side, he said, is the liberal Israeli story of the post-Holocaust creation of a Jewish state that “struggled for liberal values under constant pressure.” That story, “which is my story,” Mr. Halevi said, appeals to Democrats.
Then there is the Israeli government’s story, of Israel as America’s “bulwark against the Muslim world,” Mr. Halevi said, “which resonates for the American right.”
“It’s hard to base a relationship between the two countries on shared values,” he said, “when neither country can agree within itself on its own values.”
Elections in Israel in the coming year could change things, experts say — not only if Mr. Netanyahu is voted out, but also if a new government reflects the country’s broad middle ground.
Mr. Golov said that the polls portended a rejection of political extremes. He also suggested that Israel’s democracy had much to commend it, even in comparison with America’s at the moment, given the way that popular protests in Israel had pressured Mr. Netanyahu and encouraged Mr. Trump to end the war.
Israelis gathered at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv on Saturday night, many thanking President Trump for the cease-fire that paved the way for the anticipated release of the remaining hostages.Credit...David Guttenfelder/The New York Times
“It’s a success story of an Israeli public that on one hand is sending its children to Gaza, and on the other hand is protesting every week,” he said. “And nobody shot anyone,” he noted pointedly.
“If these protests will succeed, and I think they will,” Mr. Golov added, “nobody will be able to say that Israeli society lost its liberal nature. I think it regained it.”
However difficult it may be to repair the relationship and to win over Americans who have turned against Israel over the war, experts agree that Israel will have little choice but to try, because of the degree to which Mr. Netanyahu has allowed Israel to become isolated internationally.
“Israel has no hedging strategy,” said Ted Sasson, a professor at Middlebury College and a fellow at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies. “It absolutely needs the U.S. It has nowhere else to turn. It’s firmly committed to that alliance, and it’s going to have to work harder to persuade Congress and a future American president to provide the kind of support that Biden and Trump have provided.”
Eventually, an end to the war should mean an end to the worldwide focus on Israel’s conduct of it, said Ted Deutch, president of the American Jewish Committee. He said he eagerly awaited a point at which “the humanitarian situation gets better and the hostages are released, and Arab countries are investing in the future of Gaza.” Then, he said, “the conversation can be about what’s next, about what the region can look like, what Gaza can look like.”
Palestinians heading toward Gaza City on Saturday after Israel and Hamas agreed on a prisoner exchange deal and a cease-fire.Credit...Saher Alghorra for The New York Times
“I’m more hopeful today than I have been for hundreds of days,” said William Daroff, chief executive of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, an umbrella lobbying group.
Others are less optimistic. Mort Klein, who leads the right-wing Zionist Organization of America, said he feared that the war had poisoned attitudes toward Israel almost irretrievably. “It’s become Jew-hatred,” he said. “I don’t know how that is resolved.”
What seems indisputable is that the stakes for Israel, and for its advocates in the United States, are enormously high.
Mr. Telhami, the University of Maryland professor, said that Israel’s dependence on U.S. support had become so glaring over the course of the war — in political, military and economic terms — that Israel would be motivated to treat its possible defeat in the court of American public opinion as an “existential threat.”
“The game for maintaining the support for Israel is priority No. 1,” he said, adding, Because the battle in America for Israel is perceived as part of the battle for Israel itself.”
David M. Halbfinger is on his second assignment as Jerusalem bureau chief of The New York Times, leading coverage of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. After his first tour there, from 2017 to 2021, he served as Politics editor, overseeing coverage of national politics, threats to democracy and the 2024 presidential campaign.
See more on: The Israel-Hamas War, Benjamin Netanyahu
NY Times · David M. Halbfinger · October 12, 2025
4. We're grateful for what Trump is doing for peace, Nobel winner Machado tells BBC
Class act by POTUS and Ms. Machado.
Excerpts:
She told BBC Mundo that during a congratulatory phone call with Trump she told him "how grateful the Venezuelan people are for what he's doing, not only in the Americas, but around the world for peace, for freedom, for democracy".
Trump has made no secret about wanting to win the award himself, regularly speaking about the seven wars he claims to have ended.
Nominations for the award closed in January, just as Trump's second term as president began. A White House official said on Friday the "Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace".
Machado said she was "very glad" to speak to the US president and was "able to convey to him our appreciation".
We're grateful for what Trump is doing for peace, Nobel winner Machado tells BBC
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y8y25l250o
BBC
9 minutes ago
Norberto ParedesBBC Mundo and
Alex Boyd
Watch: 'A great honour for Venezuelan society' - Machado speaks to the BBC
Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado has told the BBC she is grateful for what US President Donald Trump is doing "around the world for peace".
Machado, Venezuela's opposition leader, was awarded the 2025 prize having long campaigned against the country's President Nicolás Maduro Moros, whose 12-year rule is viewed by many as illegitimate.
She told BBC Mundo that during a congratulatory phone call with Trump she told him "how grateful the Venezuelan people are for what he's doing, not only in the Americas, but around the world for peace, for freedom, for democracy".
Trump has made no secret about wanting to win the award himself, regularly speaking about the seven wars he claims to have ended.
Nominations for the award closed in January, just as Trump's second term as president began. A White House official said on Friday the "Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace".
Machado said she was "very glad" to speak to the US president and was "able to convey to him our appreciation".
The 58-year-old, forced to live in hiding for much of the past year, was hailed by the Nobel Committee as "one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America in recent times".
Nobel chairman Jørgen Watne Frydnes said she was recognised for "her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy".
He added: "Despite serious threats against her life, she has remained in the country, a choice that has inspired millions."
Machado was barred from running in last year's presidential elections, in which Maduro won a third six-year term in office.
The elections were widely dismissed on the international stage as neither free nor fair, and sparked protests across the country.
Even after she was barred from the polls, she managed to unite the notoriously divided opposition faction and succeeded in getting millions of Venezuelans behind the little-known candidate which replaced her on the ballot, Edmundo González.
When the government-controlled National Electoral Council declared Maduro the winner - even though tallies from polling stations showed that González had won by a landslide - Machado continued to campaign from hiding as the Maduro government has repeatedly threatened her with arrest.
Machado told BBC Mundo her award was "like an injection" for her political movement.
"It infuses energy, hope, strength on the Venezuelan people because we realise that we are not alone," she added. "The democrats around the world share our struggle."
She said she thought Trump and the international community were already helping with the political situation in Venezuela.
"The regime in Venezuela is a criminal structure," Machado told the BBC. "And as such, it sustains themselves on the criminal flows from their illicit activities.
"We need the international community to cut those flows that are not only used for corruption, but also for repression, violence and terror.
"So when you cut the inflows that come from drug trafficking, gold smuggling, arms smuggling, human trafficking, or the black market of oil, then the regime falls.
"And that's exactly what we're seeing, cracks that are getting deeper and deeper as we talk right now."
Earlier this month, US forces killed four people in an attack on a boat off the coast of Venezuela that was allegedly trafficking drugs.
It was the latest in a number of recent strikes by the US on boats in international waters it said were involved in "narco-trafficking".
They have attracted condemnation in countries including Venezuela and Colombia, with some international lawyers describing the strikes as a breach of international law.
On Thursday Colombian President Gustavo Petro said one of the boats was "Colombian with Colombian citizens inside", an allegation the White House called "baseless".
5. China issues bounty for Taiwan PsyOps unit for 'separatism'
Who fears the effects of PSYOP the most? Authoritarian regimes. They fear the effects the most.
Who fears the use of PSYOP the most - the US. It is easier to get permission to put hellfire on the forehead of a target than it is to get permission to put an idea between his ears.
Why do we fear PSYOP more than kinetic action? A missile strike on a wedding party is catastrophic. An erroneous message is an embarrassment that will likely pass after the 24 hour news cycle. Think about that.
China issues bounty for Taiwan PsyOps unit for 'separatism'
By Reuters
October 11, 20251:20 AM EDTUpdated 19 hours ago
Chinese and Taiwanese flags are seen in this illustration, August 6, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
Summary
- China makes new accusations about Taiwan military's online operationsTaiwan military says it will not be intimidatedTaiwan president pledged on Friday to boost island's defences
BEIJING/TAIPEI, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Chinese police on Saturday offered rewards of $1,400 for information about 18 people it said were Taiwanese military psychological operations officers spreading "separatist" messages, a day after Taiwan pledged to boost its defences.
China views democratically-governed Taiwan as its own territory, over the strong objections of the government in Taipei, and has increased its military and political pressure against the island.
The Reuters Tariff Watch newsletter is your daily guide to the latest global trade and tariff news. Sign up here.The public security bureau in the Chinese city of Xiamen, which sits opposite Taiwan on the other side of the Taiwan Strait, said the 18 were core members of Taiwan military's "psychological warfare unit", and published their pictures, names and Taiwan identity card numbers.
The unit handles tasks such as disinformation, intelligence gathering, psychological warfare and the broadcast of propaganda, the security bureau said in a statement.
"For a long time they plotted to incite separatist activities," the bureau said, adding there would be rewards of up to 10,000 yuan ($1,401.74) for tips leading to their arrest.
They launched websites for smear campaigns, created seditious games to incite secession, produced fake video content to mislead people, operated illegal radios for "infiltration", and manipulated public opinion with resources from "external forces", the state Xinhua news agency said in a separate report.
Taiwan's defence ministry said the accusations reflected the "despotic and pig-headed thinking of an authoritarian regime ... trying to divide our people, belittle our government, and conduct cognitive warfare."
China has repeatedly issued such reports that "exploit the free flow of information in our democratic society to piece together and fabricate personal data," the ministry said.
"Defending national security and protecting the safety and well-being of the people is the unshirkable duty of every military officer and soldier," it said.
The wanted notice is largely symbolic given that Taiwanese intelligence officers do not openly visit the country and China's legal system has no jurisdiction on the island.
On Friday, President Lai Ching-te pledged greater efforts to boost Taiwan's defences, calling on China to renounce the use of force to seize the island. China reacted with anger, calling Lai a troublemaker and a "war-maker".
In June of this year, China issued a similar bounty for the arrest of 20 people Beijing said were Taiwanese military hackers. Taiwan dismissed that threat, saying it would not be intimidated.
($1 = 7.1340 yuan)
Reporting by Beijing newsroom and Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Editing by Tom Hogue
6. Sheriff Says 16 Dead in Blast at Tennessee Explosives Plant
Still no cause. I remain a worst case planner until proven otherwise.
Excerpts:
The factory, about 60 miles west of Nashville, makes bulk explosives for commercial and military use and other products. Accurate Energetic Systems has called the explosion, which occurred Friday at around 7:45 a.m., a tragic accident.
Officials said that the investigation of the blast, which encompassed an entire building, was in its early stages and that they didn’t know what caused it. Accurate Energetic Systems was cooperating with the investigation, they said.
“We’re literally having to clear foot by foot,” Davis said. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is assisting with the investigation, and an ATF official said teams were working to mitigate hazards on the site.
Sheriff Says 16 Dead in Blast at Tennessee Explosives Plant
Cause of explosion at Accurate Energetic Systems facility is being investigated
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/sheriff-says-16-dead-in-blast-at-tennessee-explosives-plant-bd87c0fb
By Tali Arbel
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Oct. 11, 2025 9:11 pm ET
Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis told reporters Saturday that no survivors had been found. Obed Lamy/Ap
Quick Summary
-
A powerful blast at a Tennessee explosives plant resulted in 16 fatalities, with no survivors located.View more
A powerful blast Friday at a Tennessee explosives plant has left 16 people dead, officials said.
“We have not located any survivors,” Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis said Saturday evening, adding that it was “safe to say” the 16 missing people had died. Their families had been notified, he said.
Authorities located two people who were earlier reported missing and whose vehicles and personal items were found at the Accurate Energetic Systems facility, he said. They weren’t on the site of the explosion, Davis said.
The factory, about 60 miles west of Nashville, makes bulk explosives for commercial and military use and other products. Accurate Energetic Systems has called the explosion, which occurred Friday at around 7:45 a.m., a tragic accident.
Officials said that the investigation of the blast, which encompassed an entire building, was in its early stages and that they didn’t know what caused it. Accurate Energetic Systems was cooperating with the investigation, they said.
“We’re literally having to clear foot by foot,” Davis said. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is assisting with the investigation, and an ATF official said teams were working to mitigate hazards on the site.
Write to Tali Arbel at tali.arbel@wsj.com
7. Down but Not Out? Russia's Future Military Capacity in the Shadow of its War on Ukraine - CSDS
Excerpts:
The insights above suggest that any effort to estimate the future path and achievements of a Russian force regeneration process will remain clouded by ambiguities and uncertainties associated with the future direction and outcome of the war in Ukraine; the strategic implications of Russia’s increasingly belligerent behavior towards NATO; Russian policy and doctrinal preferences regarding future force development and military education and training; the capacity of the Russian economy and society to adapt to a more adverse environment, and of the Russian defence industrial base to sustain and expand its design and production effort; and, lastly, the ability of the regime to control society and leverage Russia’s international partnerships effectively. This is, by any measure, a tall order.
In reflecting upon the initial lessons of the war against Ukraine for Russia and for NATO, it is important to bear in mind how challenging it is to undertake genuine military transformation, even in peacetime and in the best of circumstances, and why it has proven so difficult for Russia, which is afflicted with a backward economy, an aging and apathetic population, an inadequate education system and a corrupt military. Russia’s operational failure in Ukraine also illustrates pointedly how challenging it is to recover downstream from faulty setting conditions at the start of a conflict and how a lack of proper preparation at the strategic level compounded gross gaps in operational-level leadership competence and tactical-level skill. For NATO, a clear lesson from this early episode of the conflict is that allied forces must prepare to win decisively the “first battle” of a hypothetical war with Russia, as the surest route to winning the “last battle” irretrievably and bringing the conflict to a favourable end as quickly as possible.
At the same time, in Ukraine, Russia has avoided, so far, a strategic defeat. Great risks would be involved for NATO in misreading the initial lessons from the war in Ukraine, for example, in taking comfort from Russia’s persistent operational failure in Ukraine; the obsolescence of its economy; its growing dependence on China; and its demographic decline. Whereas the lessons of greater import for European security lie in Russia being prone to strategic miscalculation; to persisting in an uncertain military enterprise, despite successive battlefield reversals; and to sacrificing human life and societal well-being to preserve regime integrity and pursue geopolitical advantage.
The greatest risk for NATO would be to misread the most important lesson from the conflict in Ukraine so far and prepare for the wrong war: since summer 2022, Russia has been fighting, by default, a long, contested war, whereas Russia’s preferences and advantages lie in waging decisively and successfully a short war. While the Allies must be prepared for the possibility that a war with Russia could be drawn out, the first priority must be to deter and defeat a short war of either conquest or devastation.
Russia will remain an asymmetric adversary for the Alliance because of its geographic proximity to Europe and enduring sources of strength: a vast nuclear arsenal; a large capacity to generate forces and allocate economic resources to a war economy under duress; and its reliance on subversion and disinformation. Since 1949, NATO has successfully countered and neutralised this Russian asymmetric challenge. Continuing to do so will, in the future, require a much greater collective commitment by European allies and Canada, in partnership with the United States, as part of a rebalanced Alliance.
Down but Not Out? Russia's Future Military Capacity in the Shadow of its War on Ukraine - CSDS
https://csds.vub.be/publication/down-but-not-out-russias-future-military-capacity-in-the-shadow-of-its-war-on-ukraine/
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CSDS POLICY BRIEF • 28/2025
By Diego Ruiz Palmer
6.10.2025
Key issues
- Russia’s failures are real but not final and while its army is battered, it is still able to mass-produce weapons and endure losses;
- A dangerous mix persists, as Russia’s weakness in conventional performance coexists with nuclear, cyber and disinformation threats;
- NATO’s priority is speed of response, and it must be prepared to win the first battle of any hypothetical conflict with Russia before Moscow can turn conquest or devastation into victory.
Introduction
The war against Ukraine reached this past August a three-and-a-half-year milestone. Despite a deepening mobilisation of resources, Russia has been unable to conquer or defeat Ukraine, or prevent Western military assistance to Ukraine, while its action triggered the largest Western rearmament and economic decoupling effort from Russia since the late 1970s. At the same time, the extent of the devastation wrought upon Ukraine, and the scale of the battlefield losses incurred by Russia, bear witness, tragically, to its capacity to endure adversity, as well as to its determination to dominate Ukraine and bring to heel other former Soviet republics: Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Kazakhstan. Russia’s persistence holds a warning for them, and for the West, that, if it fails to conquer a foreign country, it can and will devastate it.
Against this sombre backdrop, reliably estimating future Russian military capabilities, and Russia’s capacity to regenerate a more capable force, could not be higher in terms of both helping Ukraine resist Russian aggression and strengthening the credibility and effectiveness of NATO’s deterrence and defence posture. Such an estimating exercise must start from the current baseline of a battered army, other Russian military components that are in a better condition and a war economy operating at nearly full strength. Today, Russia mass-produces hundreds of tanks and missiles and thousands of drones a month. At the same time, having the kit alone does not guarantee battlefield success, and the Russian economy is afflicted with several weaknesses: an ageing industrial base; an over-reliance on energy exports; manpower and skill shortfalls; and a growing vulnerability to international sanctions and macro-economic imbalances.
Any estimating exercise must also take account of the ambiguous combination of the military legacies from the Cold War, the two wars in Chechnya in the 1990s and 2000s, the war against Georgia in 2008 and in Syria from 2015 onwards and the invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022. This is a complex and burdensome legacy to build upon for any military establishment, particularly one intent on winning, at all costs, a large-scale war in Ukraine, while, at the same time, restoring depleted inventories, reconstituting forces and regaining a preeminent operational posture vis-à-vis the “collective West”.
The confluence of current circumstances and long-lasting influences carries with it an arc of uncertainty that this CSDS Policy Brief aims to help understand and dissipate. To this end, the policy brief addresses, in sequence, the challenges of forecasting in circumstances of systemic ambiguity and uncertainty; initial insights from Russia’s inconclusive war, so far, against Ukraine relevant to forecasting future capability; the spectrum of force development probabilities; and, lastly, observations relevant to NATO.
The challenge of forecasting in circumstances of systemic complexity and ambiguity
Forecasting reliably the future military capabilities of a foreign power, and attempting to derive from them its intentions and hypothetical future behaviour, is an inherently challenging task. In the case of Russia, this is made even more difficult by the scale, diversity and geographic distribution, across multiple time zones, of its forces, which are connected by fluctuating and often opaque command relationships and supply flows. Furthermore, the baseline for undertaking this estimating exercise is itself in flux, because of a state of war, with the resulting ambiguities and uncertainties regarding the residual strength of fighting formations; the rates of unit reconstitution; and the future geographic and operational layout of new and reconstituted forces. At the other end of this arc of uncertainty, systemic determinants, such as geography, the weight of history, notably the Soviet era, economic and social constraints, and the pervasive influence of the regime’s brand of ideology and of entrenched bureaucratic practices, will all continue, to varying degrees, to shape Russian strategy and force development.
This complex baseline is blurred further by competing policy choices and operational experiences. Over the last three decades, Russian preferences for conventional force employment have oscillated between the Cold War legacy of preparing to undertake large-scale, deep operations against NATO; the experience of local wars in Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine in 2014 and Syria; and the “New Look” force model of smaller brigade and battalion-size formations. The “Special Military Operation” against Ukraine, launched in February 2022, borrowed from all three influences:
– A relatively large ground force prepared, on paper, to conquer Ukraine rapidly, in the form of deep, combined-arms ground operations, supported by air assault and air-landing operations, missile, air and electronic attack strikes, and an amphibious landing operation on Ukraine’s western Black Sea coast. All of these elements bore the hallmarks of traditional Soviet operational art to promptly knock out an adversary, through surprise, speed and shock;
– A combination of the indiscriminate use of lethal force, such as in Chechnya and Syria, and non-kinetic methods and tactics, as used to conquer and occupy Crimea in 2014. The closest precedent to the 2022 invasion was Russia’s mix of kinetic and non-kinetic operations in the Donbas in 2014-2015; and
– A reliance on untested brigade and battalion-level tactical groups that had neither the operational capacity, notably because of manpower shortfalls, nor the training, to engage in high-intensity operations at short notice and at scale.
The result in Ukraine has been a sequence of operational mishaps and reversals, as will be seen below, that is reflective of the difficulty that the Russian military has had, since the end of the Cold War, in leaving behind the Soviet doctrinal legacy, while attempting to embrace, under the label of “new generation warfare”, without proper assimilation, imported Western concepts and force constructs, such as deep attack and network-centric warfare. These have held appeal with the Russian military since the 1980s, but they require high levels of technical and tactical skill that many Russian forces typically do not have.
Initial insights from Russia’s war against Ukraine: poor planning and performance
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 highlighted a paradox and a disquieting aspect of the Russian political calculus: while Russia was willing to assume the risk of irretrievably unsettling the post-1990 European political order through war and, possibly, triggering a wider conflict, the poor performance of Russian forces in Ukraine revealed that the planning for the invasion was deeply flawed. In particular, it assumed incorrectly that the Ukrainian armed forces would not resist and that the Ukrainian people would welcome the invaders. Furthermore, the planning did not adequately cater for the contingency of a less-than-perfect execution of the Special Military Operation. In Ukraine, Russian forces lacked suitable planning options to rapidly adapt their tactics and logistics. They have had to improvise endlessly, but cumulative improvisation does not amount to orderly adaptation, much less to dependable, longer-term transformation.
Greater operational agility could, possibly, have resulted in improved battlefield effectiveness, for example, by pulling the tanks back behind the infantry to reduce their exposure to Ukrainian ambushes; redesigning the chain of command to overcome the hodgepodge of units belonging to the Ground Forces, Airborne Forces, Naval Infantry, National Guard, the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, the Cossacks, the Chechens and the private military companies, like the Wagner Group; or repositioning forces from the original layout more deliberately, to optimise force employment by a combination of skilled deception, targeted breakthroughs and rapid encirclement operations. In Ukraine, both the Cold War legacy of “deep operations” by large formations and the more recent “New Look Model”, with its emphasis on smaller combined-arms brigades and battalion tactical groups (BTG), have been found wanting. Neither the much-touted “reconnaissance-strike complex” construct from Soviet times, in the form of deep precision strikes by tactical ballistic and cruise missiles, nor the “information confrontation” campaign (Russian terminology for disinformation activities and deception operations), delivered the hoped-for results. Electronic warfare and cyber operations did not fare much better, despite a doctrinal emphasis on controlling the electromagnetic spectrum. Neither played a decisive role in the 2022 invasion, nor was it able to prevent reversals on the battlefield thereafter.
Lastly, the war in Ukraine has shed little light on Russia’s capacity to generate a so-called Anti-Access/Area-Denial (A2/AD) “bastion” in and around the Crimean Peninsula. This situation reflects Ukraine’s limited capacity, so far, to attack Russian forces stationed in Crimea in a comprehensive way. Accordingly, the various Russian offensive and defensive systems composing such a bastion – ground-launched cruise missiles; surface-to-air missiles; coastal defence missiles; etc. – have not operated as a single A2/AD macro-system. The poor performance of Russia’s command and control in Ukraine has raised questions, however, regarding its capacity to integrate synergistically the multiple components of an A2/AD bastion, such that a capable adversary would be denied access persistently to airspace, territory and sea areas under Russian control.
The intense artillery barrages of 2022-2023 depleted Russia’s vast ammunition stockpiles, but did not help deliver the hoped-for breakthroughs. The sustained drone and missile campaign since 2023 has battered Ukraine, but not changed significantly the parameters of the confrontation on the ground. By comparison, astute strikes by Ukraine against strategic targets deep into Russia, Ukraine’s land incursion into the Kursk region and the disabling of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, while not game-changing, are revealing of both growing Ukrainian skill and persistent Russian disarray.
In reforming its military from 2009-2010 onwards, Russia tried an impossible doctrinal and force structure mix: a combination of Soviet operational art and “new generation warfare” doctrine; advanced command and control and poor officer leadership; ambitious exercises in the Zapad-Vostok-Tsentr-Kavkaz series and insufficiently rigorous tactical training; Soviet-style armies and divisions and Russian brigades and BTGs; and Soviet-era and new equipment. Barring Ukraine’s acquiescence to its conquest, with such a mix, Russian operational failure was almost preordained.
The arc of force development probabilities
Looking forward, Russia will need to consider how best to balance the legacy of a battle-hardened army, but which is severely bruised across all ranks and largely depleted, compared with pre-2022 inventories and stockpiles. Russia’s war economy is producing equipment at a high rate, which would allow Russia to reach in the next several years inventories larger in scale than those available at the start of the invasion. In 2025, the Russian armed forces are expected to take delivery of 1,500 new and repaired tanks and another 3,000 armoured vehicles, over 2,000 tactical ballistic and cruise missiles, 60,000-70,000 drones of all types and 3 million artillery shells.
The challenge for the Russian Army, however, will be to reform satisfactorily to better leverage materiel production and availability, including deliveries of ammunition from North Korea and critical electronic components from China. Otherwise, the recruitment, retention, training, logistical and infrastructure momentum needed to meet the force regeneration demand will fall short. Meeting this challenge will require, in particular, conducting an honest introspection exercise into what went wrong in Ukraine, and why, from the top ranks down to the foot soldiers in the trenches. By the end of 2023, all the force component commanders of the Special Military Operation (the four Military Districts, Airborne Forces, Aerospace Forces and Black Sea Fleet), who had been hand-picked and promoted to the highest operational positions, had been fired for incompetence.
Depending on the length and outcome of the war in Ukraine, and the features of a cease-fire, armistice or peace settlement, Russia will also need to balance the competing requirements associated with garrisoning any remaining occupied territories and those associated with balancing NATO defensive deployments and reconstituting a sustainable offensive capability. As long as the war against Ukraine continues to consume vast resources, wider regeneration of forces will remain challenging. Furthermore, Russia likely will not have the luxury to select exclusively one from among the three constructs it pursued in the run-up to the 2022 invasion. Ambiguity and adversity will likely endure.
Taking action against NATO will require agile and mobile forces able to execute a rapid coup de main operation and deliver a decisive fait accompli, on the model of the initial operations into Prague in August 1968 and Kabul in December 1979. At the same time, in Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan, the initial coup de main by airborne and special operations forces (Spetsnaz) was only the precursor for a much larger invasion force. In June 1984, the Soviet Army rehearsed with 60,000 troops (and, unusually, no participation by the forces of other Warsaw Pact countries) the execution of a large-scale coup de main operation against West Germany, aimed at achieving a territorial fait accompli, during exercise Zapad84.
Accordingly, Russia will likely keep in its force structure larger, combined-arms formations, as a follow-on force, to deter and fend off a NATO counter-attack. Both kinds of operations – the initial coup de main and the larger force engagement – will also likely rely on deception and disinformation activities and nuclear intimidation, as well as on offensive electronic warfare and cyber operations, to fragment NATO operationally and weaken the Allies’ political cohesion and resolve. Collapsing NATO from the inside, rather than defeating allied forces piecemeal, was a core objective of the Soviet Cold War “deep operations” construct. Russian coercive activities against various Allies undertaken in autumn 2025 fit into the pattern of belligerence that could be expected ahead of a daring coup de main operation. In this case, however, they are likely aimed at turning NATO’s attention away from Ukraine and towards its own security, as a means to isolate Ukraine from the West.
Conventional force scaling and composition
The observations above suggest the following provisional findings for Russian force regeneration, against the current, uncertain backdrop. Indeed, starting in December 2022, the Russian Ministry of Defence has seemingly undertaken a series of reforms, reflecting most likely the painful lessons learned in Ukraine:
– Disbandment of the five regional Joint Strategic Commands (Obedinonnye Strategieheskoye Komandovanie or OSK) associated, since 2010, with the Western, Eastern, Central and Southern Military Districts (MD) and, since 2014, with the Northern Fleet;
– Partition of the Western MD into resurrected Leningrad and Moscow MDs, with the Leningrad MD facing Finland and the High North;
– Resubordination of the Russian Navy’s fleets to the main naval staff and transformation of the three army corps previously associated with the Baltic, Northern and Black Sea Fleets into combined-arms armies; and
– Creation of new combined-arms armies, army corps and motorised-rifle divisions (MRD), and restructuring of several brigades into new MRDs; as well as the conversion of an air assault brigade into an airborne division and the strengthening of two other airborne divisions.
These measures point to the abandonment of the most innovative aspects of the reforms initiated in 2009-2010, notably the pursuit of greater jointness and air-land-sea force integration, in favour of a return to familiar, Soviet-style structures and patterns.
The Russian Army will likely jettison the BTG construct and retain a combination of high-readiness brigades and divisions for initial operations and variable readiness divisions for follow-on operations. The brigades will probably combine air assault and Spetsnaz forces, trained and equipped for high-risk/high-payoff, coup de main operations, with sufficient staying power to prepare the ground for follow-on forces, including air-dropped and air-landed airborne divisions. Among tank divisions, a small number might be kept in peacetime at high readiness and task-organised as a modern-day “Operational Manoeuvre Group”, to back up the coup de main forces with a mobile, armoured fist, on the model of the Soviet Army’s 5th Guards Army Corps of the early 1980s stationed near Minsk. The coup de main would become a coup de poing. In this context, it is possible that the Russian Army might have looked upon the ill-fated 3rd Army Corps in Ukraine as an impromptu testbed for such a mobile force. Such a tiered force construct, as suggested above, would allow Russia to gradually regenerate its force structure while trying to manage the availability of new and repaired equipment, as well as of battle-tested veterans and new contract soldiers and conscripts.
It is unclear at this time how a lesser emphasis on jointness could adversely affect air-land force integration. In Ukraine, the Aerospace Forces exhibited a low level of operational capacity in conducting offensive sorties, as well as defensive operations to protect Russian airspace, despite having a long-standing doctrinal focus on deep air operations and a fairly modern fighter fleet (Su-30SM Flanker, Su-34 Fullback and Su-35S Flanker E). It is only from 2023 onwards, with the retrofit of Cold War dumb bombs with laser designation kits, that fighters started to have a greater impact on the ground battle, although still limited. Bombers fired their air-to-surface cruise missiles from the safety of Russian and Belarusian airspace, while contending with the constraints of poor fighter/bomber integration skills and declining airborne early warning coverage, following the loss of several A-50 Mainstay aircraft. In retrospect, the standing up of air and air defence armies in 2010, followed by the merger in 2015 of the Air Force with the Space Defence Forces, did not deliver the expected synergies. Russia may restore the separation between tactical and homeland air forces, and also resurrect air armies tasked to conduct offensive operations and equipped with Su-34 and Su-35S aircraft.
The future role of naval forces in Russian theatre warfare remains an area of great uncertainty, given the gaps in maritime capability and capacity exposed during the war against Ukraine. The Russian Navy will likely continue to emphasise the building of nuclear-powered, cruise-missile carrying attack submarines of the Yasen-M class, as well as Admiral Gorshkov and Admiral Grigorovich-class frigates, all equipped with Kalibr land-attack cruise missiles and, in the future, the Zircon hypersonic missile, to threaten adversary land targets from the sea. A key wartime mission would be to interdict European seaports of debarkation for inbound North American reinforcements, rather than sink sealift ships at sea in the North Atlantic. In recent years, the Russian Navy has demonstrated a capacity to flush several cruise missile-armed attack submarines at once into the North Atlantic, building upon the Soviet legacy of earlier, sudden submarine surges in May-July 1985 and March-May 1987. Coup de main operations could also involve the employment of naval infantry demolition teams, as well as pocket submarines, against shore infrastructure and underwater cables.
The nuclear shield
Russia maintains a wide array of strategic and non-strategic nuclear forces to intimidate and deter adversaries and, if necessary, escalate to the first use of nuclear weapons. Russia has demonstrated since the end of the Cold War an enduring capacity to modernise and diversify its nuclear arsenal, including, recently, with land-based intermediate-range ballistic missiles and air- and sea-launched aero-ballistic and hypersonic missiles. Nuclear forces would be the key ingredient to transform a territorial fait accompli against a neighbouring nation by dual-capable conventional forces into a multi-layered “nuclear bastion”. The Kola Peninsula, Kaliningrad, Belarus and, possibly, the Crimean Peninsula, represent, in different ways, potential launching pads for such an expeditionary coup de main.
At the same time, Russia exhibits persistent capability shortfalls in areas such as ground and space-based early warning and attack characterisation; surveillance and reconnaissance; target acquisition and planning; cuing; and damage assessment. Because of these shortfalls, Russia may have only a limited nuclear capacity between a few, demonstrative missile firings and massed missile strikes. Hence, behind all of the belligerent nuclear rhetoric, controlled escalation to nuclear use, including the transition from conventional to nuclear operations and the attainment of desired outcomes in a discriminate way, short of large-scale devastation, could prove challenging to Russian planners and decision-makers. Accordingly, creating compelling dilemmas to boost Western deterrence before or defence after a Russian aggression against NATO, will require addressing, through calibrated counter-measures and demonstrations, putative triggers for Russian nuclear first use, including the ambiguous and uncertain quality of declared, or assumed, Russian “red lines”.
Final considerations
The insights above suggest that any effort to estimate the future path and achievements of a Russian force regeneration process will remain clouded by ambiguities and uncertainties associated with the future direction and outcome of the war in Ukraine; the strategic implications of Russia’s increasingly belligerent behavior towards NATO; Russian policy and doctrinal preferences regarding future force development and military education and training; the capacity of the Russian economy and society to adapt to a more adverse environment, and of the Russian defence industrial base to sustain and expand its design and production effort; and, lastly, the ability of the regime to control society and leverage Russia’s international partnerships effectively. This is, by any measure, a tall order.
In reflecting upon the initial lessons of the war against Ukraine for Russia and for NATO, it is important to bear in mind how challenging it is to undertake genuine military transformation, even in peacetime and in the best of circumstances, and why it has proven so difficult for Russia, which is afflicted with a backward economy, an aging and apathetic population, an inadequate education system and a corrupt military. Russia’s operational failure in Ukraine also illustrates pointedly how challenging it is to recover downstream from faulty setting conditions at the start of a conflict and how a lack of proper preparation at the strategic level compounded gross gaps in operational-level leadership competence and tactical-level skill. For NATO, a clear lesson from this early episode of the conflict is that allied forces must prepare to win decisively the “first battle” of a hypothetical war with Russia, as the surest route to winning the “last battle” irretrievably and bringing the conflict to a favourable end as quickly as possible.
At the same time, in Ukraine, Russia has avoided, so far, a strategic defeat. Great risks would be involved for NATO in misreading the initial lessons from the war in Ukraine, for example, in taking comfort from Russia’s persistent operational failure in Ukraine; the obsolescence of its economy; its growing dependence on China; and its demographic decline. Whereas the lessons of greater import for European security lie in Russia being prone to strategic miscalculation; to persisting in an uncertain military enterprise, despite successive battlefield reversals; and to sacrificing human life and societal well-being to preserve regime integrity and pursue geopolitical advantage.
The greatest risk for NATO would be to misread the most important lesson from the conflict in Ukraine so far and prepare for the wrong war: since summer 2022, Russia has been fighting, by default, a long, contested war, whereas Russia’s preferences and advantages lie in waging decisively and successfully a short war. While the Allies must be prepared for the possibility that a war with Russia could be drawn out, the first priority must be to deter and defeat a short war of either conquest or devastation.
Russia will remain an asymmetric adversary for the Alliance because of its geographic proximity to Europe and enduring sources of strength: a vast nuclear arsenal; a large capacity to generate forces and allocate economic resources to a war economy under duress; and its reliance on subversion and disinformation. Since 1949, NATO has successfully countered and neutralised this Russian asymmetric challenge. Continuing to do so will, in the future, require a much greater collective commitment by European allies and Canada, in partnership with the United States, as part of a rebalanced Alliance.
__________
This CSDS Policy Brief is a deliverable of the Future of European Deterrence (FED) project. The views expressed in this publication are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Centre for Security, Diplomacy and Strategy (CSDS) or the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). Image credit: Kirill Beglaryan, 2022
ISSN (online): 2983-466X
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8. China Detains Prominent Underground Pastor, Complicating Ties With U.S.
There is one human rights issue that animates the current US administration and that is religious rights.
China Detains Prominent Underground Pastor, Complicating Ties With U.S.
Ezra Jin has led one of China’s most vibrant church networks, spanning 40 cities; ‘They are afraid of my husband’s influence’
https://www.wsj.com/world/china/beijing-detains-prominent-underground-pastor-complicating-u-s-china-ties-e4233d55
By Brian Spegele
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Oct. 12, 2025 2:55 am ET
Ezra Jin, pictured in 2018, has been barred from leaving China for years, separating him from his family. thomas peter/Reuters
Quick Summary
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Ezra Jin, leader of Zion Church, was detained by Chinese authorities, escalating a crackdown on Christianity.View more
BEIJING—Under intense pressure from authorities in China, Ezra Jin persisted for years in building one of the nation’s largest underground Christian churches, with branches in 40 cities across the country. Online prayer groups he helped lead at times reached 10,000 people.
Even after his wife relocated to the safety of the U.S. to be with their three children—all American citizens—Jin stayed behind in China to lead Zion Church, aware of the risks he faced.
“His flock needed him,” said his daughter, 31-year-old Grace Jin Drexel, who works as a U.S. Senate staffer and lives near Washington.
His detention in recent days by Chinese authorities, alongside more than 20 others associated with Zion Church either in custody or missing, marks an escalating broadside against Christianity in China.
Jin’s connection to the U.S. through his family further complicates U.S.-China relations just weeks before a possible meeting between President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, making the pastor a potential bargaining chip in bilateral negotiations. A flare-up in trade tensions between the countries in recent days has cast doubt on whether a Trump-Xi summit will go ahead.
As of Sunday, it was unknown whether Jin had been formally charged by authorities. China’s Ministry of Public Security didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Sean Long, a pastor with Zion Church living in the U.S., said the church expected Jin would face charges of illegally disseminating religious information online, and family members were bracing for the possibility of a lengthy prison term.
“They are afraid of my husband’s influence,” Jin’s wife, Chunli Liu, said in a video interview. Liu is a Chinese national and two of her children are Americans through being born in the U.S., while her daughter, Grace, is naturalized through marriage.
Official notices sealed a door to a Zion Church location in Beijing in 2018 after authorities shut it down. Andy Wong/Associated Press
Bob Fu, founder of U.S.-based ChinaAid Association, a nonprofit group that advocates for religious freedom in China, said the recent crackdown was “the most extensive and coordinated wave of persecution” against churches like Jin’s in more than four decades.
There is a history of Chinese nationals persecuted by Beijing becoming flashpoints in U.S.-China relations. In 2012, blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng escaped de facto house arrest and sought protection at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, sparking a diplomatic crisis that ultimately led to Chen being permitted to move to the U.S.
Last year, the mother of a prominent Uyghur attorney and critic of China was allowed to relocate from China’s tightly controlled Xinjiang region to the U.S. as part of a broader prisoner swap negotiated by the Biden administration.
The U.S. Embassy in Beijing didn’t immediately provide comment.
Jin, 56 years old, came to Christianity in the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations, when as a student in Beijing he joined pro-democracy protests that the military ultimately violently suppressed.
Over time, he increasingly opposed the state’s restrictions on religion, founding Zion Church in Beijing in 2007, one of many unregistered ministries—often dubbed “house churches” or “underground churches”—that were surging in popularity nationwide.
“We have a religious belief just like hungry people have a need to eat something,” Jin told The Wall Street Journal in 2011. “The government doesn’t need to and also doesn’t have the right to decide what you eat, whether you should eat or not.”
Zion describes itself as a nondenominational evangelical church adhering to orthodox Christian beliefs. Jin is a graduate of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif.
Officially, the Communist Party is atheist, with the only legal churches in China being those sanctioned by the state. Yet in recent years, membership at underground churches in China has been estimated in the many millions of people. The targeting of underground churches has intensified under Xi, part of a broader crackdown on civil society.
Zion Church was raided in 2018 and its sanctuary in Beijing was shuttered. Jin and its other leaders increasingly took their work online, while establishing more than 100 smaller-scale branches across the country. The hybrid model flourished, to the dismay of Chinese authorities.
Christians pray at a Zion Church service in 2008. José M. Osorio/Tribune News Service/Getty Images
“After the shutdown of 2018, Zion did not die, did not wither. On the contrary, Zion even grew faster and more widely across China,” said Long, the U.S.-based pastor for Zion Church. “So I think this is an embarrassment for them.”
Before his detention, Jin had been barred by the government for years from leaving China, separating him from family. Most recently he has been living in the southern city of Beihai, where authorities detained him. His daughter Grace said that her father has diabetes, and that he had mentioned a desire to retire and join them in the U.S.
When he tried to go recently to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing to renew his U.S. visa, just in case the travel ban on him was lifted, authorities physically blocked him, instead driving him to the airport and forcing him to board a flight out of the capital.
Concern grew that authorities were gearing up to formally arrest Jin and other church leaders. In a recent conversation, Long asked Jin about the risk that a worst-case scenario would come to pass, with all of the church’s leadership rounded up.
“Hallelujah,” Jin responded, according to Long, who interpreted the pastor’s reaction through the lens of Christianity’s history of flourishing under persecution. “Where there is repression there is revival,” Long said.
On Sunday in China, many of Zion’s members were concerned about what might happen to those detained, angry over the government’s crackdown, and anxious that more people could be rounded up, Long said. Fighting back tears, Jin’s daughter wondered whether she would ever see her father again, and was determined to fight for his release.
“We’re still hopeful for a miracle as Christians,” she said. “We believe that this is bigger than geopolitics and that this is a cosmic battle, and we believe that we are on the winning side ultimately.”
Write to Brian Spegele at Brian.Spegele@wsj.com
9. The Former Navy SEAL Who Built a Powerhouse Podcast
I have never watched his full podcast but I have seen many clips on social media. I have to say he asks good questions to veterans and former operators about special operations and veteran issues. Not a fan of conspiracy theories but I do not see many of those in the clips.
The Former Navy SEAL Who Built a Powerhouse Podcast
Shawn Ryan hosts hourslong episodes featuring other veterans, as well as conspiracy theorists and members of the Trump administration
https://www.wsj.com/business/media/who-is-shawn-ryan-podcast-93bbe960
Shawn Ryan’s time in the military is at the core of his celebrity.
By Isabella Simonetti
Follow | Photography by Diana King for WSJ
Oct. 12, 2025 5:30 am ET
Podcast host and former Navy SEAL Shawn Ryan pointed his Colt Anaconda .44 magnum revolver at targets, racing his guest to hit them in quick succession.
They were partway through a nearly eight-hour interview for Ryan’s eponymous podcast, and his guest needed to unwind after talking about his challenged relationship with his father.
“We take a break when it gets too heavy,” said Ryan, 43, whose shooting range sits on a sprawling Tennessee property that also houses his podcast studio.
Ryan’s breed of masculinity—self-reliance and family values mixed with military service and a mistrust of institutions—has made him a conservative media star.
Since starting “The Shawn Ryan Show” in his attic in 2019, he has parlayed his military work and veteran connections into a spot near President Trump’s inner circle. Ryan talks with Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel and shares a lawyer with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The podcaster’s show began mainly as a place where fellow veterans could discuss their lives. Over time, he added other topics—interviews with exorcists and people who reported UFO sightings, as well as tech executives.
His time in the military is at the core of his celebrity. Ryan is muscular and soft-spoken, unapologetic about his conservative leanings and love of guns (his biggest business partnership is the weapons manufacturer SIG Sauer).
Former Navy SEAL Pete Scobell, left, described being in a deep depression during a recent episode of ‘The Shawn Ryan Show.’
Ryan’s show became a popular stop on Republicans’ podcast tours ahead of the 2024 election. Guests that year included then-candidate Trump; Patel and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Hegseth and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard also appeared on the show before they were nominated for their current roles. “I basically conducted the interview for Secretary of War,” Ryan said.
Ryan said he isn’t a mouthpiece for the administration and turned down some opportunities for access, including chances to visit the White House and interview cabinet members alongside reporters, because it wasn’t exclusive.
He pointed to a four-hour interview this summer with California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, as proof of his interest in hearing multiple perspectives. Ryan thanked the politician for appearing, saying it had been “extremely hard to get somebody that thinks differently than me” to come on the show.
Ryan’s growing celebrity is good for business. He has forged a podcast distribution and sales deal with Daylight Media, a creator-focused firm, that he estimates could earn him more than $10 million annually. His show recently ranked No. 10 on Spotify. And his YouTube channel has more than five million subscribers.
Vigilance Elite, the company he started as a tactical training business, now oversees the podcast and sells gummy bears and crystal tumblers. Its website promotes a $14.99 audio series on how “PSYOPs, from Russian troll farms to Chinese cognitive warfare, shape nations, control minds, and influence culture.”
Plenty of popular TV shows and podcasts feature outspoken hosts who rail against policies and politicians who frustrate them. Ryan said he isn’t interested in focusing on the negativity.
“I’m not screaming at the top of my lungs that the country’s getting ready to cease to exist or whatever, twice a week,” he said.
Ryan fires a Henry lever-action .44 magnum outside of his podcast studio.
Ryan lets his guests speak at length, with little pushback, occasionally responding with just a nod and a “Wow.”
The bread and butter of his show still is vulnerable conversations with veterans. Former Navy SEAL Pete Scobell described in a recent episode being in a deep depression, considering suicide by gun as he sat near a creek on his family’s property.
Ryan criticizes what he describes as the military industrial complex. “I don’t think we’re the good guys anymore,” he told Joe Rogan last year.
His show flirts with the conspiratorial. Recent episodes include “Inside the Middle East: Israel, Syria, Iran & What You’re Not Being Told” and “The Shocking Link Between Autism, Telepathy & Time Travel.”
His website urges people to sign up to his newsletter, under the line “Dodge the Censorship Algorithm.”
Fan Kyle Connolly, 42, said she was familiar with Ryan’s show from conservative social-media circles. “I’m not super hard right wing, but I do love a good government conspiracy and that’s what attracted me to him,” said the Gulf Breeze, Fla., mother of three.
“He’s not out to entertain; he’s out to inform,” she said of Ryan.
Ryan grew up mostly in Missouri, raised by his father, a military pharmacist, and mother, a nurse and stay-at-home mom.
At 17, he declared his intention to become a Navy SEAL. Friends and family were skeptical of the scrawny teen. “It was like the big joke,” Ryan said. “And that really drove me.”
After he left the military, he worked as a contractor for the Central Intelligence Agency. Ryan battled addictions to cocaine, prescription drugs and alcohol, and was suicidal after his time as a SEAL. He found relief with psychedelic therapy, which he said “changed my life.”
Ryan's memorabilia cover the walls of his studio.
The podcast studio for “The Shawn Ryan Show” features mementos, including an American flag that flew over Ground Zero and a flame thrower with a sticker that says “Hillary Clinton Killed My Friend.”
His new deal with Daylight Media offers a potential boost from his current partner Cumulus Media, which Ryan said has been paying him a minimum guarantee of more than $500,000 a year and a smaller cut of his ad revenue. Cumulus didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The host also monetizes a Patreon channel, where more than 15,000 of his roughly 93,000 subscribers pay at least $5 a month, according to Eric Reardon, his show’s chief operating officer.
Ryan would eventually like to cut back on the frequency of his shows and keep diversifying the empire. Vigilance Elite recently took a minority stake in a new security app company, in exchange for advertising and marketing on his show.
“I’m a long-game person,” he said.
Write to Isabella Simonetti at isabella.simonetti@wsj.com
10. The Laws of Armed Conflict: A Norm and Standard US Armed Forces Must Follow
We must be fully committed to the Law of Armed Conflict. Anything less undermines American values and legitimacy. I do not see how anyone can argue otherwise.
Excerpt:
As we move forward (or backward), we must come together to reaffirm our commitment to the Laws of Armed Conflict, ensuring that our military actions reflect not just our might but also our principles as a nation. The LOAC are not obstacles, but rather guiding principles that shine a light in the darkest corridors of war. They remind us that even amid the unfathomable chaos of battle, we must strive to maintain our humanity and uphold the standards that protect not only those we fight against but also those who fight for us. Neglecting these laws is an invitation to chaos, brutality, and ultimately, our own moral undoing.
The Laws of Armed Conflict: A Norm and Standard US Armed Forces Must Follow
https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2025/10/the-laws-of-armed-conflict-a-norm-and-standard-us-armed-forces-must-follow/
David M. Crane | Founding Chief Prosecutor of the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone
October 10, 2025 03:06:13 pm
Edited by: JURIST Staff
The author, a former UN war crimes prosecutor and current professor of US National Security Law, argues that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's call to "unleash overwhelming and punishing violence" without "politically correct rules of engagement" represents a dangerous abandonment of the Laws of Armed Conflict that could expose American service members to war crimes prosecution, undermine troop morale, alienate allies, and ultimately lead to long-term strategic failure despite any short-term tactical gains...
“We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy. We also don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement, the military will “kill people and break things for a living.”
-Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense*
In a world where the nature of warfare is increasingly complex, the words of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth provoke both concern and reflection. His declaration that the military will “unleash overwhelming and punishing violence” and “kill people and break things for a living” signals a stark departure from established norms governing warfare, particularly those enshrined in the Laws of Armed Conflict (LOAC). As tempting as it may be to simplify combat to brute force, doing so undermines not only the moral fabric of our military strategy, but also the very principles that protect our servicemen and women, as well as innocent civilians caught in harm’s way.
With these words the Secretary of Defense sent a dangerous signal to senior commanders that they aren’t bound by the rules of war. It must be noted that the Secretary of Defense is part of the National Command Authority and is liable for any and all violations of the LOAC committed by US Armed Forces as well as by President Trump as Commander in Chief. Individual criminal responsibility attaches to the chain of command of units who violate international law to include the President and his Secretary of Defense.
Ignoring the LOAC can have dire consequences, not just for global stability but also for the individuals who serve in our armed forces. One of the most immediate dangers is that such an approach opens the door to allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The principles of the LOAC—military necessity, unnecessary suffering, discrimination, and proportionality—exist to protect not only the rights of affected populations but also the integrity of those who engage in armed conflict. When these principles are cast aside, the implications for US Armed Forces are profound.
Service members who engage in actions that violate the LOAC can find themselves criminally liable for war crimes. Legal frameworks such as the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) can lead to prosecution not only on domestic soil but also possibly in international courts. Ignoring the LOAC can lead to charges based on the 1949 Geneva Conventions or the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The consequences of such charges could be serious.
Moreover, when the US military adopts an approach that disregards the LOAC, it sets a precedent for other nations. Our adversaries may also choose to operate outside the bounds of international law, escalating military engagement toward a more chaotic and unpredictable landscape.
Disregarding the laws governing armed conflict can also significantly affect troop morale. Service members train under the ethos of honor, integrity, and professionalism. When they witness or are ordered to engage in unlawful acts that violate these principles, it can lead to psychological distress, decreased morale, and even widespread disillusionment with military service. Many of our soldiers join the armed forces to defend freedoms and protect the innocent; acting outside the framework of international law can create a chasm of disillusionment. Under the Department of Defense Law of War Program, soldiers of all ranks are told not to follow unlawful orders and to question those orders. If that norm is removed it is a terrible and slippery slope into a new dark age for conflict.
On a broader scale, dismissing LOAC principles could lead to severe diplomatic repercussions. Allies may recoil from collaborating with a force that lacks commitment to the shared values of human rights and ethics. Should any actions taken by US forces be deemed excessive or unlawful, it risks alienating international partnerships that are crucial for operational success. The prospect of legal consequences for potential war crimes looms large and puts our diplomatic relations at risk. The Russian Federation, China, and North Korea, as well as Iran, do not follow the LOAC and they suffer diplomatic consequences, scrutiny, and embarrassment.
Finally, the absence of lawful constraints in warfare threatens strategic objectives over the long term. The resulting devastation can foster hatred and extremism, breeding future generations who may turn against the very entities they once viewed as allies. The cycle of violence becomes self-perpetuating, leading not to lasting peace, but to an environment where conflict becomes the new normal.
In times of conflict, the challenge is to balance the imperative to protect national interests with adherence to the principles that define the character of our nation. If we choose to eschew the guidance of these laws, culminating in claiming short-term tactical victories, we risk long-term strategic failure. The historical lessons are clear; history remembers not only the winners of wars but also how they waged them.
As we move forward (or backward), we must come together to reaffirm our commitment to the Laws of Armed Conflict, ensuring that our military actions reflect not just our might but also our principles as a nation. The LOAC are not obstacles, but rather guiding principles that shine a light in the darkest corridors of war. They remind us that even amid the unfathomable chaos of battle, we must strive to maintain our humanity and uphold the standards that protect not only those we fight against but also those who fight for us. Neglecting these laws is an invitation to chaos, brutality, and ultimately, our own moral undoing.
*Editor’s Note: Throughout this commentary, the author refers to “Secretary of Defense” rather than “Secretary of War.” As the author notes, under the National Security Act, only Congress has the legal authority to change the official title of this cabinet position. The “Secretary of War” designation represents an administrative adjustment by the Trump administration and does not constitute a legally binding change to the position’s official title established by statute.
David M. Crane is the Founding Chief Prosecutor of the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone, founder of the Global Accountability Network, a practitioner in national security for 30 years, and a Professor of National Security Law at Syracuse University College of Law.
Opinions expressed in JURIST Commentary are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JURIST's editors, staff, donors or the University of Pittsburgh.
11. How China waged an infowar against U.S. interests in the Philippines
We overlook or ignore this at our peril.
Recognize, understand, EXPOSE, and attack China's strategy with a superior political warfare campaign. Are we up for that? What is our strategy and what organizations, capabilities, and tools do we have to employ to support a political warfare strategy?
How China waged an infowar against U.S. interests in the Philippines
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/how-china-waged-an-infowar-against-us-interests-philippines-2025-10-06/
By Poppy McPherson and Karen Lema
October 5, 202511:32 PM EDTUpdated October 6, 2025
SummaryCompanies
- China hired Philippine firm that ran fake social media accountsAccounts posted content aiming to disparage Western vaccines, Philippine maritime claims and its U.S. allianceChinese embassy gave out cash awards to prominent Filipino officials and media personalitiesBeijing says it doesn't interfere in internal affairs of other countries
MANILA, Oct 6 (Reuters) - As Chinese ships fired water cannons at Philippine vessels in the South China Sea in November 2021, Beijing's then-ambassador to Manila asked Filipinos on Facebook to share their favorite things about China.
Among the hundreds of gushing responses were three from a young man named “Vince Dimaano.”
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His comments - like many responding to the Chinese embassy’s posts - weren’t genuine. They came from fake accounts paid for by the diplomatic mission, according to internal documents from a Manila-based marketing agency.
The firm, InfinitUs Marketing Solutions, waged a cyber campaign paid for by China to weaken support for Philippine government policy and to sow discord over Manila’s security alliance with the United States, according to a review of the documents and the fake Facebook (META.O), opens new tab accounts, as well as interviews with two former company employees and two Philippine officials.
The Chinese-owned company also used the fake profiles to amplify anti-American content created by Filipino writers, including some who had received money from Beijing, Reuters found.
InfinitUs and its owner Paul Li did not respond to questions. The company has previously denied any involvement with “illicit digital activity.”
A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson told Reuters that Beijing doesn’t interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. Allegations of Chinese influence campaigns made by some Filipino politicians “have failed and instead have backfired,” the spokesperson said.
The explosion of social media has turbocharged influence operations in the Philippines , according to Jonathan Malaya, until recently a senior official with the Philippine National Security Council. Manila is of increasing strategic importance to Washington and Beijing due to its proximity to Taiwan. China’s leaders have asked their military to be ready to seize the democratically governed island by 2027.
InfinitUs first came under the spotlight at an April Senate hearing, when then-Majority Leader Francis Tolentino accused it of using fake accounts to boost the embassy’s profile and conduct an “influence operation” against the Philippines. Tolentino produced a copy of a check from the embassy to InfinitUs and highlighted posts by accounts that Reuters later identified as inauthentic, but he did not elaborate further.
The scope of InfinitUs’s activities went beyond the pro-China propaganda that Tolentino alleged, Reuters reporting revealed.
Its work included disparaging the U.S.-Philippine alliance and Western-made COVID vaccines. The news agency also uncovered that InfinitUs had created Ni Hao Manila, a media outlet designed to look Filipino-run, according to the former employees.
InfinitUs employees used accounts masquerading as pro-Beijing Filipinos to attack the U.S. and abuse a prominent nationalist lawmaker, the profiles and company records show. The documents include an August 2023 contract tasking InfinitUs with “guiding public opinion” on Facebook and X, as well as work-progress reports created for the embassy.
Reuters identified at least ten Facebook accounts that were part of what InfinitUs called an “army” in the documents. The platform’s owner Meta did not comment on the influence campaign but confirmed the accounts violated policy and removed them after being alerted by the news agency.
“ARMY ALWAYS SUPPORTS THE ADVOCACIES AND ACTIVITIES OF THE CHINESE AMBASSADOR’S PAGE,” read one work-progress report, referring to the troll army.
“Army propagated the special video explainer about the cons of the Typhon missile of the US being deployed (sic) the Philippines,” said another report from November 2024.
The accounts also promoted pro-China content featuring Filipino media personalities. They include Rommel Banlaoi, a Chinese-educated counter-terrorism scholar whose 2022 nomination to be deputy national security advisor was successfully opposed by security officials.
Banlaoi was among dozens of prominent Filipinos who have received awards from the Association of Philippines-China Understanding (APCU) since 2021. The organization was re-established by ex-Philippine president Gloria Arroyo and a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) agency that the U.S. previously accused of "co-opting subnational governments."
The embassy-funded awards came with thousands of dollars - multiples of the average Philippine monthly wage - APCU told Reuters.
Banlaoi did not respond to questions.
Asked about Reuters’ findings, Malaya - the Philippine official - said the government was aware “third-party proxies” echoed Chinese talking points that were then circulated by fake accounts “in an attempt to give it virality.”
“The end goal (of China) is to make the Philippines compliant,” Tolentino told Reuters.
The Philippines lacks robust foreign interference laws, though lawmakers are working on modernizing and expanding the rules so they also punish spreading disinformation. Potential penalties include heavy fines.
The activities of the InfinitUs-controlled accounts fit China’s foreign influence playbook, said Bethany Allen of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute think-tank, who has studied such information campaigns and reviewed Reuters’ findings.
X and YouTube host many accounts “which promote ‘happy nice China’ content (and sometimes more directly political content),” she said in an email, adding that they usually did not disclose affiliation with Beijing despite likely being funded by the CCP.
YouTube owner Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab and X did not return requests for comment.
Posts from a fake Facebook accounts are seen in this illustration taken October 3, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
CHINA, U.S. WAGE INFORMATION WAR
Both China and the U.S. have engaged in infowars over the Philippines.
Reuters revealed last year the U.S. had operated a program during the pandemic to undermine Chinese vaccines in the Philippines, including through fake social-media accounts.
The Chinese embassy said at that time that Washington should “stop slandering and smearing other countries."
The U.S. has more recently slashed funding for programs aimed at countering Beijing’s propaganda. In April, the State Department shuttered an office that had worked closely with Manila to counter Chinese influence campaigns after Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused it of censorship and wasting funds.
Manila had contributed to a database on Chinese operations run by the office, according to a Philippine official familiar with the matter.
A State Department spokesperson told Reuters that Manila and Washington continue to cooperate against “malign CCP activities.”
“Operations that undermine democratic discourse or spread discord are unacceptable” and foreign interference in the Philippines must be challenged, the spokesperson added.
The White House said in a statement that its effort to “eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse has not hindered U.S. influence.”
TROLL ARMY
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has, since taking office in 2022, forged closer security ties between Washington and Manila, a former colony that remains a key node in America’s Indo-Pacific defense strategy.
The Philippines also maintains extensive cultural and economic links with neighboring China.
Marcos Jr, who succeeded the pro-Beijing Rodrigo Duterte, has said that Manila would inevitably be pulled into any conflict over Taiwan.
Manila has also taken a more assertive stance in its territorial dispute with Beijing, which claims almost the entire South China Sea. China has frequently disrupted - sometimes violently - operations of Philippine vessels in Manila’s exclusive economic zone.
Marcos Jr’s foreign policy marked a sharp departure from his predecessor. While Duterte cozied up to China, Beijing rapidly militarized reclaimed islands in disputed waters and conducted aggressive maneuvers at sea.
As China’s image in the Philippines suffered, its Manila mission turned to InfinitUs.
Its owner, Li, also operates a business facilitating Chinese migration to the Philippines, corporate records show.
In fall 2020, InfinitUs brought online several Facebook accounts, which Reuters identified through an undated company report sent to the embassy. The document included records of comments the profiles had posted on the mission’s social pages.
The behavior of one of the profiles - “Vince” - was representative of the set.
“Vince” often praised China and defended its coast guard, while regularly sharing embassy content. The account lauded China’s Sinovac vaccine and circulated negative articles about Western-made shots.
“We should stop fighting China” on the maritime issue, “Vince” wrote.
InfinitUs did not appear to take great care in making the accounts seem authentic. The photo for one of the profiles was identical to an image for a “handsome Asian man” offered by visuals provider Dreamstime.
Dreamstime said it was aware its images were often misused by bot and troll networks and that it opposed such activity.
“Vince” also posted virtually identical reviews of businesses as two other accounts Reuters identified as controlled by InfinitUs, which Margot Hardy of online analysis firm Graphika said was a marker of inauthentic behavior.
InfinitUs was also behind profiles that attacked a prominent lawmaker, its embassy reports show.
The firm’s November 2024 report related how those accounts swarmed the profile of then-Congressman Robert Ace Barbers, a vocal proponent of legislation to bolster Filipino maritime claims.
The document described an “aggressive comment campaign” on Barbers’ Facebook posts that month to “protest his negative comments about China in relation to the new maritime protocols.”
It did not include examples. But days after the legislation passed, uncorroborated accusations of criminality began to multiply on Barbers’ previously published posts.
Barbers’ posts typically attracted several dozen comments each, but responses surged to the hundreds in late November.
“These trolls were programmed to influence the Filipinos to vote for someone,” said Barbers, referring to May’s midterm elections for which he was term-limited.
Meta told Reuters it invests heavily to protect elections online.
U.S.-based disinformation analytics firm Cyabra told Reuters that a surge of fake accounts likely linked to Beijing also targeted Marcos Jr on X with allegations of corruption and drug addiction during the campaigning period.
Reuters was not able to verify independently the existence of such a campaign but it reviewed many unsubstantiated X posts during that period that accused the president of illegal behavior.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said: “We will not, and have no interest in, interfering in Philippine elections.”
Then-Chinese Ambassador Huang Xilian delivers a speech during a ceremony for the 'Award for Promoting Philippines-China Understanding' by the Association for Philippines-China Understanding (APCU) at The Manila Hotel in Manila, Philippines, June 3, 2025. Huang ended his term in September 2025. REUTERS/Eloisa Lopez Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
PROXY WARFARE?
The trolls buttressed news-and-culture outlet Ni Hao Manila, which means "Hello, Manila” in Mandarin.
The outlet has posted videos highlighting Beijing’s naval prowess and criticizing Philippine security cooperation with the U.S. Some of its posts were also shared by the InfinitUs fake accounts.
One of the former employees said InfinitUs had purchased fake likes and follows from Facebook vendors for Ni Hao Manila, which has about 115,000 followers on YouTube and 300,000 on TikTok.
Graphika’s Hardy said the outlet’s TikTok channel exhibited inorganic behavior like videos with hundreds of likes but no comments.
TikTok said it investigated Ni Hao Manila’s account after being notified by Reuters and removed fake followers.
Ni Hao Manila amplified content from at least one Filipino involved in managing APCU, the Communist Party-affiliated organization.
Several serving or former Philippine officials also received awards that APCU says came with cash ranging from between roughly $850 and $3,440.
They include Manuel Mamba, a provincial leader who has opposed some plans to host the U.S. military; Regina Tecson, a key aide to Duterte’s daughter Sara; and Jaime T. Cruz and Carlos Chan, both former envoys to Beijing.
Mamba, who received an award APCU said was worth $2,570, told Reuters he accepted a plaque but was "not aware of any monetary award or quid pro quo in connection with this recognition.”
He said his engagement with foreign representatives - which had included receiving a donation from Taiwan for typhoon victims - was “consistent with my responsibility to promote cooperation and opportunities beneficial to my constituents.”
Tecson said there were no conditions attached to her award of about $1,700 and that she used the money for charity work.
Other recipients announced by APCU include Banlaoi, the national security nominee, as well as writers Herman Tiu Laurel, Adolfo Paglinawan and Rod Kapunan.
All four were also identified as instruments for Chinese influence in a 2024 presentation about foreign interference created for internal use by a Philippine security agency and seen by Reuters.
Tiu Laurel did not respond to specific questions but said the award recognized “individuals who stand for the truth in Philippine-China relations.”
APCU, as well as Cruz, Chan, Paglinawan and Kapunan did not return requests for comment.
Surveys indicate Filipino support for the U.S. alliance remains strong but former senator Tolentino said Beijing’s efforts were showing some signs of success.
Polls show the frontrunner for the 2028 presidential elections is Sara Duterte, who has criticized the term-limited Marcos Jr’s pro-American policies.
“Filipinos believe in social media,” Tolentino said. “They can be swayed.”
Reporting by Poppy McPherson in Bangkok and Karen Lema in Manila; Additional reporting by Devjyot Ghoshal in Bangkok, Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington and the Beijing newsroom; Editing by Katerina Ang
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
12. AI Models Need to be Disinfected — Or George Orwell’s “1984” Will Come True
A commercial for its product but some important points:
Excerpts:
‘Cognitive Colonization’
The authors add: “As the digital infrastructure we rely on for understanding the world becomes systematically compromised, distinguishing between authentic information and manufactured narratives becomes exponentially more difficult. The assault represents a form of cognitive colonization, where foreign authoritarian narratives become embedded in the digital infrastructure that shapes democratic societies’ understanding of reality.”
The researchers note how easy it is for the Russians to infect the AI models. Instead of having to generate large audiences for their Pravda network websites, the AI models used these fake news sites to dominate sources for AI model responses when people prompt the chatbots on topics in the news of special interest to the Kremlin — any one of those 207 false claims.
...
“This activity both undermines the capacity of users to critically assess current issues and potentially distorts collective memory for the future,” the war studies researchers write. “As such, it is a development that amounts to an AI empowered variant of the theme presented in George Orwell’s 1984, concerning the power to be derived from manipulating social memory — ‘who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’”
The authors note that Russian leaders have long rewritten history for their people — in the pre-internet Soviet era even mailing entry updates to owners of encyclopedias as revised history became official policy. Now, by infecting AI models, Russia is rewriting history for everyone around the world in real time.
AI Models Need to be Disinfected — Or George Orwell’s “1984” Will Come True
Commentary by NewsGuard Co-CEO Gordon Crovitz
https://www.newsguardrealitycheck.com/p/ai-models-need-to-be-disinfected
Oct 09, 2025
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Commentary: AI Models Need to Be Disinfected — Or George Orwell’s “1984” Will Come True
By Gordon Crovitz, NewsGuard Co-CEO
Recent forecasts say the AI companies could soon spend trillions of dollars to expand their AI offerings. In addition to paying for expensive chips and giant server farms, the AI companies should make their AI output trustworthy. They have allowed their models to be infected with malign falsehoods so deeply that they deliver on George Orwell’s prediction in “1984” that falsehoods would become perceived as truth.
That is the lesson from a sobering analysis published last week in an academic journal of how Vladimir Putin’s government has undermined the AI models by getting them to spew the Kremlin’s favorite false claims.
Huw Dylan and Elena Grossfeld of the Department of War Studies at King’s College London entitled their paper, “Revisionist future: Russia’s assault on large language models, the distortion of collective memory, and the politics of eternity,” published by the journal Dialogues on Digital Society.
The authors peg their concerns to the article “The AI Disinformation Battlefield” in the technology journal Enterprise Security Tech that details the results of a NewsGuard assessment. Our report issued in March showed that a Russian campaign called the Pravda Network had infected the AI models so badly that on average the models repeat false Kremlin claims one third of the time when people ask the chatbots about them. Using AI as a force multiplier to spread its disinformation at breathtaking scale, this network spread the Kremlin’s 207 favorite false claims by concocting and spreading 3.6 million articles in 2024 alone, using 150 fake news websites targeting 49 countries in dozens of languages, NewsGuard found. In other words, the Russians used AI to infect AI globally.
NewsGuard analysts tested the 10 largest AI models and found they routinely spread these Pravda Network false claims. Among the fabricated claims the models spread was that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky blocked U.S. President Donald Trump’s Truth Social app in Ukraine, that a Ukrainian battalion burned an effigy of Trump, and that Zelensky spent 14.2 million euros in Western military aid to buy the Eagle’s Nest estate frequented by Adolf Hitler.
Dylan and Grossfeld write that this means “Users consulting LLMs are increasingly receiving subtly contaminated responses: authoritative seeming answers imbued with conspiracy theories, fabricated narratives, or questionable interpretations.”
‘Cognitive Colonization’
The authors add: “As the digital infrastructure we rely on for understanding the world becomes systematically compromised, distinguishing between authentic information and manufactured narratives becomes exponentially more difficult. The assault represents a form of cognitive colonization, where foreign authoritarian narratives become embedded in the digital infrastructure that shapes democratic societies’ understanding of reality.”
The researchers note how easy it is for the Russians to infect the AI models. Instead of having to generate large audiences for their Pravda network websites, the AI models used these fake news sites to dominate sources for AI model responses when people prompt the chatbots on topics in the news of special interest to the Kremlin — any one of those 207 false claims.
‘Permanent Distortions’
“The strategy appears to be working,” the authors conclude. “A NewsGuard audit of ten leading AI tools…found that these models repeated Pravda’s false narratives 33% of the time….This represents a fundamental shift,” they explained. “Rather than targeting human audiences directly, Moscow’s information warfare machine is attacking upstream, poisoning the data streams that AI models rely upon to generate responses. In so doing they are, or risk, creating permanent distortions in the collective digital memory.”
AI Models Turn 2025 Into 1984
“This activity both undermines the capacity of users to critically assess current issues and potentially distorts collective memory for the future,” the war studies researchers write. “As such, it is a development that amounts to an AI empowered variant of the theme presented in George Orwell’s 1984, concerning the power to be derived from manipulating social memory — ‘who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’”
The authors note that Russian leaders have long rewritten history for their people — in the pre-internet Soviet era even mailing entry updates to owners of encyclopedias as revised history became official policy. Now, by infecting AI models, Russia is rewriting history for everyone around the world in real time.
We should disclose self-interest: After NewsGuard analysts discovered how the Russians infect the AI models, we launched a new product to disinfect the AI models from the Pravda Network and other hostile information operations. The FAILSafe product, whose tagline is “Disinfect Your AI,” provides real-time debunkings of false claims made by Russians, Chinese and Iranians to prevent the AI models from spreading the claims. This is a subset of our False Claims Fingerprints datastream.
While some AI models have licensed some of our data, none has yet licensed our full tools to defeat campaigns like the Pravda Network. Executives at the AI models tell us they know their models are being abused to spread hostile government falsehoods, but say they have other problems to fix first. We hope they act sooner rather than later against these malign actors for the sake of the users of their AI models — and to prevent George Orwell’s warning becoming true.
Gordon Crovitz is the Co-CEO and Co-Editor-In-Chief of NewsGuard. Previously, he was publisher of The Wall Street Journal.
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13. Kelly Secures Major Arizona and National Priorities in the Senate Passed Annual Defense Bill - Senator Mark Kelly - McCain Irregular Warfare Center – Center of Excellence
Probably a pretty good summary of the Senate's version of the NDAA.
But I am not sure about this. I wish there was a McCain Irregular Warfare Center. See the October 24, 2024 announcement below this article.
McCain Irregular Warfare Center – Center of Excellence
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Provides $6 million budget for the McCain Irregular Warfare Center, which was established by Kelly. In October 2024, DoD awarded a contract to Arizona State University to lead this national consortium supporting the Center.
Kelly Secures Major Arizona and National Priorities in the Senate Passed Annual Defense Bill - Senator Mark Kelly
kelly.senate.gov · October 10, 2025
Kelly blocks cuts to Electronic Proving Ground at Ft. Huachuca, other electronic warfare sites
Includes Kelly-backed ROAD to Housing Act to make historic progress to address the affordable housing crisis
Supports major infrastructure projects at Luke Air Force Base, Yuma Proving Ground, Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Camp Navajo, and military facilities across Arizona
Today, Senate Armed Services Committee member and 25-year Navy combat veteran Mark Kelly announced that the Senate passed the annual defense bill, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This year’s NDAA includes major priorities Sen. Kelly secured through his leadership on the Senate Armed Services Committee to strengthen Arizona’s military installations, support servicemembers, and advance U.S. national security. The bill, which passed the Senate with bipartisan support, includes Kelly’s provisions to block staffing cuts to Fort Huachuca’s Electronic Proving Ground, continue upgrades at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, and expand Arizona’s role in military modernization and emerging defense technologies.
Kelly is the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Airland, where he led work on the portions of the NDAA that cover Army, Air Force, National Guard and Reserve planning, programs, procurement, and research and development. He is also the co-chair of the Defense Modernization Caucus, focused on integrating and adopting emergent technologies.
Kelly also supported inclusion of the ROAD to Housing Act, which will increase the country’s housing supply and make housing more affordable.
See more details about the bill and Senator Kelly’s work on the Senate Armed Services Committee here.
“Right now, too many military families are facing uncertainty about their pay and livelihoods because of this shutdown, but our servicemembers continue to show up every day. They deserve better,” said Senator Kelly. “The defense bill we passed shows what bipartisan work can achieve when Congress does its job.”
Kelly continued, “This defense bill protects critical missions at Fort Huachuca, upgrades Arizona’s bases, and gives our military the tools and technology needed to stay ahead of our adversaries. It supports servicemembers and their families with pay raises and improved benefits, and it strengthens America’s alliances around the world. These are the kinds of investments that keep our country safe and ensure Arizona remains at the center of our national defense. And we’re also taking landmark bipartisan steps to help more Arizonans afford their rent and buy a house by including the ROAD to Housing Act.”
See below for a breakdown of priorities Kelly secured:
Electronic Warfare Test and Evaluation
For months, Kelly has been pressing the Army over concerns with how plans to cut staff at Ft. Huachuca’s Electronic Proving Ground (EPG) and other Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC) sites could weaken our electronic warfare (EW) testing and readiness. The EPG serves as the U.S. Army’s primary testing facility for electronic warfare systems. The facility is uniquely situated in a natural geographic bowl surrounded by mountains and enjoys over 320 clear flying days per year in protected federal airspace—conditions that make it ideal for high-powered jamming and advanced EW testing without external interference.
Kelly secured a provision in the defense bill that stops the Army from making these cuts without first reporting to the congressional defense committees on the basis for the cuts, findings from an independent review by the Director of the Office of Cost and Assessment and Program Evaluation, and a certification by the Director of the Test Resource Management Center that the analyses and decision meet Department of Defense’s requirement.
The Senate-passed NDAA also includes the following Kelly provisions that he added on the Senate floor:
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The ROAD to Housing Act: Makes historic progress to address the affordable housing crisis and modernizes how the federal government supports families, renters, and homeowners by increasing housing supply, cutting red tape that drives up costs, and promoting local solutions to address shortages and homelessness. The legislation also strengthens oversight of federal housing programs, expands financial literacy tools for families, and prioritizes initiatives that reward communities and service providers working to reduce homelessness and help families afford their homes.
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The SEIZE Act: Authorizes the use of Presidential Drawdown Authority to transfer confiscated Iranian weapons seized in transit to terror proxies like the Houthis in Yemen directly to U.S. partners. The SEIZE Act would bypass a potentially year-long legal process for distributing captured Iranian weapons and equipment held by U.S. CENTCOM. Right now, CENTCOM spends taxpayer money to store, safeguard, and transfer this seized equipment; the SEIZE Act would allow those weapons to be sent quickly and directly to trusted U.S. military partners around the globe.
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The Mexico Security Assistance Accountability Act: Requires the State Department to develop a comprehensive strategy to dismantle Mexican drug cartels and ensure U.S. security assistance delivers the best return on investment for taxpayers.
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The COUNTER Act: To modify the authority to protect certain facilities and assets of the United States from incursions.
- Directing the Air Force to collaborate with academic institutions on expanding space domain awareness infrastructure and testing capabilities. This provision strengthens collaboration between the U.S. Space Force and universities conducting cutting-edge research to track and monitor space activity critical to U.S. national security.
Kelly Airland Subcommittee Priorities
The following priorities were secured by Senator Kelly on the Airland Subcommittee to ensure our military readiness and force modernization:
- Authorizes 34 new F-35A’s for the Air Force. Luke AFB is a training base for F-35 pilots.
- Requires a roadmap for Air Force bombers and accounts for advancing the B-21 to manufacturing and production.
- With Kelly’s support, prohibits the Air Force from retiring A-10 aircraft ahead of schedule such that the inventory would drop below 103 aircraft next year.
- Requires a briefing on Army efforts to optimize its prepositioned stocks program to ensure that the Army has the right equipment in the right location with the right readiness level.
- Requires a report on the Army’s proposed plan to integrate Army Futures Command and Training and Doctrine Command.
- Requires a plan from the Air Force on the future of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) assets.
- Supports procurement of the MH-139 Grey Wolf helicopter to modernize the aging fleet of UH-1 helicopters.
- Supports the Kelly-backed servicemember right to repair initiative by requiring contractors for covered equipment to submit instructions for continued operational readiness necessary for operations, maintenance, installation, and training.
Defense Modernization
Kelly is the co-chair of the Defense Modernization Caucus, which is focused on strengthening national security by integrating and adopting emergent technologies and ensuring the U.S. military is equipped with the most advanced tools and strategies to counter rising threats.
- Requires DoD to develop a roadmap for the small, unmanned aircraft system (sUAS) industrial base to support existing sUAS programs.
- Requires an evaluation of the suitability of a corridor for testing hypersonic and long-range weapons in the continental United States.
- Provides the combatant commands the authority to conduct experimentation, prototyping, and technology demonstrations to support the development and testing of innovative technologies and capability solutions to address operational needs identified by the combatant command.
- Supports the servicemember right to repair initiative by requiring contractors for covered equipment to submit instructions for continued operational readiness necessary for operations, maintenance, installation, and training.
- Requires the Department to integrate electronic warfare into Tier 1 and Tier 2 joint exercises.
- Establishes an alternative pathway for the test and evaluation (T&E) of software acquisition programs using the software acquisition pathway, and other programs designated by the Secretary of Defense.
Arizona Priorities Requested and Secured by Kelly:
MCAS Yuma
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$26.1 million to design a replacement for the aging water treatment plant on base that the Marine Corps has indicated poses the potential for increased health risks to servicemembers and their families. Kelly has worked over the past few years to advance and secure funding for the new water treatment plant.
- $6.7 million to design replacements for barracks that are in disrepair.
Davis-Monthan Air Force Base
- Requires the Air Force to update Congress to provide oversight on the transition of the new power projection wing to DM.
- $49 million to construct a new Communications Squadron headquarters facility, which is necessary to support the transition of new flying missions to the base.
- $50 million to construct a new MC-130J hangar and maintenance facility to support the new mission coming to DM.
Fort Huachuca
- $2 million to design a replacement for the Libby Army Airfield Flight Control Tower, which is forty years old and operating beyond its capacity with complex integrated flight operations.
- $2 million for data centric implementation to support NETCOM’s AI capabilities ensuring safe, reliable, and accessible data to inform and enable Army and Joint Force Commanders and maintain confidentiality and integrity of information necessary for decision making and control of forces and systems. NETCOM is based at Ft. Huachuca.
- Requires a demonstration of a joint multi-domain testing and training environment by interconnecting existing ranges and sites in the western states.
- Requires a briefing on a phased implementation plan to connect these ranges and testing sites.
Yuma Proving Ground
- $990k to plan replacements or repairs for Pole Line Road, an interior test road on the base that is in disrepair and causing delays to testing.
Luke Air Force Base
- $45 million to construct a much-needed child development center for servicemembers and their families on base. This follows planning and design funds secured by Senator Kelly in the past two defense bills.
Air National Guard
- Requires that the Air Force retain KC-135 Stratotankers as they are replaced by KC-46 aircraft and reassign them based on the availability of an air refueling wing to man additional aircraft and support pilot training requirements. This will expand the Air Force’s ability to meet air refueling requirements. The 161st Air Refueling Wing in Phoenix flies KC-135 Stratotankers.
- Authorizes the Air National Guard to acquire 10 acres of land from the Tucson International Airport in order to build a new entry gate at Morris Air National Guard Base as planned. This new entry gate will improve security and traffic for the base and local community.
McCain Irregular Warfare Center – Center of Excellence
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Provides $6 million budget for the McCain Irregular Warfare Center, which was established by Kelly. In October 2024, DoD awarded a contract to Arizona State University to lead this national consortium supporting the Center.
Camp Navajo
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$4 million to design a replacement for the installation’s entry bridge that is 80 years old and in need of replacement. This funding follows a DoD assessment that Senator Kelly secured in a previous defense bill.
Southwest Border Oversight and Cooperation
- At Kelly’s request, requires a quarterly report from the DoD on the Defense posture at the Southwest border that will allow Congress to oversee the mission and understand its impacts on readiness.
- Supports increased cooperation between the U.S. and Mexican militaries through a joint counter-transnational criminal organization training program that will share best practices in tactics, techniques, and procedures for countering narcotics trafficking.
Recruitment
- In order to boost recruitment and make more young Americans aware of the opportunities of military service, Kelly worked to include new requirements for military recruiters to have access to high schools for visits throughout the year and better information to reach out to students.
Nuclear Program Oversight and Assessment
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Requires a Kelly-requested GAO report to assess the effectiveness of middle tier rapid prototyping authority for the Sea-Launched Cruise Missile-Nuclear (SLCM-N) program. Over the past few years, Kelly has raised concerns with military leadership about the tradeoffs of installing this new nuclear weapon on conventional Virginia Class attack submarines.
Security Cooperation and Supporting American Alliances
- Includes Kelly-backed provisions to prohibit drawdown of U.S. military troops on the Korean Peninsula and in Europe to deter adversaries like Russia and North Korea and support our allies in the region.
- Extends the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) through 2028 and increases authorized funding to $500 million. Also directs DoD to work with Ukraine to develop a maintenance plan to ensure that western-transferred military equipment is sustained.
- Authorizes $1 billion for the Taiwan Security Cooperation Initiative and expands the authority to include a provision broadening its scope to support combat casualty care and medical equipment.
Stopping China from Obtaining U.S. Military Expertise
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Requires the Secretary of Defense to brief Congress on implementation of the requirements to notify servicemembers of the prohibition on post-service employment with adversarial governments, building on Kelly’s work to disrupt the Chinese military’s efforts to collect information about U.S. military tactics, techniques, and procedures.
Support for Servicemembers and military families:
- Includes a 3.8 percent pay raise for military service members.
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Requires a report on the implementation of Kelly’s Brandon Act across active duty and reserve component troops on active-duty orders. The report must include a description and timeline of any communications or efforts made to implement the annual training.
- At Kelly’s request, requires DoD to identify ways to improve the transition of military medics separating from the military into the civilian workforce.
- Requires DoD to identify any barriers for aligning credentials and licensing for military medics transitioning to the civilian health care workforce, and to consider the potential impacts of clarifying military credentials with state credentialing boards and programs to bridge military medic with civilian credentials and licenses. Requires a report to make both recommendations and a plan for implementation.
- Authorizes $50 million for DoD assistance to educational agencies affected by the enrollment of military and DoD civilian dependents, $10 million for impact aid payments for children with disabilities, and $20 million for local educational agencies determined by the Secretary of Defense to have high concentrations of military children with severe disabilities.
Requires a Kelly-backed update to existing Department of Defense Education Activity (DODEA) regulations on the student use of portable electronic mobile devices in DODEA schools to prohibit disruption in the learning environment.
kelly.senate.gov · October 10, 2025
Kelly, Sinema Announce Selection of ASU for John S. McCain III Irregular Warfare Center of Excellence
https://www.kelly.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/kelly-sinema-announce-selection-of-asu-for-john-s-mccain-iii-irregular-warfare-center-of-excellence/
Today, U.S. Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ), a 25-year Navy combat veteran and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, alongside Senator Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), announced that Arizona State University has been selected and awarded over $24 million by the Department of Defense (DoD) to establish the John S. McCain III Center for Security Studies in Irregular Warfare Center of Excellence (COE). Through this ASU-led consortium, the COE will leverage a whole-of-society perspective to develop innovative approaches to irregular warfare, a critical area for maintaining U.S. national security amid evolving global threats.
ASU’s Irregular Warfare Center of Excellence will serve as a focal point for collaboration between the DoD, academic institutions, civilian experts, foreign partners, and allies. It will draw on the expertise of ASU’s nationally ranked research programs, its Center on the Future of War, and its global partnerships. Our adversaries use forms of irregular warfare, such as disinformation campaigns, cybersecurity intrusions, economic coercion, and non-state proxies to disrupt global stability and undermine U.S. interests. The Center will develop innovative strategies to address the complex and non-traditional nature of irregular warfare, which DoD can then incorporate to our military’s advantage.
This selection follows Kelly’s successful efforts to secure language in the National Defense Authorization Act that directed the DoD to establish the Center, named it after Senator McCain, and authorized additional funding to accelerate its creation. Since the Center’s creation in 2021, Kelly and Sinema have consistently championed its mission, advocating for its establishment in Arizona and pressing the DoD to execute the vision Congress outlined for the Center.
“The establishment of the McCain Irregular Warfare Center of Excellence at ASU will put Arizona at the forefront of better understanding these challenges to our national security and developing the strategies to overcome them,” said Kelly. “This Center will bring together the brightest minds from across government, academia, and our international partners in a whole-of-society effort that will make our country and our allies safer. Senator McCain knew the importance of this mission, and I’m proud to honor his legacy by putting Arizona at the center of this vital work.”
“After years of bureaucratic delays, I worked directly with the White House to establish the Irregular Warfare Center at ASU. I’m proud to have cut through the red tape to deliver this important center to the best academic institution in the country,” said Sinema.
“Arizona State University has been disciplined about developing expertise in this area and we are committed to being of service at the highest level for this important national security assignment,” said ASU President Michael Crow. “Being selected to lead this work is a responsibility that we take very seriously, and we are grateful to the entire Arizona Congressional delegation for its support and confidence in us, and particularly for the leadership of Senators Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema.”
14. The Sneaky Reason China Wants a Big Fleet of Aircraft Carriers
Excerpts:
America’s carrier manages tempo at distance, orchestrating a dispersed magazine while insulating the fleet from the worst threat rings. Each approach is coherent when judged against its intended fight; each is vulnerable when employed against type.
The strategic implication is clear. China’s newest deck—enabled by catapults, AEW&C, and a maturing stealth fighter—will complicate operations for others inside the island chains and make nearby seas more hospitable to Chinese forces.
America’s Ford-era deck—anchored by AEW&C, fifth-generation fighters, electronic attack, cooperative engagement, and the coming unmanned tanker—serves as the theater’s management layer, preserving options when the shooting starts and the lights flicker. Survivability for both will depend less on steel and more on geometry, deception, and allied depth.
Judge them on those terms and the logic clarifies. Use China’s carriers to capitalize on the umbrella; use America’s to preserve options beyond it. Employed as close-in battering rams, both will be squandered. Employed as the brains and lungs of their respective systems, both will shape the fight in precisely the ways modern carrier air wings are designed to do.
The Sneaky Reason China Wants a Big Fleet of Aircraft Carriers
nationalsecurityjournal.org · Andrew Latham · October 12, 2025
Key Points and Summary – U.S. and Chinese aircraft carriers are evolving for fundamentally different roles, not as mirror images.
-China’s carriers are “mobile nodes” designed to operate under the protective “umbrella” of their land-based missile and sensor networks, thickening their anti-access bubble in their near seas.
USS John F. Kennedy Aircraft Carrier Model
Pacific Ocean, July 25, 2005 – USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) performs a high speed run during operations in the Pacifc Ocean. Ronald Reagan and Carrier Air Wing One Four (CVW-14) are currently underway conducting Tailored Ships Training Availability (TSTA). Official US Navy Photo by Photographers Mate 1st Class James Thierry. (RELEASED)
-In contrast, America’s Ford-class carriers are becoming “roaming nerve centers” for distributed warfare.
-Operating from safer distances, their air wings act as quarterbacks, finding targets and cueing strikes from other ships, submarines, and allies, thereby managing a theater-wide battle network.
China and the U.S. Are Building Aircraft Carriers for Two Completely Different Wars
With hypersonic and ballistic anti-ship missiles, persistent multi-sensor nets, subsurface and undersea threats, and electronic disruption saturating the maritime battlespace, both China and the United States are reassessing the role of the aircraft carrier in their naval strategies.
China has adjusted to this new ecosystem by turning its flattops into floating nodes in an anti-access umbrella rather than self-contained mobile strike platforms.
The United States is adapting by reimagining carriers as roaming nerve centers of distributed kill chains at range: emphasizing endurance, hard-to-target networking, deception and magazine management while cueing third-party shooters and keeping big decks outside the densest threat rings until the fight can be shaped.
The Kill-Chain Reality
Naval warfare in that ecosystem is less about platform versus platform than it is about the creation, protection, and destruction of kill chains—continuous loops of find, fix, track, and strike that crisscross sea, air, space, cyber, and the electromagnetic spectrum.
Wide-area surveillance, passive RF sensing, and long-range missiles link coastal launchers, aircraft, submarines, and drones into a distributed hunting system. Carriers are threatened less by a single knockout blow in that context than by persistent, layered targeting that compresses the space and time in which they can operate.
250923-N-FY193-1405 ATLANTIC OCEAN (Sept. 23, 2025) The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) conducts carrier qualifications in the Atlantic Ocean. Truman is currently underway carrying out routine operations that support the Navy’s commitment to readiness, innovation, and future fleet lethality. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Mike Shen)
(August 15, 2008) With SH-60 helicopters moving pallets of supplies both USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) and USNS Bridge (T-AOE 10) work together during a replenishment at sea or RAS. With Reagan’s six galleys and approximately 4,100 Sailors it takes a lot of produce to feed that many folks and the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier got what it needed from USNS Bridge to do so.
The Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group is on a routine deployment in the 7th Fleet area of responsibility. Operating in the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean, the U.S. 7th Fleet is the largest of the forward-deployed U.S. fleets covering 52 million square miles, with approximately 50 ships, 120 aircraft and 20,000 Sailors and Marines assigned at any given time.
U.S. Navy photo by Senior Chief Mass Communication Specialist (SW/NAC) Spike Call
The solution begins upstream: break the sensor web, degrade track quality, and seed doubt about where and when the carrier matters. Layered defenses and cooperative engagement can provide some time when salvos do come—but only if that earlier disruption has already blurred the enemy’s picture.
China’s Carriers Under the Umbrella
China’s newest deck aviation should be read through this lens.
The shift from ski-jumps to catapults enables heavier takeoff weights, longer legs, and a richer mix of sensors and jammers. A catapult-launched AEW&C aircraft expands the radar horizon and tightens fire-control quality for land-based shooters, while a stealth-capable deck fighter promises scouting and limited penetrating strike under the protection of the mainland’s air-defense and missile canopy.
Add updated strike and electronic-attack variants of familiar airframes and the result is a carrier air wing that amplifies the reconnaissance–strike complex already radiating from China’s coastline.
This concept is purposeful and bounded. China is not trying to achieve absolute control but to make nearby seas more usable for its forces and more unpredictable for others inside the first and second island chains. Within that geography, the carrier extends combat air patrols, pushes sensors outward, and offers flexible presence for crises short of war. Beyond that geography, value falls as attrition rises.
The farther a Chinese carrier sails from the umbrella of land-based ISR, long-range fires, and protected logistics, the more its air wing must shoulder tasks that shore networks have previously carried. That means more organic tanking, more persistent AEW, deeper magazines, and hardened command-and-control—capabilities that are improving but still maturing for long-range operations.
The world’s largest aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), conducts flight operations in the North Sea, Aug. 23, 2025. Gerald R. Ford, a first-in-class aircraft carrier and deployed flagship of Carrier Strike Group Twelve, is on a scheduled deployment in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations to support the warfighting effectiveness, lethality, and readiness of U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa, and defend U.S., Allied and partner interests in the region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Maxwell Orlosky)
Measured against its primary mission—thickening denial close to home—China’s latest carrier is a significant step forward. Catapults and AEW&C are the big enablers; a stealthy deck fighter and improved electronic attack give the wing a sharper edge; and integration with shore-based sensors and missiles turns the ship into a mobile node rather than a standalone punch. The practical limits are equally clear: survivability hinges on remaining under the lattice; endurance and maintenance cycles will be tested by distance; and sustained high-tempo operations far from protected waters will demand logistics depth and training density that take time to build. Inside the umbrella, the platform’s contribution is meaningful and growing. Outside it, risk and cost rise quickly.
America’s Carriers as Roaming Nerve Centers
The United States is solving a different problem. Its carriers must help hold a theater together when satellites are dazzled, shore bases are cratered, and allies are dispersed. The Ford class brings electrical margin, electromagnetic launch and recovery, and a flight-deck architecture built for higher operational tempo. Those are not ends in themselves. They enable a carrier that operates as a roaming nerve center: an AEW&C platform that quarterbacks the network; fifth-generation fighters that scout, fuse, and pass tracks while managing their own signatures; electronic-attack aircraft that strangle search radars and degrade datalinks; and third-party shooters—surface, subsurface, and ashore—that fire on cues from the air wing.
This orchestration extends to defense. The same network that enables long-reach offensive fires stitches together layered air and missile defenses, extending intercept envelopes through off-board sensing and cooperative engagement.
Magazine management becomes as decisive as raw strike tonnage: deck cycles that replenish interceptors, tankers that keep fighters on-station, and deception that soaks enemy shots into decoys rather than hulls. Resilience is the coin of the realm—multiple paths for targeting data, emissions control to reduce exposure, and tactics that keep the big deck moving outside the hottest threat rings until the conditions for a push are set.
Range and endurance remain the unforgiving math of the Pacific, and here the U.S. mix is being recalibrated. Organic tanking from a deck-based unmanned aircraft promises to restore reach and on-station time for the air wing, allowing standoff to become plan rather than aspiration.
Paired with a next-generation fighter designed for persistence, the carrier can operate from safer geometry while still arriving at decisive places fast enough to matter. The Ford’s electrical margin supports future sensors and directed-energy defenses; its launch-and-recovery systems are maturing into reliable tools for higher sortie generation and heavier bring-backs.
None of this substitutes for disciplined maintenance, parts pipelines, and training, but where those foundations hold, the class is well-suited to the mission of managing kill chains across theater scale.
Against its mission—keeping allies stitched together, coordinating third-party fires, and preserving tempo under pressure—the Ford-era carrier is fit for purpose. It is not optimized to batter coastal batteries on day one; it is optimized to make the adversary’s targeting brittle, keep friendly magazines fed, and create the windows in which joint and allied forces can deliver decisive effects. That requires ruthless employment concepts: keep big decks at range until sensors are stunned, complicate enemy scouting with deception and decoys, and pulse forward only when magazine depth and off-board fires justify the exposure.
Strategy, Survivability, and the Bottom Line
Taken together, the two carrier programs now look less like mirror images and more like complementary studies in purpose. China’s carrier thickens a denial architecture close to home, extending sensors, CAP, and electronic warfare under a protective canopy.
America’s carrier manages tempo at distance, orchestrating a dispersed magazine while insulating the fleet from the worst threat rings. Each approach is coherent when judged against its intended fight; each is vulnerable when employed against type.
The strategic implication is clear. China’s newest deck—enabled by catapults, AEW&C, and a maturing stealth fighter—will complicate operations for others inside the island chains and make nearby seas more hospitable to Chinese forces.
America’s Ford-era deck—anchored by AEW&C, fifth-generation fighters, electronic attack, cooperative engagement, and the coming unmanned tanker—serves as the theater’s management layer, preserving options when the shooting starts and the lights flicker. Survivability for both will depend less on steel and more on geometry, deception, and allied depth.
Judge them on those terms and the logic clarifies. Use China’s carriers to capitalize on the umbrella; use America’s to preserve options beyond it. Employed as close-in battering rams, both will be squandered. Employed as the brains and lungs of their respective systems, both will shape the fight in precisely the ways modern carrier air wings are designed to do.
About the Author: Dr. Andrew Latham
Andrew Latham is a Senior Washington Fellow with the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy, a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities, and a professor of international relations and political theory at Macalester College in Saint Paul, MN. You can follow him on X: @aakatham. He writes a daily column for the National Security Journal.
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nationalsecurityjournal.org · Andrew Latham · October 12, 2025
15. China honing abilities for a possible future attack, Taiwan defence report warns
Key points:
Taiwan releases once-every-two-years defence report
Taiwan details China's use of 'hybrid' tactics to undermine trust
China claims Taiwan as its own territory, which Taipei rejects
SHIFTING A DRILL TO AN ATTACK
MANIPULATING SOCIAL MEDIA
China honing abilities for a possible future attack, Taiwan defence report warns
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/taiwan-defence-report-warns-increased-threat-china-2025-10-09/?utm
By Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard
October 9, 20255:58 AM EDTUpdated October 8, 2025
Summary
- Taiwan releases once-every-two-years defence reportTaiwan details China's use of 'hybrid' tactics to undermine trustChina claims Taiwan as its own territory, which Taipei rejects
TAIPEI, Oct 9 (Reuters) - China is increasing military activities near Taiwan and honing its ability to stage a surprise attack, as well as seeking to undermine trust in the government with "hybrid" online warfare tactics, the island's defence ministry said on Thursday.
Democratically-governed Taiwan, which China views as its own territory, has faced increased military pressure from Beijing over the past five years, including at least seven rounds of major war games around the island since 2022.
The Reuters Tariff Watch newsletter is your daily guide to the latest global trade and tariff news. Sign up here."The Chinese communists have adopted routine grey zone harassment tactics, combined with joint combat readiness patrols, targeted military exercises and cognitive warfare, posing a comprehensive threat to us," the defence ministry said in a report released every two years.
Grey zone refers to non-combat operations designed to put pressure on Taiwan such as coast guard patrols, damage to undersea cables and flying balloons.
China's coast guard is expanding its activities around Taiwan and may in future take "aggressive containment measures" in concert with the military while rehearsing attack scenarios, the report said.
SHIFTING A DRILL TO AN ATTACK
Beijing is also using "hybrid warfare" to weaken people's trust in the government and support for defence spending, and using artificial intelligence tools to weaken Taiwan's cybersecurity and to scan for weak points in critical infrastructure, it added.
"Through both conventional and unconventional military actions, it aims to test its capabilities for attacking Taiwan and confronting foreign forces," the ministry said.
China's defence ministry did not respond to a request for comment. China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control.
A China Coast Guard vessel is seen on a giant screen showing news footage about the coast guard's law enforcement patrols in waters around Taiwan, outside a shopping mall in Beijing, China, April 1, 2025. REUTERS/Florence Lo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
China could also try to suddenly shift drills into active combat mode to catch Taiwan and its international supporters off guard, posing a significant threat to regional peace and security, Taiwan's ministry added.
In recent years, China has been extensively using civilian roll-on/roll-off merchant vessels for military transport operations and continues to develop specialised equipment for beach landing operations, the ministry said.
MANIPULATING SOCIAL MEDIA
The report said China is using a "professional cyber army" to manipulate social media accounts and flood them with misinformation to sow division in Taiwanese society and weaken trust in the government.
Chinese state media outlets and collaborators have also worked to weaken the will to fight, it said.
The ministry added China has also been using deepfake technology to make videos and utilising AI to "generate polarising political rhetoric".
China considers Taiwan President Lai Ching-te a "separatist". Lai rejects Beijing's sovereignty claims, saying only the island's people can decide their future.
Taiwan's government has embarked on a military modernisation programme and pledged to spend 5% of GDP on defence by 2030.
The report was released one day before Lai gives his key national day speech. China last year held war games after that same event in what it said was a warning to "separatist acts".
China's last formal war games around Taiwan took place in April, though its warplanes and warships operate almost daily in the skies and waters close to the island.
Reporting by Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Kate Mayberry
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
16. Taiwan says it's still assessing impact of China rare earths curbs on chip industry
Taiwan says it's still assessing impact of China rare earths curbs on chip industry
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/taiwan-says-its-still-assessing-impact-china-rare-earths-curbs-chip-industry-5397006
channelnewsasia.com
TAIPEI: Most rare earth materials used in Taiwan are supplied by Europe, the United States and Japan, but the impact of China's new curbs on the semiconductor industry still needs to be assessed, the island's economy ministry said on Sunday (Oct 12).
China dramatically expanded its rare earths export controls on Thursday, adding five new elements and extra scrutiny for chip users as Beijing tightens control over the sector ahead of mooted talks between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Taiwan's economy ministry said in a statement about China's new rules that most rare-earth-related materials needed domestically are supplied by Europe, the United States and Japan.
"The impact on the operation of the semiconductor industry still requires further stocktaking and assessment. We will continue to monitor changes in raw material costs and any indirect effects that supply-chain adjustments may bring," it said.
Taiwan is home to the world's largest contract chipmaker TSMC, the producer of the vast majority of advanced chips that are a key component of artificial intelligence applications.
Earlier on Sunday, China defended its curbs on exports of rare earth elements and equipment, saying they were motivated by concern about these metals' military applications at a time of "frequent military conflict".
Source: Reuters/kl
Newsletter
17. Beijing blames US for raising trade tensions, defends rare earth curbs
Beijing blames US for raising trade tensions, defends rare earth curbs
The revived trade tensions between US and China have rattled Wall Street, sending Big Tech shares tumbling.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/us-china-trade-tensions-rare-earth-curbs-5396801
channelnewsasia.com
BEIJING: China called US President Donald Trump's latest tariffs on Chinese goods hypocritical on Sunday (Oct 12) and defended its curbs on exports of rare earth elements and equipment, but stopped short of imposing new levies on US products.
Trump on Friday responded to Beijing's most recent export controls by imposing additional tariffs of 100 per cent on China's US-bound exports, along with new export controls on critical software by Nov 1.
The revived trade tensions have rattled Wall Street, sending Big Tech shares tumbling, worried foreign companies dependent on China's production of processed rare earths and rare earth magnets, and could derail a summit between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping tentatively scheduled for later this month.
RESPONDING TO TRUMP
The Chinese commerce ministry's statement on Sunday was Beijing's first direct response to Trump's lengthy Truth Social post on Friday, where he accused Beijing of suddenly raising trade tensions after an uneasy truce was reached six months ago between the world's two largest economies, allowing them to trade goods without sky-high tariff rates.
"Our relationship with China over the past six months has been a very good one, thereby making this move on Trade an even more surprising one," Trump said.
The commerce ministry said in an equally lengthy statement that its export controls on rare-earth elements followed a series of US measures since bilateral trade talks in Madrid last month.
Beijing cited the addition of Chinese companies to a US trade blacklist and Washington's imposition of port fees on China-linked ships as examples.
"The US actions have severely harmed China’s interests and undermined the atmosphere of bilateral economic and trade talks, and China is resolutely opposed to them," the ministry said.
Beijing stopped short of explicitly connecting these US actions to its export curbs on rare-earth elements, saying they were motivated by concern about these materials' military applications at a time of "frequent military conflicts".
It also held off on announcing a corresponding levy on China-bound US imports, unlike earlier in the year, when both superpowers progressively ratcheted up tariffs on each other until the US rate was 145 per cent while China's was 125 per cent.
"PATH FOR NEGOTIATIONS"
China's decision not to immediately respond in kind to Trump's opening salvo in this latest round of trade tensions could leave the door open for both countries to negotiate a de-escalation, analysts said.
"By clarifying the rationale behind its retaliatory measures, Beijing is also outlining a potential path forward for negotiations. The ball is now in the US court," said Alfredo Montufar-Helu, managing director at strategic advisory firm GreenPoint.
But Hutong Research said in a note on Saturday that if Beijing chooses not to respond to Trump's 100% tariff hike, it may signal that it no longer prioritises a long-term deal with him, reflecting diminished confidence in his ability to restrain hawks or stick to commitments.
"Key watchpoints now: Whether Beijing moves to freeze or complicate the TikTok sale, given its political symbolism. Proceeding with the sale under current conditions would be seen as a major concession (from Beijing)," the research firm said.
Other tools in Beijing's arsenal include regulatory action targeting US companies. China's State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) said last month that leading US AI chip manufacturer Nvidia violated the country's anti-monopoly law during US-China trade talks in Madrid.
The market regulator on Friday announced an antitrust investigation into US chip manufacturer Qualcomm over its June 2025 acquisition of Israeli chip designer Autotalks.
A few hours after the commerce ministry's response to Trump's post and tariff hike, SAMR said Qualcomm had completed the acquisition without informing the regulator, adding that the US firm had acknowledged this.
"Based on clear facts and conclusive evidence, our bureau lawfully initiated an investigation into Qualcomm's unlawful ... acquisition of Autotalks," SAMR said.
CHINA SAYS EXPORT CONTROLS ARE NOT EXPORT BANS
The commerce ministry also countered Trump's narrative that China was using its dominance in processed rare earths and rare earth magnets to attack all countries, not just the US
"We have been contacted by other Countries who are extremely angry at this great trade hostility, which came out of nowhere," Trump said on Friday on Truth Social.
China produces over 90 per cent of the world's processed rare earths and rare earth magnets. The 17 rare earths are vital materials in products ranging from electric vehicles to aircraft engines and military radars.
Exports of 12 of them are restricted after China's commerce ministry on Thursday added five - holmium, erbium, thulium, europium and ytterbium - along with related materials.
The commerce ministry statement on Sunday sought to reassure foreign companies spooked by the latest export curbs, promising to promote compliant trade by granting general-purpose licenses and license exemptions.
"China's export controls are not export bans," it said. "Any export applications for civilian use that comply with regulations will be approved, and relevant enterprises need not worry."
Source: Reuters/kl/fh
Newsletter
18. China, Philippines trade blame over boat collision in disputed sea
China, Philippines trade blame over boat collision in disputed sea
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/china-philippines-trade-blame-boat-collision-south-china-sea-5396871
channelnewsasia.com
The Philippines said a Chinese ship deliberately rammed one of its government vessels in the disputed South China Sea on Sunday (Oct 12), although Beijing blamed Manila for the incident.
Confrontations between Philippine and Chinese vessels occur frequently in the contested waterway, which Beijing claims nearly in its entirety despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.
The Philippines said a Chinese coast guard ship "fired its water cannon" at the BRP Datu Pagbuaya, a vessel belonging to Manila's fisheries bureau, at 9.15am on Sunday.
"Just three minutes later ... the same (Chinese) vessel deliberately rammed the stern" of the Philippine boat, "causing minor structural damage but no injuries to the crew", the Philippine coast guard said in a statement.
It said the incident took place near Thitu Island, part of the Spratly Islands, where Beijing has sought to assert its sovereignty claims for years.
The Philippine National Maritime Council, a body in charge of strengthening maritime governance, condemned the incident and vowed to pursue "appropriate diplomatic action to convey its strong objections to the aggressive and illegal actions of China".
Angelica Escalona, a spokeswoman for the foreign affairs department in Manila, also told reporters that a diplomatic protest would be filed over the incident.
Earlier, China's coast guard said the incident occurred after a Philippine vessel entered waters near Sandy Cay, "ignored repeated stern warnings from the Chinese side, and dangerously approached" the Chinese ship.
"Full responsibility lies with the Philippine side," spokesman Liu Dejun said in an online statement.
"BULLYING TACTICS"
Photos and videos released by the Philippine Coast Guard showed a China Coast Guard vessel, which had its water cannon activated, shadowing a Philippine ship.
"Despite these bullying tactics and aggressive actions ... we will not be intimidated or driven away," the Philippine Coast Guard said.
The incident was the latest in a string of flare-ups between Beijing and Manila in the South China Sea, a busy waterway through which more than 60 per cent of global maritime trade passes.
The Philippine government said last month that one person was injured when a water cannon attack by a China Coast Guard vessel shattered a window on the bridge of another fisheries bureau ship, the BRP Datu Gumbay Piang, near the Beijing-controlled Scarborough Shoal.
And in August, a Chinese navy vessel collided with one from its own coast guard while chasing a Philippine patrol boat near the same shoal.
China seized control of the fish-rich shoal from the Philippines after a lengthy standoff in 2012.
The Philippines had voiced opposition to China's plans for a "nature reserve" there, calling it a pretext for the eventual occupation of the site.
Source: AFP/kl
Newsletter
19. UN to slash a quarter of peacekeepers globally over lack of funds
UN to slash a quarter of peacekeepers globally over lack of funds
By Michelle Nichols
October 8, 20256:57 PM EDTUpdated October 8, 2025
https://www.reuters.com/world/un-slash-quarter-peacekeepers-globally-over-lack-cash-2025-10-08/?emci=8b515294-03a5-f011-8e61-6045bded8ba4&emdi=1331df75-0ca5-f011-8e61-6045bded8ba4&ceid=10681201
Item 1 of 4 Spanish peacekeeping officers stand in formation during Spain's defence minister Margarita Robles' visit to the Spanish United Nations Interim Forces (UNIFIL) in Marjaayoun, Southern Lebanon January 20, 2025. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir/File Photo
[1/4]Spanish peacekeeping officers stand in formation during Spain's defence minister Margarita Robles' visit to the Spanish United Nations Interim Forces (UNIFIL) in Marjaayoun, Southern Lebanon January 20, 2025. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 8 (Reuters) - The United Nations will cut a quarter of peacekeepers in nine operations around the world in the coming months due to a lack of money, senior U.N. officials said on Wednesday, and as future funding from the United States remains uncertain.
"Overall, we will have to repatriate... around 25% of our total peacekeeping troops and police, as well as their equipment, and a large number of civilian staff in missions will also be affected," said a senior U.N. official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The Reuters Gulf Currents newsletter brings you the latest on geopolitics, energy and finance in the region. Sign up here.That would amount to between 13,000 and 14,000 troops and police, the official said.
Washington is the U.N.'s largest peacekeeping contributor, accounting for more than 26% of funding, followed by China which pays nearly 24%. These payments are not voluntary.
The U.S. was already $1.5 billion in arrears before the new financial year began on July 1, said a second U.N. official. Washington now also owes an additional $1.3 billion, taking its total outstanding bill to more than $2.8 billion.
The U.S. has told the U.N. it will make a payment shortly of $680 million, the first U.N. official said. The U.S. mission to the U.N. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
U.S. President Donald Trump in August unilaterally canceled some $800 million in peacekeeping funding appropriated for 2024 and 2025, according to a Trump administration message to Congress.
The White House budget office has also proposed eliminating funding for U.N. peacekeeping missions in 2026, citing failures of operations in Mali, Lebanon and Democratic Republic of Congo.
The peacekeeping operations affected are in South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lebanon, Kosovo, Cyprus, Central African Republic, Western Sahara, the Golan Heights demilitarized zone between Israel and Syria, and Abyei - an administrative area jointly run by South Sudan and Sudan.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is also more broadly seeking ways to improve efficiency and cut costs as the world body turns 80 this year amid a cash crisis.
(This story has been corrected to change the number of peacekeeping missions affected to nine from 11 in paragraph 1, and to remove operations in the Middle East and India and Pakistan from paragraph 9)
Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Jasper Ward and Bill Berkrot
20. NBA’s China comeback: After a six-year timeout, the league looks to rebound
NBA’s China comeback: After a six-year timeout, the league looks to rebound
After a six-year hiatus following the 2019 backlash, the NBA returns to China. Industry observers say the league and its partners are recalibrating their approach to rebuild trust and navigate political sensitivities.
Bong Xin Ying
12 Oct 2025 06:15PM
(Updated: 12 Oct 2025 06:40PM)
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/nba-return-china-macau-games-2025-5396846
channelnewsasia.com
SHANGHAI: For Chinese basketball fans, the long wait is finally over.
The NBA returns to China after a six-year hiatus - staging two pre-season matches in Macau between the Brooklyn Nets, which is also owned by Alibaba chairman Joseph Tsai, and the Phoenix Suns.
The Venetian arena in Macau was packed to capacity on Friday night (Oct 10), with fans clamouring for live action.
Allen Xie, 29, Adidas Basketball’s global brand marketing manager, was among those in the crowd.
It was an “amazing fan atmosphere”, he told CNA, adding that there was a lot of brand presence and activities - “giving fans a great experience of basketball and the surrounding cultures”.
For fans, this is a return long overdue.
For industry watchers, it signals a cautious dribble back into one of the league’s most important overseas markets - following years of careful planning and recalibration.
Allen Xie previously with NBA superstar James Harden in Los Angeles in 2024. (Photo: Allen Xie)
“The China fans are some of our biggest supporters,” American basketball star Michael Porter Jr of the Brooklyn Nets told reporters on the sidelines at the arena.
“There are so many fans out here so I think coming out here and being able to play in front of them is definitely a blessing for us and for them.”
Phoenix Suns’ star player Devin Booker shared his excitement and hailed the importance of the NBA’s return to China.
“The game of basketball touches everywhere in the world, but especially in China,” the 28-year-old said.
“It’s super important (as) we have a big fan base out here in China, and we have Chinese players in the NBA.”
“Just seeing the reaction of the fans, their faces lit up just upon our arrival. So it’s important for us and for the league to be here in person and doing this.”
“They weren’t going to stay out forever. It was really a question of just how long and here we are,” Mark Dreyer, a Beijing-based media and sports analyst, told CNA.
Their return had been a year in the making, Dreyer said.
“They wanted to let the temperature come down,” Dreyer said, referring to the political fallout after a team official tweeted his support for pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2019.
“That was 2019.”
Then the pandemic hit. “That was basically (another) three years,” he said, noting that it takes time to sort out scheduling and post-pandemic logistics.
The choice of Macau - a special administrative region - as the staging ground for its return was also a savvy, strategic decision, he added.
“It’s China, but it’s not,” Dreyer said. “If there's anyone who still harbours any ill feelings towards the NBA in China, they are not flying to Macau to protest.”
“The only people going (to the matches) are die-hard fans who have missed seeing their heroes in the flesh.”
A giant inflatable basketball stands outside The Londoner Macao, promoting the China Games 2025 pre-season matches between the Brooklyn Nets and Phoenix Suns at the Venetian arena, in Macau, China, October 10, 2025. (Photo: Reuters/Tyrone… Siu)
2019 FLASHPOINT
One of the most successful cultural exports from the US, the NBA transformed basketball into a worldwide phenomenon and is hugely popular in China.
But a crisis arose in 2019 over a tweet. That October, then-Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted his support for Hong Kong protesters.
Although it was quickly deleted, Morey’s tweet triggered a wave of condemnation in China. Beijing’s reaction was swift and severe - suspending broadcasts of NBA matches and prompting Chinese sponsors to cut ties, costing the league hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue.
Public opinion turned and the NBA soon found itself caught up in geopolitical fault lines.
Ardent basketball fan Jimmy Zhang from Shanghai has followed the league for more than 20 years, admiring NBA stars like Yao Ming and Jimmy Butler while rooting for teams like the Golden State Warriors.
Zhang, who once served in the Chinese military, found Morey’s actions deeply offensive.
“Those comments felt completely disrespectful,” Zhang told CNA.
“I made my stance clear,” Zhang said. “I stopped reading or watching anything (to do with Morey). I refused to give him attention.”
He added: “I’m 36, and many people my age, guys I used to play basketball with, barely follow basketball anymore. For fans in their 30s and 40s, family and work have taken priority, so some (lost interest) especially after the NBA disappeared from Chinese TV for a while.”
Before the controversy, the NBA was hailed as a model of success in China. Experts said it enjoyed two decades of regular preseason games, a growing Chinese fan base, and one of the largest overseas commercial ecosystems of any global sports league.
“They were the textbook case of success in China,” Dreyer said. “Up until 2019, the NBA was absolutely the gold standard, at least in the sports world, on how to do well in China.”
Considerable damage was done in 2019, Dreyer said, adding that the league’s own communication strategy over the incident had worsened the crisis.
In the days after the offending tweet, the NBA issued an English statement expressing “great respect for the history and culture of China”, while the league’s Chinese-language statement included the phrase “hurt the feelings of Chinese fans” - drawing bipartisan criticism in Washington, where both Democrats and Republicans accused the NBA of prioritising its commercial interests over free expression and human rights.
On the other hand, Chinese officials denounced it for falling short of a full apology.
“American fans thought the NBA was being far too submissive towards the Chinese government. The Chinese government clearly didn’t think they were being nearly apologetic enough. So effectively, they (angered) both sides.”
Rockets executive Daryl Morey became an unlikely flashpoint in US–China relations after his 2019 tweet on Hong Kong protests. (Photo: AP/Matt Slocum)
But all was not lost for the NBA in China, Dreyer said. Its presence never disappeared entirely, even after the backlash. “They didn’t lose everything. They didn’t go back to zero,” Dreyer said.
After matches were blacklisted on Chinese state broadcasters and major TV channels, fans turned to digital platforms like Tencent Sports to stream NBA content.
The league maintained a subdued commercial presence behind the scenes. Merchandising did not collapse and many deals were still active.
Dreyer also credits Joe Tsai, Alibaba chairman and Nets owner, as “playing a central role again in bridging both sides”.
The league recently announced a multi-year partnership with Alibaba, tapping the company’s AI and cloud capabilities to enhance digital fan experiences.
China remains the NBA’s most significant overseas market.
Before the 2019 controversy, Tencent estimated that nearly 500 million viewers - one-third of China’s population - regularly watched NBA content across its platforms.
ESPN reported that the NBA’s China operations had expanded into a US$5 billion business, recording double-digit annual growth since 2008 before the fallout.
Chen Bowen, a 28-year-old IT worker in Beijing, has followed the NBA since childhood and said it remains “very much part of pop culture here”.
“It really shaped how I viewed the US and its culture,” said Chen, who has studied in the US. He looks up to players like LeBron James.
LeBron James has long been the face of the NBA’s global brand - and a cornerstone of its enduring popularity in China. (Photo: AP/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
“He was a role model for me, motivating me through my studies and now in my career,” he added.
For diehard fans like him, the league never “truly left” China.
“True fans never felt distant from it,” Chen said. “We’ve always had ways to watch matches. Tencent Sports, for example, has been streaming NBA games for years,” he added.
But watching online didn’t bring the same satisfaction, Chen said. “It wasn’t the same - poor signals, lagging streams. Seeing games again on a big TV screen makes the action much more vivid - watching on a phone just can’t compare. So I was really happy (when it returned to China).”
Former basketball players Shaquille O'Neal and Yao Ming are seen before the Brooklyn Nets v Phoenix Suns match at the Venetian Arena, Macau, China on October 10, 2025. (Photo: Reuters/Tyrone Siu)
REBUILDING TRUST AND COURTING CHINA AGAIN
Wang Yuantao, a project manager at a Beijing-based sports marketing firm, believes the NBA’s real comeback in China began not with games, but with visits and appearances by star players.
“You could say that 2023 was the starting point for the surge of NBA players visiting China, right after COVID controls ended,” Wang told CNA.
That year, players like Gordon Hayward and Spencer Dinwiddie returned to promote new deals with Chinese sportswear brands such as Anta and 361 Degrees, Wang said, and since then, the momentum has only grown - with stars like LeBron James, Paul George and Draymond Green visiting not just for meet-and-greets, but as stars of wider brand campaigns tied to local tourism and culture.
“Many of these visits are now co-organised with local governments and other partners,” Wang said.
“They want to promote tourism and international sporting culture by funding events and incorporating NBA players into broader campaigns.”
For industry professionals like Xie, the return of live games marks a bigger moment for the sport’s growth in China.
It’s amazing that the “NBA is back”, he said. “China has a huge basketball audience and fan base. The NBA is better with games in China.”
Cities like Quzhou and Chongqing have hosted fan festivals and basketball clinics featuring NBA players, Wang noted. “Municipal governments strongly support these visits,” he added. “In many cases, government funding effectively sets the appearance floor fee.”
Jack Ma, actor Jackie Chan, former footballer, Inter Miami CF co-owner and Salford City co-owner David Beckham look on during the match. (Photo: Reuters/Tyrone Siu)
Observers have described NBA's saga with China as a lesson for foreign companies in striking a balance between business and free expression, and how sports and politics are intertwined, and why understanding the local context is crucial.
In the years since 2019, both the league and its partners have carefully adjusted their approach. While political sensitivities remain, public-facing efforts now emphasise cultural exchange, local engagement and goodwill.
“We avoid political sensitivities - not out of fear, but from a brand perspective,” Wang explained.
“We stay away from sensitive dates and phrasing. When we pitch, we use the visiting player as an anchor to convey that ‘Chinese strength’ can be expressed both inward and outward.”
He added that the focus has shifted from promotion to connection. “When players come to China now, they spend more time experiencing the country - showing that they’re not just here to cash in.”
Tours and appearances by NBA stars have underscored that approach, he added.
American basketball player for Denver Nuggets, Aaron Gordon, paid a visit to Bruce Lee’s ancestral home in Guangzhou back in 2023.
This year Serbian basketball player Nikola Jokić of the Denver Nuggets rode the high-speed rail while visiting Shijiazhuang, Hebei’s capital in July, while Draymond Green, a four time NBA champion for the Golden State Warriors, visited a war memorial in Quzhou in September.
“Player tours don’t just bring Chinese fans closer to their idols,” Wang said. “They also let global audiences see China through the eyes of the players they admire.”
Longtime fan Zhang sees the change as part of a broader evolution. “In the ’90s and 2000s, the NBA’s (image) was tattoos, trash talk and that street-gang vibe,” he said.
“It felt ‘tough’, but also a bit problematic for China. Now players like Stephen Curry, Luka Dončić and Jaylen Brown aim to project a more positive image as better role models - that aligns better with Chinese values.”
Dreyer said the NBA has been treading carefully but effectively in its efforts to win back China.
“You’re caught between two very different systems, East and West (so) some rules can be directly contradictory,” he said. “It’s very challenging.”
Still, he believes the league is better prepared now than it was back in 2019.
“They’re trying to build on a long history of success.”
Fu Zhenghao, a Beijing-based basketball commentator, told the Global Times on Thursday that the NBA needs to learn its lesson and make greater contributions to cultural exchanges between China and the US.
He said that at a time when bilateral relations are at a critical juncture, the NBA's engagement with China remains one of the most high-profile cultural exchange channels.
Fu was quoted as saying that “both sides should make full use of basketball's role as a means of communication to promote stronger exchanges between two countries”.
Others believe that the next step could be long-term investment on the ground.
“The NBA should invest in Chinese youth programmes,” Zhang said.
“Expose (Chinese youth) to NBA-style basketball and culture early and bring that into schools and training programmes - that’s how basketball here can really grow.”
Xie echoed that sentiment, saying the NBA’s presence in China still inspires.
“I don’t take it for granted that I get to work in the sport I loved since I was a kid,” he said.
“I’m always a fan of the game.”
channelnewsasia.com
21. Have we passed peak social media?
Excerpts:
It would be a hugely welcome development to discover that we have not merely reached social media saturation point, but that the experience has been degraded to such an extent that it has shocked people out of their stupor and is causing them to pivot to healthier uses of their time.
But that brings me to the catch. There is one notable exception to this promising international trend: North America, where consumption of social media’s diet of extreme rhetoric, engagement bait and slop continues to climb. By 2024 it had reached levels 15 per cent higher than Europe.
The evidence that social media causes harm is highly contested, but these debates often fail to account for how the platforms have fundamentally changed from places of connection to isolation and distraction. One of the strongest cases for harm is that time on these platforms is time away from nourishing interactions with other people. If that trend is reversing, it would surely be no bad thing. If it eventually spreads to America, even better.
Have we passed peak social media?
As platforms degrade into outrage and slop, users are turning away
John Burn-MurdochAdd to myFT
https://www.ft.com/content/a0724dd9-0346-4df3-80f5-d6572c93a863?accessToken=zwAGQDxeHbqwkdOgck3ZA0ZN89OA9dZXLJOoYw.MEUCIFB94eWZlPXXXrzOZ3FqOhpNFjiHsAUQQFBWZz8k2swSAiEA6S-s74WQw5qCX6-09maqCSs9li_YXaWaAKVFiUyZrVk&sharetype=gift&token=b6debbbe-a301-49df-b774-4b4adf29af26
Financial Times · John Burn-Murdoch
In years to come, we may well look back on September 2025 as the point at which social media jumped the shark and began rapidly accelerating its transition from the place to be seen (through a flattering Instagram filter), to a gaudy backwater of the internet inhabited by those with nothing better to do.
Both Meta and OpenAI have recently announced new social platforms that will be filled with AI-generated short-form videos. This assumes a reservoir of untapped demand for the ability to create and binge-watch yet more content, with a promotional video from OpenAI featuring absurd fantastical animations and deepfakes, hinting at some of what may be to come.
To use a nutritional analogy, this is ultra-processed content. Dopamine-dense, with at best negligible informational value, at worst corrosively negative.
There is sadly considerable appetite for this “slop”. It feeds people’s primal instincts, as evidenced by the multibillion-dollar industry of selling ads against videos of bizarrely soothing sights and sounds, people doing outrageous things, “food porn” and, well, porn.
But the gradual merger of the weird guilty pleasure corner of the internet with the major social media platforms — part of a years-long degradation — appears to be turning people away.
It has gone largely unnoticed that time spent on social media peaked in 2022 and has since gone into steady decline, according to an analysis of the online habits of 250,000 adults in more than 50 countries carried out for the FT by the digital audience insights company GWI. And this is not just the unwinding of a bump in screen time during pandemic lockdowns — usage has traced a smooth curve up and down over the past decade-plus.
Across the developed world, adults aged 16 and older spent an average of two hours and 20 minutes per day on social platforms at the end of 2024, down by almost 10 per cent since 2022. Notably, the decline is most pronounced among the erstwhile heaviest users — teens and 20-somethings.
In many ways, Meta and OpenAI’s new platforms (AI-generated content is already rife on TikTok and YouTube) are a fitting endpoint for social media’s warped evolution from a place where people swapped updates with friends and family, to one with less and less human-to-human interaction. We have now witnessed the transformation of social media into anti-social media with the progressive disappearance of most people from active participation on the platforms and the steady displacement of real-world interactions by scrolling.
Additional data from GWI trace the shift. The shares of people who report using social platforms to stay in touch with their friends, express themselves or meet new people have fallen by more than a quarter since 2014. Meanwhile, reflexively opening the apps to fill up spare time has risen, reflecting a broader pernicious shift from mindful to mindless browsing.
In the parlance of technology writer Cory Doctorow, late-stage social media is a particularly egregious case of the “enshittification” of digital platforms as they resort to ever more desperate methods to capture eyeballs. Many of these apps are no longer really social apps in any meaningful sense of the word; they’re screen time maximising apps, using whatever means necessary to eke out extra seconds and minutes.
It would be a hugely welcome development to discover that we have not merely reached social media saturation point, but that the experience has been degraded to such an extent that it has shocked people out of their stupor and is causing them to pivot to healthier uses of their time.
But that brings me to the catch. There is one notable exception to this promising international trend: North America, where consumption of social media’s diet of extreme rhetoric, engagement bait and slop continues to climb. By 2024 it had reached levels 15 per cent higher than Europe.
The evidence that social media causes harm is highly contested, but these debates often fail to account for how the platforms have fundamentally changed from places of connection to isolation and distraction. One of the strongest cases for harm is that time on these platforms is time away from nourishing interactions with other people. If that trend is reversing, it would surely be no bad thing. If it eventually spreads to America, even better.
Data sources and methodology
Every quarter since 2013 GWI has surveyed nationally representative samples of adults in dozens of countries around the world, asking a battery of questions including detailed breakdowns of how much time people spend on different digital platforms. GWI performed additional analysis for the FT, breaking down time usage data by age and region.
Financial Times · John Burn-Murdoch
22. The Viral MAGA Accounts Run by a Man Who Has Never Been to America
Excerpts:
Naumovski has enjoyed connections with other Republican activists, such as Roger Stone, who endorsed him in 2023 on X: “I highly recommend that you follow @RumenNaumovski, the founder of Resist the Mainstream on Twitter. He’s a great guy! He was born outside the US but he loves America and he’s working hard to bring trusted news to everyday people.”
Before this year’s revelations, Naumovski himself repeated a similarly vague biography: “I was born overseas but have devoted my life to spreading the virtues of American freedom,” he wrote on X.
The issue of foreign interests influencing American politics through anonymous X influencer accounts is an ongoing one. Last year, federal prosecutors alleged that the conservative media company Tenet, which pays a network of major right-wing influencers like Benny Johnson and Tim Pool, was secretly being paid by Russian state operatives to disseminate propaganda to a large American audience. Johnson, Pool, and other Tenet content creators maintain they were unaware of the alleged Russian influence campaign and were victims of deceptions.
Interfering in American elections financially, however, is still one of the campaign finance violations that’s taken seriously and prosecuted, Ghosh says. “This is one of our bedrock campaign finance laws, to keep American elections working toward the goals of American public welfare, and not the opposite.”
The Viral MAGA Accounts Run by a Man Who Has Never Been to America
The right loves the accounts, which often rail against supposed voter fraud. They’re run by a Macedonian who illegally donated to a U.S. House candidate
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/viral-maga-social-media-accounts-rumen-naumovski-1235441739/
By Jacqueline Sweet
Rolling Stone · Jacqueline Sweet
The right-wing information sphere on social media is shaped by large, often anonymous influencer accounts that are then amplified to even wider audiences by prominent conservatives. Two such accounts are Defiant L’s and Resist the Mainstream, both offering takes on American politics, often alleging corruption and election fraud by Democrats, to a combined over 2 million followers. Republican lawmakers like Mike Lee, Nancy Mace, Andy Biggs, Eli Crane, and Dan Crenshaw, along with major political figures like Elon Musk, share the accounts’ posts on X, some claiming that “illegals” or undocumented immigrants are fraudulently voting in American elections.
The owner and operator of both accounts, however, is not only a man who has by his own admission never stepped foot in the United States but has donated over $3,000 in an American election. Donating to American political campaigns as a foreign national is a federal crime, according to the Federal Election Commission.
Rumen Naumovski donated to Ron Watkins’ congressional campaign in Arizona in 2022 while living in Macedonia as a Macedonian national, according to FEC documents listing his name and a Florida media company that he owns, along with a review of his own statements detailing his attempts to immigrate to America. He runs Defiant L’s and Resist the Mainstream via that same Florida company, according to court documents and his statements, and someone with knowledge of his company.
Watkins later returned the donations, and Naumovski has said he was unaware he was prohibited from donating.
Defiant L’s and Resist the Mainstream are two major players in the right-wing influencer space on X and cover American politics almost exclusively. Defiant L’s in particular enjoys a major reach on the platform thanks to elected officials and Musk, who called Defiant L’s “one of the best accounts on X” last year.
South Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace has shared multiple posts from the account, and even replied to Defiant L’s last month, on a post about Congresswoman Ilhan Omar that asked, “What’s the first thought that comes to mind when you see Ilhan Omar?” “Censure,” Mace replied. Utah Sen. Mike Lee often shares Defiant L’s posts, and in March tagged FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino in one reshare. Lee also interacts with Resist the Mainstream, at least five times this year based on a review by Rolling Stone.
Naumovski has been managing Defiant L’s via a Florida company since 2023, according to a source with knowledge of the account. Naumovski wrote this year that “Defiant L’s” is “one of our accounts” in an opinion piece for The Daily Wire. He uses that same Florida company to run Resist the Mainstream’s website and accounts, according to court documents. The two accounts are listed as “affiliates” of each other on X, a paid feature that allows a business to link more than one account with verified affiliate badges.
A year before obtaining Defiant L’s, Naumovski donated $3,127 in two donations to so-called “QAnon candidate” Ron Watkins’ congressional primary race in Arizona. Naumovski was reported at the time as being Watkins’ largest single donor that quarter — but that was years before it became known that Naumovski wasn’t just of Macedonian origin, but has never had residential status in the U.S., or even been to the U.S., according to his Daily Wire op-ed.
“I run a growing media company with 11 American employees. I’ve invested over $145,000 in the U.S. economy. I pay American corporate taxes. Yet I’ve never set foot in the United States — and government bureaucrats seem determined to keep it that way,” Naumovski wrote in February.
He explained that he attempted to get a tourist visa in 2018 but was rejected, and then his reapplication was approved in 2021. But Naumovski said he refused to show proof of Covid vaccination as required in 2021: “As a healthy young person, I hesitated. Friends here offered an easy solution — fake vaccination cards cost less than $50 in Macedonia. But I refused to begin my American journey with a lie. How long could waiting honestly really take?” He then tried for an E-2 business visa, but was rejected after repeated interviews by embassy staff, he claims in the piece, and to this day has never even been to the U.S.
In a podcast interview in October 2022, a few months after he donated to Watkins, he explained he was currently running his media company that he started in his bedroom in his parents’ home from “my own apartment in Macedonia.”
“Foreign nationals are categorically barred from spending money in our elections, whether it’s directly, via PACs or even SuperPACs,” Saurav Ghosh, director of federal campaign finance reform at the Campaign Legal Center and former counsel at the FEC, tells Rolling Stone. Ghosh says that foreign donation schemes often happen via straw donors, or fake names, which are also prohibited, and that a foreign national donating under their own name is rare.
Filings from a 2024 copyright lawsuit brought by a photojournalist who alleged Resist the Mainstream repeatedly stole his work show that Naumovski claims 100 percent ownership of the Florida company that operates the two X accounts, Raww Digital LLC. The two Watkins donations both list the St. Petersburg, Florida, registered agent’s office where Raww Digital Inc. is located and Raww Digital LLC as Naumovski’s employer. The company was first registered in 2021, with Naumovski as sole owner with an address in Veles, North Macedonia. A month later, an amendment with a new principal address was filed, at the registered agent’s office in St. Petersburg.
Watkins is often speculated to be a source for the writings of “Q” — the mysterious figure fueling QAnon conspiracies for years. Watkins has long denied being “Q.” Watkins lost the Arizona Republican primary to Eli Crane, who has himself since amplified Naumovski’s content at least seven times. After Naumovski donated to Watkins, Watkins boosted Resist the Mainstream’s Telegram channel a week later, according to a screenshot obtained by Media Matters.
There is no indication of wrongdoing by Watkins or that he was aware of Naumovski’s location at the time. Watkins refunded Naumovski’s two donations in April 2022, as campaign finance law requires if a candidate unknowingly receives a donation from a foreign national. The FEC sent Watkins a letter in March 2022, a month after Naumovski’s donations, asking for more information about donors, after the campaign submitted a report with incomplete donor information.
Naumovski told Rolling Stone he was unaware that it was illegal to donate to an American campaign without a green card. He posted a statement in April 2022 on his Telegram channel about the incident: “Yesterday I learned I made a mistake. I gave an online contribution to a U.S. political campaign, not realizing that was forbidden to me as someone who had a U.S. visa, but not a green card. Within minutes of learning that I contacted the campaign, which is immediately refunding my payment. I love America and would never intentionally violate any measure. Live and learn!”
Watkins told Rolling Stone in an email that he does not recall Naumovski’s donations. “My 2022 Arizona campaign was very busy and ended more than three years ago. According to the FEC guidelines, federal campaign records have a three year retention period. It has been more than three years since the campaign ended, the three year retention period for campaign records has passed, and I do not personally remember details about specific donations. As far as I know there was no FEC investigation into this specific issue that you are alleging.”
The Media Matters 2023 review found that Watkins was only one of several QAnon-linked influencers to share Resist the Mainstream’s content, and the content appeared nearly identical. Some X users have alleged that they were approached by Naumovski to post his content for payment.
Naumovski did not respond to follow-up questions from Rolling Stone about whether he offered Watkins or other influencers payments to promote his company’s content, nor did he respond to questions about how he learned his donations were illegal.
A major booster of Naumovski’s career is former Fox News executive Ken LaCorte. LaCorte admitted to The New York Times in 2019 that he hired Macedonian teenagers from Veles, Naumovski’s Macedonian hometown, to write for several conservative content sites he ran beginning in 2017. Veles is known as the “home to a collection of writers who churned out disinformation during the 2016 presidential election in the United States,” the Times reported.
LaCorte has also written about Naumovski’s struggles to emigrate. ”I met Rumen when I was running a startup, and I needed help with social media. When we first spoke on Zoom, I was surprised to learn he was still a teenager, living in Macedonia, a country I couldn’t find without a good map, working out of a bedroom covered in L.A. Lakers posters. Since then, I’ve been both a friend and an adviser, helping him build his business and encouraging him through the U.S. immigration system,” he wrote on his Substack in February, a few days after Naumovski himself admitted he’s never been to the U.S.
“If he had simply walked across the border illegally, he would have received a work permit within months. He could have easily gamed the system — faked paperwork, overstayed a tourist visa, or ‘lost’ his passport. But because he played by the rules, he’s been stuck in limbo for years,” LaCorte wrote.
Naumovski has enjoyed connections with other Republican activists, such as Roger Stone, who endorsed him in 2023 on X: “I highly recommend that you follow @RumenNaumovski, the founder of Resist the Mainstream on Twitter. He’s a great guy! He was born outside the US but he loves America and he’s working hard to bring trusted news to everyday people.”
Before this year’s revelations, Naumovski himself repeated a similarly vague biography: “I was born overseas but have devoted my life to spreading the virtues of American freedom,” he wrote on X.
The issue of foreign interests influencing American politics through anonymous X influencer accounts is an ongoing one. Last year, federal prosecutors alleged that the conservative media company Tenet, which pays a network of major right-wing influencers like Benny Johnson and Tim Pool, was secretly being paid by Russian state operatives to disseminate propaganda to a large American audience. Johnson, Pool, and other Tenet content creators maintain they were unaware of the alleged Russian influence campaign and were victims of deceptions.
Interfering in American elections financially, however, is still one of the campaign finance violations that’s taken seriously and prosecuted, Ghosh says. “This is one of our bedrock campaign finance laws, to keep American elections working toward the goals of American public welfare, and not the opposite.”
Rolling Stone · Jacqueline Sweet
23. Ancient Wisdom: A Middle Digit to the Digital Age
Excerpts:
One of the temptations of old age is to view one’s earlier years as better. I’m not sure they were. But they were surely simpler. In Somewhere Towards the End, her excellent memoir on aging, Diana Athill writes: “We tend to become convinced that everything is getting worse simply because within our own boundaries things are doing so. We are becoming less able to do things we would like to do, can hear less, see less, eat less, hurt more, our friends die, we know that we ourselves will soon be dead . . . It’s not surprising, perhaps, that we easily slide into a general pessimism about life, but it is very boring and it makes dreary last years even drearier.” Ms. Athill invokes us to “not waste our time grizzling.”
Along with my wariness of the new technology brought in with the digital age, there is a certain nagging element of resentment.
A new word to me, “grizzling,” meaning “expressing tiresome dissatisfaction or resentment.” In lodging my complaints about the complications brought into life by the digital age, I hope I am not myself merely grizzling. I realize that I have much to be grateful for, not least, to begin with, for attaining old age. That I have been able to do so in decent health and able to continue to labor at the work I love can only be viewed as a double bonus. Every night I go to sleep, as the song instructs, counting my blessings, and awake with thanks for the gift of another day.
Still, yet, but, however, and nevertheless, I continue to find irksome the barriers put in the way of this alte kocker by digital culture in its various forms. “Time,” as Theophrastus says, “is the most valuable thing a man can spend.” The older one grows, especially, say, after reaching the age of 70, the more precious time seems. Not that I, for one, do not waste entire days watching sports and news and dopey old movies on television, and reading in a desultory way, but at least I waste it my way.
Plus ça change, like the man said, plus ça change, and the more things do change, the less this grizzling old dude likes it. Status quo ante is his ideal, his utopia—an ideal, a utopia, he realizes, he shall never attain in this lifetime.
Ancient Wisdom: A Middle Digit to the Digital Age
Why do I have to put up with all these computer shortcuts, which usually turn out to be longcuts? Now in my late 80s, time is running out, and I have no wish to spend it trying to connect with iCloud.
By Joseph Epstein
10.12.25 —
The Weekend Press
https://www.thefp.com/p/ancient-wisdom-a-middle-digit-to-digital-age-tech-culture?utm
thefp.com · Joseph Epstein
Welcome back to Ancient Wisdom, our Sunday series in which writers over 70 tell us how they are aging gracefully. Last week, Maureen Ebel, 77, described losing her life savings in Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme—and how she learned to “play the hand you’re dealt.” This week, the great essayist Joseph Epstein, 88, kvetches about dealing with technology in his 80s.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose: The more things change, the more they stay the same. The author of this maxim is a justly forgotten Frenchman named Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr. I write “justly,” for no words I know contain less truth than these. Plus ça change, plus ça change—the more things change, the more things change—is more like it. And no greater change has come about than the change toward the close of my lifetime—I’m 88, if you must know—brought about by the advent of personal computers, or what is known, collectively, as the digital age.
A few contemporaries of my acquaintance took a pass on computers, but I, a writer, a scribbling man, was in no position to do so. For so much in the realm of writing today relies on computers, not least the sending back and forth of manuscripts. To be sure, the computer has brought me many benefits. As a writer, I find revising compositions on my computer beats all previous modes of revision. Scores—make that hundreds—of times, Google has proved a splendid aide-mémoire. I’ve never looked to the computer for my main source of news, but I have found, and continue to find, many interesting items on The Washington Free Beacon, Substack, and elsewhere.
Yet the negative aspects of so-called digital culture are quite as great. Every time I turn on my computer I am directed to connect to iCloud. I have tried to connect to iCloud perhaps 30 times, but always without success. No more success than I have had in bringing Backblaze, the storage platform, up to date on my computer. Just yesterday I attempted to scan a document, and was informed that my scanner is not connected to my computer. Last week it was connected. Who in the hell, I wonder, disconnected it? When I am asked if I wish to update my computer, I invariably take a pass. Backdating it sounds much more attractive to me.
I listen to no podcasts, check only one blog, and steer well clear of any social media on my computer. I was for a time on LinkedIn, but find I am no longer able to connect with the occasional person who wants to link-in with me. Instead I am asked to check my user name and reset my password, which, when I attempt to do so, doesn’t seem to work. When asked for my username, it is now all I can do not to insert Enough Already, adding an email address that reads: screw.it@fmail.keepcom.
How much of all this—computer troubles, car and television worries, shopping difficulties—is owing to my being an older player? A lot, I suspect.
My wife, who is my contemporary, has given up on computers. I have inherited her Apple laptop, but she has forgotten the password allowing me to get on it. I keep a small red leather folder, given to me by the Mark Cross leather-goods company, with my all too various passwords in it—passwords that number no fewer than 32—but this one isn’t in it. I called AppleCare, and spent roughly an hour on the phone with a woman who, in the end, wasn’t able to help. I shall have to bring the laptop to an Apple store, in the hope that it can supply me with a new password. Ah, me, I worry about the day, perhaps not far off, when we shall all require passwords to use the toilets in our own apartments.
It’s not only in dealing with my computer that I frequently find myself stymied. I used to trade in my car every three years, but today I am driving an 18-year-old car, a black Jaguar S-Type. True, my Jaguar has only 57,873 miles on it, and its design is, I believe, more elegant than more recent models. But the real reason I have kept this car, and expect it, as the English say, to see me out, is that the technology of more recent cars, engineered more and more around computers, is more than I require or expect to be able to deal with. I prefer to put a key in my ignition to start my car, I’d rather not consult a computer to change gears, and I don’t require a voice to tell me to turn left at the stoplight. In short, I am wary—make that fearful—of the new computer-driven automobile technology, and will continue where possible to avoid it.
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My 11-year-old Sony television set not long ago went out. I bought a new Samsung set, and was immediately hit with new ways of saving programs; of using my DVD player; and of connecting to Netflix, Prime, and Apple TV+ shows that I had earlier mastered tuning into on my dear old Sony set. So complex have things become that an amiable gent from Geek Squad had to come out to install this new television set, at the charge of $100. Everything may be up to date in Kansas City, as the old song has it, but it sure isn’t with Joseph Epstein.
I do not often order things online, which, I note from the packages that arrive in the lobby of our building, my younger neighbors do much more frequently than do my older neighbors. I do order occasionally from Amazon and perhaps a bit more from AbeBooks, the used-book dispenser. But apart from these two companies, I have not had much success ordering online. Two weeks ago I attempted to order two shirts from Jos. A. Bank, the men’s clothing store. After roughly 40 minutes on my computer, which sent me back innumerable times to my iPhone to reset my password, username, and everything but my hairstyle, I gave up and called customer service to place my order. A customer service agent took 20 or so minutes to respond to my call, leaving me listening to jumpy music and a robot voice coming on every 40 seconds or so imploring me to stay on the line and reminding me how important my call was to them.
How much of all this—computer troubles, car and television worries, shopping difficulties—is owing to my being an older player? A lot, I suspect. For along with my wariness of the new technology brought in with the digital age, there is a certain nagging element of resentment. Why do I have to put up with all these computer shortcuts, which in my case usually turn out to be longcuts? Now in my late 80s, I feel, correctly, that time is running out for me, and I have no wish to spend any of it trying to connect with iCloud or waiting for an agent from customer service to pick up the phone and answer my call.
One of the temptations of old age is to view one’s earlier years as better. I’m not sure they were. But they were surely simpler. In Somewhere Towards the End, her excellent memoir on aging, Diana Athill writes: “We tend to become convinced that everything is getting worse simply because within our own boundaries things are doing so. We are becoming less able to do things we would like to do, can hear less, see less, eat less, hurt more, our friends die, we know that we ourselves will soon be dead . . . It’s not surprising, perhaps, that we easily slide into a general pessimism about life, but it is very boring and it makes dreary last years even drearier.” Ms. Athill invokes us to “not waste our time grizzling.”
Along with my wariness of the new technology brought in with the digital age, there is a certain nagging element of resentment.
A new word to me, “grizzling,” meaning “expressing tiresome dissatisfaction or resentment.” In lodging my complaints about the complications brought into life by the digital age, I hope I am not myself merely grizzling. I realize that I have much to be grateful for, not least, to begin with, for attaining old age. That I have been able to do so in decent health and able to continue to labor at the work I love can only be viewed as a double bonus. Every night I go to sleep, as the song instructs, counting my blessings, and awake with thanks for the gift of another day.
Still, yet, but, however, and nevertheless, I continue to find irksome the barriers put in the way of this alte kocker by digital culture in its various forms. “Time,” as Theophrastus says, “is the most valuable thing a man can spend.” The older one grows, especially, say, after reaching the age of 70, the more precious time seems. Not that I, for one, do not waste entire days watching sports and news and dopey old movies on television, and reading in a desultory way, but at least I waste it my way.
Plus ça change, like the man said, plus ça change, and the more things do change, the less this grizzling old dude likes it. Status quo ante is his ideal, his utopia—an ideal, a utopia, he realizes, he shall never attain in this lifetime.
Joseph Epstein is the author of, most recently, Never Say You’ve Had a Lucky Life and Familiarity Breeds Content: New and Selected Essays.
The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article.
thefp.com · Joseph Epstein
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
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