National Museum of Intelligence and Special Operations

Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as by the abuses of power."

– James Madison

"Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint."

– Alexander Hamilton

"You can accomplish much if you don't care who gets the credit."

– Ronald Reagan

1. Eight Military Takeaways from the Maduro Raid

2. Iranians Are Rallying Around the Son of the Former Shah as Protests Swell

3. Iran’s Supreme Leader Says He Won’t Bow Down to Protests or Trump

4. U.S. Forces Seize Fifth Tanker in Campaign to Track Down Venezuelan Oil

5. Latest Pentagon Report: China’s Military Advancing Amid Churn

6. Israel and Hamas Get Ready to Go Back to War in Gaza

7. China says it is still ‘deeply committed’ to Venezuela as ambassador meets new leader

8. Trump Is Making a Power Play in Latin America. China Is Already There.

9. Why Putin Went Quiet When Challenged by Trump Over Venezuela

10. Opinion | The Iranian regime is caught in a death spiral

11. PLA Justice Mission 2025 Further Rehearses Taiwan Invasion Operations

12. What Thucydides Really Thought About Technology and War

13. Politicization of the Military: Causes, Consequences & Conclusions

14. Army shuts down foreign military training command, will retain 2 SFABs

15. Derrick Anderson steps into SO/LIC role amid high demand for special operations forces, new tech

16. The Theory That Gives Trump a Blank Check for Aggression

1. Eight Military Takeaways from the Maduro Raid

Summary:

Operation Absolute Resolve showcased world-class US SOF, enabled by exquisite HUMINT and joint targeting, to capture Maduro and neutralize a Russian-built, Chinese-enabled air defense network. The raid demonstrates enduring US tactical overmatch and electronic warfare superiority, but also the narrow utility of elite units in large-scale war and the vulnerability of low-altitude manned aviation in drone-saturated air-ground littorals. The operation was essentially a large targeting effort, not a template for broader intelligence or campaign design. Militarily successful yet strategically contentious, it risks confusing military prowess with grand strategy and may complicate alliances and norms even as it deters rivals.

Comment: Yes, it was a superbly planned and exquisitely executed mission. Our nation must sustain the ability to capture/kill high value targets at the time and place of our choosing. Every time we conduct such an operation I think about the historical timeline dating back to Son Tay and going through Eagle Claw and then all the operations we conducted over the last two decades. The evolution of our national mission force is really incredible and our nation should be grateful that we have men and women capable of such great feats. But we do have to ask some questions which are not meant in any way to diminish the accomplishments. We need to take the same spirit of innovation and mission accomplishment and apply them in other ways to support our national security.

If SOF remains Washington’s most reliable hammer, who in the interagency is responsible for telling POTUS when not to swing it in favor of slower, politically costly tools that better serve long-term strategy against China and Russia?

What institutional changes are needed so that the intelligence system supporting raids like Caracas also regenerates deep, all-source understanding of adversary societies, will-to-fight, and political warfare, rather than defaulting to perpetual “find, fix, finish”?

How should the United States manage the strategic narrative of Operation Absolute Resolve so that it reinforces a rules-based order and alliance cohesion, rather than normalizing unilateral leader-decapitation raids that Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, or Pyongyang might someday cite as precedent? At the same time, as discussed in the article, can we exploit the narrative of success and a comparison to the capabilities of our adversaries to undermine their credibility and legitimacy?

These questions do not imply an either/or but rather a both/and. We need to invest sufficiently in all the strategic capabilities necessary for our national security.

The through line in all of the above questions is effectively operating in the information space, developing, controlling, and exploiting the narrative to achieve a range of effects from decision making to influence over foreign target audiences - this is cognitive warfare.

And of course the vast majority of our military must invest in the capability to fight and win large scale combat operations as the best way to deter major theater war.

Eight Military Takeaways from the Maduro Raid - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · January 9, 2026

Patrick Sullivan and John Amble | 01.09.26

https://mwi.westpoint.edu/eight-military-takeaways-from-the-maduro-raid/

Despite steadily heightening tensions, heated rhetoric, US strikes against alleged drug trafficking boats, and a buildup of US forces near Venezuela, news of the successful mission to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro still surprised the world. Much of the discussion since has focused on the geopolitical stakes, questions of international law, and the domestic political context. Such discussion will undoubtedly continue.

But apart from these, there is also a military lens through which to examine Operation Absolute Resolve. What can we learn from the raid, which from a purely operational perspective was stunningly successful? How should we understand the operation in the context of the United States’ strategic global military rivalry with Russia and China? And how do the capabilities on display during the few hours in Caracas figure in the context of a potential large-scale conflict with a peer adversary?

Eight main takeaways from the operation stand out.

SOF: The Enduring Hammer

Over the course of the post-9/11 wars, US special operations forces (SOF)—and particularly, the most elite units—were honed into a sharper tip of the spear than has ever existed in military history. The operation in Venezuela demonstrates that those elite units have retained those capabilities. But it would be a mistake to extrapolate from this narrow action (a raid, conducted by highly trained, exceptionally equipped units, as part of an interagency operation) to a wider mission set. SOF cannot do everything, and conventional forces cannot conduct this type of operation. The risk is that, from the perspective of US policymakers, SOF will remain a tempting hammer that makes everything look like a nail. That’s a poor substitute for strategy.

The View from Beijing

This operation will undoubtedly have a deterrent effect on US adversaries. It will also no doubt be a chilling reminder (if one was needed) that the US military is capable of doing certain things China and Russia simply cannot. However, elite units are a finite resource. Does this level of precise lethality make Beijing think twice about invading Taiwan? Perhaps. But as impressive as its execution was, this was a raid. In a large-scale, kinetic conflict, the ability to conduct this type of operation has extraordinarily limited utility. The gap between the United States’ most elite units and those of US adversaries is much larger than the gap between US conventional forces and theirs. That limits this operation’s deterrent effect.

Intelligence vs. Targeting

Several years ago, during a conversation with retired General Michael Hayden in MWI’s offices, the former NSA and CIA director pointedly told us that during the post-9/11 wars the US joint force shifted from doing intelligence to doing targeting. The implied risk was that our institutional memory of broader, all-source intelligence analysis would atrophy, leaving us unprepared for the intelligence requirements of a large-scale conflict. There is no evidence that that happened and the decade-long shift in focus toward large-scale combat operations has included a rewidening of how we conceptualize the role of intelligence. But as apparently successful the intelligence component of this operation was, it was, effectively, a large-scale targeting process. In a major war, that is one very narrow slice of the intelligence capabilities that will be required.

HUMINT Never Dies

Espionage, it is said, is the world’s second-oldest profession. And for much of history, intelligence and spying were largely one and the same. Of all the types of intelligence collection, HUMINT (human intelligence) is the only one that does not require technology to enable it. As technology has advanced, other disciplines emerged on the periphery of intelligence as an enterprise, and they have increasingly muscled HUMINT out of its central position, at least in terms of the way scholars and practitioners conceptualize intelligence. But no matter how sophisticated and proliferated sensors become, no matter how many communications channels can be intercepted, no matter how precise a view space-based collection assets can provide, there are times when nothing can replace the source on the ground. According to reports, that was true for this operation, with a recruited source inside Maduro’s inner circle and a network that reportedly enabled the operation by emplacing technical equipment like jammers in advance of US forces’ arrival.

Not a Good Look for Russian Air Defense

Venezuela fields one of the most advanced, extensive, and layered air defense networks in Larin America. And it is almost entirely composed of Russian weapons. A dedicated joint service command integrates all air defense capabilities and employs S-300 long-range surface-to-air missile systems, along with a complement of medium-range systems—Buk-M2E and Pechora-2M systems—and point defense weapons. That those systems could be so thoroughly neutralized as to allow more than 150 US aircraft complete freedom of the skies without a single one shot down (only one was even hit, and it’s unclear by what) will surely cause concern in Moscow. To be sure, Venezuela does not have the more advanced S-400 or the S-500 system Moscow claims to have begun fielding. But given the fact that Russia entrusts large portions of its air and missile defense to the same platforms Venezuela does, the Kremlin must, at a minimum, be concerned by just how poorly they fared. Of particular note is the role of US Navy EA-18G Growler aircraft, the joint force’s only electronic attack platforms, in disabling Venezuelan air defenses. Of all of the capabilities on display in the raid, those of the Growler are arguably the ones that would be most relevant in a large-scale conflict.

Incidentally, the operation’s success also casts a poor light on the performance of the Chinese-made sensors Venezuela integrates into its air defense network. The much-hyped JY-27A radar evidently failed to live up to Beijing’s claims that it can detect even stealth aircraft at a range of up to 150 miles.

Time on Target

Given how effectively Venezuelan air defenses were neutralized, it was presumably not vital to limit time on target to the briefest possible duration. Although reports vary somewhat, the entire operation likely took somewhere between two and three hours. Of this, the actual time spent on the ground by the forces that captured Maduro was almost certainly less than an hour. But even this is only possible when adversary capabilities are rendered so thoroughly ineffective. Even so, time on target mattered. The longer the action took, the greater the risk of hostile action or accident. But the risk pales in comparison to what US forces would face in a large-scale conflict, where if you can be seen you can be killed, and the gap between detection and destruction is being compressed by proliferated sensors, AI-enabled detection, and tightly constructed kill webs.

The False Promise of the Air-Ground Littoral

Almost immediately when the operation commenced, video spread around social media showing US helicopters flying low over Caracas. And the infiltration was conducted by Black Hawks and Chinooks that used terrain masking—effectively, flying nap of the earth—to approach the city. A major portion of this operation took place in the air-ground littoral—a zone that has taken on heightened importance since the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This is a dimension of the battlespace that has been flooded with drones, threatening the survivability of manned aircraft. Operating at low altitudes for extended periods was possible in this operation. Attempting to do the same in a battlespace where an adversary can field drones in overwhelming numbers invites disaster.

Military Strategy ≠ Grand Strategy

Many international actors—including allies—are not happy about Operation Absolute Resolve, viewing it as affront to the norms and conventions that have undergirded the international order since the end of World War II. Such opposition is not a reason per se for a powerful state to avoid undertaking a unilateral, power-centric, norm-defiant military action. But it does entail costs that the powerful state needs to consider within the rational choice model for policymaking. There are longer-term regional security interests that have been actuated with this initial military success. Achieving these interests may require other instruments of national power whose employment logic may commend international cooperation and alliance management—the exact opposite of what we have seen to-date in Venezuela.

Colonel Patrick Sullivan, PhD, is the director of the Modern War Institute at West Point.

John Amble is the editorial director of the Modern War Institute at West Point and a former US Army military intelligence officer.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.

Image: US military aircraft taxi at Ceiba, Puerto Rico after participating in Operation Absolute Resolve (credit: Senior Airman Katelynn Jackson, US Air Force)

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mwi.westpoint.edu · Patrick Sullivan · January 9, 2026

2. Iranians Are Rallying Around the Son of the Former Shah as Protests Swell

Summary:

Protests driven by economic collapse in Iran have evolved into a direct challenge to the Islamic Republic’s legitimacy. Chants of “Long live the Shah” and “Pahlavi will return” signal that Reza Pahlavi has become a powerful symbol for some protesters, embodying secular, pro-Western, anti-regime aspirations. Yet Iran’s opposition remains fractured, ethnic minorities recall the monarchy’s centralizing repression, and many activists reject any return to dynastic rule. The regime is bloodied but not broken, retains a ruthless security apparatus, and has not yet used its full coercive power. Pahlavi’s rising profile reflects regime discrediting more than clear popular consent.

Comment: What does self determination of government look like in Iran? If Pahlavi is to be more than a nostalgic symbol, what sources of domestic legitimacy, organization inside Iran, and inclusive support from minorities and non-monarchists would he need to credibly claim a role in any post-Islamic Republic political order?

And the second critical question which dwarves from the first: How should the United States and its partners engage a protest movement in which an exiled royal is prominent, without repeating the Chalabi-style error of anointing an externally based figure whose domestic legitimacy and future governing capacity remain uncertain?

Iranians Are Rallying Around the Son of the Former Shah as Protests Swell

WSJ

Reza Pahlavi emerges as a powerful symbol of opposition to the regime

By Benoit Faucon

and Margherita Stancati

Jan. 9, 2026 10:00 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iranians-are-rallying-around-the-son-of-the-former-shah-as-protests-swell-5ef0b03f

Reza Pahlavi Alvaro Canovas/Paris Match/Getty Images

As Iranian protests grow in size, an unlikely figure is gaining prominence—the son of the country’s reviled shah, who was toppled in the 1979 revolution.

Iranians across the country are chanting slogans in support of Reza Pahlavi, whose father, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, ruled the country for decades.

The chants come as the tone of the protests, which began with outrage over a falling currency and soaring prices, is shifting from economic concerns to attacks on the legitimacy of the theocratic regime itself. Protesters shouting antiregime slogans filled streets in Tehran on Thursday night in the largest demonstrations in years. Videos showed burned out cars and a mosque.

“Long live the Shah,” shouted protesters in a shopping center in Tehran, as others set fire to a nearby government building, according to a video verified by Storyful, which is owned by Wall Street Journal parent News Corp.

“This is the last battle,” thousands chanted at another march elsewhere in the capital, “Pahlavi will return.”

Protesters in Tehran. UGC/AP

The 65-year-old Pahlavi’s prominence is a departure from previous bouts of protest, when the heir to the controversial dynasty was rarely referenced. His father, who ruled Iran from the 1940s, was widely despised in Iran for his autocratic rule, his political repression and what critics saw as his subservience to the U.S.

Few analysts think Pahlavi has a real path to the throne or leadership in Iran. His improved reputation in recent years says more about the mounting discontent with the Islamic Republic than it does about a genuine desire by Iranians for a return of the monarchy, analysts said. Many Iranians see him as everything the current regime is not: pro-Western, secular and capable of ending Iran’s economic isolation.

“Over the past decade, Pahlavi’s popularity has increased, reflecting not just nostalgia, but a sharp contrast of what the past was and what the future could be in Iran,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, Iran senior director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank. “This rise in popularity correlates with increasing secularism and nationalism.”

Some Iranians responded to Pahlavi’s call to join swelling protests against the government Thursday night. He urged more to take part Friday.

“Be assured that victory belongs to you,” said Pahlavi, who is based in the U.S.

Pahlavi was 18 years old and in the U.S. training to be a jet fighter pilot when the revolution that ousted his father unfolded. After his father died in exile in Egypt in 1980, Pahlavi declared himself the new shah but failed over the following decades to build a cohesive Iranian opposition, with many Iranians continuing to revile his dynasty.

Demonstrators and troops loyal to the shah in Tehran in November 1978. Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images

Three midlevel Iranian government officials, reached over the past week to discuss other issues, brought up unprompted that they privately longed for the return of the Pahlavis. As the latest round of protests erupted in the capital, one of them said he wanted his king back and hoped he could restore Iran’s international standing following a bruising conflict with Israel in June.

There are limits to Pahlavi’s influence. He says he wouldn’t rule as a shah and wants to help Iranians transition to a secular democracy, but he lacks an organized support network inside Iran. President Trump, who has repeatedly threatened to intervene if the government fires on the protesters and has admired Iranians’ eagerness to shake off the regime, has said he isn’t ready to meet him yet.

Iran’s opposition movement remains deeply fragmented. Many Iranians—even those calling for regime change—still firmly oppose the return of the deposed dynasty.

“The Islamic Republic is so bad people will accept anything in replacement, and he offers a simple solution,” said Javad Chamanara, an opposition activist and member of Iran’s Kurdish minority who favors a federalist system in Iran. Pahlavi is seen as a divisive figure among ethnic minorities, which make up close to half of Iran’s population, because of the monarchy’s past refusal to grant them some autonomy, he said.

WSJ’s Benoit Faucon explains the financial collapse fueling deadly clashes, how President Trump and Iran are responding to the unrest and what’s next for the country’s deteriorating political situation. Photo: UGC/AFP/Getty Images

Iran does have other opposition figures, including human-rights activists. Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate, called on her fellow citizens to rally for freedom and democracy.

“We are witnessing the collapse of the hegemony of the Islamic Republic,” Ebadi, who lives outside Iran, said on her official Telegram channel Friday. “All we need to do in these final days is hold each other’s hands and believe that this dark night is coming to an end.”

The Islamic Republic is more vulnerable than it has been in years. Its economy is in tatters because of sanctions and the collapse of its currency. The 12-day war with Israel devastated its nuclear and missile program and laid bare the limits of its military capabilities.

Negotiations between Tehran and Washington to restart talks over its nuclear program are deadlocked over the regime’s insistence on the right to enrich uranium, which the U.S., Europe and Israel fear could be used to build a bomb.

The antigovernment demonstrations that began in late December have mobilized a wide spectrum of Iranian society, from oil workers to bazaar merchants, students, rights activists and ethnic minorities.

There are some similarities between the current protests and the popular unrest that led to the toppling of the shah. Widespread economic grievances were also a catalyst for the revolution, with bazaar merchants playing an important role.

In the late 1970s, secular and religious Iranians joined forces against the shah. Key to the uprising’s success was the charismatic leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, an exiled cleric, and the participation of the Shiite religious establishment. Mass demonstrations forced the shah and his family to flee in January 1979.

Iran’s current leaders possess a more sophisticated apparatus to monitor and crush opposition than the shah. The waves of antigovernment demonstrations that swept Iran in 2009, 2017, 2019 and 2022 shook the regime but were all ultimately repressed.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has ruled the country since 1989, told a gathering of supporters Friday that he had no plan to cede power.

“Everyone should know that the Islamic Republic will not retreat,” he said.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei Iranian Supreme Leader’s Office/Zuma Press

Internet access has been almost completely interrupted since late Thursday, according to Netblocks, the watchdog group. Iran also shut down online access during the 2022 protests. More than 2,000 people have been arrested and three dozen killed, according to the group Human Rights Activists in Iran. Another group, Iran Human Rights, later put the death toll at 51.

Iran’s Islamist leaders haven’t yet deployed their full force against the continuing protests, in part because they fear Trump could follow through on his promise to intervene if protesters are killed, said Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi, an Iran expert with the Chatham House research group.

“We are not yet in a situation in which regime stability is at stake, although that could obviously change drastically and suddenly,” she said. “If the protests continue and further escalate, it is likely the regime will start again using repressive force.”

Write to Benoit Faucon at benoit.faucon@wsj.com and Margherita Stancati at margherita.stancati@wsj.com

Appeared in the January 10, 2026, print edition as 'Iran Protesters Rally Behind Son Of Former Shah as Unrest Grows'.

WSJ

3. Iran’s Supreme Leader Says He Won’t Bow Down to Protests or Trump

Summary:

Iran’s protests have evolved from economic anger to overt calls for regime change, directly targeting Ali Khamenei and the theocracy. Khamenei vows the Islamic Republic “will not retreat,” casting demonstrators as vandals serving POTUS. Over two thousand arrests, dozens killed, and near-total internet shutdown show the regime’s coercive reflex, yet analysts doubt his rhetoric can calm a population facing economic free fall. Trump’s explicit threat to intervene, fresh from Maduro’s capture, raises uncertainty about U.S. red lines and Tehran’s escalation calculus. The standoff pits regime resolve and repression against mounting popular fury and external pressure.

Comment: How should U.S. strategy balance the desire to exploit Khamenei’s hardline intransigence and visible fragility of the regime with the risks that overt threats by POTUS could justify harsher crackdowns, fracture allied unity, or saddle Washington with long-term ownership of Iran’s internal conflict? I also wonder what actions Israel is taking to influence the conditions in Iran? What are Saudi Arabia and other regional actors doing?

Iran’s Supreme Leader Says He Won’t Bow Down to Protests or Trump

WSJ

Protesters poured into the streets again Friday night in Tehran in the biggest challenge to the government in years

By Benoit Faucon

Updated Jan. 9, 2026 7:36 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/irans-supreme-leader-says-he-wont-bow-down-to-protests-or-trump-b76ba444

Demonstrators marching in Tehran, in an image from a video posted online Thursday. UGC/AFP/Getty Images

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said Friday the theocratic government wouldn’t back down in the face of fast-growing protests in Tehran and threats from President Trump to intervene.

Protests erupted again Friday night, a day after the largest demonstrations in years swept through the capital. Demonstrations that started in late December in the midst of anger over Iran’s plunging currency and high inflation have increasingly turned into calls for regime change.

Large crowds were heard chanting slogans against Iran’s theocracy and Khamenei himself.

Khamenei, who has ruled the country since 1989, told a gathering of supporters Friday that he had no plan to cede power.

“Everyone should know that the Islamic Republic will not retreat,” he said. He blamed the unrest in Tehran on “vandals” eager “to please the president of the United States.”

Late Thursday, Trump said in an interview on Fox News that the regime could be on the verge of collapsing and reiterated his threat to intervene if the government cracks down with deadly force.

“The enthusiasm to overturn that regime is incredible,” he said.

In a video posted Friday on social media, protesters in a Tehran neighborhood vowed to resist even a militarized crackdown. “Canon, Tank, Firecrackers; Mullah must get lost,” they chanted. The footage was verified by Storyful, which is owned by News Corp, The Wall Street Journal’s parent.

Trump’s threat carries new urgency for Tehran following the U.S. raid on Caracas, Venezuela, to capture the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, which has raised uncertainty over how far the U.S. president is willing to go.

In his speech, Khamenei told Trump to focus on problems in his own country. Arrogant rulers throughout history “were overthrown at the height of their pride,” the supreme leader said, citing a number of names including the last shah of Iran. Trump, he said, “will also be overthrown.”

Mustapha Pakzad, a geopolitical analyst focused on Iran, said the speech is unlikely to have much effect on a population struggling to survive economically.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has ruled the country since 1989. Iranian Supreme Leader’s Office/ZUMA Press

The government has acknowledged the protesters’ economic complaints but also has used its security forces to keep the demonstrations under control.

Internet access has been almost completely interrupted since late Thursday, according to NetBlocks, a watchdog group. Iran also shut down online access during the 2022 protests. Unlike previous disruptions, in which normal phone lines kept working, Iranians in the diaspora said they were now entirely unable to reach their families at home.

More than 2,000 people have been arrested, and three dozen killed, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran. Another group, Iran Human Rights, later put the death toll at 51.

Write to Benoit Faucon at benoit.faucon@wsj.com

Appeared in the January 10, 2026, print edition as 'Iranian Leader Vows to Crush Protests'.

WSJ

4. U.S. Forces Seize Fifth Tanker in Campaign to Track Down Venezuelan Oil

Summary:

The U.S. Coast Guard, backed by Navy and Marines, has seized a fifth sanctioned tanker, the Olina, as part of a broader campaign against Venezuela’s “dark fleet” of over 1,000 deceptive tankers that move sanctioned oil for Caracas, Russia, Iran and others. By interdicting vessels under false flags and backed by Russian escorts, Washington is signaling it will physically enforce sanctions at sea, not just on paper, and leverage control of global maritime commons to pressure Venezuela’s interim government to align with the U.S. and break with Moscow, Beijing and Tehran, while warning other malign actors who rely on illicit energy flows

Comment: Video at the link.

If Washington is now willing and able to hunt, board and seize Venezuela’s dark-fleet tankers under Russian overflight and escort, what changes in U.S. capability, risk tolerance and alliance management would be required to apply comparable maritime and financial pressure against Russian and north Korean sanction evasion networks operating under China’s shadow and nearer to its defensive perimeter?

U.S. Forces Seize Fifth Tanker in Campaign to Track Down Venezuelan Oil

WSJ

Coast Guard intercepted sanctioned tanker Olina in waters near Venezuela

By Shelby Holliday

, Costas Paris

and Benoit Faucon

Updated Jan. 9, 2026 3:43 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/u-s-forces-board-fifth-tanker-in-campaign-to-track-down-venezuelan-oil-08d1721f

Videos posted by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and U.S. Southern Command show the U.S. Coast Guard taking control of the tanker Olina in waters near Venezuela. Photo: U.S. Southern Command

The U.S. Coast Guard seized a fifth oil tanker early Friday morning and continued to eye other vessels trying to evade the U.S. blockade on sanctioned tankers traveling to and from Venezuela, according to U.S. officials.

The tanker targeted Friday was the Olina, said the officials and Vanguard, a shipping security and tracking company. The ship, previously named the Minerva M, was sanctioned by the U.S. for its role in transporting Russian oil. The move is likely to inflame tensions between Washington and Moscow days after the U.S. seized a ship that claimed Russian protection and was being escorted by the Russian Navy.

The ship has an East Timor flag, and the last time it transmitted its position was in mid-November near the coast of Venezuela, according to Marine Traffic, a global ship-tracking service, which added that it was sailing under a false flag.

A U.S. official said the crew didn’t resist.

“The ghost fleets will not outrun justice. They will not hide under false claims of nationality,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote in a social-media post announcing the action.

The Coast Guard, supported by the Marines and other military personnel, launched from the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier to board the ship, according to the U.S. military’s Southern Command.

The Olina loaded 700,000 barrels of Merey crude from Venezuela’s Jose terminal on Dec. 24, according to Kpler, a shipping analytics and data firm. Equasis, a European Union database, lists its owner as Hong-Kong company Tantye Peur Ltd.

President Trump posted on social media that the seized tanker left Venezuela without U.S. approval. “This tanker is now on its way back to Venezuela, and the oil will be sold through the GREAT Energy Deal, which we have created for such sales.”

The seizures are being used by the Trump administration to exert pressure on Venezuela’s interim government and take the so-called dark fleet of tankers out of operation. The dark fleet, also known as the shadow fleet, comprises more than 1,000 ships that engage in deceptive activities to conceal their role in transporting sanctioned and illicit oil.

The Venezuela blockade is “the reason why we understand and believe that we have the strongest leverage possible,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the U.S. seized two tankers earlier in the week.

About 70% of Venezuela’s oil exports rely on sanctioned vessels to get around crippling U.S. sanctions on its oil industry. Russia, Iran and Venezuela have amassed an armada of aging tankers to move barrels around the world.

The moves to seize tankers are also meant to signal to Russia, China and Iran that they shouldn’t ally themselves with Caracas or flout U.S. sanctions. The U.S. has delivered the message to Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, that her government must now side with Washington and wind down relations with U.S. adversaries, officials said.

The U.S. Navy has kept several warships near South America to support the boarding of ships. The Justice Department is also dedicating more resources to the seizures and has ramped up the pace and volume of its work in recent weeks, indicating more seizures could come.

The tanker tension threatens to further complicate relations between Washington and Moscow. Russia has been concerned by U.S. seizures of tankers that ferry its illicit oil around the world, and has made the unusual move of allowing dark-fleet oil tankers near Venezuela to register in Russia without an inspection or other formalities, shipping analysts and legal experts say.

The flare-up comes as Washington and Moscow have engaged in diplomatic wrangling on Ukraine. Russia has yet to accept a peace framework the U.S. and Ukraine have put forward.

Earlier this week, Moscow sent Navy ships to escort the tanker known as Bella 1 as the U.S. military tracked it across the Atlantic Ocean. Two Russian aircraft also flew over the Coast Guard vessel that was part of that mission, according to Coast Guard Acting Commandant Adm. Kevin Lunday.

In response, the Pentagon sent special forces and firepower to support the boarding and seizure of the Bella 1, including AC-130J military planes and P-8 Poseidon “submarine hunter” aircraft, according to U.S. officials.

“We were working very closely with the department of war,” Lunday told ABC News on Thursday. “At no time was the Coast Guard concerned at all about Russian military presence interfering with our legal authority and our operation that was ongoing.”

Write to Shelby Holliday at shelby.holliday@wsj.com, Costas Paris at costas.paris@wsj.com and Benoit Faucon at benoit.faucon@wsj.com

Appeared in the January 10, 2026, print edition as 'U.S. Seizes Fifth Tanker of Its Campaign'.

WSJ

5. Latest Pentagon Report: China’s Military Advancing Amid Churn

Summary:

China’s 2025 Military Power Report shows simultaneous disruption and advance. Leadership purges and procurement corruption have created short-term turbulence, yet the PLA is still moving hard toward Xi’s 2027 Taiwan-centric capability goal. Beijing is rapidly expanding nuclear forces, long-range conventional strike, and a resilient, networked kill chain out to 1,500–2,000 nautical miles. Gray-zone coercion in the near seas and overseas access farther afield are growing in scope. Despite organizational churn and some degraded readiness, the report judges that corrective purges could leave China with a more disciplined, coherent, and capable force, sustaining modernization momentum toward 2035 and 2049.

Comment: So many questions.

If Xi’s 2027 goal is a capabilities-based requirement to prevail in a Taiwan war and deter U.S. intervention, what concrete changes in U.S. posture, stockpiles, and command architecture are required by 2027 to convince Beijing that such a campaign is unwinnable at acceptable cost? (Will our Global Force Posture Review take this into account?)

How should Washington and its allies weight the four PLA Taiwan options – coercion, joint firepower strikes, blockade, full invasion – when prioritizing investments in asymmetric defenses, survivable basing, and information resilience across the first and second island chains? These four are not all either/or in terms of our capability investment. There is one capability we must invest in that is common in all options - narrative intelligence and cognitive warfare.

As China builds a larger, more flexible nuclear force with theater options, how must U.S. extended deterrence doctrine and messaging evolve to assure allies while managing escalation across a crowded ladder that now includes low-yield regional strikes and gray-zone coercion? I hope our nuclear effects are working on this problem.

If current purges ultimately yield a more disciplined PLA and cleaner procurement system, what “window of vulnerability,” if any, actually exists for the United States and allies, and are we structurally capable of exploiting it before China’s organizational consolidation catches up with its hardware? Again one capability that we need to focus on in this area is cognitive warfare.

With China pursuing nine carriers, extended maritime domain awareness, and dual-use logistics hubs from Djibouti to Ream, what is the minimum viable allied counter-network – military, commercial, informational, and financial – needed across the Asia-Indo-Pacific to prevent a de facto Chinese “system-of-systems” dominance by 2035? Can we sustain and enhance our "silk web" of alliances, and friends, and partners to counter these PRC/PLA capabilities?

Latest Pentagon Report: China’s Military Advancing Amid Churn

warontherocks.com · · January 9, 2026

Andrew Erickson

January 9, 2026

https://warontherocks.com/2026/01/latest-pentagon-report-chinas-military-advancing-amid-churn/

Simultaneous disruption and progress, with a relentless Taiwan-focused capability development deadline.

That’s the overriding theme of the 25th edition of the Department of Defense’s China Military Power Report, released on Dec. 23, 2025. Despite extensive leadership purges and ongoing disciplinary investigations across China’s military and defense industry, the 2025 report concludes that China continues to make progress toward General Secretary Xi Jinping’s 2027 “Centennial Military Building Goal” and associated warfighting capabilities against Taiwan.

The report shows China’s military undergoing simultaneous disruption and advancement, with leadership purges and procurement-related investigations generating short-term turbulence even as Xi’s armed forces surge forward. The report offers the clearest articulation to date of the origins, meaning, and operational implications of Xi’s 2027 goal, framing it as a capabilities-based requirement oriented toward coercion and potential warfighting against Taiwan and U.S. and allied intervention forces. It documents significant progress in nuclear posture enhancement, long-range conventional strike, and capability and resilience of supporting architecture. Moreover, it situates gray-zone coercion, Chinese coast guard and maritime militia activity, and expanding overseas access within a broader pattern of progress. Finally, while leadership investigations and removals have imposed immediate readiness and continuity costs, the Pentagon judges that such actions may ultimately yield a more disciplined, coherent, and capable Chinese military. This underscores the central conclusion: Organizational churn should not obscure continued Chinese military modernization momentum toward 2027 and beyond.

As it has for a quarter century, the report offers detailed information not typically available to the public. Many 2025 report datapoints reflect developments only through late 2024 or early 2025. This lag effect is an unavoidable reality of information cutoff and internal review timelines for a U.S. government document prepared systematically for public release, but it is likely accentuated by this year’s record-late publication.

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Targeting Taiwan Drives Dramatic Developments

The report provides the clearest account to date of Xi’s goal of achieving by the end of 2027 the capabilities required to prevail in a Taiwan conflict. This objective requires three integrated strategic capabilities: the ability to credibly prevail at acceptable cost in Beijing’s most stressing contingency (a Taiwan conflict involving America); deterring or constraining American intervention, in part with nuclear capabilities; and deterring the opening of additional fronts and the involvement of U.S. allies and partners.

Under Xi’s rule, China’s military development is advancing accordingly, and the report assesses Beijing’s motivations and likely challenges regarding four major Taiwan scenarios, which Beijing might well attempt to execute in some combination.

The first of these scenarios, coercion short of war, entails combining escalating military pressure with economic, informational, and diplomatic coercion — potentially including cyber, electronic, and limited conventional strikes to intimidate Taiwan, disrupt its infrastructure, and undermine public confidence in its ability to defend itself. The efficacy of such limited means hinges on the variables of Taiwanese resistance and resilience as well as American involvement and the significant risk that such a minimalist approach would not achieve decisive results.

A second scenario — a joint firepower strike campaign, involving precision strikes to cripple defenses and leadership — would hinge on a key structural weakness identified in the report. The report assesses at length that China would struggle to closely coordinate strikes and battle damage assessment among services and operations groups in the time-sensitive manner required.

In a third scenario, a joint blockade campaign, China could attempt to force Taiwan’s surrender through prolonged obstruction and interdiction of sea and air traffic, backed by missile strikes, limited island seizures, and concurrent electronic, cyber, and information operations designed to isolate the island and pressure Taiwan into negotiation or capitulation.

Finally, a joint island landing campaign would entail a large-scale amphibious invasion in which China’s military seeks to achieve air and maritime superiority, break through Taiwan’s coastal defenses, establish and sustain a beachhead, and seize key territory to decisively force unification. The difficulty of achieving decisive control over Taiwan using the first three campaigns might lead Beijing to this fourth campaign, but it would be the most complex and difficult of all to pull off.

Across all four scenarios, the report judges that China’s military likely faces constraints in employing cyber and other non-kinetic capabilities due to limited combat experience and ongoing organizational and integration challenges resulting from the 2024 restructuring of its information and cyber forces.

To reduce the aforementioned gaps, China is rapidly developing warfighting capabilities and rehearsing their application and combination through large-scale, sophisticated exercises. China’s Dec. 29-30 military exercise around Taiwan and nearby areas, “Justice Mission 2025,” showcased a range of capabilities detailed in the 2025 report. First mentioned in the Pentagon’s 2023 report (p. 50), the 280-kilometer-range PCH191 long-range rocket artillery system and FD280 ballistic missile featured heavily both in the exercise and in the 2025 report’s depiction of China’s coverage over the Taiwan Strait by close-range ballistic missiles, short-range ballistic missiles, and surface-to-air missiles. The 2025 report notes that “other, shorter-range, guided and unguided munitions … can also be fired from the PCH191 in multiple quantities.” Authoritative details on the PCH191, one of China’s most numerous, potent, and versatile weapons against Taiwan, are just one of many key findings underscoring the report’s utility and significance.

Nuclear Posture Development, Missile Capabilities, and Networked Architecture

Within the 2027 preparations framework, Xi has clearly elevated nuclear weapons as core to his objectives, constraining American and allied options, and coercively enveloping Taiwan. The centrality of nuclear capabilities to these top-priority aims explains the unprecedented nuclear emphasis and development over his more than 13 years in power.

China under Xi is executing a historically rapid nuclear buildup, moving from several hundred operational warheads to the current 600+ to potentially over a thousand within this decade, while simultaneously diversifying its delivery triad. China is dramatically increasing the number and variety of its nuclear weapons and delivery systems and the responsiveness of their posture.

The report highlights three major trends: triad development, retaliatory responsiveness, and scale and scope of inventory. Triad and force expansion entails improving and diversifying land-based, sea-based, and air-launched systems including silo-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, JL-series submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and nuclear-capable aircraft. The fielded JL-3 submarine-launched ballistic missile ranges most of the continental United States. The DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missile and the H-6N bomber’s air-launched ballistic missile offer delivery systems for low-yield (<10 kilotons) precision nuclear strikes.

The Chinese armed forces are also strengthening their retaliatory readiness through the addition of theater-range, potentially low-yield options and delivery systems suitable for regionally focused nuclear signaling. An emerging early warning counterstrike posture incorporates improved detection timelines, rapid-launch training activity, and expanding hardened basing infrastructure. Early warning satellites and long-range phased-array radars are part of an increasingly robust space tracking and ballistic missile warning network that enables inbound intercontinental ballistic missile detection within 90 seconds and command alert within 3‑4 minutes.

To operationalize this posture, China has likely loaded more than 100 silos with DF-31-class intercontinental ballistic missiles. While emphasizing uncertainty regarding doctrinal thresholds for employment, the report also discusses activities that appear oriented toward nuclear signaling and operational rehearsal. China’s 2024 DF-31B intercontinental ballistic missile Pacific splashdown test rehearsed nuclear signaling launches into broad ocean areas. Rapid silo-based-intercontinental ballistic missile launch training, involving multiple launches, occurred in December 2024.

China’s missile inventory reflects increasing operational depth and redundancy. The report assesses that China fields a burgeoning, increasingly varied missile arsenal, encompassing conventional, dual-capable, and nuclear systems across short-, intermediate-, and intercontinental-range categories. China’s DF-27 is now assessed as fielded with several variants, including an anti-ship ballistic missile and a conventionally armed 5,000‑8,000 kilometer intercontinental ballistic missile ranging the northwestern continental United States. DF-27 variants thus represent China’s fourth family of ground-launched anti-ship ballistic missiles, following the DF-17, DF-21D, and DF-26. Launch platform diversity across such major missile families gives China’s military increasing flexibility in campaign design. The size and growth rate of China’s missile stockpile reduces constraints associated with platform or target prioritization. The report frames these developments not as discrete technological breakthroughs, but as cumulative increases in operational depth, redundancy, and coercive leverage.

China’s integrated command, control, communications, information, and targeting enterprise supports an increasingly resilient and responsive kill chain, linking sensing, decision-making, and strike execution across nuclear and conventional domains. The Chinese government’s investment in extended maritime and air awareness and cueing well beyond the first island chain includes Skywave over-the-horizon radars — systems that bounce high-frequency radio waves off the Earth’s ionosphere down toward distant targets — allowing detection far beyond the line-of-sight limits of conventional radar. Together with other land-based sensors, the report projects, China’s Skywave radars “can probably detect ships and aircraft between the first and second island chains.” Drawing on such infrastructure, the report states that “In an operation to counter foreign military involvement,” kinetic strikes by China’s military “would probably be effective within 1,500-2,000 nautical miles from the Chinese mainland.”

Extensive fiber-optic communications cables connect China’s mainland facilities and its South China Sea outposts. The latter interconnectivity is documented uniquely in the report, which also describes the military infrastructure now embedded across China’s Spratly and Paracel fortifications. The report also lays out in detail how this enables persistent forward command, intelligence, targeting support, logistics, and coercive maritime operations rather than episodic activity.

Near Seas Coercion, Far Seas Access

The 2025 report devotes extensive coverage to the operations of China’s coast guard and maritime militia as components of concerted coercion in coordination with China’s navy. Among newly documented or expanded details, China’s coast guard and maritime militia vessels have engaged in ramming, aggressive blocking, and physical interference in the South and East China Seas. The report (pp. 38, 52, 71) cites June 2024 clashes near Second Thomas Shoal involving militiamen wielding axes and spears, causing serious injury to a Philippine sailor. It notes reporting that some militia vessels near Scarborough Shoal were painted white to resemble Chinese coast guard hulls. The Pentagon understands these incidents as part of a gray-zone campaign of sustained pressure, calibrated escalation control, and (implausible) deniability.

While dedicated coverage of Xi’s policy timelines out to 2035 and 2049 is beyond the scope of this essay, it’s nevertheless important to recognize the larger context: that Xi’s 2027 goal is a “waypoint to a waypoint.” In other words, far from the end of the story of China’s defense modernization or its challenge to the United States and its allies and partners, Beijing is simultaneously working to complete its desired military force structure by 2035 and eventually have unmatched military capabilities by 2049.

To protect expanding overseas economic and political interests, Beijing continues to pursue other measures, including both diplomatic engagements and military support presence. In addition to China’s existing support base in Djibouti, the report confirms a Chinese joint logistics and training center at Ream naval base in Cambodia and identifies 21 potential host nations under consideration for future access or logistics arrangements, including Pakistan, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Bangladesh.

The report also references Chinese interactions with armed non-state actors in the context of maritime security risks affecting Chinese commercial traffic, while emphasizing complex associated activity. It confirms that Beijing has conducted private outreach to the Houthis since the beginning of their attack campaign on merchant vessels in order to safeguard Chinese commercial shipping operating in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. It further confirms that, beginning in November 2023, companies based in China have supplied dual-use components that Houthi forces have used in their Red Sea attacks.

In a bombshell projection published nowhere else, the report states that by 2035 China seeks to build six aircraft carriers beyond the three it already has, for a total of nine. Building half a dozen carriers over the next decade would afford Beijing with some semblance of blue water force structure parity with Washington in the Indo-Pacific. This would be a heavy lift. China’s third aircraft carrier, Fujian (CV-18), took ten years to build. Construction took place from March 2015 to February 2016, and it was finally commissioned on Nov. 5, 2025. Nevertheless, China is clearly pursuing a “world-class navy” as part of a “world-class military” by mid-century.

Leadership Investigations, Removals, and Organizational Impact

Despite widespread removals of Chinese military and defense industry leaders, Beijing continues to make steady progress toward its 2027 goal. The report contains the most extensive public accounting to date of officer investigations, removals, and related defense-industry disciplinary cases since such longstanding efforts intensified in 2023. It suggests that resulting corrections and improvements have the potential to ultimately produce a more disciplined, institutionally coherent force. The report does not project a concrete timeframe for improvements. Rather, it suggests a consolidation after the heightened period of investigations, removals, and replacements generating organizational churn runs its course and the force benefits from improved discipline and reliability. The realization of some improvements could span and extend beyond Xi’s 2027 milestone.

The report documents dismissals across every service and theater command, with the Chinese rocket force most affected. It details unprecedented cross-service leadership transfers into senior rocket force positions in 2023, with one transferee later himself removed. It chronicles parallel investigations involving senior executives in missile, aviation, and shipbuilding enterprises. The report emphasizes that these shakeups have produced near-term disruptions in organizational continuity and force readiness but enable medium-term gains if procurement and leadership integrity are strengthened as a result.

One of the report’s most useful contributions is its explanation of the internal process by which senior officers and associated civilian executives are investigated, evaluated at the Central Committee level, and referred for prosecution — often over extended timelines during which they remain in limbo. On the military side, for example, Gen. Li Shangfu was removed as China’s defense minister and a member of the Central Military Commission in October 2023, and expelled from the Chinese Communist Party in June 2024, whereupon military prosecutors commenced formal prosecution. The report explains that disciplinary processes involving state-owned enterprise administrators typically proceed even more slowly than those involving military personnel, which can prolong industrial disruption. For example, Aviation Industry Corporation of China Chairman Tan Ruisong was removed in March 2023, declared under investigation in August 2024, expelled from the party in February 2025, and arrested in March 2025 for formal prosecution. Tan’s process started seven months before Li’s, yet ended two months later.

The report identifies two areas of clear negative impact. First, it reports that “some new recruits question the [military]’s absolute loyalty to the party.” The China Maritime Studies Institute has similarly identified concerns regarding commitment to Chinese communist principles among some young personnel. Second, the report identifies corruption compromising procurement and hardware capabilities. In remarks to military delegates at the March 2024 National People’s Congress session, Central Military Commission second Vice Chairman He Weidong (himself later removed) criticized the provision of substandard equipment to China’s armed forces and the submission of false reports to senior leadership. The report specifically cites “malfunctioning lids installed on missile silos” and “possibly the pier side sinking” of the Chinese navy’s first Zhou-class (Type 041) submarine during preparation for sea trials. The Pentagon’s 2024 report identified problems with missile silo lids, concluding with a critical caveat: “This investigation likely resulted in [China’s rocket force] repairing the silos, which would have increased the overall operational readiness of its silo-based force.” The 2025 report is unique in the authority of its informed speculation regarding the reason for the submarine’s sinking, but the status of future hulls should be visible to non-government analysts.

As with other aspects of China’s military development, multiple things are true at once: Short-term readiness risks coexist with the possibility of future advancement if China proves successful in addressing what have clearly been identified as systemic problems. Discoveries of corruption and other severe disciplinary violations, particularly up to the highest levels of the rocket force, have demonstrably shaken the confidence of Chinese leadership and generated organizational churn. Yet the 2025 report explicitly warns against assuming long-term weakness. It states that while these purges “very likely” create short-term disruptions, China’s forces could very well emerge from corrective restructuring more reliable and capable than ever before.

Conclusion: Restless Restructuring, Relentless Advance

China continues advancing toward Xi’s ambitious, aggressive military objectives for 2027 and beyond. The Pentagon’s 2025 report never suggests that Xi’s supreme authority is at all in question, or that any other elite actors are able to amass sufficient power to challenge the Chinese leader. Additionally, it does not suggest that removals have fundamentally derailed China’s modernization program. Rather, it characterizes the impacts as phase-bound disruptions occurring alongside continued progress in priority areas.

Given the pace of China’s military modernization, progress in many areas may already exceed what the Pentagon chronicles. Moreover, the 2025 report cannot cover everything. At 100 pages, it is the shortest since 2015 (98 pages), down from a height of 212 pages in 2023 and substantially shorter than the 2024 report (182 pages). Curiously, it contains almost nothing on the Chinese navy’s rapidly growing force structure.

Beijing inevitably fires off a fusillade of denunciations of the report and makes sweeping, unsubstantiated claims that it propagates falsehoods and exaggerates China’s capabilities. At the other extreme, some commentators take China’s progress out of context and purport that individual advances represent an “insurmountable” “game-changer” for the United States and its allies and partners. Testing of China’s YJ-20 missile occurred shortly after the report’s publication and could by no means be covered by it. Faulty analysis misrepresents the missile’s significance by categorically exaggerating its impact and the certainty thereof. China’s missiles are formidable indeed, and the YJ-20 is yet another example. But categorical polemics, in whatever direction, lack analytical soundness. Modern warfare between two leading militaries and a confrontation of systems-of-systems would entail extremely complex, multivariate equation(s) and should be treated analytically.

In conclusion, China’s military continues to modernize rapidly, with organizational turbulence occurring alongside substantial capability gains. For the United States and its allies, the central strategic takeaway is not disruption within China’s armed forces, but sustained progress toward 2027-aligned force development milestones — particularly in nuclear posture, long-range strike, coercive maritime operations, and networked supporting infrastructure — even amid leadership purges and procurement-related investigations.

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Andrew S. Erickson, Ph.D., is a professor of strategy at the U.S. Naval War College and visiting scholar at Harvard’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. In 2024, he received the Navy Superior Civilian Service Medal.

Disclaimer: The perspectives expressed here are those of the author alone, based solely on open sources. They do not represent the views, policies, or positions of the U.S. Naval War College, the Department of the Navy, or any other organization of the U.S. government.

**Please note, as a matter of house style, War on the Rocks will not use a different name for the U.S. Department of Defense until and unless the name is changed by statute by the U.S. Congress.

Image: Ministry of State of Indonesia via Wikimedia Commons

warontherocks.com · · January 9, 2026

6. Israel and Hamas Get Ready to Go Back to War in Gaza

Summary:

Renewed fighting looms in Gaza. Hamas refuses to disarm under the U.S. plan, has rebuilt tunnels, replenished cash, and pays its 20,000 fighters again. Israel controls over half the enclave and has options ranging from gradual ground operations to a swift assault on Gaza City. The Trump plan hinges on Hamas relinquishing weapons and governing authority to a technocratic Palestinian committee under an international stabilization force. None of that is progressing. Regional tensions with Hezbollah and Iran complicate choices. Cease-fire conditions that killed more than 70,000 Palestinians and displaced millions have not resolved the political question. War waits in the wings because neither side accepts defeat.

Comment: As George Santayana said: "Only the dead have seen the end of war." Gaza’s ruins testify that cease-fires do not always bring peace, sometimes only pauses before the next campaign.

And the terribly hard question is: What is the acceptable durable political arrangement that will bring peace, security, and stability?

Israel and Hamas Get Ready to Go Back to War in Gaza

WSJ

Fresh cash is helping the group pay its fighters and recruit new members, Arab and Israeli officials say

By Dov Lieber

in Tel Aviv, Israel and Summer Said

in Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Jan. 10, 2026 5:30 am ET

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-hamas-gaza-war-5f1b0548

Israel and Hamas are preparing for renewed fighting as the Palestinian militant group is refusing to disarm, a requirement that is holding up progress on President Trump’s peace plan for Gaza.

Israel’s military has drawn up plans for a new ground operation inside Hamas-controlled territory in Gaza, according to people briefed on the plans. Hamas is focusing on rebuilding military capabilities lost during the war, including parts of its damaged tunnel infrastructure, Arab and Israeli officials said. The U.S.-designated terrorist group also has received a new influx of cash that has helped it regularly pay salaries to its fighters again, the officials said.

Israel “must be prepared to quickly transition to a wide attack across the other side of the yellow line,” said Israeli military chief of staff Eyal Zamir, in November, referring to Hamas-controlled territory.

Israel and the U.S. have said Hamas needs to give up its weapons in compliance with the cease-fire agreement. Hamas is open to giving up what is left of its stock of heavy weapons, but won’t turn over its small arms, Arab officials said. Israel estimates the group has 60,000 rifles and 20,000 fighters.

An Israeli official said Hamas won’t be able to shirk its obligation to relinquish its arms. The official said that if the group doesn’t willingly give up its weapons, Israel would force it to do so.

There are no immediate plans for the military to enter Hamas-controlled Gaza, and Israel is willing to give time for the U.S. plan to move forward, Israeli officials said. Moving ahead with any war plans would be a decision to be made by Israel’s political leaders, another Israeli official said.

Trump has sent Hamas a similar message, saying in December that “there will be hell to pay” if the group doesn’t give up its weapons.

Displaced Palestinians among the ruins of their destroyed home in southern Gaza. Haitham Imad/EPA/Shutterstock

An October cease-fire ended two years of heavy fighting between the two sides that left more than 70,000 Palestinians dead and the enclave in ruins. A return to war would have grave consequences for Gaza’s roughly two million Palestinians, most of whom have been displaced during the war and many are living in tent encampments or other makeshift shelters.

The plan’s first phase left the enclave divided: Israel controls just over 50% and Hamas controls the rest. The second phase of the plan requires Hamas to give up governing control of Gaza and turn over its arms, after which Israel would pull its troops back to a much smaller buffer zone. An international force would enter Gaza to help stabilize it, and a committee of Palestinian technocrats would run Gaza, overseen by a so-called Board of Peace chaired by Trump.

Since the cease-fire ended, Hamas has cracked down on opponents and moved to strengthen its grip over Gaza. The group has been appointing new commanders to succeed those who were killed and has started rebuilding some of its damaged tunnel infrastructure, Arab and Israeli officials said. The group is also rebuilding its financial coffers with access to cash it had stored in tunnels, from taxation, and an influx from Iran, the officials said.

The possibility of renewed fighting in Gaza comes as Israel mulls a new round of clashes with the Lebanese militia Hezbollah and Iran. Israel says Hezbollah is trying to rehabilitate its armed wing after it dealt the group several painful blows. Israeli officials say a new operation in Lebanon may be required to help the Lebanese military disarm the group. The Lebanese military says it is effectively disarming Hezbollah on its own.

Israel is also closely watching efforts by Iran to rebuild its ballistic missiles program after their 12-day war in June, and has warned it would launch new strikes to keep that from happening. Trump has said that he would support military action against Iran if it tries to rebuild its missile or nuclear programs.

Israeli soldiers in southern Gaza. Nir Elias/Reuters

Israeli security analysts said Israel will need to determine which battles to give priority to.

Fighting Hamas now would be easier for Israel because it doesn’t have to worry about putting the hostages at risk, said Erez Winner, who held a senior planning position in Israel’s military for most of the war in Gaza and is now a research fellow at the Israel Centre for Grand Strategy.

Since most Palestinians on the Hamas side of Gaza are living in tents, it would be easier for Israel to evacuate them, he said. Israel could also offer Palestinians safety on the Israeli-controlled side of Gaza, he said.

“It will be much faster and easier than people want to believe,” he said, of a new round of fighting in Gaza. “It’s adjusting plans we already have to the current situation.”

Israeli security analysts said Israel could choose a large-scale invasion of Gaza City—the de facto capital of the enclave—in an attempt to force a quick surrender from Hamas, or slowly wrestle control of the enclave piece by piece.

“It can be gradual or swift, depending on the time frame and strategy,” said Amir Avivi, a former senior defense official close to the current government. “The army is ready and can do both.”

Hamas has agreed to disarmament under Trump’s peace plan, and the Board of Peace and Palestinian technocratic government envisioned under the plan will decide what constitutes disarmament—such as whether it includes small arms—and how it will be implemented, a source familiar with American thinking on the matter.

Hamas is increasingly levying taxes on all kinds of goods and services in Gaza, Arab and Israeli officials said. Cash transfers from Iran into Gaza move through a network of intermediaries, the officials said.

Hamas militants in Gaza City. Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters

The new cash flow is helping Hamas pay government employees as well as its fighters more consistently, and is fueling the group’s recruitment efforts, Arab and Israeli officials said. It is also helping to fund the group’s reconstruction of parts of its vast tunnel system underneath the enclave, the Arab officials said.

Hamas is facing elections to pick a new leader outside of Gaza that could determine whether the group risks a new round of fighting by continuing to refuse to give up its weapons. The race is currently between Khalil Al-Hayya, who believes the group should not disarm, and Khaled Mashal, who is more open to a compromise with Israel. The current leader of Hamas in Gaza, Ezzedin Al-Haddad, supports a hard-line stance against disarmament.

The refusal by Hamas to disarm isn’t the only thing preventing the peace plan from progressing. Other parts of the first phase haven’t been completed. Israel has yet to open the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt so that Palestinians can enter and exit the enclave, while the body of the last remaining deceased Israeli hostage in Gaza has yet to be returned.

The U.S. has also struggled to establish the international stabilization force envisioned by Trump’s peace plan, as few countries are willing to sign up while Hamas refuses to disarm. Israel and the U.S. have also said that there will be no rebuilding efforts in Gaza until Hamas disarms.

Write to Dov Lieber at dov.lieber@wsj.com and Summer Said at summer.said@wsj.com

WSJ

7. China says it is still ‘deeply committed’ to Venezuela as ambassador meets new leader

Summary:

China has signaled it will stand by Caracas after Maduro’s abduction, with Ambassador Lan Hu assuring interim president Delcy Rodriguez that Beijing remains “deeply committed” to Venezuela. China is the largest importer of Venezuelan crude and a major investor in its oil sector through ventures like PetroSinovensa, anchoring Belt and Road projects, minerals, and infrastructure deals. Washington is pressing Caracas to cut ties with China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba while seizing sanctioned tankers and tightening a partial oil blockade. Beijing condemns U.S. actions as bullying and insists its economic and legal interests in Venezuela must be protected.

Comment: See graphic depicting international alignment at the link.

If China’s growth and naval reach increasingly depend on discounted Venezuelan crude as some have pointed out, to what extent is Washington’s seizure of tankers and leverage over Caracas a deliberate Go/Qei Chi/Baduk move to cut China’s energy “liberties,” and do we have the sustained capability and political will to hold those positions when Beijing starts counterplaying across the wider Asia-Indo-Pacific "Go board?"

China says it is still ‘deeply committed’ to Venezuela as ambassador meets new leader

Interim president Delcy Rodriguez thanked Beijing for its ‘firm and consistent’ stance following the abduction of Nicolas Maduro

Xinlu Liangin Beijing

Published: 8:30pm, 9 Jan 2026

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3339375/china-says-it-still-deeply-committed-venezuela-ambassador-meets-new-leader

Xinlu Liangin Beijing

Published: 8:30pm, 9 Jan 2026

China said on Friday it would continue to offer its firm support to Venezuela after its ambassador met the country’s interim president Delcy Rodriguez.

She described her meeting with Chinese ambassador Lan Hu as “cordial” and thanked Beijing for its condemnation of the abduction of former leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores.

“We value China’s firm and consistent stance in strongly condemning the serious violation of international law and Venezuelan sovereignty,” Rodriguez said.

Responding to a question about the meeting, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said China valued its relations with Venezuela and had always maintained good communication and cooperation with the Venezuelan government.

“China will continue to firmly support Venezuela in safeguarding sovereignty, dignity and national security,” Mao said.

“No matter how the political situation may evolve in Venezuela, China is deeply committed to deepening practical cooperation across many fields and promoting common development.”

Venezuela’s Supreme Court appointed Rodríguez, the former vice-president, as interim president on Monday. The ambassadors of China, Russia and Iran were among the diplomats present at the ceremony.

China’s investments and wider relationship with Venezuela have been plunged into uncertainty following last weekend’s raid and Donald Trump’s claim that Venezuela would transfer between 30 and 50 million barrels of oil to the US.

How Maduro’s abduction is set to change Latin America

Venezuela, which holds the world’s largest known crude oil reserves, has seen its oil production decline sharply over the past decade due to sanctions and the exodus of foreign companies.

Restoring its oil industry will require billions of dollars in investment, making it harder for the US to use its resources to exert pressure.

Washington has been pressuring Venezuela to cut economic ties with China, Russia, Iran and Cuba. This week it also seized two sanctioned oil tankers, a move many analysts saw as a sign it planned to continue its partial blockade to keep up the pressure on the Venezuelan government.

But on Tuesday, Rodriguez insisted: “The government of Venezuela is in charge in our country, and no one else.”

China remains a key economic and diplomatic ally of Venezuela and is the largest importer of Venezuelan crude oil.

The country is also a key player in Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, offering access to minerals, infrastructure projects and markets.

Beijing has consistently opposed US sanctions and maintains strong ties to Venezuela’s oil sector through joint ventures such as PetroSinovensa, operated by China National Petroleum Corporation and Venezuela’s PDVSA.

Some analysts have warned that a pro-US government could review or even revoke existing contracts, possibly diluting Chinese stakes or even replacing them with American firms.

Some sectors, particularly telecommunications, could also face stricter scrutiny or bans on Chinese technology as a result of national security concerns.

This week Mao has repeatedly emphasised that China’s cooperation with Venezuela was rooted in mutual respect between “two sovereign states.”

She stressed that China’s rights and interests in Venezuela must be protected, and condemned what she called “blatant interference” and a “typical act of bullying” by the US.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil has thanked China for its “support and solidarity in the face of the recent US military aggression”.

“Venezuela reaffirms its commitment to deepening trade and economic agreements with the People’s Republic of China,” he wrote on social media.

He added that relations between the two countries were “supported by the framework of international law and the regulations of both sovereign nations”.

Xinlu Liang

Joining the Post in 2021, Xinlu Liang covers China politics with a special interest in China's governance philosophy, social justice, and ethnic minorities issues. Previously, she interned at the Los Angeles Times and Reuters in Shenzhen. She has a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Southern California and a bachelor's degree in English from Sun Yat-sen

8. Trump Is Making a Power Play in Latin America. China Is Already There.

Summary:

Trump’s removal of Maduro and seizure of Venezuelan oil confronts two decades of Chinese economic statecraft in Latin America. Beijing built regional influence with credit, infrastructure, minerals, ports, agribusiness and consumer platforms, and now dominates trade in much of South America. China is Venezuela’s largest oil buyer and is still owed roughly $10 billion in oil-backed loans. Trump signals a hemispheric doctrine to block Chinese control of “strategically vital assets,” backed by tariffs, threats over the Panama Canal and intervention in Caracas. China is watching nervously as projects stall and governments reassess. The key question is whether Washington offers capital, not just coercion.

Comment: To borrow and turn a phrase from the past: It is not about Venezuela. It's about China, stupid. We are just late coming back to the game in Latin America. We have neglected this corner of the Go/Wei Chi/Baduk board for too long.

If China has spent twenty years building a lattice of loans, ports, minerals, and markets across Latin America, can the United States dislodge that position without a Marshall-scale financing instrument, or does coercion without capital simply push regional actors back toward Beijing once the shock fades?

What mechanisms, e.g., trade, development finance, security guarantees, would we need to deploy to make our hemispheric play durable, and can Washington sustain such a campaign while simultaneously competing with China in the Asia-Indo-Pacific and confronting Russia and north Korea? (and dealing with the possible collapse of Iran, Putin's War in Ukraine, renewed fighting in Gaza, competition in the Arctic, etc. etc?)

Doesn't this complex and complicated geo-strategic environment demand that we depend on our silk web of friends, partners, and allies to protect our mutual interests, project power, deter war, and win in strategic competition of the gray zone, and if necessary on the battlefield?

Trump Is Making a Power Play in Latin America. China Is Already There.

NY Times · Alexandra Stevenson · January 9, 2026

By Alexandra Stevenson

Reporting from Hong Kong

Jan. 9, 2026

China built a dominant strategic position in the region as the leading lender and trading partner. It is watching President Trump’s next moves closely.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/09/business/china-latin-america-trump-venezuela.html

China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, and President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela shaking hands in Caracas, in 2014.

Reporting from Hong Kong

Jan. 9, 2026

Leer en español

For China, President Trump’s power grab in Venezuela is a frontal attack on a longstanding source of oil, cultivated through billions of dollars in loans and years of political courtship. But Mr. Trump has also expressed a wider vision for power that involves breaking China’s economic dominance across Latin America.

His new focus — and willingness to put military force behind it — threatens to loosen China’s economic grip in a region where it has quietly used abundant trade, enormous loans and financial tie-ups to build influence.

China has gone from doing nearly no business in the region two decades ago to bilateral trade worth more than $500 billion in 2024.

Chinese mining companies extract copper from Peru and lithium from Argentina. China’s agricultural conglomerates import lifeline commodities like soybeans from Brazil. Chinese utilities power entire cities. China controls much of the shipping infrastructure and the ports that transit goods across the Pacific.

Latin America’s 670 million consumers are also buying Chinese brands. In Mexico, dealerships sell gasoline-powered Chery cars and MG sedans. In Brazil, the fast-food chain Mixue sells ice cream, the e-commerce platform Meituan delivers food and the ride-hailing service Didi ferries people around. In Peru, Xiaomi smartphones are popular.

China has closely followed Mr. Trump’s comments singling out countries like Colombia, Cuba and Mexico, and it has expressed its opposition to the U.S. actions in Venezuela, saying China’s economic relationship with the country is “protected by international law and relevant laws.”

A copper mine in Challhuahuacho, Peru, operated by a Chinese company, in an undated handout photo.

China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, and President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, in Beijing, in a 2023 handout photo.Credit...Miraflores Palace, via Reuters

A spokesman for China’s Commerce Ministry said this week that “China will continue to work with Latin American countries to address international vicissitudes.”

China is still owed, by one estimate, about $10 billion that Venezuela is paying off through oil shipments. Last year, more than half of its crude exports — or 768,000 barrels per day — went to China, according to Kpler, a global oil monitoring service.

Want to stay updated on what’s happening in Central America, East Asia and South America? , and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.

Washington’s new strategy “explicitly focuses on China’s influence in Latin America, which will pose certain challenges to Chinese investment,” said Tao Zhigang, a Chinese economist. This investment “faces a lot of uncertainty,” Mr. Tao told local Chinese media.

China’s pursuit of deeper ties in Latin America began two decades ago. At the time, Chinese companies were scouring the world to secure copper, oil and iron ore to power China’s breathtaking economic growth. Chinese banks extended ever-larger loans to countries across Latin America in exchange for oil and critical minerals, and along the way China began building railways and highways and selling its goods.

Since then, China has economically displaced the United States in 10 of 12 countries in South America alone, according to research by Francisco Urdinez, an associate professor of political science at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. China now engages in more trade, investment and development financing than the United States in most of the region, including Central America.

China is Latin America’s largest official source of aid and credit, offering an estimated $303 billion in financing across the region between 2000 and 2023, according to AidData, a research institute at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va. Between 2014 and 2023, for every $1 lent or given in aid by the United States in Latin America and the Caribbean, China provided $3, said Brad Parks, the executive director of AidData.

These investments in many cases have left the countries saddled with debt and obligations to fulfill contracts for commodities like oil.

China’s lending binge also gave its companies an advantage when they bid for government contracts to build roads, power lines and major projects like a multibillion-dollar dam in the Ecuadorean jungle (which turned out to be ill fated). Over time, China’s economic activities translated into a handful of free-trade agreements and better access for Chinese companies.

The Coca Codo Sinclair dam in the Ecuadorean jungle. China’s lending helped its companies secure government contracts for infrastructure.Credit...Federico Rios Escobar for The New York Times

Chinese automakers like MG have gained a foothold in Mexico.Credit...Benedicte Desrus for The New York Times

Latin America swelled with a range of goods from Chinese factories, from car parts, electronic devices and appliances to equipment for satellites and space infrastructure — another area where China has invested heavily.

The region, in turn, became China’s most important source of critical minerals, including rare earths, an industry that China has near-total global control over.

“Hundreds of Chinese enterprises, and five to 10 banks from China, are on the ground in Latin America that were not active 20 years ago,” said Mr. Urdinez, the professor in Chile.

“China hasn’t replaced the U.S. hegemony, but it has eroded the leverage that Washington once had in the 1980s and 1990s,” he said.

By countless measures, China has outpaced competitors. Chinese companies are selling more cars to Mexico than any other country. Chile is the second-largest overseas destination for Chinese electric buses. Some of the trade also travels in the other direction: Nearly half of Chile’s exports now go to China.

But President Trump has signaled that he wants to curb China’s advances in the region.

Before his military raid that removed Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and took control of the country’s oil, Mr. Trump had threatened to “take back” the Panama Canal. He accused the canal’s main port operator, the Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison Holdings, of being an extension of China’s Communist Party. He called out Mexico for being a “back door” to the United States for Chinese goods. He has tried to use a 50 percent tariff on Brazil to secure a trade deal that limits Chinese investment in the country.

Oil tankers and a refinery in the distance near Punto Fijo, Venezuela, in 2021. Venezuela has been paying back Chinese financing with oil shipments.Credit...The New York Times

Supporters of Mr. Maduro in Caracas demanded his release after his extraction by the United States.Credit...The New York Times

And Mr. Trump released a national security strategy last month that asserted that he would deny “competitors” from outside the Western Hemisphere the ability “to own or control strategically vital assets, in our hemisphere.”

China’s business world is on alert. A consortium of Chinese companies that is developing a major copper mine in Ecuador said this week that it would put the project on hold, citing a “volatile” political situation in the country. China and Ecuador signed a free-trade agreement in 2023. At the time, Ecuadorean officials indicated that they would have preferred to sign with the United States.

“It is normal and understandable that some Chinese companies might halt their investments after such a sudden geopolitical event,” said Cui Shoujun, director of the Research Center for Latin American Studies at Renmin University in Beijing, referring to Mr. Maduro’s capture.

Analysts said many governments would most likely turn to the United States if given an option to engage more deeply.

But they need funding for developmental needs that the United States, under Mr. Trump, may not be ready to address.

“Is the U.S. just worried about the defensive element of competition with China or is the U.S. going to deliver a credible offensive play?” asked Henrietta Levin, senior fellow for the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“China has established such a powerful position within the economic status quo that it will be challenging for the administration to counter all of it in an effective way,” Ms. Levin said. She said the United States would need to offer a large and comprehensive aid program like the Marshall Plan, which helped to rebuild Europe after World War II.

Several big Latin American countries, including Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Colombia, have denounced Mr. Trump’s actions in Venezuela, something that Mr. Cui, the Chinese professor, said could strengthen China’s ties with these countries.

Besides, Mr. Cui added, it is impossible for China and Latin America to walk away from each other. “Who will Latin America sell its soybeans and corn to?”

Pei-Lin Wu contributed reporting.

Alexandra Stevenson is the Shanghai bureau chief for The Times, reporting on China’s economy and society.

See more on: Donald Trump

NY Times · Alexandra Stevenson · January 9, 2026

9. Why Putin Went Quiet When Challenged by Trump Over Venezuela

Summary:

Putin’s silence over Trump’s Maduro raid reflects a ruthless hierarchy of priorities. The Kremlin is absorbing geopolitical losses in Syria, Venezuela and Iran while pouring resources into a “protracted standoff” in Ukraine. Moscow will not risk a rupture with POTUS over a peripheral client when Washington still controls the pace, terms and outcome of any Ukraine settlement and the future of NATO. Russia’s shrinking global bandwidth, mounting costs of war, and eroding influence in its former near abroad all reinforce a strategy of restraint toward U.S. moves in Latin America in order to preserve leverage where it matters most.

Comment: A fairly positive assessment of the US position especially vis a vis Putin's War in Ukraine.

If Putin is willing to swallow humiliation in Venezuela to secure a better deal in Ukraine and Europe, how should U.S. and allied strategy deliberately link concessions and pressure across theaters to test the real limits of Russian compromise without misreading his red lines and triggering wider escalation?

Why Putin Went Quiet When Challenged by Trump Over Venezuela

NY Times · Andrew E. Kramer · January 10, 2026

By Paul Sonne Valerie Hopkins and Andrew E. Kramer

Paul Sonne and Valerie Hopkins reported from Berlin, and Andrew E. Kramer from Kyiv, Ukraine.

Jan. 10, 2026

Updated 7:17 a.m. ET

News Analysis

For the Russian leader, courting President Trump to secure a favorable resolution in Ukraine, and possibly more, is far more important.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/10/world/europe/trump-putin-venezuela.html

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia during a news conference with President Trump in August in Anchorage.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

Paul Sonne and Valerie Hopkins reported from Berlin, and Andrew E. Kramer from Kyiv, Ukraine.

Jan. 10, 2026Updated 7:17 a.m. ET

Sitting on a gilded chair in the green drawing room of the Grand Kremlin Palace, Nicolás Maduro, the leader of Venezuela, turned to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and spoke of their bright future together.

“We will see relations flourish between the great Russia, today a leading power of humankind, and Venezuela,” Mr. Maduro proclaimed at the meeting, last May.

Eight months later, Mr. Maduro is sitting some 4,700 miles away in a violent and overcrowded federal detention center in Brooklyn, having been spirited out of Caracas last Saturday in a U.S. military raid ordered by President Trump.

A week has passed — and Mr. Putin has said nothing.

The silence, though partly a function of Russia’s traditional New Year’s holiday period, reflects a monthslong pattern in which the Kremlin has played down actions by the United States that previously would have incited Moscow’s ire and threats.

Mr. Putin has been careful to avoid antagonizing Washington as he seeks a favorable outcome in Ukraine, even if it means standing aside in other parts of the world where he might previously have played hardball.

The most recent example came on Wednesday, when the U.S. military seized a sanctioned oil tanker that adopted Russia’s flag after the vessel fled from the U.S. Coast Guard across the Atlantic Ocean. Russia initially responded with a three-paragraph statement from its Ministry of Transport, exceptional restraint for a nation that has periodically threatened nuclear war. Mr. Putin again said nothing.

“He has one goal, which is to come out on top in Ukraine, and everything else is subordinated to that goal,” said Hanna Notte, the director of the Eurasia program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

Outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where Nicolás Maduro, the ousted president of Venezuela, is being held.Credit...Dave Sanders for The New York Times

Though Russia may have been capable of complicating the U.S. mission to capture Mr. Maduro in Venezuela, Ms. Notte said, that would have risked a full rupture with Mr. Trump.

“All the indicators in Russian foreign policy right now are that Ukraine trumps everything else by far, so why would you give the Americans a bloody nose there and get on their wrong side?” Ms. Notte said.

Want to stay updated on what’s happening in Russia and Venezuela? , and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.

While Moscow’s muted reaction may be strategic, Mr. Putin is also limited in what he can do as Russia faces a broader unraveling of its global power and, even in the best of times, cannot fully control the dynamics within its authoritarian client states.

The loss of influence began with his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which eroded Moscow’s sway in other former Soviet nations in Central Asia, the Caucasus and Moldova.

The trend accelerated in late 2024 with the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria, which Mr. Putin spent a decade trying to save with a costly Russian military intervention. It has continued with Mr. Trump’s assertion of U.S. power over Venezuela, a top Russian partner in Latin America, and the mass anti-government street protests that are imperiling the Kremlin-friendly government in Iran.

An apartment complex in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, that was hit by U.S. airstrikes last week during the operation that captured Mr. Maduro.Credit...The New York Times

Last year, the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan, two former Soviet republics that long looked to Moscow as the mediator of their disputes, traveled to the White House to sign a peace accord presided over by Mr. Trump.

“The Ukraine war is a dark hole that consumes Russia’s resources,” said Alexander Gabuev, the director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “As the country becomes more resilient internally to Western pressure, it also becomes weaker as a global player, because it doesn’t have as many resources to throw around at its ambitions.”

Even if Russia had wanted to step in and defend Caracas, Mr. Gabuev added, Moscow was not about to go to war in Venezuela with the United States, a fellow nuclear power. He said Russia would not antagonize Mr. Trump over peripheral issues if it risked its goals in Ukraine.

For years, the Kremlin has viewed the world as an agglomeration of regions where great powers like Russia, China and the United States should have privileged interests. During Mr. Trump’s first term, Russian officials at one point offered Washington free rein over Venezuela in return for carte blanche in Ukraine. Mr. Trump has also viewed Washington as having a privileged sphere of influence, saying both Canada and Greenland should become part of the United States and in recent days vowing to “run” Venezuela, possibly for years.

Mr. Trump also has significant power to influence the outcome for Russia in Ukraine and Europe more broadly. Though he has dialed back support for Kyiv, the United States remains the dominant force in European security and is still providing the Ukrainian military with critical intelligence and weapons.

A Ukrainian soldier from the 63rd Mechanized Brigade firing toward a Russian target in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Since Mr. Maduro’s capture, Mr. Trump’s administration has reignited talk of taking Greenland from Denmark, risking the future of NATO, which was created in 1949 after World War II as a U.S.-led bulwark in Europe against Moscow’s influence.

“If Trump actually made good on invading Greenland and taking it over militarily, NATO would be finished, and that would obviously be incredible for the Russians,” Ms. Notte said.

Mr. Putin has been seeking to divide the United States from its longstanding allies in the alliance for years. Such a divide would accord Russia more power in Europe, where the Kremlin has long sought to reassert its influence, after Moscow lost sway over much of the continent following the Soviet Union’s collapse.

Amid U.S.-led talks to end the war in Ukraine, Britain and France in recent days agreed to send troop contingents to Ukraine in the event of a peace deal in order to deter a repeat Russian invasion, a move that Moscow swiftly rejected. On Friday, as if to underscore the point, Russia launched a nuclear-capable ballistic missile, known as the Oreshnik, at a target in western Ukraine just over the border from the European Union.

“Russia isn’t preparing for the end of the war,” Valery Zaluzhny, the former commander of Ukraine’s military and now ambassador to Britain, told Interfax-Ukraine, speaking of the missile strike. “It’s preparing for a protracted standoff” in Ukraine.

To some in Ukraine, Mr. Putin seemed to be compensating closer to home for his crimped influence overseas.

“He couldn’t do anything in Latin America, he couldn’t do anything against Trump, so he struck Ukraine,” said Mykola Davydiuk, a political analyst. “He is weak in geopolitics but he wants to emphasize that he is still here, in Ukraine.”

Paul Sonne is an international correspondent, focusing on Russia and the varied impacts of President Vladimir V. Putin’s domestic and foreign policies, with a focus on the war against Ukraine.

Valerie Hopkins covers the war in Ukraine and how the conflict is changing Russia, Ukraine, Europe and the United States. She is based in Moscow.

Andrew E. Kramer is the Kyiv bureau chief for The Times, who has been covering the war in Ukraine since 2014.

See more on: Russia-Ukraine War, Nicolás Maduro, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump

10. Opinion | The Iranian regime is caught in a death spiral

Summary:

Iran’s new uprising reveals a regime rotting from within. Repeated nationwide protests, now driven more by economic collapse than ideology, keep returning despite lethal crackdowns and mass arrests. Khamenei is old, inflexible, and lacks a clear successor. The security apparatus looks more fragile and less ideologically committed, after failures to protect proxies and to shield Iran from Israel’s June assault. Ignatius frames the Islamic Republic as a “zombie regime” kept alive by brute force, not legitimacy. External actors debate how to help: tighter sanctions, covert support, or tools like Starlink to break blackouts and empower a leaderless but persistent revolt.

Comment: Tipping point? on the brink? What happens after the regime collapses? What are we prepared to do? What will Israel and the countries in the region do when Iran collapses?

If Iran’s regime is indeed in a slow-motion death spiral, how should U.S. and allied strategy balance accelerating that decay through information, financial, and covert support with the need to shape, rather than simply inherit, whatever volatile post-theocratic order ultimately emerges in Tehran?

Opinion | The Iranian regime is caught in a death spiral

Washington Post · David Ignatius

Tehran tamps down the unrest again, but the protesters will be back.

January 9, 2026 at 7:28 p.m. ESTYesterday at 7:28 p.m. EST

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/01/09/iran-regime-ayatollah-tehran-unrest/

Let’s imagine the meeting Friday of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council as its dozen members pondered the uprising spreading across the country. Hard-line officials vowed a “determined crackdown” to crush the protesters, just as was done in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022 and 2023.

But President Masoud Pezeshkian and his colleagues can see the same videos of violent rebellion that are circling the globe. They must understand that these protests keep happening because the regime is rotting, politically and economically, and the whole country knows it. Every wave of repression spawns future protest. The regime can put out this fire, but what about the next one, and the one after that?

The Iranian regime is on a one-way street to disaster. A senior European diplomat in Tehran shared that assessment with me several years ago, and it remains true. Iran has powerful security tools, but they’re getting rusty. The regime couldn’t protect its proxies Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. And most important, Iran couldn’t shield itself from Israel’s systematic assault in June. The regime is on a losing streak.

“The Islamic Republic is today a zombie regime,” argues Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Its legitimacy, ideology, economy and leader are dead or dying. What keeps it alive is lethal force. It kills to live and lives to kill. Brutality can delay the regime’s funeral, but it can’t restore the pulse.”

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, gave a defiant speech Friday, claiming the protesters were “a bunch of vandals” trying to please President Donald Trump. But Khamenei, feeble but inflexible at 86, is the heart of the regime’s problem, living evidence of its exhaustion. And he has no obvious successor since the death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash in 2024.

How can the United States best help the rebels? Trump has vowed military punishment if Iran slaughters its citizens, but the regime probably won’t give him that pretext: Iran has avoided a Tiananmen-style crackdown during past protests and likely will do so again. The Trump administration can work with allies to tighten the screws further. That’s one reason Trump should avoid alienating friends with his Greenland obsession; he needs them to deal with the bigger issue of Iran.

A harder question for Washington is whether to smuggle in Starlink terminals to reverse the internet blackout that Tehran imposed Friday. The Biden administration weighed that strategy during the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests in 2022 and 2023 but decided against it — fearing it would put at risk crucial smuggling routes used by the CIA and Israeli intelligence. Perhaps this time, the benefit outweighs the cost.

This week’s protests have spread to every Iranian region and ethnic group, but they haven’t yet reached the intensity of 2022-2023 revolt. That spontaneous mass movement began with women taking to the streets to denounce the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested for refusing to wear a headscarf. The ensuing crackdown resulted in 551 deaths and more than 22,000 arrests, according to human rights reports. Security forces killed 104 people on what’s called “Bloody Friday” in September 2022.

Despite this violent obliteration of the rebellion, a new uprising is back three years later. It’s leaderless, and perhaps rudderless, but it’s potent. As of Monday, protests were reported in more than 340 places in all 31 Iranian provinces, according to Iran Wire, an online news service. Through the week, the demonstrations become wider and more violent, as internet videos show.

This year’s revolt is driven more by anger over Iran’s economic failures than the mullah’s repressive Islamic rules. Iran’s annual inflation rate rose to 42 percent in December, and its currency lost more than half its value last year. Another difference this year is that many protesters are supporting Reza Pahlavi, the son of the shah of Iran toppled in the 1979 revolution. That gives this rebellion a more conservative, Persian nationalist tone — and a perhaps backward-facing perspective. Maybe this is Iran’s “MIGA” moment.

The wild card this year is whether the regime’s hard-liners have lost their edge. Like the Soviet Union during its last years, the security agencies may have lost their ideological commitment and discipline. They’ve watched helplessly as their proxy forces were crushed in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. And they’ve suffered the same scourge of inflation and economic stagnation as the rest of the nation. They’re not broken, but they appear more fragile than in the past.

Let’s think again about what’s going through the heads of those 12 members of the Supreme National Security Council. They know Iran is stagnant. Their budget for the next fiscal year will likely raise taxes and cut subsidies to fund defense spending. They’re waiting for the political transition that will come when Khamenei dies, but for the moment they are lurching forward as a wounded dispirited nation.

As the council members look south across the Gulf to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, they see their neighbors racing to embrace artificial intelligence and a dynamic economic future. Meanwhile, they cling to a repressive, retrograde regime that can barely feed its people. Revolutions are impossible to predict. But when you look at Iran, it’s obvious that eventually something is going to crack wide open.

Washington Post · David Ignatius

11. PLA Justice Mission 2025 Further Rehearses Taiwan Invasion Operations

Summary:

Justice Mission 2025 kept force levels similar to earlier drills but quietly sharpened invasion rehearsals. The PLA Eastern Theater Command used late-December exercises to validate year-round readiness for Xi’s 2027 Taiwan deadline, rehearsing seizure of Penghu and parts of eastern Taiwan, plus more realistic blockade conditions in the Strait and Bashi Channel. Amphibious assault ships and long-range rocket artillery practiced joint firepower to open corridors for follow-on landings against key airfields and ports. Beijing showed political restraint on escalation, yet the exercise signaled that a future iteration, without such restraint, could severely disrupt regional air and maritime traffic.

Comment: Okay. What do you do now Lieutenant? How do we use the information (intelligence) we have gleaned from this exercise?

Graphics at the link.

If the PLA can now rehearse seizing Penghu and eastern Taiwan under the cover of “exercises,” how should Washington, Taipei, and Tokyo change their indicators and warnings so that this scripted training cycle does not mask the first moves of a real campaign? All warfare is based on deception (or so said Sun Tzu)

What asymmetric capabilities and preplanned responses are required for Taiwan and the United States to blunt a phased strategy that begins with peripheral seizures and blockade rehearsal rather than an immediate, full-scale landing on Taiwan proper? What is the role for a whole of nation resistance capability to contribute to deterrence and when necessary defense?

If Justice Mission 2025 reflects growing PLA confidence inside the first island chain, what adjustments in U.S. basing, logistics, and political warfare are needed across the Asia-Indo-Pacific to convince Beijing that each additional rehearsal only hardens allied resolve and closes, rather than opens, its 2027 window? I don't think we should draw the conclusion that we must retreat from the first island chain.

PLA Justice Mission 2025 Further Rehearses Taiwan Invasion Operations - Jamestown

jamestown.org · K. Tristan Tang

Volume 26 Issue 1

01.09.2026

K. Tristan Tang

https://jamestown.org/pla-justice-mission-2025-further-rehearses-taiwan-invasion-operations/

PLA Justice Mission 2025 Further Rehearses Taiwan Invasion Operations

Executive Summary:

The PLA launched another military exercise in late December 2025, with force scale and deployment locations broadly similar to previous drills.
The exercise nonetheless signaled an effort by the Eastern Theater Command to sustain year-round readiness, likely in response to Xi Jinping’s directive to achieve the capability to conduct operations against Taiwan by 2027.
Compared with earlier exercises, this drill advanced invasion-related rehearsals, including scenarios involving the seizure of the Penghu Islands and parts of eastern Taiwan.
Although China displayed a degree of restraint during this exercise, it also suggested that a future operation without such restraint could carry far more serious consequences, which would likely include significant disruption to air and maritime traffic in the Taiwan Strait and the Bashi Channel.

At 7:31 a.m. Taipei time on December 29, 2025, Xinhua News Agency announced that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Theater Command would conduct military exercises around Taiwan under the name Justice Mission 2025 (正义使命—2025). The announcement designated seven no-fly and no-sail zones for December 30 and stated that the exercise concluded after 6:00 p.m. on December 31 (Xinhua, December 29, 2025, [a], [b], December 31, 2025). Figure 1 illustrates the deployment of PLA naval and air forces during the exercise from December 29–30 (Liberty Times, December 29, 2025; December 30, 2025).

A contradictory feature of the exercise was the mixture of apparent restraint amid clear preparations for an invasion scenario. On the one hand, the scale and geographic scope of the exercise did not significantly escalate beyond previous exercises, nor did its activities provoke other countries. On the other, its actions revealed the PLA’s intent to strengthen the Eastern Theater Command’s ability to maintain constant combat readiness; and it involved rehearsing operations to seize the Penghu Islands and land areas of eastern Taiwan—stepping stones for a subsequent large-scale invasion of Taiwan’s main island.

Figure 1: PLA Naval and Air Force Deployments, December 29–30

(Source: Compilation by K. Tristan Tang based on ROC MND press releases)

The Exercise Largely Remained Within Previous Parameters

Justice Mission 2025 did not differ significantly from previous exercises in terms of the scale of naval and air forces involved, deployment locations, or training content. It was not the largest on record: the number of aircraft sorties and naval vessels detected on a single day was lower than observed in previous exercises (see Figure 2). For instance, a total of 130 PLA aircraft sorties were detected on December 29, which was fewer than during the Joint Sword–2024B exercise that took place in October 2024; while a total of 17 PLA naval vessels were detected on December 30—far fewer than the 27 vessels recorded during the Joint Sword–2024A exercise in May 2024. The cumulative number of detected PLA aircraft sorties reached 210, which also is lower than the total recorded during the Joint Sword exercise in 2023; while the number of detected naval vessels across the three days totaled 48, which is in line with the two-day Joint Sword–2024A exercise, which registered 46. Table 1 presents a comparison of past major military operations conducted around Taiwan.

Figure 2: PLA Aircraft Sorties and Naval Vessels Detected Around Taiwan (August 2022–December 2024)

(Source: Compilation by K. Tristan Tang based on ROC MND press releases)

Table 1: Comparison of Past PLA Major Military Operations Around Taiwan

OperationsTimeDaysCumulative Detected Aircraft SortiesCumulative Detected Naval VesselsJoint Sword–2023April 2023323232Joint Sword–2024AMay 2024211146Joint Sword– 2024BOctober 2024115314Joint Drill & Strait Thunder–2025AApril 2025213538Justice Mission 2025December 2025321048

(Source: Compilation by K. Tristan Tang based on ROC MND press releases)

The exercise was also broadly similar to previous operations in terms of force deployment. Officially, Justice Mission 2025 consisted of seven designated exercise zones. Information disclosed during a press briefing by Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, however, indicated that an eighth exercise zone existed in eastern Taiwan. PLA naval vessels operating in that area temporarily announced the establishment of this zone by radio on the morning of December 29 and terminated it around noon on the same day. Figure 3 compares the exercise zones formally announced by the PLA across different periods (Xinhua, August 2, 2022, May 23, 2024; October 14, 2024; December 29, 2025; CGTN, August 7, 2022; Central News Agency, December 30, 2025).

Two features of the exercise indicate continuity with previous large-scale deployments. First, the spatial distribution of the exercise zones around Taiwan followed patterns seen in earlier drills. Although the total area of the designated zones was the largest on record, the locations themselves had all been used in past exercises. These included the northern and southern ends of the Taiwan Strait, the Bashi Channel, and waters east of Taiwan. Second, although the exercise zones were among the closest to Taiwan’s main island on record, including extending inside the territorial sea baseline off southern Taiwan, they did not vary too much from exercise areas designated during the 2022 military activities around Taiwan and were also positioned very close to Taiwan’s territorial sea baseline.

The main training components of this exercise did not differ widely from those of previous drills. The exercise included sea–air combat readiness patrols, seizure of comprehensive superiority, blockades of key ports and areas, and three-dimensional external line deterrence and denial (海空战备警巡、夺取综合制权、要港要域封控、外线立体慑阻). The stated purpose was to test the Eastern Theater Command’s joint operational capabilities under realistic combat conditions and its ability to conduct rapid maneuvers, establish an all-domain operational posture, and execute a systemic blockade and control (Xinhua, December 29, 2025, [a] [b]). These all have been covered repeatedly in previous large-scale military activities conducted around Taiwan, according to official press releases and statements.

Figure 3: Comparison of PLA-Announced Exercise Zones Across Major Exercises

(Source: Compilation by K. Tristan Tang based on Xinhua and Central News Agency)

Enhanced Eastern Theater Command Readiness and Further Taiwan Invasion Rehearsals

Justice Mission 2025 did involve some new developments, even if on the surface it appeared similar to previous PLA activities around Taiwan. First, the timing was unusual. The decision to conduct a large-scale PLA exercise around Taiwan in December for the first time likely was taken to test the Eastern Theater Command’s year-end readiness. [1] December traditionally marks the end of the PLA’s training cycle and is usually less intensive. This pattern began to shift in 2025, as PLA Daily reported that many PLA units have started linking training plans across calendar years (PLA Daily, January 3, 2025). In other words, the exercise functioned as a readiness validation for the Eastern Theater Command. References to “remaining on high alert” (保持高度戒备) carry greater significance in December, which falls outside the PLA’s traditional peak training season (Xinhua, December 31, 2025). Sustaining high readiness at this time may indicate preparations to develop operational capability against Taiwan by 2027.

Second, in a step beyond previous drills in terms of invasion-related preparations, the exercise for the first time rehearsed the seizure of the Penghu Islands. This objective can be inferred from the nature of the exercises. Of two impact areas designated for live-fire strikes by PLA Army long-range rocket artillery units, official releases specified that the one off southwestern Taiwan, which is near the Penghu Islands, saw long-range joint firepower strikes conducted by the Army in coordination with the Navy, Air Force, and Rocket Force, while those conducted off northern Taiwan involved only Army units (Xinhua, December 30, 2025, [a], [b]). [2] The focus on multi-service participation in the southwestern impact area signals that it was the primary focus and is strongly suggestive of preparatory shaping operations intended to enable a follow-on occupation of the islands. This is because large-scale, cross-service joint operations require the commitment of substantial military resources and command priority. In wartime, such resource-intensive actions would be directed only against targets of high operational value.

Seizing Penghu would offer such high operational value. Beyond degrading its island-based defenses, it would secure a critical forward staging area for operations against Taiwan proper. It would put southwestern Taiwan within range of Army aviation helicopters, which are a key PLA asset for engaging Taiwanese armored formations, including tanks and other heavy ground units.

Figure 4 compares the impact points on December 30 with the corresponding launch distances of PLA Army long-range rocket artillery brigades. The green shaded areas outlined by dashed lines illustrate the approximate firing ranges of the two rocket brigades involved. This suggests that the so-called long-range joint firepower strikes conducted in waters southwest of Taiwan were in fact simulating bombardment of the Penghu Islands. The southwestern impact area is also within range of waters off northern Taiwan, which also suggests that the 27 Army rocket artillery rounds fired on December 30 may have simulated strikes against the Penghu Islands. The decision for the Pingtan-based rocket brigade to fire northward likely reflected both political and military considerations: politically, shots near northern Taiwan generate stronger coercive signaling toward Taipei; militarily, firing toward the southwest risks being misread as an actual attack on Penghu, raising the danger of miscalculation.

The exercise also rehearsed operations to seize eastern Taiwan for the first time. This was more directly observable through the training activities of the Type 075 amphibious assault ship task force. On December 29, in waters southeast of Taiwan, PLA naval and air forces conducted drills on vessel–aircraft coordination, maritime target strikes, long-distance raids, and comprehensive support. On December 30, PLA naval forces carried out training focused on all-domain force projection, breaching and raids by elite forces, and the seizure of key ports (Xinhua, December 29, 2025, December 30, 2025). These training items emphasized the establishment of air and maritime superiority and rehearsed tri-domain landings on Taiwan’s eastern coast. The drills went beyond traditional amphibious beach assaults and included air assault operations involving helicopter-borne troops.

Type 075 amphibious assault ships operated and trained frequently east of Taiwan over the course of 2025. These activities included the hull number 33 Anhui, which transited through the Miyako Strait into the Philippine Sea in February and May, and the hull number 31 Hainan, which participated in this exercise (Japan Ministry of Defense, February 12, 2025, May 16, 2025; Liberty Times, December 30, 2025). Notably, in February 2025, a Type 075 amphibious assault ship task force also conducted training in waters southwest of Taiwan and even temporarily announced a live-fire drill (RW News, February 26, 2025).

Taiwan’s military designates eastern Taiwan as a force preservation area. This region includes two critical air bases that host F-16 Block 70 fighters, many of which are stored in hardened, blast-resistant mountain shelters. If PLA ground forces were to seize eastern Taiwan and these key military facilities, Taiwan would suffer severe losses to its remaining combat power.

Third, this exercise made a notable effort to rehearse the isolation or blockade of the Taiwan Strait. The designated exercise zones largely covered the maritime and air routes linking Kinmen and Matsu with Taiwan. As a result, Taiwan’s domestic airlines ultimately announced the cancellation of a large number of flights between Taiwan and both Kinmen and Matsu (Liberty Times, December 29, 2025). Maritime traffic, although affected, was not fully disrupted (Taiwan FactCheck Center, December 31, 2025).

Figure 4: Comparison of Impact Locations and Launch Distances of PLA Army Rocket Brigade Strikes

(Source: Compilation by K. Tristan Tang based on ROC MND press releases)

Avoiding Escalation Amid Political Tensions

The PLA’s frequent training activities involving amphibious assault ships around Taiwan this year, including rehearsals of tri-domain landings against Taiwan, likely reflect an internal assessment that the PLA possesses sufficient combat power within the first island chain and holds a high degree of confidence in its naval and air superiority. On this basis, the PLA appears to be moving toward more intensive training for amphibious operations, which are generally feasible only under conditions of air and maritime dominance, and potentially full air and sea control. This logic may parallel the significance of the dual-aircraft carrier operations conducted beyond the first island chain in June 2025, suggesting that the PLA has concluded that it has achieved a substantial degree of control in this area, including around Taiwan (China Brief, July 25, 2025).

Any restraint shown in the most recent exercise likely stemmed from political concerns, such as a comparatively less intense phase of U.S.–PRC strategic and trade competition. The PLA sought to avoid a force posture that Washington or Taipei might misread as an imminent invasion and that could trigger unintended escalation or accidents, even if it also wanted to signal dissatisfaction with deepening U.S.–Taiwan military cooperation. Amid recent tensions with Tokyo, the placement of the exercise zones at relatively far distances from Japan’s southwestern islands, as in the August 2022 and April 2023 drills, is also indicative of a desire to avoid escalation and miscalculation. This was done even at the expense of rehearsing a true blockade, which likely would include cutting off the waters between Taiwan’s Yilan and Japan’s Yonaguni Island, a narrow corridor of about 60 nautical miles and a key route for Taiwan to maintain external links during wartime, given the presence of Taiwan’s Suao naval base nearby and the fact that this is one of the closest points between Taiwan and foreign territory. It would also involve enforcing a maritime exclusion zone across all seven exercise zones, halting all commercial shipping traffic in the Taiwan Strait. In contrast, though shipping was affected, it was not halted, and there were no reports of PRC government vessels boarding and inspecting Taiwanese ships. If it wished, however, it could fully implement navigation restrictions in these zones, disrupting transit through the Taiwan Strait and the Bashi Channel or intensifying harassment and boarding of transiting vessels from multiple countries.

Conclusion

In conducting Justice Mission 2025, Beijing signaled the seriousness with which it is preparing its capabilities for an invasion of Taiwan. The exercise constitutes a warning that the world should be more vigilant and undertake more comprehensive planning and preparation. The apparent contradiction between avoiding excessive escalation and forging ahead with rehearsals for offensive operations was likely due to overriding political considerations. It is entirely possible that the next major military exercise will not involve the same level of restraint.

Notes

[1] Previous major drills occurred in April, May, August, or October.

[2] According to Taiwan’s Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Intelligence, Lieutenant General Jih-sheng Hsieh, impact areas were located northeast of Keelung and west of Tainan. In addition, the launch locations of the PLA Army long-range rocket artillery brigades were identified through open-source geolocation analysis conducted by Joseph Wen, project lead of the open-source intelligence project at the Taiwan Defense Studies Initiative, based on Chinese official media footage. The identified sites include a northern launch location and a southwestern launch location (X/Joseph.W 約瑟, December 30, 2025, [a], [b]).

jamestown.org · K. Tristan Tang

12. What Thucydides Really Thought About Technology and War

Summary:

Thucydides saw war changing less through new machines than through human choices that stripped away old limits on violence. In his telling, technology like triremes and city walls is background infrastructure, already mature by his time. What shocks him is scale, frequency, and ruthlessness: more sieges, blockades, raids, and totalizing campaigns that turn war into a business of money, manpower, and will. He rarely dwells on weapons themselves; he focuses instead on morale, discipline, greed, and fear, showing that material tools matter most as extensions of human character, political ambition, and the breakdown of norms.

Comment: Do not neglect the human domain.

If Thucydides is right that technological change matters mainly through the human and political choices that unleash it, are today’s strategists over-fixating on AI, drones, and cyber at the expense of the harder questions about character, restraint, and political purpose that actually decide how those tools transform war?

What Thucydides Really Thought About Technology and War

warontherocks.com · January 8, 2026

Bret Devereaux

January 8, 2026

https://warontherocks.com/2026/01/what-thucydides-really-thought-about-technology-and-war/

This exclusive Cogs of War interview is with Bret C. Devereaux, an ancient military historian and Teaching Assistant Professor in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at North Carolina State University. As one of the earliest detailed records of how technology drives war and statecraft, Thucydides’ history proves a valuable guide to the human element for strategists and practitioners amid a time of great technical change.

Thucydides is often described as a founder of the discipline of history, a writer who sought to explain events through causes rather than divine will or myth. In his effort to establish this new kind of inquiry, what role does technology play in his understanding of how history should be related? Does he treat technological change as part of the causal structure of events, or as background to the political and moral drama he describes?

I think we have to begin by noting that among scholars, some of the root assumptions behind this question are actually contested. The way this period is generally taught and understood broadly through military history is that the Peloponnesian War represents, and thus Thucydides is documenting, the last years of a long-established and relatively static Greek military system which had emerged centuries earlier in the 700s and 600s BCE and remained largely static from the late 600s BCE to the start of the Peloponnesian War in 431 BCE. That older system, it is supposed, was based around decisive battles involving clashes of armies consisting almost entirely of heavy infantry hoplites, with minimal focus on sieges or raids and relatively little use of terrain, technology, or stratagems. In this vision, this system of more limited war crumbles under the pressure of the Peloponnesian War, such that we see the first hints of more sophisticated — or more ruthless — ways of war in Thucydides that will bloom more clearly in the works of Xenophon and eventually culminate in the more complex warfare of the fourth century, complete with catapults, massive warships and combined-arms armies.

However, that understanding of Thucydides has come under increasing pressure as a consequence of the long debates of the development and nature of hoplites, the standard Greek form of heavy infantry, and the phalanx in which they fought. Hoplite ‘heterodox’ (or even ‘heretic’) scholars, like Peter Krentz, Hans van Wees, Fernando Echeverría

and Roel Konijnendijk, to name just a handful, argue that the hoplite-centric form of warfare that Thucydides treats as normal did not fully emerge in the 600s BCE, but emerged out of a process of evolution beginning in the eighth century and running all the way to the Persian Wars (492 to 490 BCE, 480 to 479 BCE). If that view is accepted, many of the tactical innovations in Thucydides are not new inventions but rather elements of Greek warfare that never fully went away, while the ‘old style’ of hoplite warfare that Thucydides treats as long-established was itself a relatively new and apparently unstable tactical paradigm that may have only fully emerged in the first decades of the 400s BCE and would begin to crumble within Thucydides’ lifetime (c. 460 to c. 400 BCE). These scholars would certainly still, I suspect, agree that Thucydides is documenting a period of significant change, but with the caveat that this is not a sudden revolutionary shift in warfare but rather an acceleration of changes, particularly in tactics and equipment, that have been going on for some time. That said, in either case, Thucydides is at most documenting just the first shoots of these changes — the full bloom will not come until the decades after his death.

The Peloponnesian War unfolded during a period of technical, tactical experimentation, but also human change. Does Thucydides appear to grasp that he is documenting such a moment?

For his part, Thucydides certainly seems to think that he has lived through a war that was shocking in both its scope and its conduct, a period of remarkable military change, not in weapons or technology, but in the scale of warfare and its increasing lack of restrictions. Thucydides opens by describing the war as “the greatest shift for the Greeks and some part of the barbarians” and repeatedly expresses shock at great military catastrophes, for instance, at the surrender of tactically outmaneuvered Spartans at Pylos or the crushing loss of the Athenian expedition to Sicily.

That said, I think it is important to clearly separate here the distinction between changes in the technology of war and changes in the human element. Thucydides’ account of the war opens with a deep history, commonly known as the Archaeology, in which the emergence of new technologies, such as the first navies or walled cities, play a crucial part. However, by Thucydides’ day these were all quite old technologies, and Thucydides’ understanding of their emergence is as much legendary as historical. Thucydides himself supposes the first Greek triremes to have been built shortly before the Persian Wars (492 to 479 BCE), so this technology was already at least sixty years old when the Peloponnesian War started. Thucydides offers no hint that he is even able to detect the emergence of the land warfare paradigm, hoplite warfare, that dominates his writing.

Indeed, when it comes to weapons and machines, Thucydides records relatively few technological changes. There is the use of a large bellows to set fire to the Athenian fort at Delium, a one-off not widely repeated. Likewise the Syracusan innovation of reinforcing the bows of their warships is an innovation Thucydides mentions but which nevertheless plays no apparent role in the subsequent decisive Syracusan naval victory in the Great Harbor, though we generally suppose this to be the starting point of a path of military innovation towards larger and heavier warships which will only bear fruit after Thucydides’ death. Instead, by and large, the material of warfare, ships and arms, and armor, remained largely unchanged and indeed had remained largely unchanged for most of the fifth century. One can sense in Thucydides the political pressures that will produce the heady and rapid military change of the fourth century, but that change itself is not yet evident.

By contrast, it is the change in the human element and the bounds of warfare that humans devise: the frequency of sieges, increasing tactical complexity, the use of naval raiding, the size of armies, the scale of funds spent and the spiral of escalating violence leading to the destruction of whole cities where one senses that Thucydides sees his world changing beneath his feet.

Thucydides’ descriptions of sieges and fortifications are unusually detailed for the era. What do these passages reveal about his technical literacy and the advancement of Greek engineering and siege tactics?

We need to be clear from the outset that Greece in Thucydides’ day was, compared to the Near East, remarkably backward in siege technology. Thucydides’ sieges consist almost entirely of attackers constructing walls around enemy cities to isolate them (circumvallation) and defenders constructing counter-walls to prevent this. Notably, efforts at greater sophistication than this generally fail. The Assyrians, dominating the Near East, by contrast, were using covered rams, siege towers, and complex field engineering, technologies entirely unknown to Thucydides’ Greeks, at least two and a half centuries before the Peloponnesian War. And Greek siege technology, as noted, changes very little across Thucydides’ work.

What is changing, however, is the human element: the political and strategic context of these sieges. As best we can tell, true sieges in Greece prior to the Peloponnesian War were relatively rare, as few Greek poleis had the resources or desire to mount such prolonged operations. Polis armies, essentially weekend-warrior citizen militias, could not be kept in the field that long. And we see that play out at the beginning of the war, with the failed Spartan effort to take even an outlying fortified Athenian settlement at Oenoe. However, as the war escalates both in scale and violence, we see Greek states increasingly willing to commit the resources and time for long sieges aiming at absolute victory, as with the Theban siege of Plataea or the Athenian siege of Syracuse, both of which lasted more than two years, the former successful, the latter a failure. While the resources the Greeks will devote to siege warfare clearly increase over the course of the war, the innovations that will allow Greek sieges to be more regularly effective will come only in the fourth century.

The History occasionally treats ships, armor, and siegecraft almost as characters in their own right, such as the walls at Syracuse, the Athenian trireme, and Plataea’s siegeworks. To what extent do you see these moments as less about technology itself and more about the human emotions, morale, and will that those objects come to embody?

Following on from the last point, the relatively rare points where Thucydides seems to dwell on the materiel of war, it often seems to represent the human emotions behind those objects. The long blockade of Plataea, in its moves and counter-moves, reflects less the dominance of technology (indeed, the innovative efforts to take the city all fail, leading to a traditional blockade), but more the human element in stubbornness of the defenders, the audacity of their successful breakout and the eventual failure of the defense from starvation and exhaustion rather than breakthrough. Likewise, the competing defensive works and fleet construction in the siege of Syracuse in many ways reflect the competing determination of the expedition and the Syracusans, waxing and waning as the confidence of the two sides does. Strikingly, Thucydides notes that the Athenians, even after their defeat in the Great Harbor, have enough ships to make another attempt at a naval battle, potentially even with superiority of numbers, but their demoralized sailors refuse to make the attempt. What was decisive was not the material, but the men — the will of the Athenian crews broke long before the timbers of their ships did.

Thucydides never names a “defense industrial base,” yet his Athens hums like one with miners at Laurion, shipwrights at the Piraeus, and tribute flowing through the empire. Do you think he would have agreed that war had become an industry?

We might more accurately say that Thucydides thinks of war more like a business than like an industry. War is financial in nature for Thucydides, the fundamental resource being money, with which any other necessary resource may be easily purchased. For example, given the tremendous naval activity during the war and the remarkably short service lives of ancient warships, the demand for timber and shipbuilding must have been considerable, but Thucydides rarely mentions lumber or construction crews for ships. When he does mention ship construction, the timber and labor simply materialize as a consequence of the expenditure of money. The Syracusans, under siege and pressured by the Athenians, set out to build a fleet and it simply happens, without much discussion of how the ships were readied. Likewise, the Athenians, forced to rebuild their fleet from scratch, simply “contributed timber and got on with their shipbuilding.”

Thucydides is likewise generally unconcerned about how the production of weapons will be accomplished. What he is quite concerned with, in contrast, was the cost to the treasury of this activity. Thucydides pays careful attention to Athens’ revenues and stockpiles of money (in the form of silver bullion) in contrast to the Peloponnesian lack of such monetary resources. Thucydides likewise carefully accounts for the financial cost to the treasury of the Athenian fleet or Athenian troop deployments.

If war consumes money in Thucydides, the other side of this same coin is the repeated expectation, particularly by the Athenians, that war might lead to profit. As Thucydides makes clear, Athens’ power and prosperity at the start of the war rested primarily on the vast amount of tribute it extracted from subjugated Greek cities. Where raw resources do come up in Thucydides, it is in the context of potential gains to be had from conquest, though the potential spoils of future victories are still generally expressed in money. Athens’ tributary empire thus operated like a warfare business: Athens’ fleet enabled the subjugation of other Greek poleis whose financial contributions in turn funded the fleet and Athens’ own public works and programs. But as to the industrial details beyond that financial relationship, Thucydides pays little mind.

How does Thucydides’ treatment of technology compare with Herodotus or later historians like Polybius?

The contrast between Thucydides and Polybius in this regard is particularly striking. Thucydides chronicles a war in which both sides fought the war from beginning to end with armies made up principally of hoplites and navies made up of triremes, the largest shift being somewhat broader employment of other combat arms, cavalry, and light infantry. Although, as Roel Konijnendijk has documented in particular, these were hardly new additions to the Greek battlefield. In short, the armies and navies Thucydides describes are largely technologically stable and symmetrical, and so he feels little need to discuss the specific designs of ships or weapons or the production thereof.

By contrast, Polybius’ history covers a period of substantial change, with wars between forces that were asymmetrical in their materiel. Consequently, Polybius is very interested in the performance of specific kinds of weapons and makes a point of documenting the Roman adoption of foreign technologies, such as the Roman imitation of Carthaginian ships. Though the historicity of the Romans needing to copy Carthaginian ships has been questioned, as the Romans were not quite such novices as Polybius implies. Polybius is also documenting, it must be noted, armies that are a great deal more technically sophisticated than those of Thucydides’ day: Complex siege operations, catapults, larger warships, and frequent integrated combined arms warfare, all rare or unknown for Thucydides, were ubiquitous in the warfare of Polybius’ day.

***

Bret C. Devereaux is a teaching assistant professor at North Carolina State University and a historian whose research focuses on the intersection of the economy and military of the Roman Republic. He also writes a weekly history blog, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry (acoup.blog), and has an upcoming book, Of Arms and Men: Why Rome Always Won, a comparative study of mobilization and the costs of fielding armies in the Mediterranean during the third and second centuries BCE.

Image: Elbert Perce via Wikimedia Commons.

warontherocks.com · January 8, 2026

13. Politicization of the Military: Causes, Consequences & Conclusions

Summary:

Heidi Urben warns that politicization of the U.S. military is now the central civil-military danger. As the state’s legitimate instrument of violence, the armed forces lose democratic legitimacy when they are seen as partisan. She traces how three actors drive this trend: civilian politicians who exploit military prestige, service members and especially retired flag officers who broadcast partisan views, and a public that reveres the military yet misunderstands nonpartisanship. The result is eroding civilian control, declining professionalism, and fractured public confidence. She urges stricter political restraint by leaders, updated DoD rules, reduced partisan activity by retirees, and serious public education.

Comment: Something to ponder over the weekend. The questions to reflect on are obvious I think.

Please go to the link to read the entire essay. Excellent summary below. https://www.amacad.org/sites/default/files/publication/downloads/daedalus_fa25_12_urben.pdf

Politicization of the Military: Causes, Consequences & Conclusions

by SWJ Staff

01.09.2026 at 02:05pm

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2026/01/09/military-politicization-urben-daedalus-2025/

Heidi A. Urben, “Politicization of the Military: Causes, Consequences & Conclusions.” Dædalus 154, no. 4 (Fall 2025).

Heidi Urben argues that the politicization of the U.S. military represents the most serious contemporary civil-military challenge because, as the state’s “legitimate instrument of violence,” the military loses its democratic foundation when perceived as partisan. She defines politicization broadly—encompassing active alignment, passive support, or even the perception of partisan preference. she then identifies three responsible actors: civilian politicians who exploit military prestige for electoral gain, military members (especially retired flag officers) who publicly endorse candidates or express partisan views, and an American public that lacks both understanding of and commitment to military nonpartisanship norms.

The essay traces the steady erosion of the military’s nonpartisan ethic over the past three decades, accelerated by social media, elite behavior, and partisan incentives. Urben demonstrates how attempts to “push back” against politicization can paradoxically deepen the problem, then closes with concrete solutions: curtailing partisan exploitation by civilian leaders, modernizing nonpartisanship training within the force, reducing endorsement activity by retired generals and admirals, and investing in public education about civil-military norms. Her central warning: without intervention, confidence in the military will fracture along partisan lines, recruitment will suffer, and the institution’s effectiveness will degrade as political loyalty supplants merit.

The Stakes: Why Politicization Matters

“The military is the state’s legitimate instrument of violence. When this instrument becomes politicized or is perceived to be politicized, it undermines the very foundation of democratic governance.”

“The politicization of the military occurs when the military actively or passively supports partisan causes or is perceived to be aligned with one political party over the other.”

“In reality, three actors bear varying degrees of responsibility for politicizing the military: civilian politicians (and their surrogates), the military, and the American public.”

The Nonpartisanship Norm: What ‘Healthy’ Looks Like

“The military’s norm of nonpartisanship, as long as it is upheld by the three main actors in the civil-military relationship… is the strongest bulwark against the politicization of the military.”

“William Tecumseh Sherman once wrote that ‘no Army officer should form or express an opinion’ on partisan politics.”

“When the norm is healthy, civilian political leaders respect these boundaries and do not use the military to score partisan points.”

Erosion Inside the Force

“The military’s norm of nonpartisanship has steadily diminished over the past half-century… By 1996, only 22 percent of senior officers self-identified as Independents and 74 percent identified as partisans, a trend that has persisted.”

“Moreover, the advent of social media has provided a means for service members to broadcast their partisan views wider than ever before. Social media is an inherently public sphere, where commentary has an exponential reach and a lasting, written record.”

“Recent surveys… found that one-third of respondents reported their active-duty friends used or shared rude or disparaging comments about the president and other elected leaders… an offense punishable under Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.”

Retired Flag Officers: Blurred Lines and Outsized Impact

“Survey research has shown that few Americans can distinguish retired general and flag officers from those on active duty, and most think retired officers’ views reflect the views of those on active duty.”

“These officers retain the title of general or admiral for life and play a unique role within the military profession… Their obligations to represent their branch of military service in retirement—especially safeguarding its professional norms—should be more stringent than for service members of lower ranks.”

“General Omar Bradley once remarked that ‘the best service a retired general can perform is to turn in his tongue along with his suit and to mothball his opinions.'”

Civilian Politicians: The Biggest Offenders

“Civilian politicians are the biggest offenders and bear most of the responsibility for politicizing the military. Most often, they politicize the military when they try to leverage the military’s prestige for their own partisan advantage, especially during campaigns and elections.”

“Donald Trump told a military audience at MacDill Air Force Base that ‘you liked me and I liked you. That’s the way it worked.'”

“Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama set a new precedent through an eleven-month block of all general and flag officer promotions… preventing more than four hundred senior officers and their families from moving to their next assignment.”

The Public’s Role: Ignorance Meets Reverence

“To put it bluntly, the public is a lousy judge of civil-military norms… In short, for many years, the public has looked at the military with both ignorance and reverence.”

“The public wants the military to be their copartisan and interprets nonpartisanship as the military siding with them and their party.”

“The 2025 Gallup poll on confidence in institutions already reflects this. Just seven months into Trump’s second administration, Republicans’ confidence in the military increased by 18 percentage points, while Democrats’ confidence decreased by 21 percentage points.”

Consequences: Degraded Democracy, Effectiveness, and Trust

“First, [politicization] degrades civilian control of the military, a foundational principle in all democracies… [It] weakens civilian control by distracting from what should be close scrutiny and oversight.”

“Third, politicization degrades military professionalism and effectiveness. Purges of senior officers and promotions based on partisan litmus tests rather than merit will likely divide the military and undermine unit cohesion.”

“Public confidence in the military is not just about the military’s popularity… It carries real implications for both recruiting and retention in an all-volunteer force.”

The Backfire Effect: When Pushing Back Makes It Worse

“Efforts to push back on the politicization of the military can often backfire… Using retired generals instead of other politicians to carry this message… only serves to further enmesh the U.S. military in partisan politics.”

“Service members lack the moral autonomy to selectively choose which lawful orders they wish to obey… Encouraging the military to resist lawful but awful orders… subverts democracy by undermining civilian control.”

Solutions: What Can Be Done

“The solutions to stop the politicization of the military are not unlike the solutions required to stop democratic backsliding. They require norms and rules to be defended and enforced; they also require efforts to educate the public.”

“First and foremost, to stop the politicization of the military, civilian political leaders on both sides of the aisle must refrain from using the military for partisan and electoral benefit.”

“The best way to deter civilian politicians from using the military as a partisan tool is to make the practice electorally unsustainable and rebuke offenders at the ballot box.”

“The Department of Defense needs to update its rules on political activity to better account for the realities of political activity and speech today, starting with clearer, enforceable guidelines on service members’ political speech on social media.”

Tags: civil-military relations, civilian control of military, defense policy, democratic backsliding, military nonpartisanship, military politicization, national security, retired generals

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14. Army shuts down foreign military training command, will retain 2 SFABs

Summary:

The Army has inactivated Security Force Assistance Command at Fort Bragg as part of a Hegseth-driven reorganization that prioritizes combat power over advisory headquarters. The one-star SFAC, created in 2018 to man, train, and employ six SFABs for global partner-force advising, will be followed into inactivation by four brigades. Only two SFABs will remain after 2026: 1st SFAB at Fort Benning under the new U.S. Army Western Hemisphere Command (aligned to Southern Command) and 5th SFAB at Joint Base Lewis-McChord under U.S. Army Pacific for the Asia-Indo-Pacific. Their mission focus shifts from Iraq/Afghanistan to sustained competition with China and Russia.

Comment: How can we make the best use of these two brigades? What strategic effects should they be focused on achieving in the Asia-Indo- Pacific and in the Western Hemisphere and how do we sustain those effects? We should keep in mind that if advising is focused on training, readiness, and interoperability the effects are all "perishable." They require constant attention over time. Can we sustain the effort to sustain strategic effects?

Army shuts down foreign military training command, will retain 2 SFABs

Stars and Stripes · Corey Dickstein · January 9, 2026

By Corey Dickstein

Stars and Stripes • January 9, 2026

https://www.stripes.com/branches/army/2026-01-09/security-forces-assistance-command-inactivation-20344691.html

Col. Mathew F. Bunch, commander of Security Force Assistance Command, and Command Sgt. Maj. Darvin T. Williams case the colors during the SFAC inactivation ceremony at Fort Bragg, N.C., on Thursday. The one-star headquarters oversaw brigades of soldiers specially trained to advise foreign military forces. (Jaquari Lindsey/U.S. Army)

The Army shuttered its Security Force Assistance Command on Thursday at Fort Bragg, N.C., closing the one-star headquarters that oversaw its brigades of soldiers specially trained to advise foreign military forces.

Unit leaders cased the command’s colors for a final time Thursday, signaling the inactivation of the SFAC as part of a broader Army reorganization effort that has prioritized units that generate combat power over other capabilities. The reorganization mandated last year by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will also result in the shuttering by the end of the year of four of the Army’s six Security Force Assistance Brigades, or SFABs.

Col. Matthew Bunch, who took command of the SFAC from Brig. Gen. Kevin Lambert in June, said that despite the command’s inactivation, its soldiers — known as “advisors” for their role in aiding partner armies — had proven successful in their mission to improve allied and partner military forces around the globe.

“From its inception, the Security Force Assistance Command headquarters enabled advisors to deploy with purpose, clarity, and the support necessary to build meaningful relationships with allies and partners,” Bunch said during the inactivation ceremony, according to a news release. “Through planning, coordination, and an unwavering commitment to readiness, this headquarters empowered our brigades to operate in every geographic combatant command, advancing the Army’s mission in places where trust, cooperation, and shared understanding mattered most. The impact of SFAC’s work will continue to be felt long after these colors are cased.”

The SFAC was established in late 2018 alongside the 2nd Security Force Assistance Brigade, which was also headquartered at Fort Bragg, until its inactivation in November.

The 1st SFAB stood up at Fort Benning, Ga., in 2017, as top Army officials pitched it as a smaller-than-normal brigade of volunteer soldiers who are experts in their craft and receive extra training to advise foreign armies on the trades of soldiering. Ultimately, the Army stood up six SFABs — five active-duty brigades and one National Guard unit — and the SFAC to oversee the training and manning of those units.

The SFABs were the brainchild of retired Army Gen. Mark Milley, who served as the Army chief of staff before becoming the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Milley pitched them as units purpose-built to conduct the kind of training, advising and assisting operations that brigade combat teams had been doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Command Sgt. Maj. Darvin T. Williams stands before the Security Force Assistance Command colors during the command’s inactivation ceremony at Fort Bragg, N.C., on Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026. (Jaquari Lindsey/U.S. Army)

Milley and other top Army officials wanted to employ SFABs to take deployment pressure off the Army’s brigade combat teams, which had for years been rotated in and out Afghanistan and Iraq to train those nations’ forces to fight the wars there. As Chinese and Russian military aggression grew during the last decade, top Army generals wanted to shift their combat brigade’s focus to preparations to fight a large-scale war against an enemy equipped with similar capabilities to the United States.

As operations wound down in Afghanistan and Iraq in recent years, the SFABs were assigned to geographic combatant commands, where they maintained near constant presence to train partner nation forces.

The service intends to leave only two SFABs beyond 2026. The 1st SFAB, which is aligned to U.S. Southern Command, will remain at Fort Benning and the 5th SFAB, which is aligned to U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, will remain at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, said Maj. Ryan Miller, an SFAC spokesman.

Under the reorganization, the 1st SFAB has been assigned to the Army’s new U.S. Army Western Hemisphere Command, Miller said. The 5th SFAB has been placed under U.S. Army Pacific’s command.

The 4th SFAB will hold its inactivation ceremony later this month at Fort Carson, Colo., Miller said. It had been focused on operations in Europe.

The 3rd SFAB at Fort Hood, Texas, will inactivate in late 2026, Miller said. It had previously been aligned with U.S. Central Command but will serve under U.S. Army Pacific until its inactivation, he said.

Bunch, an infantry officer who had previously served as the SFAC’s second in command, said that the work of the SFAC and its SFABs would continue to have meaning for the Army for the foreseeable future.

“The headquarters played a pivotal role in shaping how the Army organizes, trains, and equips advisor formations, ensuring that our soldiers could deliver meaningful, tailored advisor support to partners worldwide,” Bunch said, according to the news release. “Whether enabling our brigades or helping allies strengthen their own security institutions, SFAC headquarters ensured advisors had the training, systems, and resources to succeed. As we inactivate this command, we recognize that its influence and the relationships it helped forge will continue to guide the Army’s approach to global engagement for years to come.”

Stars and Stripes · Corey Dickstein · January 9, 2026

15. Derrick Anderson steps into SO/LIC role amid high demand for special operations forces, new tech

Summary:

Derrick Anderson has been sworn in as assistant secretary of war for SO/LIC, with authority, direction, and control over the organization, training, and equipping of all U.S. special operations forces. He takes charge as SOF tempo is high, from the Maduro raid and tanker seizures to global counterterrorism and great-power competition tasks. Anderson stresses the need to balance persistent demand with preparation for high-end conflict, and to adapt SOF to AI-enabled targeting, autonomous systems, swarms, and pervasive surveillance that threaten clandestinity. He calls for new tech, counter-tech, and deception methods to keep SOF survivable and relevant against advanced adversaries.

Comment: RIght man for the job at the right time. The question for the Honorable Mr. Anderson: Now that SO/LIC has formal authority (Section 922 - ie., ADCON) over SOF organization, training, and equipping in an era of constant crisis deployments, will it actually be able to impose a coherent, future-focused SOF design across services and combatant commands, or will USSOCOM, service chiefs, and geographic commanders continue to pull the enterprise in divergent directions that dilute irregular warfare and modernization priorities?

Derrick Anderson steps into SO/LIC role amid high demand for special operations forces, new tech

defensescoop.com · Jon Harper · January 8, 2026

The new assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict comes into the job as SOF are busy conducting high-profile ops and pursuing new capabilities.

Jon Harper

January 8, 2026

https://defensescoop.com/2026/01/08/derrick-anderson-special-operations-asd-solic/

Derrick Anderson has taken the helm as the Pentagon’s top adviser, advocate and overseer for special operations forces and irregular warfare at a pivotal time for the SOF community.

On Dec. 29, he posted a photo on social media of him being sworn in as assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict — which the Trump administration refers to as “assistant secretary of war” for SO/LIC.

Anderson’s entrance into his new role comes as American commandos and their unique skills are in high demand and officials are pursuing new capabilities to enable them.

SOF made headlines in recent days, playing a major role in the raid to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in Caracas and the seizure of sanctioned oil tankers.

U.S. Special Operations Command was also involved in controversial strikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean prior to Anderson assuming his new post.

A modernization push is underway to acquire new technologies and systems for commandos — including first-person-view drones, AI, autonomy software and other tools — as they tackle a wide variety of tasks globally, such as counterterrorism and preparing for potential conflicts with advanced adversaries such as China.

Anderson now has “authority, direction, and control of all special operations peculiar issues relating to the organization, training, and equipping of special operations forces” while overseeing administrative matters, according to a Pentagon description of his job.

He was nominated for the position by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate last month.

Prior to his confirmation, Anderson laid out his views about some of the problems and opportunities that the irregular warfare community is facing.

“I believe that in the near team, maintaining a competitive advantage over China as well as other competitors, will dominate our challenges. We must continue to focus our SOF on deterrence and preparing for conflict in a highly contested operational environment while maintaining sufficient capabilities and capacities to respond swiftly and effectively to crisis, in addition to continuing to diminish terrorist threats. This is a difficult balance for special operations forces to achieve when persistent, global demand for SOF remains high, strains resources, and day-to-day commitments compete with preparing for high end conflict,” Anderson wrote in response to advance policy questions from senators in September.

The special ops enterprise will need to adapt to account for new tech and shifting geopolitical conditions, he noted.

“Potential adversaries are rapidly developing advanced technologies at an unprecedented pace. SOF must adapt to operate with and against these technologies. Integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into special operations forces is both a challenge and opportunity. SOF must leverage AI, especially for intelligence analysis, targeting, and autonomous and unmanned systems, but must mitigate potential vulnerabilities, and be mindful of ethical concerns,” he wrote.

The spread of autonomous systems and swarming capabilities will “fundamentally change the operating landscape,” Anderson told lawmakers, noting that commandos must acquire these types of tools as well as tech to counter adversaries’ robotic systems.

Special operators will also be challenged by the expansion of surveillance capabilities, according to Anderson.

“In particular, the clandestine nature of many special operations activities will be much more difficult to maintain with the proliferation of surveillance technologies, both government and privately owned, and the interconnection of all things via the internet into a near seamless web of knowable data. SOF must develop advanced anti-detection and deception techniques and technologies to defeat this threat,” he wrote.

During Trump’s second term, Anderson has served as acting assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and reserve affairs, and previously as director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council.

Prior to that, he was in the political arena. During the 2024 election cycle, Trump endorsed him when he unsuccessfully ran for Congress as the Republican nominee in Virginia’s 7th District.

During his military career, Anderson served in Army Special Forces from 2010 to 2016, including as a company executive officer and Operational Detachment Alpha commander.

In 2014, he was involved in a high-profile friendly fire incident in Afghanistan that resulted in the deaths of five U.S. troops and an Afghan soldier. As reported extensively by CBS News, investigators laid blame on Anderson for what happened, but he and other former service members faulted a problem with the targeting system of a bomber that participated in the airstrike that went wrong.

In a post last week on social media, Anderson thanked Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for the opportunity to serve in the Pentagon as assistant secretary for SO/LIC.

“It is an honor to support our service members and contribute to the defense and security of our nation. I am grateful for the trust placed in me and look forward to serving with dedication and integrity,” he wrote.

Written by Jon Harper

Jon Harper is Editor-in-Chief of DefenseScoop. He leads an award-winning team of journalists in providing breaking news and in-depth analysis on military technology and the ways in which it is shaping how the Defense Department operates and modernizes. You can also follow him on X: @Jon_Harper_

defensescoop.com · Jon Harper · January 8, 2026

16. The Theory That Gives Trump a Blank Check for Aggression

Summary:

POTUS' recent New York Times interview makes clear that he sees few meaningful constraints on his foreign policy beyond his own “morality” and judgment, even suggesting international law is optional and emphasizing U.S. control over Venezuela and interest in acquiring Greenland. Reports from the interview indicate he willingly places unilateral power at the center of his approach, downplaying multilateral norms and alliance constraints. This raises deep questions about checks and balances in U.S. foreign policy: domestic institutions like Congress, the courts, and allied commitments, as well as international law and alliance treaties, are supposed to restrain executive action—but their effectiveness depends on political will and institutional resilience.

Comment: More to ponder over the weekend. Is this hyperbolic reporting? Is POTUS just being provocative? Is it part of his own cognitive warfare campaign to keep adversaries guessing?

IfI in fact the executive asserts near-unilateral authority over foreign interventions with minimal regard for legal and alliance constraints, what institutional reforms or political safeguards are necessary to ensure that U.S. foreign policy remains anchored in constitutional checks, allied consensus, and international norms rather than the personal discretion of any single leader?

The Theory That Gives Trump a Blank Check for Aggression

NY Times · Linda Kinstler ·

By Linda Kinstler

Linda Kinstler is a scholar of law and intellectual history and a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine.

Jan. 9, 2026

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/09/magazine/trump-venezuela-foreign-policy-realism-greenland.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Credit...Photo illustration by Ricardo Tomas

Ideas

The true meaning of “flexible realism” — abroad and at home.

Credit...Photo illustration by Ricardo Tomas

Listen to this article · 16:10 min Learn more

Linda Kinstler is a scholar of law and intellectual history and a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine.

Jan. 9, 2026

In an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN on Monday, President Trump’s aide Stephen Miller blithely articulated the outlook that has taken hold of the White House. “We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” Miller said. “These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

His words seemed to deliberately echo Trump’s statement on Saturday that the capture and extradition of President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela and his wife, Cilia Flores, was the product of “the iron laws that have always determined global power.” Not international laws, which prohibit the use of force to threaten the independence and territorial integrity of another sovereign state. Trump, for his part, said in a recent interview with The Times, “I don’t need international law.”

“America will never allow foreign powers to rob our people or drive us back into and out of our own hemisphere,” Trump said on Saturday. To that end, the administration is reviving the Monroe Doctrine from 1823 in order to reassert American dominance in its neighborhood. “Under our new National Security Strategy, American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again,” the president said.

That National Security Strategy, released in early December, gave a name to one of the organizing principles supposedly governing the administration’s foreign policy: “flexible realism.” The document stated that the United States would pursue “peace through strength,” have a “predisposition to non-interventionism” and safeguard the “sovereign rights of nations,” first and foremost those of the United States. It would reassert American dominance over the Western Hemisphere.

The strategy maintained that there was “nothing inconsistent or hypocritical” about taking action in response to “a realistic assessment” about what could be achieved, nor in maintaining relations with undemocratic states if it served the national interest.

Stephen Miller looks on as President Trump speaks to the press following military actions in Venezuela.

“If you look at the document carefully, it has a profound realist bent to it,” said John Mearsheimer, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago and one of the country’s most prominent realist scholars. “The basic realist worldview is that the Western Hemisphere is the most important area of the world for the United States.”

The realist school of foreign policy is rooted in the belief that the world is fundamentally ungovernable and that politics comes down to power. While idealists might believe in the potential for international law to coerce states into good behavior, realists have never put much stock in such dreams. Realism is at heart “a pessimistic intellectual tradition about how the world of human politics is and how it is bound to be,” as the scholar Patrick Porter puts it in his new book, “How to Survive a Hostile World,” a kind of self-help manual for states.

While the varied strains of realism are plentiful and sometimes contradictory, the Trump administration is channeling one of its crudest forms. Scholars generally view realism as a theory for describing the world as it is; Trump and his team are using the term in an effort to redraw the world map. By invoking realism to justify their actions abroad, Trump and his associates are treating it as an alibi for a distinctly American imperialism, a pretext for belligerence.

“The Monroe Doctrine is like the ur-text of realism, at least in the American context,” said Matthew Specter, a historian and a senior fellow at the Institute of European Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Originally written to prevent further European colonization in the Western Hemisphere, it became a tool in the 20th century for justifying U.S. military interventions in the region. The United States invoked the doctrine during its 1941 occupation of Greenland to protect it from falling to Nazi Germany. American troops have been stationed there ever since, and Trump seems to be focused on claiming the entire territory.

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Raphael S. Cohen, of the RAND Corporation, has argued that the administration is engaging in a “grand experiment” in realism that will indelibly change the field of foreign affairs. In a speech last month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that the administration marked a new era of “hard-nosed realism.” Others argue that the president’s approach undermines his realist credentials and betrays a profound misunderstanding of the concept.

“There are iron laws of world politics that they don’t understand,” said Stephen Walt, a professor of international affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. “Realism is all about realizing that in a competitive world, you want to be smart and go for genuine strategic advantage, not just pointless displays of power.”

Whether Trump deserves to be called a realist will be debated for decades. But the National Security Strategy announced that a kind of self-described realism is now officially U.S. policy, and the abduction and prosecution of Maduro is one of its products.

Foreign leaders have quickly taken notice, responding in bellicose and foreboding terms. Over the weekend, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil said on social media that the attack on Venezuela was a “first step toward a world of violence, chaos, and instability, where the law of the strongest prevails over multilateralism.” Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland wrote that “neither enemy nor ally” would respect weakness. Jordan Bardella, the leader of the far-right French party National Rally, called for France to “strengthen our industrial and military capabilities.”

Yet a global drift toward realist thinking has been in motion for some time. At an E.U. retreat in February, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said that the bloc must acknowledge the “harsher, more transactional reality” of the day and needed to “deal with the world as we find it.” In March, Singapore’s foreign minister, Vivian Balakrishnan, said that the rules-based international order was “reverting to a time when the world is divided into blocs controlled by big powers.”

If we are now living through an age that rewards pessimism and power, its effects will not remain neatly confined to foreign policy.“Trump is not revealing the world as it is,” Specter said. “He is remaking the world.”

Nasty and Brutish

Realism is the kind of word that, as the Times columnist William Safire once observed, almost always comes with an “adjectival qualifier.” The field is populated by classical and neoclassical realists; offensive and defensive realists; progressive, ethical and now, apparently, flexible realists. As an academic theory and worldview, it is a “mansion of many rooms,” Specter said.

Thucydides, Niccolò Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes are often invoked as its oldest representatives; each warned of the fundamentally self-interested nature of humankind and the perilous conditions of the political world. One of realism’s founding creeds comes from Thucydides: “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” Machiavelli argued that “to help another ruler grow powerful is to prepare your own ruin,” that the ends justify the means and that one must embrace the world as it is rather than as one might wish it to be. Hobbes constructed his theory of sovereign power, embodied in the idea of the Leviathan, to shield humankind from the “nasty, brutish and short” conditions of life in the state of nature.

But the most important historical antecedents of Trumpian realism may lie in the late 19th-century age of empire, when German thinkers coined terms like Weltpolitik and Lebensraum, or “living space,” to describe how empires should think, speak and act on the world stage. The great powers of the era took for granted that the world should be carved up into spheres of influence for the powerful to exploit as they wished. Hitler’s expansionist foreign policy was derived partly from this strain of realism. In 1939, he spoke of constructing a German Monroe Doctrine to justify domination over Europe.

After World War II, realism became a framework for rethinking the nature of politics. The collapse of the Weimar Republic, the failures of the League of Nations and the cataclysm of the Holocaust had left a generation of political scientists — men like Hans Morgenthau, Paul Nitze, Henry Kissinger and Reinhold Niebuhr — convinced that politics was fundamentally irrational and that the state was not intrinsically a force for good. They set out to construct a cleareyed philosophy of international relations founded on the idea that great-power politics is a fact of life.

Realist thinking prevailed during the Cold War, when the United States and the Soviet Union were rival hegemonic powers. The establishment of NATO in 1949 was a realist response to the nuclear threat posed by the Soviet Union. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, realism fell out of favor because the world had entered a unipolar era.

Critically, 20th-century realists accepted that all power is necessarily bound by constraint, hemmed in by the limitations of geography, politics and human nature. To lose sight of this is to risk slipping into much darker territory. Thucydides’s claim that the strong will do what they can was not meant as a prescription but rather as a warning. The use of unbridled power against the weak was “a sign that Athens had gone off the deep end, lost a sense of strategic restraint and has become depraved and decadent,” Walt said.

For Walt and other realist thinkers, Trump’s aggressive and chaotic actions on the world stage — his antagonism of U.S. allies, threats of territorial conquest and assertions that the U.S. is not afraid of putting “boots on the ground” — undermine any claim he could make to practicing a realist foreign policy. Realists largely opposed the U.S. wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, preferring policies of restraint. The failures of those episodes vindicated the realist worldview.

A U.S. Navy warship off the coast of Venezuela.

“‘Flexible realism’ is a beautiful neologism because it doesn’t point you in any particular direction, and it doesn’t steer you away from any direction,” Walt said. The incoherence of Trump’s foreign policy is explicitly memorialized in the National Security Strategy. On one page, the document states that Trump’s foreign policy is “realistic without being ‘realist.’” On another, it lays out a distinct strain of realism that purportedly governs its actions.

For Porter, it is not realism that defines the Trump era but rather its “corrupt cousin,” Machtpolitik, which pursues power for its own sake and is defined by a “sort of violent exhilaration of destruction, nihilism and vengeance.”

Trump’s penchant for theatrics and bombast, his obsession with status and his use of power to enrich himself and his family — all these are characteristic elements of this darker ideology. Machtpolitik is realism gone wrong, the kind of phenomenon that it was ostensibly invented to prevent.

“By losing all restraints, you destroy yourself,” Porter said. The perpetual threat of Machtpolitik is why, he says, “realists can never relax, never just sit back when people invoke the philosophy for the sake of imperial hubris.”

A War Mentality

That loss of restraint was on full display during Trump’s address to the nation hours after the attack on Venezuela. At one telling moment, the president paused his excoriation of the Maduro regime to praise the actions of the National Guard in American cities, singling out their police presence in Memphis, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, D.C. To these cities, he issued much the same threat that he had addressed to Venezuela’s new interim president, Delcy Rodríguez. “We’ll go back if we have to,” he said of Los Angeles. “We are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so,” he said of Venezuela.

It has long been realist orthodoxy that while the international arena is anarchic and ungovernable, the opposite is true of domestic affairs. Every state has a sovereign that keeps order, upholds the law and safeguards its citizens. But for Trump, the threats posed at home and abroad are seemingly the same, and so is his response. Armed government agents have arrested and killed U.S. citizens as part of Trump’s anti-immigration policies; the federal government has strong-armed universities into accepting its agenda by withholding research funding; the Federal Communications Commission uses mergers as leverage to influence media coverage.

“In a number of places, including here in the U.S., confidence in the social contract is eroding,” Walt said. “This is reflected in the polarization of American politics and also in the nastiness, the worship of violence and the tendency to depict other members of society as not just people with whom one disagrees but as the enemy.”

Marines and National Guard troops outside the entrance of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles.

The ongoing debates over the nature of realism and its contours are, among other things, a symptom of this imperiled state of affairs. “Democrats feel besieged and believe that Trump has brought a kind of war mentality into our civic life,” said Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “That makes our domestic politics resemble what realists say that international politics is like — a situation of anarchy where the only real way to check a powerful actor who wants to do you harm is to build up your own power.”

Under these conditions, the return of realism makes sense as a strategy for navigating a world caught in perpetual crisis — a world unable to prevent the commission of the worst crimes or to slow climate change and which seems to have lost faith in the loftier aspirations of international law.

“We’ve spent 30 years in a period of extreme liberal overextension,” said Emma Ashford, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center. “We swung so far in that direction that a course correction was almost inevitable. Now the question is, What form does that course correction take?” In addition to the bitter legacies of Iraq and Afghanistan, the rise of China and the return to a multipolar world have pushed realism back into politics.

Trump rose to power in part because he explicitly rejected liberal moralism and spoke frankly about the brutal and often transactional nature of politics. “His depiction of America in the world mirrored how a lot of people felt about how their own lives were going,” Wertheim said. “It seemed to at least recognize a certain kind of base-line reality about the competitive nature of the world. For decades, American leaders had told a happy story about producing peace, stability and democracy, and the results were quite different.”

The president seemed to believe that after decades of failed American interventions commissioned in the name of democracy, the public would be more willing to accept foreign meddling for self-interested reasons. The attack on Venezuela, and especially Trump’s pledge to seize its oil production infrastructure, is the result.

The second Trump administration may very well mark the start of a violent global age of Machtpolitik. “Trump is different than all of his predecessors because of his contempt for international law and international institutions,” Mearsheimer said. Whenever past presidents blatantly violated international agreements, he said, “they felt compelled to try to justify it, to put a velvet glove over the mailed fist, because they correctly understood that those laws and institutions were in America’s interest.” Over the past week, Trump and his deputies have revealed how profoundly they disdain the norms of global governance and demonstrated their willingness to use force to get what they want. On Wednesday, the president signed an executive order withdrawing the United States from dozens of international organizations.

But to acknowledge that we have entered a pessimistic and belligerent era is not to give in to it. Realism offers many lessons for the present moment — about the profound dangers of unrestrained power and the tragic bent of contemporary politics. “What is important is that we use pessimism as a starting point in a human sense,” Porter said, “to work out what is possible and to strive for that.”

NY Times · Linda Kinstler ·

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

https://apstrategy.org/

Executive Director, Korea Regional Review

https://www.upi.com/Korea-Regional-Review/

Editor-at-large, Small Wars Journal

https://smallwarsjournal.com/

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

If you do not read anything else in the 2017 National Security Strategy read this on page 14:

"A democracy is only as resilient as its people. An informed and engaged citizenry is the fundamental requirement for a free and resilient nation. For generations, our society has protected free press, free speech, and free thought. Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data. The American public and private sectors must recognize this and work together to defend our way of life. No external threat can be allowed to shake our shared commitment to our values, undermine our system of government, or divide our Nation."

Access NSS HERE

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