Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"Let your capital be simplicity and contentment."

– Henry David Thoreau

"A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his own weight in other people's patience."

– John Updike

"No one has a finer command of language than the person who keeps his mouth shut."

– Sam Rayburn

1. Information Advantage in the Indo-Pacific to Fight Digital Guerrilla Warfare and State-Sponsored Disinformation

2. Trump Tells Iranian Protesters ‘Help Is On Its Way’

3. U.S. Blows Up China’s Latin America Ambitions With Maduro Ouster

4. U.S. to Unveil Gaza Governance Plan Despite Concerns Over Hamas

5. Trump Renews Threat on Greenland Before Meeting at White House

6. Trump’s Threats to Greenland Raise Serious Questions for NATO

7. Facing What We See in the Mirror: America Hasn’t Won Our Wars

8. Congress agrees to fund Voice of America, bucking Trump shutdown order

9. VOA: MIA

10. Three ‘meta trends’ are reshaping warfare, INDOPACOM commander says

11. Taiwan’s Probable Risk Scenario Shifts to Potential Blitzkrieg

12. Grok is in, ethics are out in Pentagon’s new AI-acceleration strategy

13. The Balance of Nuclear Deterrence in Europe after the Cold War

14. Strategic Disruption from Orbit: Space-Based Capabilities for Irregular Warfare in the Indo-Pacific

15. Trump and the Special Operations Panacea

16. Thinking Carefully About Iran at a Dangerous Moment

17. Can the 15th Five-Year Plan Fix the People’s Liberation Army’s Procurement Bottlenecks?

18. Beyond Illicit Drugs: How the US is Expanding the Scope of Armed Conflict

19. The Army Built an AI Talent Pipeline—But It’s Filled with Career-Killing Roadblocks

1. Information Advantage in the Indo-Pacific to Fight Digital Guerrilla Warfare and State-Sponsored Disinformation

Summary:

The Army’s 1st Theater Information Advantage Detachment gives small SOF teams in the Asia-Indo-Pacific a powerful reach-back node for real-time awareness of cyber activity, digital sentiment, and local narratives. Built around five integrated teams, TIAD hunts digital guerrilla warfare, counters disinformation on platforms like TikTok and WeChat, and supports partners in Japan, Korea, Australia, NATO, and beyond. Three TIADs will cover the Asia-Indo-Pacific, Europe, and Africa, tracking “Dark Quad” information operations and economic coercion. They enable 12-man ODAs to act with the influence of a much larger footprint while supporting joint exercises and crisis narratives from Iran to Venezuela.

Comment: "Digital Guerrilla Warfare." Happy to see it framed this way.

The Cyber Underground – Resistance to Active Measures and Propaganda: “The Disruptors” - Motto: “Think For Yourself”

https://archive.smallwarsjournal.com/index.php/jrnl/art/the-cyber-underground-%E2%80%93-resistance-to-active-measures-and-propaganda-%E2%80%9Cthe-disruptors%E2%80%9D-mot-0

Although this is SOF support focused, I do believe the 1st TIAD supports INDOPACOM more broadly. This is an illustration of one of its capabilities and contributions (and an important one).

How should TIAD capabilities be integrated with broader U.S. and allied cognitive warfare and narrative intelligence architectures so they are not isolated “digital fire brigades” but part of a campaign to shape the information battlespace?

What governance, authorities, and partner arrangements are needed to ensure TIAD-driven counter-narratives remain truthful and credible to foreign populations while still competing effectively against the Dark Quad’s unconstrained disinformation?

Thank you to the Army for creating this capability.

But it sure would be nice to have the complementary information capabilities of VOA and RFA operation in the human domain and information battlespace as well.

Information Advantage in the Indo-Pacific to Fight Digital Guerrilla Warfare and State-Sponsored Disinformation

January 13, 2026 Guest Information Operations 0

https://sof.news/io/1st-tiad/

By Priya Batchu.

The 1st Theater Information Advantage Detachment (TIAD) originated at Fort Shafter, Hawaii, on November 7, 2025. The 65-soldier Unit reflects the Army’s aggressive play for a tactical edge to fight digital guerrilla warfare in the Pacific’s gray-zone environments.

The 1st TIAD is a theater-level Army formation that supports U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, U.S. Army Pacific, Special Operations Command Pacific (SOCPAC), and other units of INDOPACOM. Special operations is one of the most information-sensitive elements in the U.S. military, so the 1st TIAD is in a unique position to support SOF.

The TIAD is a digital asset for the 12-man Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA). US teams operate in small numbers in the Indo-Pacific’s remote islands near competitive waters. The TIAD serves as a cyber backup for these teams, giving ODAs real-time information on cyber activity, signals, and local narratives.

The TIAD is built around five integrated teams: Joint Assessments and Integration, Intelligence, Human Dimension, Engagement, and Information Warfare. The Army established three TIAD units in 2026 with the primary focus being in the Pacific, with objectives to counter disinformation and to promote stability within the region.

Small SOF teams operate in remote and austere Indo-Pacific locations where they are vulnerable to foreign influence and virtual monitoring. In a scenario where a SOF team conducts a training mission, the unit monitors real time local digital sentiment and assists the ODAs with truthful counter-narratives.

The TIAD identifies trends where there could be a malevolent influence such as economic coercion before it escalates.

The Misinformation Digital Landscape

Digital Guerrilla Warfare often targets via social media platforms like TikTok, WeChat, and other encrypted messaging platforms to create narratives.

Information Advantage concept uses a global alliance between the U.S., Japan, South Korea, and Australia to share data threats on what’s called the “Dark Quad,” (China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran).

TIAD milestones within the year have reached across the globe.

The second TIAD was activated in October 2025 to track different global information threats across regions, such as a foreign-influenced smear campaign that comes from Europe but spreads online in the US or Asia.

The third TIAD is expected to activate in Wiesbaden in the fall of 2026, covering Africa and Europe. The main focus will be countering Russia’s cyberattacks, political pressure, and propaganda, supporting NATO where information warfare is a reality.

Global Alliances

The 1st TIAD played a role with Keen Sword and Yama Sakura, major trilateral exercises. During Yama Sakura 89, the TIAD worked with the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF) and the Australian Defence Force (ADF).

For instance, if a foreign influence utilizes deepfakes to say a U.S. ship caused an environmental disaster near Japan, the TIAD gives the JGSDF the hard data to counter the claim in Japanese media before it gets popular.

In early 2026, Iran framed the seizure of vessels as “anti-smuggling,” while repeating Beijing’s rhetoric that the U.S. naval presence is “piracy.”

The 2nd TIAD would identify the rhetoric. If an Iranian campaign starts to gain traction in Southeast Asian digital spaces (where the 1st TIAD’s ODAs are operating), the 2nd TIAD hands off the intelligence to the 1st TIAD so they can warn local partners.

TIAD allows a 12-man team to operate with the confidence of a much larger footprint, knowing they have a reach-back capability to the U.S. Army Cyber Command and USARPAC.

*********

Author: Priya Batchu is an M.A. Candidate at New York University’s Business and Economic Reporting Program.

Image: (Australia) Brig. Gen. Shane Gabriel, Lt. Gen. Makoto Endo (Japan), and Maj. Gen. James Bartholomees (U.S.) at the Exercise Yama Sakura 89 opening at JGSDF Camp Itami, Japan. (photo by Spc. Abreanna Goodrich, August 25, 2025)

2. Trump Tells Iranian Protesters ‘Help Is On Its Way’

Summary:

POTUS publicly urges Iranian protesters to persist, pledges that “help is on its way,” and advises Americans to leave Iran, signaling possible U.S. intervention while ruling out negotiations until killings stop. Protests driven by economic collapse have produced over 2,000 deaths and nearly 17,000 arrests amid an internet shutdown. Trump is leaning toward military options but faces force posture constraints after shifting naval assets to the Caribbean, though long range strike and air defense options remain. Tehran seeks to reopen nuclear talks, insisting on its enrichment rights, creating tension between U.S. regime pressure and nonproliferation objectives.

Comment: How do we get this message to the Iranian people with VOA and Radio Farda neutered and castrated?

What is the realistic political end state (acceptable durable political arrangement) in Iran that U.S. policy is seeking, and how does “help is on its way” align with concrete instruments of power and acceptable risk?

How can Washington support a popular uprising and punish repression without triggering a wider regional war or losing leverage on the nuclear threat?

What narrative and signaling strategy should the U.S. employ toward Iranian protesters, regional partners, and adversarial observers in the Asia-Indo-Pacific who are watching how Washington handles mass revolt against an authoritarian regime? (I think of the potential parallel to north Korea - Iran's unrest and the quest for Korean freedom https://www.upi.com/Voices/2026/01/12/perspective-North-korea-iran-freedom/3721768230292/

And again, how does it communicate the narrative effectively?

Trump Tells Iranian Protesters ‘Help Is On Its Way’

WSJ

President rules out talks with Iran’s regime after deaths of hundreds of demonstrators, and says Americans should leave the country

By Alexander Ward

, Lara Seligman

and Benoit Faucon

Updated Jan. 13, 2026 5:52 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/trump-cancels-meetings-with-iran-over-killing-of-protesters-0973aa84

President Trump speaking at the Detroit Economic Club. Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

President Trump on two occasions Tuesday told Iranians protesting against their government that “help is on its way,” the latest sign the U.S. might soon take action against a regime that mounting evidence shows has killed thousands of demonstrators during a popular revolt.

The message, delivered first on social media and then in a speech in Detroit, indicated that Trump is on the verge of a fresh intervention in Iran, potentially wading the U.S. into a confrontation with the country to support an uprising against state repression and a flailing economy.

“Make Iran great again,” he said after visiting a Ford factory, calling the situation in the country “very fragile.”

Shortly before taking the stage, Trump told reporters that Americans in Iran should consider evacuating the country. He also said that he is unaware of the exact casualty toll of Tehran’s crackdown on protesters that has intensified in recent days.

“I hear five different sets of numbers,” he said. “Look, one death is too much.”

On board Air Force One on his return to Washington, D.C., Trump told reporters he was expecting a report on the latest situation in Iran and dismissed a threat by the country’s leaders to retaliate to any U.S. attack. Pointing out the military destroyed Iran’s nuclear capability in an attack last June, he said, “Iran said that the last time. They better behave.”

In a separate interview with CBS News, the president said the U.S. will “take very strong action,” if the Iranian regime executes antigovernment protesters.

Asked what the endgame is in Iran, Trump said it was, “to win. I like to win.” He then reeled off a list of military successes as examples of past successes, including last year’s strikes against Iran, the capture earlier this month of Venezuela strongman Nicolás Maduro, the killings of Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and of Qassem Soleimani, who was the leader of Iran’s elite Quds military force when he was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad in January 2020.

The death toll in the unrest that began in late December has surpassed 2,000, an Iranian human-rights group said late Tuesday. The group, Human Rights Activists in Iran, said the fatalities included 1,850 protesters and 135 members of the country’s security forces. The number of arrests is now 16,784, the group said.

Trump didn’t attend a planned meeting of senior administration officials Tuesday morning to discuss his Iran options, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters, even though the president was expected to participate.

Trump for days has received briefings from top members of his team, including Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who have presented him with a suite of options ranging from diplomacy with Tehran to military strikes. Many of the options are “non-kinetic,” officials say, meaning short of using force, such as cyberattacks, sanctions or supporting antiregime messaging online.

President Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene in Iran. Samuel Corum/Getty Images

Trump for now has ruled out negotiations with Iran, he said Tuesday on Truth Social: “I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS.”

Trump is currently leaning toward ordering military strikes, The Wall Street Journal previously reported, though he has yet to make a final decision on the matter, officials say. He has repeatedly threatened the use of force, warning Iran’s rulers that if authorities shoot at protesters, “we’ll start shooting, too.”

If Trump does decide to authorize an attack, his options to do so are limited by the shift of military personnel and equipment to the Caribbean. There are currently only six U.S. Navy warships in the Middle East—three littoral combat ships and three destroyers—versus 12 in the Caribbean, according to a Navy official. There is no aircraft carrier strike group nearby either, since Trump ordered the Gerald R. Ford carrier group from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean in October.

The Pentagon could still order Tomahawk missile strikes from destroyers in the Middle East, as well as send bombers and jet fighters stationed in the region equipped with long-range weapons.

“We don’t have to have maritime assets in place to be able to conduct strikes in Iran,” said retired Vice Adm. John Miller, who formerly commanded U.S. Naval Forces Central Command. “As we saw when we attacked their nuclear capabilities, most of those planes came from the U.S.,” he continued, referring to June bomber strikes that hit Iran’s nuclear facilities.

But without a carrier’s accompanying aircraft, the military might struggle to quickly pull together a “strike package,” which usually includes additional fighter and electronic jamming aircraft for protection, according to a former senior defense official.

Leavitt said Monday on Fox News that “airstrikes would be one of the many, many options that are on the table for the commander in chief.”

Protecting American troops stationed in the region also becomes more precarious without an aircraft carrier and its accompanying destroyers, which are equipped with the Aegis combat system that provides the ability to shoot down incoming missiles.

But officials and experts say the U.S. still has the ability to defend its forces in the area by other means, including using Patriot batteries and air defense systems from regional partners across the Middle East. The U.S. on Monday opened a new “coordination cell” at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar to boost its ability to integrate missile defense capabilities with regional partners.

“I’m confident that between the countries in the region and what the United States has available to it that not only can those countries defend themselves, they can defend whatever U.S. military unit happens to be in the country,” Miller said.

The large-scale demonstrations in Iran were initially triggered by soaring inflation, the collapse of the rial, the country’s currency, and the economic pinch felt by ordinary people. Since then, hundreds of thousands have filled the streets.

The number of deaths has escalated rapidly since the government shut down internet connections Thursday and vowed a harsh crackdown on protests.

Iranian diplomats had been looking for a way to restart nuclear talks and persuade the U.S. not to strike their country, according to an Arab diplomat and a senior European official.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi floated the idea of a meeting with U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff in Switzerland, possibly ahead of next week’s World Economic Forum, those people said.

Iranian diplomats remain open to direct talks with the U.S., a reversal from Tehran’s insistence that talks should be indirect, the Arab diplomat said. But the Islamic Republic is insisting on its right to enrich uranium, the diplomat said, something that is unlikely to find favor with Washington.

Write to Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com, Lara Seligman at lara.seligman@wsj.com and Benoit Faucon at benoit.faucon@wsj.com

Appeared in the January 14, 2026, print edition as 'Trump Tells Protesters ‘Help Is On Its Way’'.

WSJ

3. U.S. Blows Up China’s Latin America Ambitions With Maduro Ouster

Summary:

The U.S. removal of Nicolás Maduro shattered Beijing’s flagship “all-weather” partnership in Latin America and exposed the vulnerability of China’s decade-long effort to build a strategic foothold in Washington’s backyard. China now focuses on salvaging Venezuelan oil interests and toxic debt, while watching countries like Mexico, Panama, and possibly Honduras tilt back toward the U.S. Beijing’s internal debate weighs a tacit hemispheric trade, American primacy in the Western Hemisphere for greater Chinese latitude near Taiwan. An April Trump–Xi summit and choices over Taiwan’s transit, Latin American alignments, and Venezuelan oil concessions will test whether this becomes a new global bargain.

Comment: We should give great credit to POTUS for strategically placing his stones on the Go/Wei Chi/Baduk board to achieve effects beyond Venezuela and Latin America.

But ... If Beijing informally accepts a revived Monroe Doctrine in the Western Hemisphere, what implicit expectation might it hold about U.S. restraint around Taiwan and the broader Asia-Indo-Pacific, and is Washington prepared to reject that linkage explicitly? Or are we really seeking spheres of influence where we will cede other regions? (I certainly hope not)

Or ... Does the swift U.S. success in Venezuela deter Chinese coercion against Taiwan by showcasing American hard-power resolve. Or ... does it instead push China to move faster before a firmer U.S. posture solidifies in the First Island Chain?

How should the U.S. coordinate Venezuela policy, Latin American economic engagement, and Taiwan strategy so that gains in “America’s backyard” do not unintentionally signal a willingness to trade away Chinese core interests at the expense of Taiwan’s security and de facto autonomy?

What lessons should allies like Japan and South Korea draw from China’s surprise and Russia’s quiet hedging in Venezuela about the reliability of great-power “all-weather” partnerships in a crisis, and how can Washington turn those lessons into stronger alliance structures and deterrence in the Asia-Indo-Pacific? We have opportunities if we seize them - we could reinforce the silk web of our alliances.

U.S. Blows Up China’s Latin America Ambitions With Maduro Ouster

WSJ

Beijing is recalculating its policy of making inroads in Washington’s backyard after its top ally there was deposed

Lingling Wei

Jan. 13, 2026 9:00 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/china-trump-venezuela-maduro-75e95551?mod=hp_lead_pos9

A Chinese broadcast on the U.S. incursion in Venezuela. Andy Wong/AP

The U.S. ouster of the Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro is forcing Beijing into a high-stakes recalculation of its ambitions in a region that looks like America’s backyard again, said people close to internal discussions in the Chinese leadership.

For years, China made inroads into Latin America, coaxing countries to abandon support for Taiwan with loans to build roads, ports and rail lines, making significant purchases of commodities like soybeans and oil, and mining metals such as copper. Maduro was its most important ally, an anti-American leader with oil resources, earning Venezuela the rare distinction of an “all-weather” partnership—China’s highest diplomatic honor and a status held by no other country in Latin America.

Now, Beijing is no longer seeking to make new advances into the region in the near term, the people said. Instead, the discourse in China’s policymaking circles has shifted toward a potential trade-off: If the Western Hemisphere belongs to the Americans, then the Taiwan Strait belongs to the Chinese.

This calculation doesn’t mean China views the U.S. action in Venezuela as a green light for an immediate action to take back Taiwan, a democratically ruled island that Beijing views as a breakaway province. Rather, U.S. action against Maduro by force bolsters China as it gives priority to its “core interests,” chiefly, bringing Taiwan under its control.

China’s leaders had already been watching its influence in Latin America wane since President Trump returned to the White House a year ago.

Mexico recently imposed 50% tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles to align with Washington ahead of the high-stakes 2026 review of the North American free-trade pact. Panama has moved back into the U.S. orbit, withdrawing from Xi Jinping’s signature “Belt and Road” initiative while allowing rotating stays for U.S. military personnel at bases near the canal.

A dealership selling China’s BYD electric vehicles in Mexico City. quetzalli nicte-ha/Reuters

Even Honduras, which broke ties with Taiwan in 2023, is wobbling. The country’s shrimp industry has largely collapsed after failing to find the promised high-value markets in China, leading to significant domestic economic strain. Now, the president-elect, Nasry Asfura, who was endorsed by Trump, appears poised to fulfill a campaign promise of switching back to recognizing Taipei.

By December, as losses mounted in the region, Beijing issued a policy paper on Latin America suggesting it wouldn’t give up its ambitions there—a stance it can later use to extract concessions from Washington over Taiwan.

Then, just after New Year’s Day, Xi dispatched a special envoy to Venezuela with a mission to stop the bleeding.

According to the people familiar with the internal discussions, the goal for the envoy, Qiu Xiaoqi, was to secure what Beijing calls ji ben pan—the “strategic foundation” of China’s Latin America influence. This meant ensuring repayment of over $10 billion in outstanding debt owed by Venezuela and continued access to the world’s largest crude reserves.

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Hours after Qiu met Maduro on Jan. 3, U.S. special-operations forces swooped into Caracas and, after an intense firefight, left with the country’s leader. With that, China’s decadelong project to secure a geostrategic foothold in America’s backyard was suddenly upended.

Now, China has a stack of toxic IOUs from Venezuela and is dealing with a regime that must put a priority on Trump, who has called himself the country’s “acting president.”

Maduro’s successor, Delcy Rodríguez, has met with Chinese Ambassador Lan Hu to offer reassurances on Beijing’s interests in the country. “No matter how the political situation in Venezuela evolves, China’s willingness to deepen practical cooperation with Venezuela in various fields will not change,” Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said in response to questions from The Wall Street Journal.

But the U.S. is already moving to reshape who controls Venezuela’s oil fields, where China has major interests.

Policy analysts close to the White House said the U.S. could replace Chinese infrastructure in Venezuela with American-led ventures. Essentially, the analysts said, the Trump administration could offer the new Venezuela government an opportunity for the U.S. to facilitate the restructuring of the country’s debt in exchange for exclusive rights for American companies to develop and extract its oil. This move would effectively sideline China.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said restoring American pre-eminence in the Western Hemisphere involves “enlisting established friends to help bolster mutual security in the region and cultivating new partners in the region.”

Beijing’s goal is now defensive, said the people close to internal discussions: ensuring it isn’t erased from the ledger of Venezuela’s oil reserves entirely. This strategic retreat, these people said, might well be what China expects from the U.S. in the Taiwan Strait. Other enticements Chinese officials are considering, they said, involve Beijing’s potentially agreeing to purchase billions of dollars of long-term Treasurys.

President Trump’s attack on Venezuela exposed weaknesses in its China-backed defenses, a development that analysts say could shape Beijing’s thinking on the use of force against Taiwan. Photo: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

The expected April summit between Xi and Trump in Beijing will likely offer the first real test of China’s new calculus.

The Chinese leadership is hoping to gauge whether Trump’s “America First” focus on the Western Hemisphere, the people said, is an opening for China to exert more control over its own periphery—or if the Venezuelan operation was merely the first chapter in a global reassertion of American power.

In Beijing, some hard-liners see Trump’s focus on the Western Hemisphere as a distraction that could leave a vacuum in the Asia-Pacific. The administration calls the policy the “Trump corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, a 19th-century warning to Europe from President James Monroe against new colonization in the Western Hemisphere, which he claimed as the U.S.’s exclusive domain.

Others argue that Trump’s authorization of the Maduro ouster proves that American interventionism is far from the “paper tiger” that Beijing’s hawks had hoped.

“The fall of Maduro has forced Beijing into a new respect for the Monroe Doctrine,” said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center. “Trump’s willingness to use hard power proves that American resolve is a reality that Beijing must also take seriously.”

While Trump himself has remained noncommittal regarding a military defense of Taiwan, his administration’s 2025 National Security Strategy provides a clearer road map for U.S. interests. The document, released late last year, frames the island as an indispensable gear in the global economy. The strategy explicitly gives priority to “preserving military overmatch” to deter conflict, viewing Taiwan as a vital maritime gatekeeper in the First Island Chain that protects American trade from Chinese dominance.

Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te during an inspection of reservists. Ann Wang/Reuters

Beijing’s new calculus will face its first major test later this month. Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te has indicated a desire to attend Asfura’s inauguration in Honduras on Jan. 27, said people familiar with the matter. A spokesman at Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in December that Taipei remains open to engaging with all nations, including Honduras, without preconditions.

Beijing is closely watching whether the Trump administration will grant Lai a transit through the U.S. en route to Central America—a privilege denied to him last year.

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One particular sting to Beijing came from Moscow. While the Chinese envoy was still drafting statements on Beijing’s “all-weather” partnership with Venezuela, Russia had already begun a quiet evacuation of its diplomats’ families in late December.

The people close to Beijing said that Moscow, which publicly denied a news report on the evacuation, didn’t inform the Chinese of its plan.

Write to Lingling Wei at Lingling.Wei@wsj.com

WSJ

4. U.S. to Unveil Gaza Governance Plan Despite Concerns Over Hamas

Summary:

The Trump administration is moving to Phase 2 of its Gaza plan, shifting from cease-fire management to governance and reconstruction. Washington will announce a 15-member National Committee for the Administration of Gaza made up of Palestinian technocrats to run daily services, overseen by Nickolay Mladenov as high representative reporting to a Trump-chaired Board of Peace. An International Stabilization Force is planned, with Indonesia and Morocco pledging troops, but its size and mandate remain unclear. The plan’s success hinges on Hamas disarming and ceding control, yet Hamas remains resilient and Israel rejects both a Palestinian state and Palestinian Authority rule in Gaza.

Comment: How can the United States design governance, security, and incentive structures in Gaza that compel Hamas to lose real power, reassure Israel, and avoid creating a de facto U.S. protectorate that Washington is unwilling or unable to sustain over time?

U.S. to Unveil Gaza Governance Plan Despite Concerns Over Hamas

WSJ

Hamas hasn’t yet begun disarming, a fact some officials believe could imperil the peace plan

By Robbie Gramer

, Alexander Ward

and Anat Peled

Jan. 13, 2026 9:36 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-s-to-unveil-gaza-governance-plan-despite-concerns-over-hamas-4b304fd6

A camp housing displaced Palestinians along the waterfront in Gaza City on Tuesday. Omar Al-Qattaa/AFP/Getty Images

WASHINGTON—The Trump administration will announce Wednesday the U.S. is moving to the next step of its Gaza plan and name a committee of Palestinians to temporarily run the bombed-out enclave, U.S. officials said.

Since a fragile cease-fire in Gaza is holding and Hamas has returned all but one deceased hostage, U.S. officials assess that they can now shift from halting the conflict to governing and rebuilding the territory, which the administration labels Phase 2 of its 20-point blueprint.

The plan still faces deep skepticism from some senior Middle Eastern officials as Hamas—designated a terrorist group by the U.S.— has yet to detail how, if at all, it plans to disarm under the terms of the cease-fire President Trump brokered last October.

The U.S. is expected to announce the names of 15 Palestinian technocrats on the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, or NCAG, who will be responsible for everyday management of the enclave including sanitation, utilities and education.

Nickolay Mladenov, a former U.N. envoy for Middle East peace and Bulgarian foreign minister, will be named as the new high representative for the Trump-chaired Board of Peace, overseeing the implementation of the peace plan, the U.S. officials said.

Mladenov will act as the conduit between the panel of Palestinian technocrats and the Board of Peace, officials said.

The roughly 12-member Board of Peace will provide high-level direction on matters in Gaza, the U.S. officials said. Trump, speaking Sunday to reporters aboard Air Force One, said it would consist of the “most important leaders of the most important nations.” He has yet to name the members.

In 2019, Nickolay Mladenov, the U.N.’s envoy for Mideast peace at the time, visited a solar energy project in the Gaza Strip. ibraheem abu mustafa/Reuters

The long-awaited announcement shows how the Trump administration aims to turn Gaza’s postwar rubble into a safe place to live, before then converting it into a high-tech Riviera in the Middle East. Trump’s Middle East peace envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, led the development of the plan.

The administration hasn’t yet announced which countries will take part in an International Stabilization Force of foreign troops to maintain order in Gaza. The U.S. officials said that information would be released at a later date.

The next phase of the peace plan faces hurdles to bring a lasting peace to Gaza. Hamas has yet to disarm, which current and former officials say stymies Gaza’s reconstruction as well as efforts to establish a viable governance structure outside of the group’s influence.

“Hamas proved to be much more resilient than most expected early in the war,” said Dan Shapiro, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel during the Obama administration.

“I’m concerned that Hamas will emerge from this whole episode battered, bruised, but still clinging to power, still posing a threat, still crushing any dissent from Gaza,” he said. “That would start the clock ticking toward a next round of conflict.”

The Israeli government has said the U.S. plan for Gaza can’t move on from the first cease-fire phase until the body of Ran Gvili is returned to Israel. Gvili, a police officer, was killed during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel that triggered the war.

The plan’s success is largely contingent on Hamas laying down its arms and willingly ceding control in Gaza, the U.S. officials said. While largely decimated by Israel since the war began, Hamas remains a threat to Palestinians in Gaza as well as Israel, they say.

Indonesia and Morocco have both committed to contributing troops to the international force known as the ISF, the U.S. officials said, but the Trump administration hasn’t yet announced how large the force will be.

Many countries interested in joining have stressed that they don’t want their troops to be asked to forcibly strip Hamas of its weapons, the U.S. officials said, which has complicated efforts to set up the force.

But the Trump administration expects Hamas will eventually lose power and give way to a new governing structure in Gaza, they added. Hamas said Sunday it would dissolve its existing government in Gaza once the Palestinian technocratic group was in place.

Throughout the war, Israel has pushed off the question of who will take over the governance of Gaza, with the country’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying that international forces would take on the role.

The Israeli government is opposed to the establishment of a Palestinian state, and Netanyahu has said he is opposed to the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank, taking power in Gaza.

Write to Robbie Gramer at robbie.gramer@wsj.com, Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com and Anat Peled at anat.peled@wsj.com

Appeared in the January 14, 2026, print edition as 'U.S. Set to Unveil Plan For Gaza Governance'.

WSJ

5. Trump Renews Threat on Greenland Before Meeting at White House

Summary:

The foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland will meet at the White House with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio amid sharp tensions over POTUS’s renewed push to “do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not.” Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen and Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen publicly closed ranks, insisting Greenland is not for sale and affirming preference for Denmark over U.S. control. Vance’s late addition raises the stakes, even as experts describe simply holding the meeting as progress. A bipartisan congressional delegation will follow, signaling domestic opposition to Trump’s acquisition gambit.

Comment: Is the correct way to play our stones on the Go/Wei Chi/Baduk board? Are we making the correct strategic moves here?

How should U.S. allies and adversaries interpret POTUS' rhetoric about buying or taking Greenland in light of the Venezuela operation, and what precedents does this set for American use of coercive power in other strategically vital regions such as the Arctic and beyond?

What governance and alliance mechanisms are needed to protect U.S.–Danish–Greenlandic cooperation on basing, minerals, and Arctic security while clearly ruling out coercive territorial acquisition that could fracture NATO and embolden authoritarian powers to pursue similar claims elsewhere?

Trump Renews Threat on Greenland Before Meeting at White House

Top officials from the U.S., Denmark and Greenland will meet for the first time since President Trump said he wanted to own Greenland.

NY Times · Amelia Nierenberg · January 14, 2026

Amelia Nierenberg

By Amelia Nierenberg

Reporting from London

Jan. 14, 2026

Updated 7:14 a.m. ET

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/14/world/europe/trump-greenland-rubio-vance-white-house.html

Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen of Greenland and Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of Denmark in Copenhagen on Tuesday.Credit...Tom Little/Reuters

Reporting from London

Jan. 14, 2026Updated 5:59 a.m. ET

The foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland are expected to meet on Wednesday with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the White House, with tensions rising over President Trump’s push to buy or take over Greenland.

It will be the first such meeting between the three governments over Greenland, a semiautonomous Danish territory. Apparently emboldened by the success of the U.S. military operation that led to the capture of Venezuela’s leader on Jan. 3, Mr. Trump said last week that he was “going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not.”

Greenland’s leader has been clear that the territory is not interested in an American takeover. On Tuesday, he made his strongest statement yet that Greenlanders would prefer to stick with Denmark.

“If we have to choose between the United States and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark,” Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen of Greenland said on Tuesday during a joint news conference in Copenhagen with Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of Denmark.

“The time has not come for internal discussions and division,” he said, speaking of its often fraught relations with Denmark, Greenland’s former colonizer. “The time has come to stand together.”

In her comments, Ms. Frederiksen agreed, laying out a strategy for the White House meeting: “We come together, we stay together and we leave together.”

Mr. Trump and top officials in his administration have given various explanations of how the United States might take control or ownership of Greenland. Mr. Trump has not ruled out taking Greenland with military force, but Mr. Rubio has said the president plans to buy it, rather than invade.

That appears to be a nonstarter. Denmark does not have the authority to sell Greenland, and Mr. Nielsen has said repeatedly that the territory is not for sale.

The Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, on Monday.Credit...Evgeniy Maloletka/Associated Press

Ulrik Pram Gad, a Greenland expert at the Danish Institute for International Studies, said the face-to-face meeting with U.S. officials was a sign of progress.

“The bar for success is very low,” he said.

“A success from this meeting would be that we had a meeting,” he said. “It’s a process. We are now talking.”

Mr. Vance appears to be a new addition to the meeting, which Mr. Rubio announced last week without mentioning the vice president. Denmark’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that Mr. Vance would also attend.

Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the think tank Bruegel in Brussels, said the presence of the vice president, a higher-ranking official who has shown a willingness to publicly and aggressively challenge foreign officials, raised the stakes for the meeting.

“The fact that it is not just foreign ministers — that it is also JD Vance — is upping the ante a bit,” Mr. Kirkegaard said.

On Friday and Saturday, a bipartisan delegation of U.S. lawmakers will go to Copenhagen, the Danish capital, to meet with political and business leaders from Denmark and Greenland.

The goal of the visit, said Representative Sara Jacobs, Democrat of California, is to show that American lawmakers “oppose President Trump’s aggressive efforts to acquire Greenland.”

Maya Tekeli contributed reporting from Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, and Jeanna Smialek contributed reporting from Brussels.

Amelia Nierenberg is a Times reporter covering international news from London.

See more on: Mette Frederiksen, Marco Rubio, JD Vance

NY Times · Amelia Nierenberg · January 14, 2026

6. Trump’s Threats to Greenland Raise Serious Questions for NATO

Summary:

POTUS’s renewed threats to “seize” Greenland, even hinting at force, expose a gap in NATO’s founding treaty, which never envisioned one ally attacking another. Denmark, a NATO founder, and semiautonomous Greenland are pushing back diplomatically while allies quietly plan to harden Arctic defenses against Russia and China. Article 5 offers no clear guidance if the United States were the aggressor, raising fears that an attempted takeover could paralyze the alliance and invite opportunistic Russian moves. European leaders, NATO officials, and many in Congress believe Trump is bluffing, yet they also treat Greenland as a critical test of NATO’s cohesion and meaning.

Comment: If NATO’s treaty architecture cannot credibly address the scenario of one ally threatening another’s territory, what legal, political, and force-posture adaptations are needed to preserve alliance deterrence and cohesion without provoking an internal confrontation that could destroy NATO from within?

Perhaps lIke our Constitution, the success and effectiveness of NATO relies on the virtuous actions of its leaders.

But we must keep our eye on the most important consideration. Greenland is of major geostrategic importance to the US and NATO in strategic competition with China and Russia. How do we protect it and exploit its geographic location for mutual security? Is "owning" Greenland worth the possible dissolution or at least weakening NATO? Can't we accomplish all our strategic objectives and keep NATO in tact without having to "own" Greenland?

Trump’s Threats to Greenland Raise Serious Questions for NATO

NY Times · Lara Jakes · January 14, 2026

The treaty that created NATO did not contemplate an attack by one ally on another. A seizure of Greenland by President Trump would test the endurance of the mutual-defense pact.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/14/world/europe/trump-greenland-nato.html

A frozen corner of the main fishing harbor in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland.Credit...Ivor Prickett for The New York Times

Lara Jakes covers NATO and European security.

Jan. 14, 2026, 4:56 a.m. ET

Over the past year, President Trump has pushed NATO with threats and coercion to make divisive changes. Now he is threatening to seize control of Greenland, potentially with military force, which has heightened concerns that he will destroy the trans-Atlantic security alliance.

Leaders in Europe and Canada, which have depended on the United States for nearly 77 years as the alliance’s largest partner, are determined to not let that happen.

Greenland is a semiautonomous territory of Denmark, which is a founding member of NATO. Top diplomats from Greenland and Denmark will defend the territory from Mr. Trump’s ambitions at the White House on Wednesday.

Discussions set with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio will provide “a meeting room where we can look each other in the eye and talk about these things,” the Danish foreign minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, said on Tuesday.

Mr. Trump has cast himself as NATO’s biggest booster. “I’m the one who SAVED NATO!!!” he wrote on social media on Monday.

His threats to withdraw the United States from NATO spurred the alliance last summer to increase defense spending. He also agreed to continue sending American weapons to Ukraine — after initially pausing them — once NATO allies proposed paying for military aid instead of the United States donating it.

Now NATO allies are devising plans to better secure Greenland’s surrounding waters from adversaries like Russia and China — the reason Mr. Trump says American ownership is necessary.

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

“We all agree in NATO — we all agree — that when it comes to the protection of the Arctic, we have to work together, and that’s exactly what we are doing,” NATO’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, said on Tuesday.

But the flap has raised the prospect that one NATO member might invade the territory of another, throwing the alliance into a tailspin.

“It really is a deal breaker in the trans-Atlantic relationship,” said Sten Rynning, a NATO analyst and professor at the University of Southern Denmark.

Secretary General Mark Rutte of NATO, right, and President Trump at a North Atlantic Council session during the 2025 NATO summit in The Hague.Credit...Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

Attacking One Is Attacking All

At issue is Article 5 of NATO’s founding treaty, which holds that an attack on one ally is considered an attack on all. Such an attack triggers an obligation for each NATO member to respond, although not necessarily with armed force.

The treaty does not explicitly contemplate what would happen if one ally strikes another. Article 5 has been invoked only once in NATO history, after Al Qaeda’s attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, so there is no precedent to provide guidance.

Technically, Mr. Rynning said, any one NATO ally would have the right to block the alliance from sending its assets to defend an ally under attack. Were the United States to invade Greenland, it would “without question” stop the alliance from intervening, he said, “and NATO would be stuck.”

At that point, Russia might seize on the internal chaos to test NATO by sending its armed forces into alliance territory, Mr. Rynning said. “And then, if NATO could not react to that, it would be effectively defunct,” he said.

Rob Bauer, a retired Dutch admiral who stepped down last year as NATO’s most senior military officer, does not think Mr. Trump will follow through with his threat to seize Greenland with force, “because it is the end of NATO,” he said in an interview on Monday.

He predicted that Mr. Trump’s threats amounted to a negotiation tactic to get NATO to commit more resources to the Arctic.

Putting Arctic Security at Center Stage

Admiral Bauer said Denmark had for decades discouraged the alliance from frequently operating in Greenland’s surrounding waters because of tensions with the American military. But the current uproar has elevated Arctic security as a NATO priority.

Officials and experts agree that NATO’s presence in the Arctic has grown increasingly necessary as warming seas have opened frozen shipping lanes to Russian and Chinese naval fleets and commercial cargo. That has become more of a concern recently than it was during Mr. Trump’s first term, said Kay Bailey Hutchison, who was his ambassador to NATO from 2017 to 2021.

“Now we have more awareness of Chinese and Russian activities,” Ms. Hutchison said in an interview on Tuesday. “And I think the closeness of Greenland to American waters in the Atlantic has made the issue more important for America from a security standpoint.”

Mr. Trump also floated the idea of buying Greenland in 2019, but Ms. Hutchison said the matter “kind of faded away” after what she described as “very positive conversations” with Danish officials.

She said it made sense for the United States to take the lead in securing Greenland but that NATO should have a “firm role” and that “most certainly, Denmark has the right to make the foreign policy decisions regarding Greenland.”

Ms. Hutchison also doubted that Mr. Trump would seize Greenland. “I don’t think military force is a real option,” she said.

‘I Think Congress Will Stop Him’

There is widespread public support in the United States for the alliance, which was created after World War II to deter the Soviet Union. If the president tried to thwart NATO by controlling Greenland, “I think Congress will stop him,” said Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia.

A bipartisan delegation of senators and House members will travel to Denmark later this week to show support for the NATO ally. But others have fallen in line behind Mr. Trump, including Representative Randy Fine, Republican of Florida, who on Monday proposed legislation to allow the president “to take whatever steps necessary to annex or acquire Greenland. ”

The turmoil comes at a delicate time for NATO. Its European members are already grappling with how to continue supporting Ukraine with limited resources, ward off Russian hybrid attacks, and bolster security if the United States draws down the number of troops it has stationed on the continent, as expected.

But NATO has survived internal tensions before, like France’s rejection of an American-led military command in the 1960s, sporadic clashes between Turkey and Greece and Hungary’s refusal to send military aid to Ukraine.

“Sometimes the ice is thin, and sometimes the ice is thick,” Admiral Bauer said. “It’s not the first time that we are in rough weather.”

Still, he said, “I think NATO is too important for the United States to throw it away.”

Lara Jakes, a Times reporter based in Rome, reports on conflict and diplomacy, with a focus on weapons and the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. She has been a journalist for more than 30 years.

NY Times · Lara Jakes · January 14, 2026

7. Facing What We See in the Mirror: America Hasn’t Won Our Wars

Summary:

John Nagl rejects Mike Nelson’s claim that “America doesn’t win wars” is a myth. He argues the American public is right to see a grim post–World War II record: victory in Desert Storm, a tie in Korea, catastrophic failures in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He traces these defeats to three causes: ignorance of local history, culture, and politics; failure to plan and resource the postwar peace; and overconfidence in achieving political ends through force. Calling Iraq a “victory,” he argues, empties the word of meaning. The first strategic step is honest acknowledgment that recent major wars were lost.

Comment: If victory means achieving sustainable political outcomes aligned with U.S. interests and values, how would we redefine campaign design, force structure, and interagency integration so that future wars are planned from the outset around the peace? - i.e., to achieve the acceptable durable political arrangement that will sustain, protect, and advance US interests.

What concrete mechanisms should Congress and the national security community create to force “brutal honesty” about Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan into doctrine, professional military education, and war planning, so that mythmaking about success cannot license the next strategically disastrous intervention? Example - no more purges of doctrine that occured in all major Army schools (except for SWCS at Ft Bragg) in 1975 when we said we would do no more Vietnams.

Facing What We See in the Mirror: America Hasn’t Won Our Wars

By John Nagl

January 12, 2026

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2026/01/12/facing_what_we_see_in_the_mirror_america_hasnt_won_our_wars_1158110.html

In “The Pernicious Myth That America Doesn’t Win Wars”, Army Special Forces veteran Mike Nelson asks whether you’re going to believe him or your lying eyes about the recent success rate of the most expensive military force in world history.

Nelson’s article was apparently occasioned by a December 9 ^th tweet from former Navy SEAL and current Member of Congress Derrick Van Orden that the United States has “not won a war in over 80 years.” In fact, a number of scholars and military thinkers have made similar arguments (even if most put the first Gulf War into the “win” category). Dan Bolger’s book Why We Lost, Donald Stoker’s book Why America Loses Wars, James Warren’s book Outmaneuvered: America's Tragic Encounter with Warfare from Vietnam to Afghanistan, and this author’s Parameters article “Why America’s Army Can’t Win America’s Wars” all attempt to understand a historical phenomenon Nelson believes to be a fallacy: “that the American military doesn’t win wars.”

Nelson’s argument rests on three pillars: Americans are ignorant about what war is, ignorant about how often we fight wars, and ignorant about the outcomes of the wars we fight. All three statements are unfair to the people whom Nelson repeatedly risked his life to defend. In point of fact, the American people have a visceral sense about what constitutes a war, understand that some wars are more important than others (as Nelson apparently does not; neither in the political science literature nor in any other way is it true that “Grenada is just as much of a war as World War II”); and most importantly, know that we lost catastrophically in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, three of the five biggest wars of the past eighty years. With a win in Desert Storm and a tie in Korea, that makes our record since World War II a resounding one, three, and one—as I noted in Parameters, a result that “would have landed any football coach in the hot seat—if it did not get the coach fired midseason.”

The causes for our defeats are varied, but revolve around three recurring factors: an inability to understand the history, culture, and politics of the countries in which we were fighting; a failure to prepare for the peace that follows the fighting that is, as Saint Augustine taught, the only reason to fight a war in the first place; and excessive belief in our ability to accomplish political tasks through the use of arms. There is terrific and voluminous writing on each of these failings, including Montgomery McFate and Janice Laurence’s Social Science Goes to War: The Human Terrain System in Iraq and Afghanistan, David Fitzgerald’s Learning to Forget: US Army Counterinsurgency Doctrine and Practice from Vietnam to Iraq and Jeremy Kasper’s Forgetting How to Win: The U.S. Army, State Department, and USAID in Modern Post-Combat Operations. All begin their valuable examination of lessons learned from recent conflicts by doing exactly what Nelson tells us not to do: admitting our failures, especially in Iraq.

After decrying the ignorance of the American people and equating the importance of Grenada with that of World War II, Nelson baldly states that “Iraq was a victory -- a poorly decided, stupidly managed, and possibly counterproductive in the long-term victory.” I am with him on the subordinate clauses: Iraq was certainly decided on false pretenses; stupidly managed with insufficient troops to secure the peace and no plan for who would rule the country after Saddam Hussein was deposed; and almost certainly counterproductive, costing the United States three trillion dollars (and counting) while taking perhaps 500,000 lives and increasing the relative power of Iran in the Middle East (at least prior to Israel and America’s recent strikes on the country). But stating that Iraq was a victory is simply not true if the word victory is to have any meaning.

Nelson admits that his interpretation of the recent war in Iraq is controversial, calling it an “example of a misunderstood success” and stating that “[w]hen viewed in this prism, the United States military has myriad successes since World War II.” When viewed through a similar prism, I am 6’2”, bench press 325 pounds and play quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs; the prism through which Nelson understands Iraq distorts reality beyond the point of recognition. In the Pulitzer-Prize nominated book Fiasco, Tom Ricks notes that the American invasion of Iraq may well be the most profligate act in American history; if Iraq was a victory for the United States, we certainly cannot afford any defeats.

Nelson served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan; I understand his desire to have that service and the sacrifices he and his soldiers made have enduring value. America’s failures in the wars in which he served are not his fault nor the fault of his soldiers, but they are failures, nonetheless. The best way to honor the sacrifices so many Americans made in Iraq and Afghanistan is to examine the reasons why American efforts to achieve political results through the use of force failed—why America lost the wars in which Nelson fought. As we have learned about defeating alcoholism, the first step is admitting that we have a problem.

John Nagl is the General John J. Pershing Chair of Military Strategy at the Army War College and the author of Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife and Knife Fights: A Memoir of Modern War. He served in tank units in Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom. These are his own views and not those of the United States Army War College or the United States Army.

8. Congress agrees to fund Voice of America, bucking Trump shutdown order

Summary:

Congress’s bipartisan spending deal rejects POTUS’s plan to dismantle the U.S. Agency for Global Media and shut down Voice of America, appropriating about $653 million for USAGM, including $199.5 million for VOA. Funding is lower than prior years but far above the administration’s “orderly shutdown” request. Trump appointee Kari Lake sought to suspend operations and lay off staff, triggering lawsuits and a federal injunction that forced limited broadcasting to resume and blocked mass layoffs. The bill also sustains Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Middle East Broadcasting Networks, and the Open Technology Fund, preserving core U.S. soft-power tools during active information warfare.

Comment: Seemed like good news on the service with bipartisan support for a critical national security asset. But from what I am hearing the administration will not spend the funds nor will they do anything more than the court makes them do. This is unlikely to see any kind of restoration of the information capabilities that our nation needs. Some things we should think about if enlightened leadership at USGMA wanted to right the wrongs of their allegations against VOA, et al. (and I will not concede that their allegations are anything more than an ill informed partisan agenda).

What strategic risk does the United States incur in the Asia-Indo-Pacific, Ukraine, and the Middle East if partisan efforts to shutter USAGM succeed where adversary information operations are fully funded and centrally directed?

How can the United States design governance, authorities, and guardrails so that USAGM and its broadcasters remain editorially independent yet are protected from politically motivated attempts to weaponize or dismantle them?

Given the cuts and legal turmoil, what reforms in narrative strategy, targeting, and measurement are required to ensure VOA and the grantees actually shape foreign audiences’ perceptions more effectively than well-resourced propaganda from China, Russia, Iran, and north Korea?

Congress agrees to fund Voice of America, bucking Trump shutdown order

Washington Post · Scott Nover

The Trump administration has tried to eliminate funding for the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA. Appropriators in Congress have had other ideas.

January 13, 2026 at 5:00 a.m. ESTYesterday at 5:00 a.m. EST

Lawmakers from both parties and houses of Congress have agreed to provide about $653 million to fund Voice of America’s parent agency, rejecting President Donald Trump’s demand to defund the international broadcaster and shut it down.

A bipartisan spending bill released Sunday would allocate $643 million for broadcasting from the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA, plus nearly $10 million for capital improvements. That figure is down from the $867 million appropriated for the agency each of the past two years, but it’s more than four times the $153 million Trump requested that Congress provide to “support the orderly shutdown of USAGM operations.”

The outlay is included in a broader bipartisan spending deal negotiated by House and Senate appropriators. The package still requires House and Senate approval before heading to Trump’s desk.

“We understand the realities of the appropriations process, but I am disappointed that Congress is proposing half a billion dollars more in funding than we requested,” Kari Lake, the deputy CEO installed by Trump to shut down the agency, wrote in a statement Monday. “While reductions from prior years are a step in the right direction, USAGM can still advance President Trump’s message and share America’s story globally without wasting so much taxpayer money.”

The bipartisan commitment to funding USAGM reflects continued congressional support for America’s role in promoting the free flow of news and information abroad, a long-standing foundation of its soft power around the world.

Congress’s funding proposal comes after a dire year for USAGM. Trump signed an executive order in March calling for the dismantlement of the government agency, which oversees Voice of America and funds nonprofit groups including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia. To carry out the order, Lake placed more than 1,300 Voice of America staffers on paid administrative leave — many of whom are still not working — and halted broadcasting operations the same month.

It was the first time VOA went dark since it was first set up in 1942 to combat Nazi propaganda. In response, VOA’s director, Michael Abramowitz, and a separate group of USAGM staffers sued the Trump administration, arguing that its actions were illegal.

Lake, a former Arizona television anchor who lost high-profile races for governor and U.S. Senate in recent years, has defended the cuts and called for the agency’s eventual elimination. She told Congress in a June hearing that USAGM was “incompetent, corrupt, biased, and a threat to America’s national security and standing in the world.” She has also said USAGM is “not salvageable.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth issued a preliminary injunction in April ordering the agency to uphold its statutory obligations for broadcasting. As a result, VOA began producing content again in four languages: Farsi, Pashto, Dari and Mandarin. (VOA previously broadcast in 49 languages.)

When Lake subsequently ordered mass layoffs at USAGM through a reduction in force, or RIF, Lamberth blocked her from doing so, saying those cuts would put the agency out of compliance with his injunction. He also chastised Lake and her “concerning disrespect” for the law and ordered that she be deposed under threat of contempt proceedings.

Lamberth, an 82-year-old appointee of President Ronald Reagan, also criticized the administration for not spending what it was appropriated by Congress. “When Congress appropriated $260 million to VOA for FY 2025, it did not anticipate that such a significant sum of taxpayer funds would be used to pay employees to sit at home for months on end, making no contribution to VOA’s statutory mandate,” Lamberth wrote, noting the total specifically appropriated for VOA’s use in USAGM’s last budget.

The new bill allocates $199.5 million of the total appropriation to VOA and $138 million for USAGM’s operations. Additionally, nonprofit grantees will also be funded through this bill to the tune of $112.5 million for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, $69 million for Middle East Broadcasting Networks, $53.5 million for Radio Free Asia and $40.5 million for the Open Technology Fund. The Trump administration pushed to defund the nonprofit media outlets, but Lamberth has largely restored their funding in court after they all sued.

Radio Free Asia previously said it was pausing operations but in recent months has resumed some publishing activities. “With new funding, if enacted, RFA anticipates ramping up additional news operations that have been paused in the Asia-Pacific region,” RFA spokesman Rohit Mahajan said in a statement.

Sen. Brian Schatz (Hawaii), the top Democrat on the state and foreign operations subcommittee, applauded the bipartisan negotiation that led to the bill but expressed worry that it still represented a cut to government broadcasters.

“While the bill ensures continued funding for our international broadcasting grantees,” he wrote in a statement, “it forces cuts at a time when they are trying to provide critical services in Ukraine, the Middle East, and across the Indo-Pacific.”

Schatz and his House counterpart, Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Florida), previously criticized the Trump administration’s “illegal gutting” of the agency.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Florida), the Senate and House appropriations subcommittee chairs, did not respond to requests for comment.

Noah Robertson contributed to this report.

Washington Post · Scott Nover

9. VOA: MIA

Summary:

VOA’s role as a strategic instrument of U.S. power is undercut by internal cuts and contested guidance even as crises deepen. After POTUS moved to shrink USAGM “to the minimum extent consistent with law,” VOA’s Persian and related Iran-facing services, plus the Open Technology Fund, were sharply reduced just as Tehran shut down the internet to block protest coverage. USAGM leadership also blocked RFE/RL from using a Kuwait transmitter during Iran protests and had already ended VOA service in Venezuela. Congress has now restored some funding and oversight, but VOA’s ability to shape narratives in closed societies remains fragile and episodic.

Comment: A major strategic error for our nation.

VOA: MIA

Politico · Ben Johansen · January 13, 2026

By BEN JOHANSEN, SOPHIA CAI and IRIE SENTNER 01/13/2026 05:33 PM EST

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/west-wing-playbook-remaking-government/2026/01/13/voa-mia-00726442?is_magic_link=true&template_id=OT5J0E7B7DD7

Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook: Remaking Government, your guide to Donald Trump’s unprecedented overhaul of the federal government — the key decisions, the critical characters and the power dynamics that are upending Washington and beyond.

Two House Republicans are urging the U.S. to make better use of international broadcasting — particularly Voice of America — after the recent American military intervention in Venezuela and President DONALD TRUMP’s threat to strike Iran.

“The Iranian regime shut down the internet because they fear the truth. They don’t want Iranians to know about the regime’s brutal repression, President Trump’s efforts to advance peace, or the scale and success of the brave protests,” said Rep. MICHAEL McCAUL (R-Texas), former chair of the Committee on Homeland Security.

“This is exactly why U.S. international broadcasting exists. Now is the time to fully implement and resource our capabilities — including VOA Persian, Radio Farda, and the Open Technology Fund — to ensure the regime cannot cut its people off from the truth,” McCaul added.

VOA’s Persian and Farsi language services, which served Iranian audiences, as well as OTF — which funded access to uncensored internet — were dramatically scaled back by the Trump administration’s executive order last year to reduce the U.S. Agency for Global Media “to the minimum extent consistent with law.”

Even after Trump’s latest international forays, the cuts have continued. USAGM CEO KARI LAKE this week blocked Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty — two other U.S.-funded international broadcasters under USAGM management — from using a USAGM transmitter in Kuwait to broadcast updates from the Iran protests, according to two USAGM employees placed on administrative leave and granted anonymity to discuss VOA’s actions.

“USAGM has had to scramble to find other resources in Europe and the Middle East to do what it could have done with its own people and equipment at the flick of a switch,” one of the people said.

In a statement, Lake defended the coverage decisions, pointing to VOA’s services in Cuba. The Trump administration expects the Cuban government to fall because of its past reliance on Venezuela.

“Reforms to USAGM have allowed all of our entities to serve our core purposes more effectively without bureaucracy and bloat. Voice of America and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting surged coverage immediately, expanded reporting across every platform, and continue to ramp up coverage as events warrant,” Lake said.

She did not comment on coverage in Iran.

VOA “is an instrument of power to get our story out in closed societies. It’s very important,” said Rep. DON BACON (R-Neb.). “I think we need these capabilities. Right now, it’s very clear we need them for Iran.”

In Venezuela, a media market heavily controlled by the government, the VOA service ended months before the U.S. capture of NICOLAS MADURO.

“The Trump administration is missing an opportunity to speak to 100 million Spanish-speaking people in the region, because there’s no VOA operation in Venezuela,” said a second senior VOA employee who has been placed on administrative leave and was granted anonymity to discuss the broadcaster’s former reach.

This week, lawmakers released new spending packages that show an appetite for broader use of VOA. In the minibus compromise spending package, VOA and USAGM funding was included, although with significant cuts from prior years.

VOA employees took solace at even the minimal funding and the inclusion of line items for each network, as well as provisions requiring consultation with Congress before any major operational changes.

There’s a precedent in the past year for the administration to bring back employees to cover international conflicts.

During the Israel-Iran conflict last year, USAGM hastily called employees with VOA’s Persian-language services who were placed on leave in the spring back to work in June to provide counter-programming to Iranian state media during the conflict.

“If the U.S. is going to invade your country, you’re going to want to turn to VOA to get real, balanced news, not just the perspective of the administration that’s invading your country,” said the second VOA employee on leave.

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10. Three ‘meta trends’ are reshaping warfare, INDOPACOM commander says

Summary:

Adm. Sam Paparo warns that a China conflict over Taiwan could occur anytime before or after 2027, so U.S. forces must be ready now, in 2027, and beyond. He highlights information, cognitive, and cyber operations as a core “meta trend” reshaping warfare, where perceptions outpace facts and shape decisions without a shot fired. China exploits this space in places like Palau, investing heavily in narrative campaigns. Paparo calls for information operations to be integrated into every plan and operation and urges a whole of government approach, even as the Trump administration shutters key civilian information institutions and hollows out U.S. strategic messaging.

Excerpts:

“China’s ability to shape the narrative really does have an enormous effect on the behavior of other countries,” he said, but noted that unlike China, which has built a false image of itself and maligned the United States in its messaging, the United States does not need to engage in disinformation.

“It’s just about really being clear about the kinds of things that China is doing around the world, and doing it in an effective way, such that it resonates with governments and populations in key regions,” he said.

And the messaging must be backed up by real policy. But the Trump administration has been moving in the opposite direction, shuttering the State Department office responsible for countering false narratives and gutting the U.S. Agency for Global Media.

Paparo also advocated for a whole-of-government approach.

Comment: To borrow from the 1992 election, "It's the narrative, stupid." How should the United States design a unified information and cognitive warfare architecture that connects INDOPACOM, State, USAGM, and allies so Paparo’s integrated information approach becomes strategic practice, not theater level improvisation?

What specific narrative, posture, and presence moves are needed now in frontline states like Palau and across the Asia-Indo-Pacific to blunt Chinese coercive messaging about “2027” and demonstrate that U.S. security and economic commitments will outlast Beijing’s pressure campaigns?

Three ‘meta trends’ are reshaping warfare, INDOPACOM commander says

defenseone.com · Jennifer Hlad

Adm. Paparo says they’re key to keeping the U.S. military ready to face off against China.

https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2026/01/three-meta-trends-are-reshaping-warfare-indopacom-commander-says/410666/

Adm. Sam Paparo, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, meets with U.S. Army 25th Infantry Division Artillery Brigade soldiers at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, on Nov. 14, 2025. U.S. Army / Sgt. Ian P. Burns

January 13, 2026 06:24 PM ET

By Jennifer Hlad

Managing Editor, Defense One

January 13, 2026 06:24 PM ET

HONOLULU—Five years ago, when then-Adm. Phil Davidson told senators that China would attempt to seize Taiwan as early as 2027, “it seemed like it was a good long way out,” Adm. Sam Paparo said Monday.

“And the danger in that was that we thought that it was some holiday that we had until 2027 for ourselves. But there could be a war of, quote, necessity, anytime between now and Aug. 1 of 2027, and there can be a war of choice anytime after August of 2027,” the leader of U.S. Indo-Pacom Command told a standing-room-only audience at the Honolulu Defense Forum, referring to the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army.

“We have to be ready now, we have to be ready in 2027, we have to be ready in 2028.”

One way the command will prepare is by incorporating information operations into “every plan, every investment, every operation,” Paparo said. “We don’t bolt information operations on the end. We integrate and suffuse it from the very start.”

Information operations, cognitive operations, and cyber operations as a “salient form of warfare” is one of three “meta trends” Paparo said are reshaping modern conflict.

“Entities can exploit the information environment where perceptions can outpace facts and disrupt decision making—often without firing a shot,” he said.

At the forum, Palauan President Surangel Whipps described Chinese efforts to sour his country’s populace on its relationship with the United States and its decision to recognize Taiwan as a sovereign nation.

“The narrative that’s being taught [is] that the U.S. militarization of Palau has put a target on Palau, and really that’s a false narrative,” Whipps said. “Because whether the U.S. is helping improve ports, helping improve airports, building over-the-horizon radar, the opportunity is to ensure that we are protected.”

China also reminds Palau that “2027 is coming soon, and soon you won’t have a partner,” Whipps said. “They basically tell us, ‘If you don’t denounce [Taiwan] and join us now, you’ll be left out in the cold.’”

But unlike China, which invests billions of dollars globally on messaging and information operations, in the United States that has “always been something that was sprinkled on top of an existing policy, rather than conceived of… a really central domain of competition, which it is, and Beijing absolutely sees it that way,” Ely Ratner, the former assistant defense secretary for Indo-Pacific security affairs, told Defense One.

Ratner praised Paparo’s decision to prioritize information operations, though he pointed out that the entire United States government needs a strategy.

“China’s ability to shape the narrative really does have an enormous effect on the behavior of other countries,” he said, but noted that unlike China, which has built a false image of itself and maligned the United States in its messaging, the United States does not need to engage in disinformation.

“It’s just about really being clear about the kinds of things that China is doing around the world, and doing it in an effective way, such that it resonates with governments and populations in key regions,” he said.

And the messaging must be backed up by real policy. But the Trump administration has been moving in the opposite direction, shuttering the State Department office responsible for countering false narratives and gutting the U.S. Agency for Global Media.

Paparo also advocated for a whole-of-government approach.

“The military has a significant role in this, but frankly, it is the elected civilian leaders. It is our diplomats. It’s our other instruments of national power that have an even greater role,” he said. “We’ve got to attack this.”

11. Taiwan’s Probable Risk Scenario Shifts to Potential Blitzkrieg

Summary:

Taiwan analysts are shifting the most probable PLA war scenario from slow blockade to rapid blitzkrieg, sharpened by Chinese calls online to copy the U.S. Maduro snatch in Venezuela. Beijing would likely seek shock and awe decapitation strikes, heavy missile salvos, special operations against leadership and command nodes, and fast boots on the ground to avoid a long televised atrocity war. Experts argue Taiwan’s plural politics, legal succession, counter decapitation posture, and “poisoned shrimp” defenses complicate Chinese plans, yet warn that surprise, diversion, and massed kinetic attacks, possibly synchronized with a north Korean crisis, remain central CCP requirements.

Comment: How should the United States and its Asia-Indo-Pacific allies revise plans and posture to defeat a short notice PLA blitz and decapitation attempt, not only a protracted blockade, while keeping crisis stability with nuclear armed China?

What specific political warfare, cognitive, and civil defense measures are needed now in Taiwan to ensure governmental continuity, societal resilience, and alliance cohesion if Chinese missiles and special forces disrupt national leadership in the opening hours?

How should U.S. strategy integrate the risk of a concurrent north Korean provocation that is deliberately engineered to divert attention and resources during a sudden Chinese strike across the Strait?

We cannot separate the contingencies in Asia-Indo-Pacom. We must look at the connections.

Defense/Security

Taiwan’s Probable Risk Scenario Shifts to Potential Blitzkrieg

Shock and awe across the Strait rather than blockade

Jan 13, 2026

∙ Paid

https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/taiwan-probable-risk-scenario-shifts-potential-blitzkrieg?r=7i07&utm

By: Jens Kastner

Photo by Annabelle Chih / Getty Images

Although the bulk of Taiwan observers wargaming Beijing’s takeover of Taiwan tend to see a naval blockade choking it into negotiations for annexation as the most probable course, the latest developments in Latin America are raising the odds for a more violent approach even though Chinese success is not certain, a survey and online research by Asia Sentinel suggests.

The US’s capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on January 3 triggered a flood of commentary on Chinese social media calling for the China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to replicate the same kind of military operation against what officials regard as a renegade province and arrest the political leadership to quickly solve Beijing’s self-perceived Taiwan problem.

The Venezuelan operation, codenamed Operation Absolute Resolve, started off with the US Air Force bombing infrastructure to suppress air defenses before Maduro’s Caracas compound was attacked, with Maduro and his wife immediately captured by elite US troops including the Army’s Delta Force, and flown out by helicopter for rendition to the US, where he is to stand trial on drug and other charges. That was promptly followed by the Trump administration giving the nod to Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez taking over the presidency in a move that is now effectively turning Venezuela into a US puppet state.

“A primary objective of any potential Chinese strike would be ‘decapitation’ -- the removal of Taiwan’s political leadership to force a rapid surrender,” said Alexander Chieh-cheng Huang, a professor at Tamkang University Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies in Taipei.

“However, Taiwan’s multiparty electoral system, checks and balances across branches of government, and active civil and media sectors create redundancy that preserves governmental continuity despite leadership shocks. That will make it extremely difficult for Beijing to achieve its political objective,” he added.

Huang went on to note that whereas Venezuela’s regime has been hollowed out by years of corruption, economic collapse and internal distrust, Taiwan presents a fundamentally different target for infiltration. He sees Taiwan’s professional military and robust civil society as creating a high-friction environment that limits the PLA’s room for maneuver. “The magnitude of internal decay that the United States exploited in Venezuela is effectively absent in Taiwan,” Huang said.

Admiral Lee Hsi-min (retired), a former chief of Taiwan’s general staff, in a recent analysis for the CSIS think tank in the US echoed the notion that unlike Venezuela’s case, the removal of a Taiwanese president would neither paralyze the state nor produce the kind of systemic collapse or mass capitulation that decapitation strategies are designed to induce.

“Taiwan is not governed by a personalist authoritarian regime. […] If national leaders were incapacitated, legally defined mechanisms of succession would ensure continuity of government,” Lee predicted.

Taiwan’s defensive environment differs sharply from that of Venezuela, he added, as Taipei has in recent years further strengthened its counter-decapitation posture by expanding military police units responsible for protecting central government institutions, adjusting the missions of key Marine Corps formations, deploying amphibious reconnaissance forces to critical approaches, and conducting regular counter-decapitation exercises under a dedicated contingency framework, with all units able to operate under a decentralized mode of command without awaiting orders.

This may not be enough

Lee warned, however, that this assessment should not lead to complacency in Taiwan, given that if China were to decide to use force, particularly in the opening phase of a conflict, decapitation operations would remain among its preferred options.

“Such operations, however, would more likely resemble the US approach during the 2003 Iraq War, relying on long-range precision strikes designed to generate shock and awe, rather than a leadership seizure operation,” Lee predicted.

Wendell Minnick, the Taipei-based editor of the China in Arms Substack page, believes a theoretical attack would be a PLA spring exercise turning into a blitzkrieg attack, beginning with ballistic missiles/cruise missiles, then troops taking the command and control nodes. China normally conducts exercises in the April-May and Ghost Month (Autumn) due to the sea states.

“PLA special ops landing near the Presidential Building to either capture the President and/or demonstrate in a false way that the Chinese are now in control of the city, with most of its leadership assassinated or captured,” Minnick said. “China, in my opinion, needs a big military win to concrete their place as a true Super Power, and China needs Taiwan’s east coast ports and airbases to project force into the Pacific,” he added.

Rick Fisher, Senior Fellow on Asian Military Affairs at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, for his part, said that there are two variables that do not change, but that intensify in their salience, post Maduro.

“First, the CCP must achieve momentum and command time, meaning it must secure maximum surprise and engineer maximum diversion of the United States,” Fisher said. “Surprise mobilization and launch of operations must accompany multiple proxy actions, meaning some kind of North Korean outrageous/nuclear event. Second, there must be a maximum blanket of kinetic – missile/aircraft/special forces – attacks to clear the way for invasion forces. Given that the CCP cannot afford months or years of global spectacle on social media of their murder of Taiwan’s political society, the CCP requires boots on the ground,” he added.

Although inordinately complacent until relatively recently, Taiwan has begun actively preparing for a potential Chinese attack by implementing a so-called “poisoned shrimp strategy” pioneered by Singapore, a comprehensive approach that focuses on making any invasion so difficult and costly that Beijing is deterred from attempting to swallow it. While military analysts note that Taiwan is heavily outgunned by China in terms of raw numbers, its preparations are designed to exploit the natural geographic challenges of a cross-strait invasion. The island has relied on the implicit backing of the United States, which is bound by law to help Taiwan defend itself, and the potential intervention of other allies including Japan because of the immense importance of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry to the global economy. But how solid that support is remains to be seen.

12. Grok is in, ethics are out in Pentagon’s new AI-acceleration strategy

Summary:

The Pentagon’s third AI acceleration strategy in four years creates seven “pace-setting projects” to drive AI into combat, battle management, intelligence, and posture planning, and orders all components to make data centrally available for AI training. It explicitly sidelines “responsible AI,” treats ethics and DEI as blockers, and mandates “any lawful use” contract language, loosening constraints on autonomous use of force while keeping vague references to “meaningful human control.” The department will deploy Grok and other frontier models, even on classified networks, as Russia and China also race ahead, despite collapsing public trust in AI and growing concern among U.S. allies.

Comment: Is there any bias in that headline? How does Defense One really feel? How can the United States accelerate AI-enabled warfighting while abandoning explicit ethics and responsibility frameworks without eroding alliance confidence, democratic oversight, and long-term legitimacy of U.S. military power?

Grok is in, ethics are out in Pentagon’s new AI-acceleration strategy

defenseone.com · Patrick Tucker

By Patrick Tucker

Science & Technology Editor

January 13, 2026 02:48 PM ET

https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2026/01/grok-ethics-are-out-pentagons-new-ai-acceleration-strategy/410649/

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and xAI CEO Elon Musk speak to SpaceX employees on Jan. 12, 2026, in Texas. CSPAN

Seven projects are to lead the charge to embed artificial intelligence ever more deeply in military affairs.

The Pentagon’s third AI-acceleration strategy in four years sets up seven “pace-setting projects” that will “unlock critical foundational enablers” for other U.S. military efforts, the department announced Monday.

The six-page document also directs the department’s many components to fulfil a four-year goal to make their data centrally available for AI training and analysis. It omits any mention of ethical use of AI and casts suspicion on the concept of AI responsibility while banning the use of models that incorporate DEI-related “ideological ‘tuning.’”

Also on Monday, Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that Pentagon networks, including classified ones, would enable access to Grok, the Elon Musk-owned, Saudi- and Qatari-backed AI chatbot noted for its partisan, even Nazi, slant and its willingness to create sexually explicit images of children.

In some key respects, the new strategy bears much in common with its 2023 Biden-administration predecessor, which also emphasized the rapid adoption of commercially available AI frontier models across the military.

The new strategy, however, offers far more specific pathways for that adoption across various military activities. A project called “Swarm Forge” will “iteratively discover, test, and scale” new ways of using AI in combat. Another project aims to rapidly incorporate agentic AI—foundation models that can complete specific tasks autonomously—for “enabled battle management and decision support, from campaign planning to kill chain execution,” and a third aims to promote AI in scenario planning.

One intelligence-related project aims to “turn intel into weapons in hours not years;” another, to make posture planning more “dynamic.”

Another project aims to make AI tools—including Grok and Google’s Gemini—available to department personnel at “Information Level (IL-5) and above classification levels.”

Perhaps most significantly, the new strategy lays out a mandate to eliminate “blockers” to data sharing within the Department and institute open-architecture systems, a move generally seen as favorable to startups and faster innovation.

Among these are “responsible AI,” ethical considerations, and DEI. Under a section titled “Clarifying ‘Responsible AI’ at the [Department of War] - Out with Utopian Idealism, In with Hard-Nosed Realism,” the strategy declares: “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and social ideology have no place in the DoW, so we must not employ AI models which incorporate ideological ‘tuning’ that interferes with their ability to provide objectively truthful responses to user prompts.”

The strategy also mandates that the defense undersecretary for research and engineering must “incorporate standard ‘any lawful use’ language into any DoW contract through which AI services are procured within 180 days,” meaning that any use of AI need only meet the legal standard the Department uses for force in general, human or not, as opposed to a special higher standard that which requires “meaningful human control” for the use of autonomy in war. But the strategy does not explicitly rescind the long-stated preference for meaningful human control either, which could lead to confusion as different commanders interpret meaningful and control in different ways, or, potentially, choose to ignore it.

It’s exactly the sort of discrepancy that the Department’s conspicuously absent AI ethics principles are meant to address. (The strategy also fails to acknowledge the growing chorus of lawmakers voicing concern about the administration’s ability to understand or follow the law, whether in attacking unarmed boats or taking lethal action against civilians on U.S. streets.)

The Pentagon is launching the strategy at a time when Russia and China are accelerating their own AI adoption, but also when public trust in AI is collapsing across the U.S. political spectrum. It also arrives as many European allies are turning away from U.S. tech companies due to the administration’s aggression toward democracies.

13. The Balance of Nuclear Deterrence in Europe after the Cold War

Summary:

Post–Cold War Europe has relied on nuclear deterrence to stabilize the balance of power, but the war in Ukraine has exposed its weaknesses. Russian nuclear threats, modernization of its triad, deployments in Belarus, and the collapse of key arms control treaties have raised the risk of miscalculation. NATO seeks to strengthen its eastern flank while upholding non-proliferation and “responsible” defensive use of nuclear weapons, yet faces coercive signaling from Moscow and uncertainty over U.S. commitments. China’s expanding arsenal, disruptive technologies such as hypersonics, cyber and AI, and NATO’s enlargement to Finland and Sweden further complicate deterrence and demand renewed arms control and transparency.

Conclusion:

Nuclear deterrence continues to serve as a vital mechanism in maintaining the balance of power in Europe by preventing major conflicts and establishing stability. At the same time, there are grave consequences associated with nuclear deterrence if the norms that govern its operation are violated, or if the escalatory process begins. The evolving geopolitical landscape, ranging from the war in Ukraine to emerging technologies, are fundamentally altering the understanding of security, alliances, and survival in Europe. Ensuring stability will depend upon the establishment of stronger arms control, enhanced communication, and a more robust NATO posture.

The Balance of Nuclear Deterrence in Europe after the Cold War

by Chick Edmond

01.14.2026 at 06:00am

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2026/01/14/the-balance-of-nuclear-deterrence-in-europe-after-the-cold-war/

Cold War-era nuclear deterrence is arguably the most complicated and challenging security concept faced by European states. With the rise of multipolar world order, the ways in which modern European states apply deterrence have evolved dramatically due to ongoing tensions in Ukraine and rapid advancements in technology.

To safeguard sovereignty, states continue to utilize all instruments of national security, and in many cases, acquiring or upgrading nuclear weapons. Such as how the United States and the Soviet Union amassed enormous nuclear arsenals to promote national security domestically and internationally in response to rising tensions and competition for global influence during the Cold War.

Although the end of the Cold War created a viable balance of power in Europe through the application of nuclear deterrence, this created additional security challenges for other nations, as demonstrated by Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2022. Therefore, this paper demonstrates how nuclear strategies contributed to a relatively stable post-Cold War European security environment while simultaneously identifying weaknesses that would result in instability in Ukraine. While this paper recognizes that arms control remains a primary method for diffusing tensions, it argues that strengthening NATO’s eastern flank and adhering to the principles of non-proliferation are essential measures for ensuring credible deterrence in contemporary Europe.

Historical Context and Cold War Impact on Deterrence

Nuclear deterrence emerged as a prominent global issue during the Cold War based on the notion that the threat of retaliatory action could act as a deterrent to nuclear conflict. Ideologically driven animosity between the United States and the Soviet Union forced both superpowers to extend their strategic influence as nuclear weapons became a dominant instrument of statecraft.

As both superpowers built large nuclear arsenals, global tensions increased and necessitated strategic restraint through arms control agreements such as the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). There were several key treaties throughout the Cold War that attempted to regulate nuclear behavior and decrease risks, including the Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT), NPT, and Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. All of these agreements were successful because they were preceded by earlier initiatives, including the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty, which acknowledged the dangers of nuclear proliferation and nuclear accidents.

Cooperation established norms to limit state behavior and reduce incentives for the use of nuclear weapons. As seen in the current Russia-Ukraine conflict, although Moscow has repeatedly stated it will use nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons have not been used.

When states face external insecurity, they tend to build up their internal security capabilities. As British academic Sir Lawrence David Freedman noted, U.S. nuclear doctrine traditionally discouraged European allies from developing their own nuclear capabilities, instead encouraging strong conventional alliances. By the 1950s, however, the U.S. began to share limited nuclear technology with allies to limit proliferation.

The United Kingdom developed its own nuclear deterrent and integrated it with the U.S. nuclear strategy under NATO, but British policymakers continued to struggle with the question: how does the U.K avoid dependence on American technology? Charles de Gaulle pursued a full independent French nuclear force to ensure national sovereignty and to reduce reliance on the superpowers.

Europe’s balance of power, since the onset of the Cold War, has rested significantly on nuclear deterrence. The resurgence of Russian assertiveness particularly following its invasion of Ukraine presents significant challenges to this equilibrium. The changing nature of U.S. foreign policy, coupled with technological innovations such as hypersonic weapons, adds additional complexities to the current deterrence dynamics in Europe.

Europe’s balance of power, since the onset of the Cold War, has rested significantly on nuclear deterrence.

These developments raise important questions: To what degree have nuclear deterrence strategies shaped the framework of Europe’s balance of power, and to what degree do current weaknesses impede the effectiveness of those strategies in today’s geopolitical climate? Both NATO and Russia rely heavily on nuclear deterrence, but the increasing ambiguity surrounding the effectiveness of those strategies stems from policy uncertainty, strategic ambiguity, and increasing security dilemmas.

Considerations

Balance of Power Theory: The balance of power theory focuses on the distribution of capabilities among states in a manner that prohibits any single state from attaining hegemony. Neorealist scholars such as John Mearsheimer focus on the military and economic bases of power, whereas classical realist scholars such as Hans Morgenthau consider power to be broader and include population, resources, and territory. Nuclear weapons undoubtedly represent a significant component of state power. The balance of power can refer to the overall distribution of power in a system, specific configurations such as multipolarity, or the deliberate policies of states to prevent hegemony.

Nuclear Deterrence Theory: Nuclear deterrence theory asserts that states possessing nuclear weapons will act rationally to avoid escalation and will only use nuclear weapons to maintain stability and not to pursue aggressive objectives. Critics contend that deterrence has successfully operated in certain situations such as the Cold War, but has failed in other situations, such as hostilities between India and Pakistan. The Ukrainian case is particularly intriguing in that it represents a paradox in that the region remained relatively stable following the collapse of the Soviet Union; however, deterrence was not sufficient to prevent Russia’s 2022 invasion.

Nuclear Responsibility Theory: Nuclear responsibility theory posits that nuclear-armed states should behave as “responsible” actors and use nuclear weapons solely for defensive purposes and not for coercion, territorial gain or expansion. This perspective posits that nuclear deterrence is designed to prevent conflict, not to encourage offensive behavior—a core tenet of NATO’s posture towards Russia.

Nuclear Coercion Theory: Nuclear coercion theory asserts that nuclear-armed states can attempt to influence the behavior of non-nuclear states through implied nuclear threats, even though nuclear weapons are not used directly. In this regard, Russia’s concerns regarding NATO’s eastward expansion represent a long-standing form of coercive signaling stemming from Russia’s nuclear capability.

Discussion and Implications

Reemergence of Nuclear Fears: The war in Ukraine has reignited nuclear fears across Europe. Russia has employed overt nuclear threats, relocated strategic assets, and highlighted the growth of its nuclear arsenal in an effort to dissuade the West from intervening in Ukraine. NATO faces a challenge in supporting Ukraine without risking escalation to the nuclear level.

Declining Arms Control Architecture: The once robust arms control architecture is declining. The INF Treaty has expired, the Open Skies Treaty has expired, and New START is approaching expiration without extension. The loss of binding rules heightens the risk of miscalculation.

Continued Modernization of Nuclear Forces: Russia continues to modernize its nuclear triad, including hypersonic weapons and deployments in Belarus. NATO is responding to Russia’s actions by bolstering its eastern flank and revising strategic documents.

Debate Over France’s Nuclear Umbrella: Increased uncertainty regarding U.S. commitments especially exacerbated by the Trump administration has led to renewed debates as to whether Europe should rely more heavily on France’s nuclear umbrella or pursue greater strategic autonomy.

China as a Global Variable: China’s expanding nuclear arsenal adds complexity to the global situation and compels NATO to include China in its strategic considerations.

Technological Disruptions: Cyber threats, artificial intelligence, and rapidly advancing missile technology blur the lines between the conventional and nuclear domains, requiring updated strategic planning.

Accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO: Finland’s accession to NATO in 2023 and Sweden’s accession in 2024 represent a significant shift in the security structure of Europe, motivated primarily by heightened nuclear threats from Russia.

Increasing Proliferation Risks: Concerns regarding nuclear proliferation—either through the expanded sharing of U.S. weapons or potential terrorist acquisition of nuclear materials—continue to pose a substantial challenge.

Recommendations

Strengthen Arms Control Agreements. Negotiations regarding arms control must resume, with new frameworks addressing emerging domains such as hypersonic weapons and space-based systems.
Increase Transparency and Confidence-Building. Mechanisms to facilitate data-sharing between NATO and Russia could contribute to decreasing miscalculations and fostering dialogue.
Enhance NATO’s Nuclear Deterrence Posture. Given Russia’s larger nuclear arsenal, NATO may need to modify its nuclear distribution to sustain deterrence and stability.

Conclusion

Nuclear deterrence continues to serve as a vital mechanism in maintaining the balance of power in Europe by preventing major conflicts and establishing stability. At the same time, there are grave consequences associated with nuclear deterrence if the norms that govern its operation are violated, or if the escalatory process begins. The evolving geopolitical landscape, ranging from the war in Ukraine to emerging technologies, are fundamentally altering the understanding of security, alliances, and survival in Europe. Ensuring stability will depend upon the establishment of stronger arms control, enhanced communication, and a more robust NATO posture.

Tags: nuclear weapons

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14. Strategic Disruption from Orbit: Space-Based Capabilities for Irregular Warfare in the Indo-Pacific

Summary:

Space is becoming the quiet center of irregular warfare in the Asia-Indo-Pacific. Satellites give partners the ability to watch distant waters, expose gray-zone coercion, and challenge propaganda with evidence. Commercial constellations now provide imagery, RF tracking, and AI analysis that small states could never build alone. These tools strengthen maritime domain awareness, enable secure communications in remote islands, and support training that uses real data. Shared space architectures like PWSA and allied space domain awareness can sustain campaigns as U.S. teams rotate. The contest belongs to those who see first, understand fastest, and act with partners to reveal truth and deter.

Comment; Thanks to the IWI-SWJ partnership for allowing us to reflect on this twice.

How should the United States institutionalize space data sharing with frontline partners so that surveillance, narrative, and civil defense advantages endure through political cycles and deployments?

What legal and diplomatic arrangements are needed to integrate commercial and classified space assets into irregular warfare without escalating to open conflict with China or fragmenting alliances in the Asia-Indo-Pacific?

Essay| IWI Republish| The Latest

Strategic Disruption from Orbit: Space-Based Capabilities for Irregular Warfare in the Indo-Pacific

by Trent Keipour

01.14.2026 at 06:00am

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2026/01/14/space-high-ground-indo-pacific-irregular-warfare/

Editor’s Note: this article is being republished with the permission of the Irregular Warfare Initiative as part of a republishing arrangement between IWI and SWJ. The original article was published on December 30, 2025 and is available here.

During World War II, U.S. forces in the Pacific faced a vast and challenging expanse. Islands were isolated, supply lines were stretched thin, and intelligence was limited to the speed of ships, aircraft, or radios. Today, although the geography and the challenges that come with it remain unchanged, technological capabilities have advanced significantly. Warfighters now look beyond the horizon for an advantage; in fact, they look to orbit, where space has become the ultimate high ground. From that vantage point, modern forces gain essential capabilities in communication, navigation, intelligence, and targeting—capabilities that increasingly influence outcomes in conflict and require new strategic approaches for future operations.

This technological evolution is unfolding as the character of competition in the Indo-Pacific continues to shift. The region is increasingly shaped by irregular forms of competition including coercive infrastructure development through China’s Belt and Road Initiative, illegal fishing, gray-zone maritime pressure from state-affiliated militias, and malign operations designed to undermine democratic institutions. Yet many frontline partners, small island states, and midsized regional powers lack the surveillance, communication, and intelligence infrastructure to compete in this space.

Space-based capabilities are powerful but underleveraged tools that can accelerate understanding, uncover coercive actions that would otherwise remain concealed, and help frontline states in the Indo-Pacific extend their vision. Amidst this backdrop, the United States should facilitate access for frontline partners to space-based capabilities, particularly unclassified and commercially derived data, as essential tools for irregular warfare that would bolster long-term deterrence in the Indo-Pacific.

Understanding the Environment from Orbit

Most Indo-Pacific nations are unable to fully monitor their exclusive economic zones. Adversaries exploit these blind spots by using commercial vessels, unmarked militias, and Automatic Identification System (AIS)-dark maritime traffic to conduct surveillance, steal resources, or assert territorial claims. In the South China Sea alone, documented instances of Chinese maritime militia vessels operating in disputed waters increased by 35% between 2021 and 2023, with many utilizing sophisticated electronic countermeasures to mask their activities.

Commercial satellite capabilities, such as synthetic aperture radar (SAR) for detailed imaging, radiofrequency geolocation for tracking, and high-resolution optical imagery for visual surveillance, enable persistent, non-intrusive detection and monitoring of this type of activity. Moreover, the proliferation of low-cost commercial satellite constellations has democratized access to these capabilities, with resolution now reaching sub-meter levels at costs accessible to smaller nations.

Space-based technologies are also transforming the operational environment. High-resolution imagery, combined with Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled analysis, facilitates the detection of patterns that are imperceptible to human analysts alone. For instance, advanced algorithms can identify subtle infrastructure changes that signal gray-zone activities weeks or even months before they are confirmed by conventional means. Recent industry studies have noted that high-revisit-rate commercial constellations, combined with AI and cloud processing, now provide early warnings of adversarial behavior in contested maritime regions, offering decision-makers more time to make more informed decisions. Such early detection capabilities have already revealed incremental land reclamation and radar installation activity at disputed South China Sea features well ahead of traditional verification methodologies, allowing partners to anticipate destabilizing activity rather than merely respond to it.

By integrating AI and machine learning into space-based systems, analysts can now sift through the immense volume of collected imagery, enabling partners with limited analytical capacity to derive meaningful insight that was previously out of reach. Increasingly, portions of this analysis occur “on-edge,” processed onboard satellites to reduce latency and the volume of data that must be downlinked. At the same time, analysts use higher-fidelity processing through cloud-based ground systems, which provide more detailed results than on-orbit processing alone. This hybrid approach accelerates the entire process, from data collection to transmission and ultimately to generating actionable insights with greater speed than before. This speed is crucial for getting ahead of complex influence campaigns that combine economic pressure, online propaganda, and military activities simultaneously. Faster analysis allows governments to detect these coordinated efforts earlier, understand their connections, and respond before they escalate.

Empowering Partners Through Connectivity and Insight

Many of the most strategically important partners in the Indo-Pacific operate in environments where terrestrial communications infrastructure is limited or nonexistent. Island nations, jungle interiors, and coastal riverine regions often lack the digital backbone needed for timely response or regional coordination. The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue initiative involving the U.S., Australia, India, and Japan has begun addressing this challenge by coordinating the delivery of space-based data and communication applications to remote areas vulnerable to adversary influence operations.

Deploying space-based communications and low-bandwidth satellite systems can extend secure, real-time voice and data capabilities to field units, enabling them to operate effectively in challenging environments. These tools enhance not only operational coordination but also the ability to collect and share intelligence without needing permanent basing or large U.S. footprints. Recent collaboration between the United States and Japan has demonstrated how shared space-based communications infrastructure can create resilient networks that remain functional even during attempts at electronic warfare or jamming—an essential capability to neutralize the effect of sophisticated electronic countermeasures throughout the region.

As partners gain access to these new tools, the next challenge is ensuring their effective use. Training is critical, but for it to have a lasting effect, training must reflect the complexity of real-world environments. Satellite data provides an ideal tool for scenario-based training, helping partners recognize patterns and threats specific to their terrain and geopolitical context. A recent example is U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s Information Sharing Framework, which has enabled partner forces to train using actual satellite data from their operational areas, improving their ability to identify and respond to emerging threats. For example, using archived imagery of illegal construction or deforestation during mobile training team engagements can teach local forces how to identify environmental changes associated with illicit activity. These training methods create intuitive familiarity with Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance products and foster a mindset of persistent surveillance and sovereign defense.

However, concerns about data verification and AI-altered imagery have emerged as significant challenges, particularly as synthetic satellite images and deepfake visual data become increasingly sophisticated. These risks can erode trust in intelligence products and create openings for adversary information operations. Accordingly, training should include practical techniques for verifying the authenticity of imagery, such as metadata analysis, cross-referencing with multi-sensor data, and anomaly detection, so partners can confidently distinguish genuine intelligence from manipulated content. Embedding this verification discipline within partner education strengthens both analytic integrity and resilience against disinformation campaigns.

Shaping the Narrative

Narrative competition is a key aspect of irregular warfare, and the Indo-Pacific information environment has become increasingly contested. People’s Republic of China (PRC) influence operations have become more sophisticated, using coordinated campaigns across multiple platforms to shape regional perceptions and weaken alliance structures. Instead of countering propaganda with more propaganda, the most effective response is the truth, backed by evidence—especially when that evidence comes from space.

Commercial satellite imagery and analysis are giving Indo-Pacific partners unprecedented ability to challenge disinformation and assert their own narratives. Rather than investing in sovereign satellite constellations, most nations can access high-quality, near-real-time imagery and analytic support from commercial providers such as Planet Labs, Umbra, or Capella Space. In 2025, for example, when PRC state media claimed that no new construction was occurring on disputed South China Sea features, commercial satellite imagery published by independent analysts and media outlets provided compelling visual evidence to the contrary. In another example, the Philippines leveraged commercial data to document and publicize Chinese maritime militia encroachments near the Scarborough Shoal, providing evidence that contradicted Beijing’s public denials and strengthened Manila’s diplomatic position. This approach illuminates malign activity without escalating tensions or relying solely on external enforcement. These examples show that, when paired with partner-enabled analysis and reporting mechanisms, satellite data becomes truly actionable. Nations like Palau, the Philippines, or Timor-Leste can move from reactive posturing to proactive maritime domain awareness as a result.

Sustaining the Advantage

Irregular warfare is rarely won in a single operation; it is a cumulative process that unfolds over months or years. Success requires continuity of insight, not just presence. However, frequent rotations of U.S. advisor and liaison teams—often occurring every six to twelve months—along with siloed reporting and fragmented interagency coordination, can disrupt institutional memory and slow campaign momentum. These gaps are routinely exploited by competitors who maintain continuous, multi-domain engagement in the same operational areas.

Tools that enable persistent knowledge sharing, such as secure, cloud-native platforms that track relationship dynamics, operational history, and campaign context, are essential for sustaining irregular warfare campaigns over time. The growing strategic challenge posed by China has made the U.S.–Australia partnership central to advancing shared awareness across domains. The two countries’ recent collaboration shows how allies can combine commercial and government space data into a common operational picture—precisely the distributed, resilient information-sharing model that the U.S. Space Development Agency’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) aims to implement at scale. The Australia–U.S. model demonstrates how this works in practice: multiple sensors, shared data standards, and synchronized access to the same information. When combined with allied Space Domain Awareness (SDA) systems that incorporate commercial and government sensors, this networked approach guarantees continuous insight even as rotations change and missions adapt.

While PWSA and SDA were conceived for broader space defense, their decentralized, persistent, and shareable data frameworks mirror the same principles that underpin effective irregular warfare: rapid sense-making, partner empowerment, and sustained tempo across a dispersed battlespace. By ensuring continuous, shared access to actionable space data, these architectures transform what was once episodic engagement into enduring influence, allowing partner networks to maintain pressure and coherence in long-term campaigns against gray-zone aggression.

Conclusion

Space-based capabilities are not simply enablers of irregular warfare in the Indo-Pacific; they are rapidly becoming a key center of gravity. Their persistence, scalability, and political viability allow the United States and its partners to detect coercive actions early, shed light on gray-zone activities that thrive in ambiguity, and share a common operational picture without requiring a large physical presence. These benefits make space tools especially suited for long-term competition in a region where terrain, distance, and access often challenge traditional security strategies.

Recognizing their importance is no longer enough. To compete effectively, the United States must institutionalize space-enabled capabilities, especially unclassified, commercially produced imagery and analytics, as primary tools for irregular warfare and deliver them to frontline partners. This approach will enable Indo-Pacific nations to identify malicious activities on their own terms, enhance their capacity to counter information manipulation, and maintain momentum even as U.S. teams rotate or operational demands evolve. Emerging frameworks like the Space Development Agency’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture and allied Space Domain Awareness initiatives offer a model for how shared, low-latency space data can empower partners and strengthen regional resilience.

The future of irregular competition will belong to those who see first, understand fastest, and act asymmetrically with trusted partners. From orbit to ocean, advantage will not solely depend on presence but on the ability to democratize insight and share the truth instantly. By fully integrating space-based resources into irregular warfare strategies and providing these capabilities directly to nations most affected by gray-zone coercion, the United States can help build a more resilient Indo-Pacific while maintaining strategic stability in the priority theater.

Check out all of Small Wars Journal’s great content, to include our series of IWI republications.

Tags: Artificial Intelligence (AI), cyber, cyber domain, INDO-PACIFIC, Irregular Warfare Initiative, IWI, IWI Republish, Space, Space Domain

About The Author

Trent Keipour
Trent Keipour is a defense contractor and former U.S. Air Force Tactical Air Control Party (TACP) specialist with over twenty years of experience in both kinetic and non-kinetic fires, integrating air, space, and cyber capabilities across special operations and multi-domain missions. He previously served within the Special Operations Integration Branch at United States Space Command, where he helped coordinate space support to global operations conducted by U.S. Special Operations Command and Joint Special Operations Command. His current work focuses on applying space-enabled tools to operational planning, partner engagement, and irregular warfare challenges across the Indo-Pacific. He holds a graduate degree in Environmental Policy and a graduate certificate in Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction from the Air Force Institute of Technology.

15. Trump and the Special Operations Panacea

Summary:

The Maduro raid showcased the national mission force's extraordinary precision while highlighting a familiar danger: treating special operations as a cheap, clean substitute for strategy. Tim Ball traces a long history of presidents reaching for elite units to solve hard problems without committing conventional forces or doing the political work. In Trump’s second term, this temptation deepens, amplified by Pete Hegseth’s kinetic bravado and Marco Rubio’s regime-change instincts. SOF can decapitate regimes but cannot design transitions, rebuild states, or sustain legitimacy. Without disciplined civilian leadership, limited raids risk metastasizing into open-ended commitments that consume SOF and corrode U.S. credibility.

Comment: Perhaps we need a civilian-led with full interagency OSS 2.0 to provide both agility and depth to be able to conduct what are by definition irregular campaigns in support of irregular or unconventional strategy and policy from the White House. These are more than military and special operations.

How should Congress and the national security community hard-wire requirements for articulated political end states, transition plans, and alliance consultation before authorizing high-risk special operations against foreign leaders? Tell us the acceptable durable political arrangement that will sustain, protect, and advance US national security interests.

What institutional checks are needed to prevent SOF from becoming a default tool for regime change, preserving their finite capacity for missions that genuinely serve a coherent long-term strategy?

How can the SOF community itself educate civilian leaders about the limits of special operations without appearing insubordinate, and what is the professional obligation of retired SOF leaders in that dialogue?

LTG Sam WIlson has provided some guidance.

I think it is worth reviewing LTG (RET) Sam Wilson's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_V._Wilson) wise words on special operations - in particular the 20 Characteristics of Special Operations (pay attention to numbers 11, 14 and 17 highlighted below) as well as the planning suggestions, 7 principles and 6 requirements for special operations. I received a xerox copy of these as a young SF officer in the 1980's and have been carrying them around with me ever since. https://maxoki161.blogspot.com/2014/03/20-characteristics-of-special.html

Trump and the Special Operations Panacea

Reflections on the aftermath of the raid to capture Nicolas Maduro

Tim Ball

Jan 14, 2026

https://behindthefront.substack.com/p/trump-and-the-special-operations?utm

US Air Force crew chiefs watch as F-35A Lightning II’s taxi following military actions in Venezuela in support of Operation Absolute Resolve, Jan. 3, 2026. (US Airforce)

The recent raid to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro appears to have been a nearly flawlessly executed special operation. Conducted by the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) with interagency support, the raid demonstrated the professionalism and expertise of America’s special operations community and will likely be used as a case study in the training of future special operators. While the raid’s tactical success is unquestioned, its aftermath raises the same historical issues with not only the use of special operations forces, but US-sponsored regime change as well. Even in the hands of disciplined civilian policymakers, competent special operations forces can appear as a tempting panacea, available to solve national security woes without the full commitment of the US military.

In his 2006 book, To Dare & To Conquer: Special Operations and the Destiny of Nations, From Achilles to Al Qaeda, author Derek Leebaert warns against this temptation, noting that the misuse of special operations will place them “at the forefront of handling the years of fallout, paying a personal price for bureaucratic confusions and cabinet level incompetence.” He further cautions that policymakers must be aware of not only when, but when not to use special operations forces, concluding that “the worst danger of misuse comes from the fantasy-realist dream that these forces are the chosen instruments of ‘American empire’…”

In the hands of the current administration, the use of special operations forces is not only more likely, but also much more dangerous to the prospects of a stable national security environment. Their enamorment with special operations, combined with a lack of disciplined policy making and strategy, result in the false conclusion that special operations alone can shape the world in their desired manner.

The Ever-Present Temptation of Special Operations

Since their official inception, special operations forces have always served as a temptation to civilian decision makers. President John F. Kennedy, the man who authorized US Army Special Forces to wear their now-famous green berets, was fascinated by the concept of special operations, and viewed them as the front-line solution to communist expansion in east Asia. The aftermath of Jimmy Carter’s decision to use the newly formed Delta Force for a hostage rescue in Iran helped lead to the establishment of US Special Operations Command and the professionalization of special operators. Similar to Kennedy, Ronald Reagan saw them as a low-visibility bulwark against communist expansion in Central America, while Bill Clinton tried to solve his Somalia problem with a rapidly deployed special operations task force. In more recent history, one of Barack Obama’s most touted national security accomplishments was Operation Neptune Spear, the successful raid that killed Osama bin Laden at his compound in Pakistan. While a raid itself is not a special operation, the context in which it is conducted may elevate it to that status. Neptune Spear helps illustrate why certain raids are the purview of specially selected and trained special operations forces, given the strategic importance of the target and the politically sensitive nature of the target location.

Donald Trump has shown that he is no exception to the history of US presidents looking to special operations to solve their national security problems. Within weeks of taking office in his first term, Trump authorized a JSOC-led raid in Yemen that resulted in the death of a US special operator, while failing to kill or capture Qasim al-Raymi, the leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the reported target of the raid. Reporting soon emerged that indicated the raid had been previously planned during the Obama administration but was never given approval for execution. In a sharp departure from the overly burdensome, process-driven approach of Obama’s National Security Council, Trump was presented with the raid plan over his evening meal by his national security team. After encouragement from then-National Security Advisor Mike Flynn, Trump approved the raid. In the aftermath, Trump quickly distanced himself from his decision, shifting blame to his general officers, saying “this is something they wanted to do.”

Several years later, with an almost entirely different national security team, Trump once again had the opportunity to authorize a high-profile special operations mission, a raid to capture or kill Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Following the raid, reporting indicated a much more deliberate planning and approval process. Shortly after the raid was initiated, al-Baghdadi detonated a suicide vest in a tunnel underneath his compound. In what appeared to be a carbon copy of Obama’s actions after the bin Laden raid, Trump held a nationwide press conference to announce al-Baghdadi’s death, in addition to quickly releasing his own version of the famous “The Situation Room” photograph.

Special Operations in the Second Trump Administration

Trump’s actions one year into his second term indicate that he and his national security team do indeed view special operations forces as the chosen instrument for implementing their foreign policy vision. The current administration inherited perhaps the most capable and competent formations of special operations forces in history. In the nearly 25 years since the 9/11 attacks, JSOC in particular has honed its ability to relentlessly “find, fix, and finish” terrorist networks, using information from each raid it conducted to further drive its targeting operations against national security threats. Comparing pre-9/11 special operations forces capabilities to today’s formations is like comparing a 1980s-era Formula One car to the modern, technological behemoths that now circle racetracks.

After months of escalation, the first kinetic strike against a Venezuelan boat was carried out on Sept. 2, 2025. Later reporting would indicate that the administration had once again turned to JSOC for the targeting and execution of the strike. Nearly two dozen more strikes would follow, before it was later learned that the Sept. 2 strike resulted in two survivors, who were then killed in a subsequent strike. The Department of Defense showed footage of this strike to lawmakers behind closed doors but has so far refused to release the video publicly, despite having released videos of nearly every other strike conducted.

As lawmakers and policy wonks struggled to understand what strategy was being pursued against Venezuela, Trump began 2026 by authorizing the raid that captured Maduro on Jan. 3. The stunning capabilities of American special operations were on full display. From the intelligence gathering that pinpointed Maduro’s location, to the assault itself by operators from the Army’s Delta Force, it calls into question whether there are any other countries in the world who can utilize their special operations forces to snatch a head of state from his own bedroom in the middle of the night.

Despite the success of the raid, within hours of the operation the lack of a coherent strategy became apparent. While senior cabinet officials tried to tout the raid as a law enforcement action, designed to bring an indicted “narcoterrorist” to justice, Trump undermined the explanation almost immediately by gloating over the seizure and control of Venezuelan oil resources. The lack of coherence has continued in the days following the raid. In an interview with the New York Times, Trump insisted that the United States would control Venezuela and its oil production, perhaps for years, while his Justice Department was still actively drawing up new legal justifications for the raid, focusing again on calling it a law enforcement operation.

And so, as Leebaert captures in the title of his book, a special operations force has once again been unleashed by its political masters to change the destiny of nations. The future of Venezuela was instantly and radically altered by this daring special operation. But Leebaert’s caution from 2006 seems prescient 20 years later:

A few overworked, underinformed officials in Washington are not about to “manage” or “run” an even more complex and not easily transformed world dense with new technologies and six billion people. And including the special operators as one key means of implementing such ambition carries with it the risk of initially small involvements that yet again metastasize into vast, sticky commitments.

“Underinformed officials in Washington” neatly summarizes current American decision-makers. As the commander-in-chief, Trump is ultimately responsible for the final decision to commit special operations forces anywhere. But his lack of interest in details has been well documented through both his first and second terms of office. In the aftermath of the Venezuelan raid, he continues to focus on Venezuelan oil and the potential profits associated with it. In an interview with the New York Times, he confidently declared that the only limit to his global power as president was, “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me . . . I don’t need international law.” Trump achieved the presidency in part by decrying George W. Bush and Obama’s long-term, large-scale troop commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Special operations forces offer him the possibility to still try to shape the world to his liking—limited apparently only by his own morality—without the negative press of deploying hundreds of thousands of troops to implement American policy objectives.

A Counterproductive Supporting Cast

While Trump’s first term cabinet officials contained a myriad of foreign policy professionals that helped provide a level of constraint to his worst impulses, his second term does not. While possessing different motivations, his top two foreign policy officials seem to be fully on board with the continued use of special operations as a policy tool.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth served as a National Guard infantry officer before his stint as a Fox News host, but never led above the platoon level. He has a known affinity for special operations forces, often choosing to conduct physical training with special operations units and then posting pictures of the event on his social media accounts. But his lack of strategic understanding is best encapsulated by his decision to summon nearly 800 general and flag officers to Quantico. Speaking to the most experienced, highest ranking men and women in the US military, Hegseth began his speech by invoking the clichéd motto of his first platoon, a formation he led at the most junior of officer ranks. His rhetoric continues to mimic that of a junior officer who always knows better than his superior officers, and whose vision is limited by an obsession with “lethality,” convinced that unrestricted warfare alone will serve as the long-term solution to any conflict. All of this combines to make Hegseth even more likely to continue to lean on special operations for any given problem set. Like Trump, he appears to view them as a way to project military power without the complications and domestic fallout over conventional troop deployments.

Hegseth’s counterpart at the State Department, Marco Rubio, also concurrently serves as Trump’s National Security Advisor. A more traditional politician, Rubio has a long-established track record in Florida politics and the US Senate. Confirmed in a 99-0 vote by his former Senate colleagues, there was clearly bipartisan expectation that Rubio would act in many ways like the traditional foreign policy members of the first Trump administration. Instead, Rubio has shown willingness to abandon previously held principles in order to more closely align with the Trump “America First” foreign policy view. After over a decade of supporting USAID and its mission during his time as a senator, he oversaw its dismantlement in the opening months of the second Trump administration.

However, none of Trump’s pressure campaign on Venezuela conflicts with Rubio’s well-documented antipathy for authoritarian leftist governments in Latin America. Rubio is an experienced enough politician to understand that American public opinion won’t support a large-scale troop commitment for regime change purposes in Latin America, but that launching special operations raids to decapitate those heads of government won’t carry the same political price. But in a classic case of “be careful what you wish for,” Rubio has emerged as the face of the administration policy for the future of Venezuela, now directly responsible for what comes next after a successful special operation.

Special Operations Require a Disciplined Approach

While some policy wonks have argued that Trump’s foreign policy might simply be an incoherent “bunch of stuff in the Western Hemisphere,” it is at least increasingly clear that the Western Hemisphere will remain the focus of this administration for the near future. The White House recently released a readout of Rubio’s remarks to the media, entitled “This is Our Hemisphere.” The commander-in-chief and his top two foreign policy cabinet members want to assert American strength—albeit for differing reasons—while avoiding the large-scale military involvement that has become a political non-starter after more than 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is why special operations are so attractive to this administration and will likely serve as a primary option for future policy objectives. Thus far, the administration has not signaled that it cares about the second and third term effects of launching such operations. If the immediate goal is satisfied by the special operation, the tricky parts like “transition” can be figured out at a later time. It represents a naive understanding of how special operations fit into the grand strategy of a nation, and a clear misuse of special operations forces in the pursuit of unclear policy objectives. The operators deserve better.

Special operations forces are capable of many things. But what they cannot do is create the long-term strategy for their own use in executing American foreign policy objectives. That is the responsibility of civilian leaders, and it must be done with a level of humility and discipline that is sorely lacking in the second Trump administration. Special operators are extraordinarily talented men and women. They come from all walks of life and political belief systems, brought together by equally diverse motivations. As two of the “SOF Truths” point out, they cannot be mass produced, nor can competent special operations forces be created after emergencies occur. And that is exactly why their use must be judicious, and part of a coherent foreign policy strategy. America should be in awe of the discipline and professionalism recently displayed by its special operations forces in the capture of Maduro. But it should also recognize the limits of special operations and demand the same discipline and professionalism from the civilian leadership responsible for their use.

Tim Ball, Lieutenant Colonel, United States Army (Retired) is a Non-Resident Fellow in the National Security Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and a retired US Army Special Forces officer.

16. Thinking Carefully About Iran at a Dangerous Moment

Summary:

Mark Haselton argues Iran’s uprising is driven by regime failure, not foreign plots, and that U.S. military threats risk saving the Islamic Republic instead of hastening its collapse. Economic protests have become a nationwide legitimacy crisis met by brutal repression. Mark warns that hollowed U.S. diplomacy and overreliance on rhetoric limit real options. Direct intervention is rejected as catastrophic. Recommended tools are coordinated sanctions on regime elites, information support that does not hijack the movement, and quiet coalition building. True leverage comes from letting the regime overreact and discredit itself, not from saber rattling that validates its narrative of foreign aggression.

Comment: Mark Haselton is old and bold. So how should the United States calibrate public rhetoric, covert support, and sanctions so it helps Iranian protesters without allowing the regime to reframe a domestic legitimacy crisis as an external war for national survival?

What institutional changes in U.S. diplomacy, information operations, and irregular warfare planning are required so that future crises like Iran are approached with restraint, coalition leadership, and long term strategy rather than headline driven threat signaling? (OSS 2.0?)

Thinking Carefully About Iran at a Dangerous Moment

The Old and Bold

Jan 13, 2026

https://vaberet.substack.com/p/thinking-carefully-about-iran-at?is=

Preamble

A few days ago, I got a message from a West Point classmate. He knows my background, knows where I’ve spent most of my adult life—Special Forces, the Pentagon, the intelligence community—and he didn’t dress it up. He asked me straight out: “Are you tracking what’s happening in Iran, and what do you think we should do?”

That question stuck with me.

Not because I don’t have views on Iran—I’ve had them for decades—but because it forced me to stop reacting to headlines and start thinking through the problem the way we were trained to: clearly, sequentially, and without comforting illusions. Iran is dangerous. The protesters are brave. U.S. rhetoric is escalating. And the margin for error is shrinking.

This essay is my attempt to answer that question honestly.

It’s probably too long. It’s almost certainly not as polished as it could be. And reasonable people—especially those who haven’t lived inside irregular warfare, regime behavior, and strategic signaling—may disagree with parts of it. That’s fine.

But this is my assessment, grounded in experience and history, and this is my answer to the question: what’s happening in Iran, what are the risks, and what should—and should not—the United States do next?

Iran at the Breaking Point: Protest, Power, and the Perils of American Rhetoric

Iran is once again in upheaval—not because of foreign pressure, but because of internal failure.

What began as localized demonstrations over economic collapse has evolved into a nationwide challenge to the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic. Inflation, currency devaluation, corruption, and repression have converged into a familiar but dangerous moment: a regime that cannot reform and a population that can no longer endure.

This is not the first time Iran has faced such unrest. But the current wave of protests is broader, more sustained, and more politically explicit than many that came before it—and it is unfolding against a far more volatile regional and global backdrop.

Understanding what is happening in Iran today, and how the world is reacting, requires separating three things that are too often blurred together: the Iranian regime, the Iranian people, and the geopolitical ambitions of outside powers.

From Economic Anger to Political Defiance

The protests began, as so many in Iran do, with economics.

A collapsing rial, runaway inflation, fuel and food price shocks, and persistent unemployment pushed shopkeepers, workers, and students into the streets. What distinguished this wave early on was its geographic spread—urban centers, provincial cities, and historically regime-aligned areas all saw demonstrations.

But economic grievance quickly gave way to political defiance.

Chants shifted from prices to power. Protesters began directly criticizing clerical rule, corruption, and repression. In some cities, slogans openly targeted the Supreme Leader and the system of the Islamic Republic itself. The protests were not centrally organized, but they were unmistakably national in character.

The regime responded as it always does: force first, narrative second.

Security services—particularly those tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—moved quickly to suppress demonstrations. Live fire, mass arrests, intimidation of families, and information blackouts followed. State media labeled protesters “foreign-backed agitators,” while officials warned of severe punishment for continued unrest.

This pattern is not new. What is new is the depth of public anger and the regime’s diminishing ability to plausibly blame anyone but itself.

How the World Is Responding

Outside Iran, the reaction has been swift but uneven.

European governments—Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and others—have condemned the violent repression and summoned Iranian diplomats. The European Union has imposed additional targeted sanctions against Iranian officials and entities tied to human rights abuses, while signaling openness to further measures if the crackdown continues.

The United Nations human rights apparatus has issued unusually blunt statements condemning the violence, calling for accountability, and demanding access for independent monitors. These statements matter symbolically, but they are constrained by the reality of UN politics and Iran’s allies.

Russia and China have taken the opposite tack, warning against “external interference” and framing Western criticism as destabilizing. Their position is predictable: sovereign repression is acceptable so long as it is not Western-aligned.

Across the Middle East, reactions are cautious. Regional governments—many of which face their own legitimacy challenges—have avoided strong public positions, preferring silence to precedent.

The international community, in short, agrees on condemnation but diverges sharply on consequences.

The Cost of Hollowing Out American Credibility

This uneven global response is not occurring in a vacuum—and the United States bears some responsibility for that reality.

Over the past several years, Washington has systematically weakened its own ability to mobilize multinational action. The defunding of diplomatic and development tools, the degradation of public diplomacy and democracy-support programs, and the withdrawal from—or marginalization of—international institutions have carried real strategic costs.

Soft power is not charity. It is leverage.

When the United States treats alliances as transactional, abandons multilateral forums, or privileges unilateral action as virtue, it erodes the very credibility required to lead coalitions. It becomes harder to impose coordinated sanctions, isolate abusive regimes, or sustain pressure over time.

In moments like this—when repression in Iran demands a disciplined, multinational response—the consequences of those choices are unmistakable. Condemnation without coalition is noise. Leadership without legitimacy is brittle. And unilateralism narrows the art of the possible before policy debates even begin.

The U.S. Response—and Trump’s Words in Particular

Officially, the United States has followed a familiar script.

The State Department has condemned Iran’s violent suppression of protests, called for respect for human rights, highlighted internet shutdowns, and warned U.S. citizens to leave the country. Sanctions have been expanded against individuals and organizations involved in repression, particularly those tied to the IRGC.

All of that is standard—and defensible.

Where things diverge sharply is in the rhetoric of President Donald Trump.

Trump has gone far beyond formal condemnation. His public statements—particularly references to the United States being “locked and loaded” and warnings of “very strong action”—have injected military ambiguity into what is fundamentally a domestic Iranian crisis. To supporters, this language signals strength and deterrence. To Tehran, it signals opportunity.

Iranian leaders have seized on this rhetoric to reinforce their long-standing claim that protests are merely a Western-backed pretext for regime change. That narrative is not aimed at Washington; it is aimed inward—at fence-sitters, security forces, and ordinary Iranians who might otherwise sympathize with the protesters.

The Art of the Possible: What Can Actually Be Done

The range of realistic responses to the situation in Iran is narrower than political rhetoric suggests.

Military intervention—direct or indirect—is not a viable option. Iran is not Libya. It is not Iraq in 2003. It is a large, cohesive state with capable conventional forces, powerful proxy networks, and a population that would rally against foreign invasion even while opposing its own rulers.

What is possible lies in four lanes:

Diplomatic pressure to prevent miscalculation and escalation.
Targeted sanctions focused on regime elites, IRGC economic networks, and repression apparatuses—not broad measures that punish the population.
Information support, including tools that help Iranians communicate and document abuses without branding them as foreign agents.
Multilateral coordination that isolates Tehran politically while denying it the ability to frame dissent as purely American manipulation.

These tools are imperfect. They are slow. But they align means with ends.

What the United States Should Do—and Why War Is the Wrong Answer

The United States should do three things consistently and without drama.

First, it should support the rights of the Iranian people without claiming ownership of their movement. That means speaking about universal principles, not issuing ultimatums.

Second, it should keep pressure focused on the regime, particularly the IRGC and its leadership, while avoiding actions that unify Iranian elites against an external enemy.

Third, it should avoid military signaling that cannot—and should not—be acted upon.

Direct military intervention in Iran would be catastrophic. It would unify the regime, fracture alliances, destabilize the region, endanger U.S. forces, and—most importantly—destroy the very protest movement it claims to support. History is unambiguous on this point.

You do not liberate a population by validating the fears of its oppressors.

Conclusion: An Operator’s Lesson We Ignore at Our Peril

During my Special Forces training, one lesson was emphasized over and over again—and it ran counter to how most people imagine resistance movements succeeding. We were taught that the decisive advantage rarely came from defeating a regime outright. It came from letting the regime defeat itself through overreaction.

Heavy-handed crackdowns, indiscriminate force, mass arrests, censorship, and visible fear were not signs of strength. They were strategic gifts. When authoritarian governments overreact, they alienate the population, fracture elite cohesion, and—most importantly—create images and narratives that expose the regime’s true nature to its own people and the world.

We saw that dynamic in Manila during the rise of Corazon Aquino, when the Marcos regime accelerated its own collapse by responding to dissent with repression rather than restraint. The opposition did not defeat the state militarily; the state discredited itself.

We saw echoes of the same pattern during China’s Umbrella Movement. Beijing ultimately retained control, but only by exposing the full machinery of repression—at significant cost to its international legitimacy and long-term credibility.

The lesson was always the same: authoritarian regimes are most vulnerable when they are left alone to overreact.

That is precisely why American saber-rattling is so dangerous in moments like Iran’s current crisis. When U.S. leaders inject overt military threats into a domestic uprising, they interrupt that dynamic. They replace images of regime brutality with narratives of foreign aggression. They transform an internal legitimacy crisis into a nationalist struggle for survival.

In practical terms, this is not pressure—it is interference. And it helps the wrong side.

Iran is a dangerous regime. The protesters are right to demand change. And American power remains formidable. But strength in this moment does not come from sounding ready for war. It comes from restraint, coalition leadership, and denying Tehran the external enemy it needs to justify repression.

History—and hard-earned experience—are unambiguous:

the fastest way to save a failing authoritarian regime is to threaten it from the outside.

17. Can the 15th Five-Year Plan Fix the People’s Liberation Army’s Procurement Bottlenecks?

Summary:

China’s 15th Five-Year Plan casts procurement reform and military-civil fusion as keys to building a “world-class” PLA by 2049 and “basically” modernizing by 2035. Reforms since 2016 have streamlined organizations, expanded dual-use R&D, and leveraged commercial space, AI, and cyber advances. Yet deep structural flaws persist: dominance and inefficiency of state-owned conglomerates, barriers to genuine private-sector competition, entrenched corruption and opaque oversight, and skill gaps in civilianized procurement staffs. Western export controls further strain Xi’s push for technological self-reliance. The core contradiction remains: tighter party control undermines the professional autonomy and market discipline required for real modernization.

Comment: Do five year plans every work? Are countries that use five year plans ever successful in the long term. But maybe after 15 tries China can get this one right. On a more serious note....

How should U.S. and allied planners in the Asia-Indo-Pacific incorporate PLA procurement bottlenecks and corruption-driven delays into assessments of Chinese military timelines and wartime sustainability, without underestimating Beijing’s capacity to surge or compensate through brute mobilization?

Do Xi’s efforts to centralize political control over military-civil fusion create a brittle system that is more prone to catastrophic failure under sanctions, cyber disruption, or battlefield losses, and how might U.S. strategy exploit those vulnerabilities without provoking reckless Chinese escalation?

Can the 15th Five-Year Plan Fix the People’s Liberation Army’s Procurement Bottlenecks?

warontherocks.com · January 14, 2026

Jessica C. Liao and Joshua Arostegui

January 14, 2026

https://warontherocks.com/2026/01/can-the-15th-five-year-plan-fix-the-peoples-liberation-armys-procurement-bottlenecks/

China’s newly released 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030) proposal, unveiled after the Fourth Party Plenum in October 2025, not only marks Beijing’s quest to achieve the People’s Liberation Army’s goal of building a so-called world-class military by 2049. As the last major planning cycle before the 2035 benchmark for “basically achieving full modernization,” the plan also reaffirms General Secretary Xi Jinping’s core priorities: operational efficiency, technological self-reliance, and the Chinese Communist Party’s absolute command.

Yet the release of this aspirational document coincided with several highly political events. Following a series of high-profile dismissals, days before the Plenum, Beijing abruptly purged nine senior military leaders, including Central Military Commission Vice Chairman He Weidong, signaling the instability at the core of China’s defense establishment. Officially framed as anti-corruption measures, the timing of these purges instead underscores the institutional problems that could complicate Xi’s modernization agenda.

While it remains too early to know how the next phase of reform will unfold, this moment offers a critical opportunity to assess the foundations laid over the past decade. The People’s Liberation Army’s reform prospects are far more complex than the public rhetoric and official projections of Beijing’s leadership would suggest. China’s military modernization and the high-profile purges accompanying it reflect not only tangible progress but also the deeper contradictions Xi has yet to resolve within his party-state system that incentivizes political patronage at the expense of bureaucratic professionalization and meritocratic governance.

To understand these tensions and how they might affect future reforms, it is necessary to examine the progress and current state of the two major priorities of the proposed Five-Year Plan: procurement reform and military-civil fusion. Despite visible achievements in advanced weaponry and organizational streamlining, reform remains limited by entrenched problems in the party-state system. Taken together, the dominance of opaque state-owned conglomerates, the persistent divide between military and civilian actors, and the absence of effective oversight expose the stubborn inertia of a system where political control continues to outweigh operational competence.

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Procurement Reform and Military-Civil Fusion: A Decade of Effort

The significance of procurement reform and military-civil fusion should be understood within the broader context of the Chinese leader’s military modernization agenda. Immediately following the 15th Five-Year Plan proposal, Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia outlined the People’s Liberation Army’s strategic priorities in a People’s Daily op-ed. Modernization was the dominant theme in both documents, which converge on two core tasks for the next phase of reform.

The first is modernizing military governance. Zhang specifically called for sweeping institutional and regulatory changes to improve efficiency and curb corruption. This involved an unusual emphasis on developing a more refined and disciplined procurement system — one that strengthens oversight, enforces fiscal discipline, and enhances transparency. This includes tighter budget controls, more rigorous acquisition mechanisms, and stronger supervisory mechanisms to root out the persistent corruption in major projects, a problem underscored by the high-profile purges.

The second task is deepening military-civil fusion which, as a part of “national strategic integration,” seeks to link China’s economic and technological base directly to national defense. The Party envisions an integrated system that accelerates the development of strategic capabilities in emerging technologies. The goal is to merge “new quality productive forces” with “new-type combat capabilities,” blurring the line between civilian innovation and military power.

While Chinese state leaders since Deng Xiaoping have long sought to align military and civilian interests, Xi’s approach is distinguished by its unprecedented political centralization and a whole-of-government mobilization, emphasizing concrete actions over rhetoric to drive sustained institutional transformation. The reform blueprint was codified in the 2016 Opinions on the Integrated Development of Economic and Defense Construction and the subsequent Five-Year Plans, aiming to establish a party-directed, state-controlled, and market-oriented model.

These policies resulted in a major procurement overhaul. In 2016, the opaque and corruption-prone General Armaments Department — long responsible for research, development, and procurement — was dismantled. Its functions were redistributed across newly established organizations, most notably the Equipment Development Department and the Logistics Support Department, both operating under a more centralized management structure, while allowing the individual services to carry out acquisition programs. Meanwhile, the Science and Technology Commission was elevated to report directly to the Central Military Commission, granting it expanded authority to steer defense science policy and advance military-civil fusion.

These institutional changes were accompanied by a series of reforms in procurement process designed to boost efficiency, strengthen oversight, and deepen civilian participation in the defense sector. Key steps to this end included introducing official online procurement platforms to broaden competitive bidding, implementing pricing regulations for civilian contractors to standardize acquisition processes, and publishing military equipment catalogs to signal research and development needs and promote dual-use innovations. The People’s Liberation Army also moved to professionalize its military representative officer system, the corps responsible for supervising civilian defense research and manufacturing, to improve efficiency and reduce bureaucratic redundancy. Meanwhile, the government established more than 30 industrial demonstration bases by 2022, offering tax incentives, subsidies, and infrastructure support to encourage civilian firms to enter the defense supply chain.

These reforms have yielded visible results, particularly in research and development. The integration of civilian universities, private firms, and research institutes has enhanced the continuity of long-term dual-use technology development programs in AI, quantum science, aerospace, and cyberspace. The fruits of these efforts — including hypersonic glide vehicles; unmanned swarm systems; and sophisticated AI-enabled command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance — underscore the tangible dividends of Beijing’s approach.

Enduring Structural Problems and Contradictions Hindering Reform

Yet, these visible gains mask deeper, unresolved challenges. While the difficulties facing military procurement and military-civil fusion are not unique to China’s defense industrial base, the problems are stubbornly persistent there because they are fundamentally entrenched in the institutional fabric of the broader party-state system. These limitations manifest in three distinct but related areas.

First, China’s defense industrial base remains overwhelmingly dominated by 10 state-owned conglomerates, including giants like Aviation Industry Corporation of China and China Electronics Technology Group Corporation. These firms enjoy privileged access to state financing and political backing, effectively crowding out private competitors and stifling the innovation the reforms are supposed to cultivate. As Tai Min Cheung observes, defense state-owned enterprises “represent the Party’s institutional backbone but its economic bottleneck.”

Although Beijing has studied foreign models, including the U.S. defense industrial ecosystem, to foster competition and reduce inefficiencies, its implementation has been piecemeal and China’s defense sector remains firmly anchored to its state-owned giants across every critical domain. Furthermore, their executives hold powerful vice-ministerial ranks within the party-state hierarchy, giving them substantial influence over procurement authorities, often resulting in contracts with vague technical specifications, weak performance benchmarks, and flexible delivery timelines — all of which reduce accountability.

The costs of state-owned enterprises’ dominance are evident for their consistent underperformance in terms of efficiency and profitability. A 2024 Center for Strategic and International Studies study found that Chinese state-owned enterprises among the world’s largest 500 corporations posted a return on total assets of just 1.2 percent, compared to 3.2 percent for Chinese private firms. Meanwhile, the expectation that they lead China’s effort toward technological self-reliance forces them to reduce reliance on foreign technologies while maintaining sectoral dominance. This contradiction has contributed to persistent delays and underperformance, illustrated by the slow progress in improving turbofan engines for the J-20 stealth fighter. As China’s economic growth slows, the inefficiencies of its state-owned defense conglomerates are becoming increasingly unsustainable.

Second, despite years of party leadership rhetoric about “fusion,” the civil–military divide remains deeply entrenched as the country still lacks the institutional foundations for transparent, efficient, and mutually beneficial cooperation between the military and the private sector. Except for a few non-state-owned giants like Huawei and ZTE, private participation remains limited due to entry barriers, including complex licensing, strict secrecy rules, and weak intellectual property protection.

By 2019, only about 2,000 civilian firms were approved as defense suppliers — a tiny share of China’s industrial base. Although the number has grown since, many so-called private firms in sensitive sectors like defense are, in practice, subsidiaries of state-owned conglomerates, blurring ownership and creating security risks. This structural issue was highlighted in 2024, when China Far East International Tendering Co. — marketed as a civilian contractor but in actuality a subsidiary of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation — was implicated in a major leak of classified information, while serving as a procurement agent for a unit of the former People’s Liberation Army Strategic Support Force.

These systemic flaws have consistently fueled collusion and corruption scandals across both the military and its industrial partners. China North Industries Group Corporation, the army’s primary equipment supplier, has seen multiple senior leaders removed since 2021, forcing the company into “emergency management mode” and ironically, its temporary stabilization appears to have paved the way for its chairman to replace the disappeared Zhou Xinmin as head of the Aviation Corporation of China.

Most recently, the 2023–2024 purges of senior generals in the Equipment Development Department and the Rocket Force exposed entrenched corruption networks spanning research, development, and procurement. High-profile figures, including former Equipment Development Department director Li Shangfu (a Central Military Commission member) and the Rocket Force’s commander and political commissar, were dismissed alongside senior state-owned enterprises’ executives.

These overlapping military–industrial scandals confirm what Elsa B. Kania and Lorand Laskai describe as “the enduring opacity of China’s defense governance,” where anti-corruption campaigns serve more as political tools than solutions to systemic dysfunctions. Unsurprisingly, the 2020 Global Defense Integrity Index ranked China’s procurement score at 24, placing it in the “critical risk” category, well below the Asia-Pacific average of 48, which falls within the “moderate risk”’ range.

Third, China’s oversight mechanisms remain too weak and opaque to enforce meaningful accountability. Even after the 2016 reforms created new supervisory structures under the Central Military Commission, service-specific equipment departments still struggle to monitor procurement effectively without independent legislative oversight. Despite new guidelines and anti-corruption initiatives led by procurement and acquisition authorities, the Central Military Commission continues to flag cases of officials skirting guidelines. Transparency remains limited across the procurement cycle — especially for major weapons contracts — and almost no information is publicly released on contract implementation. While three-year development cycles are normally set for key projects and two-year cycles for general projects, procurement timelines themselves are unpublished. The core problem, in short, is not the absence of rules but the absence of external checks strong enough to enforce them.

These oversight shortcomings reflect deeper capacity gaps. As part of the 2016 reforms, the individual services subordinated their Military Representative Offices under service equipment departments to oversee contract management, production, and after-sales support in the civilian sector. However, chronic shortages of personnel and technical expertise hampered their ability to fulfill their expanded mandates, leading to high workload and rapid turnover.

To cope, the military began shifting the system toward civilianization. By 2022, uniformed military contract civilians comprised roughly 80 percent of representatives, which are now the majority across several key equipment development and procurement programs. While this shift eased pressure on active-duty officers, it introduced new risks. Many recruits come directly from the private sector and lack proper understanding of military protocols and security procedures. Even state media has called out this problem, saying that civilian representatives require significant “retraining” in “military and political foundations” to carry out effective oversight. These weaknesses are especially acute in representatives serving in private firms because their host organizations lack the influence of state-owned enterprises and a full understanding of military-related regulations and coordination processes.

The challenges in these three areas reveal a deeper paradox: the party’s controlling approach generates the very inefficiencies it aims to eliminate. Xi’s anti-corruption and loyalty campaigns consolidate political authority but stifle the risk-taking and professional autonomy essential for building a modern, innovative military. As Cheung notes, the “promise and peril” of China’s military modernization lie in this contradiction, an effort to fuse innovation with obedience that may ultimately achieve neither.

Moreover, China now faces growing external constraints on one of military-civil fusion’s most successful accomplishments: acquiring foreign technology. For decades, much of China’s advanced weaponry depended on single-source or foreign-supplied systems — primarily from Russia — which limited the quality and pace of modernization. Xi’s reforms sought to diversify these external inputs through technology transfers, joint ventures, and, at times, illicit procurement.

But the strategic environment has shifted dramatically. The United States, Japan, the Netherlands, Germany, and the United Kingdom have all tightened export controls, expanded investment screening, and increased scrutiny of academic and commercial partnerships linked to the People’s Liberation Army. Since 2020, numerous military-civil fusion entities have been sanctioned or blacklisted under the Department of Defense’s Section 1237 authority, sharply restricting their access to dual-use and frontier technologies. These mounting external pressures could further expose the unresolved weaknesses of its defense industrial base.

Looking Ahead: What to Watch in the Next Phase of Reform

Since Beijing prioritizes strategic mobilization and systemic resilience over free-market efficiency, bureaucratic redundancies may serve as deliberate tools designed to ensure party control and rapid coordination during crises. However, frictions between maintaining rigid control and achieving operational efficiency will intensify as China’s economic growth slows. As the fiscal resources that previously cushioned structural inefficiencies dwindle, Beijing faces a mounting challenge of affording the high cost of those mechanisms it deems essential for its defense policy. This economic stagnation may eventually force a destabilizing choice between ideological grip and the material requirements of those priorities.

Looking ahead, the new policy planning cycle will test whether Beijing can deliver genuine reform or simply repackage existing hierarchies in new bureaucratic language. Three developments merit close attention.

First, the evolution of legal frameworks is critical. While Zhang underscored the need to address planning shortfalls and the outsized influence of state-owned enterprises, it remains unclear how far Beijing will enact enforceable rules and allocate the resources necessary to hold contractors accountable, especially given that the draft Military-Civil Fusion Development Law has circulated since 2018 but remains unpublished. Meaningful reform would require loosening the party’s administrative grip, an unlikely move under Xi’s tightening political control.

Second, the scope of private-sector participation remains a hurdle. While injecting genuine competition would spur innovation, this challenges the dominance of state conglomerates that Xi regards as the “pillars of the national economy.” Without shifting procurement practices from political patronage to performance-based contracting, the military’s modernization drive will remain more bureaucratic than market-driven.

Finally, Beijing should navigate intensifying external constraints. While these pressures have already compelled China to adapt through diversified sourcing, gray-zone procurement, and indigenous innovation — yielding notable successes in areas like AI, semiconductors, and biotechnology — such strategies may face diminishing returns when sanctions and export controls tighten. A pure self-reliance approach risks high inefficiency and costly duplication without international collaboration. Ultimately, the success of the 15th Five-Year Plan hinges on Beijing’s ability to balance strategic insulation with the global integration necessary for sustained modernization.

BECOME A MEMBER

Jessica C. Liao is an associate professor of Asian Studies in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the U.S. Army War College. Previously, she was an associate professor of political science at the School of Public and International Affairs at North Carolina State University. She also served as the 2020-2021 Wilson China Fellow. In 2022, she served as an economic development specialist at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, where she focused on China’s external engagement with Belt and Road Initiative countries.

Joshua Arostegui is the chair of China Studies and research director of the China Landpower Studies Center at the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute. His primary research topics include Chinese strategic landpower, People’s Liberation Army joint operations, and Indo-Pacific security affairs. He previously served as a senior intelligence analyst at the U.S. Army’s National Ground Intelligence Center.

Disclaimer: The authors’ views expressed here are personal and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army or any U.S. government entity.

Image: China News Service via Wikimedia Commons

warontherocks.com ·· January 14, 2026

18. Beyond Illicit Drugs: How the US is Expanding the Scope of Armed Conflict

Summary:

The essay argues Washington has transformed the “war on drugs” from rhetoric into a literal armed conflict, declaring a non-international armed conflict with cartels, designating them FTOs, labeling fentanyl a WMD, conducting lethal strikes on traffickers, and seizing Maduro in Operation Absolute Resolve. This recasts illicit drugs as a battlefield problem, not a law-enforcement challenge, and risks normalizing military force against a widening array of nonmilitary threats: crime, cyber, economic coercion, disinformation. Such “quick wins” blur crime and war, erode legal norms on self-defense and “armed attack,” invite reciprocity by adversaries, and may ultimately produce greater instability than they solve.

El Centro| Opinion / Perspective

Beyond Illicit Drugs: How the US is Expanding the Scope of Armed Conflict

by Jim Crotty

01.13.2026 at 10:01pm

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2026/01/13/beyond-illicit-drugs-how-the-us-is-expanding-the-scope-of-armed-conflict/

The "Fighting American." Public Domain.

Illicit drugs are having a moment. This is not the first time the United States has prioritized illicit drugs, but it is the first time in decades the issue has been framed not merely as a matter of public health and safety, but a direct threat to US national security. In 1971, President Richard Nixon famously declared illicit drugs “public enemy number one,” ushering in an era of strict drug control that would later become known as “the war on drugs.” The administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush built on this foundation. Throughout his presidency, Reagan repeatedly referred to illicit drugs as a “menace” and dramatically increased enforcement and interdiction. And in a national address in 1989, Bush called illicit drugs the “gravest domestic threat facing the nation” and later launched Operation Just Cause to arrest Panamanian President Manuel Noriega ostensibly due to his involvement in drug trafficking.

Fifty years later, the (mostly) rhetorical war on drugs has morphed into a literal war on drugs. In the past year, the Trump administration determined the United States is in a “non-international armed conflict with drug cartels,” designated multiple cartels as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs), declared illicit fentanyl a “weapon of mass destruction,” conducted dozens of kinetic strikes against reported drug trafficking vessels, and executed a daring nighttime raid to capture former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, justified in part by his alleged role leading the Cártel de los Soles. This reflects a dramatic shift in how Washington conceptualizes illicit drugs—as a battlefield problem rather than a law enforcement challenge—and challenges prevailing international norms governing the use of force and non-intervention. Following Maduro’s ouster, many have speculated about who might be next (myself included). Rather than focusing on individual actors, maybe we should be thinking about the threats themselves. Today it’s illicit drugs, tomorrow could it be something else?

Historically, the US has exercised caution when responding to low-intensity threats such as transnational organized crime, cyberattacks, economic coercion, and disinformation campaigns, relying primarily on traditional tools like law enforcement, diplomatic engagement, and international cooperation to blunt their worst effects. However, the tactical success of Operation Absolute Resolve and the broader militarization of the war on drugs could embolden the US to use force more freely to confront a wide array of nonmilitary threats. This aligns with the administration’s newly released US National Security Strategy, which suggests multiple asymmetric threats are comparable to a military attack: “We want to protect this country, its people, its territory, its economy, and its way of life from military attack and hostile foreign influence, whether espionage, predatory trade practices, drug and human trafficking, destructive propaganda and influence operations, cultural subversion, or any other threat to our nation.”

To date, illicit drugs have been the clearest example of the US taking a more aggressive approach towards nonmilitary threats, but we’ve also begun to see it manifest elsewhere, for example, with the deployment of thousands of active-duty and National Guard troops along the Southwest Border, the seizure of foreign oil tankers, and threats to wrest control of the Panama Canal, among others. These actions illustrate an evolving pattern, where tools and strategies once reserved for armed conflict are being repurposed for issues traditionally resolved through non-military means. As the US expands its concept of national security, there is a risk that every threat—criminal, economic, or otherwise—merits a military response. As the saying goes, “to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”

While it’s refreshing to see policymakers recognize the dangers posed by illicit drugs and other nontraditional threats, experience has shown that complex problems rarely have simple solutions. Military operations like Operation Absolute Resolve may deliver “quick wins,” but in the long term they may cause more harm than good, blurring the lines between crime and war, normalizing the use of force, and leading to greater instability. Moreover, redefining terms like “armed attack,” “imminent threat,” and “self-defense” sets a dangerous precedent that could reshape how the United States—and its enemies—confront perceived threats. If the US can attack Venezuela for its role in drug trafficking, what’s to stop China from invading Taiwan on a similarly flimsy basis?

The idea of using military force to address nonmilitary threats is alluring, and decisive operations like Operation Absolute Resolve increase the temptation, but what begins as an exception quickly becomes the rule.

Tags: Lethal Stikes on Suspected Drug Traffickers, Unilateral Use of Force, Venezuela, War Powers, War Powers Resolution

About The Author

Jim Crotty
Jim Crotty is the former deputy chief of staff at the US Drug Enforcement Administration. He currently serves as an adjunct professor at American University’s School of Public Affairs, sits on the Advisory Board of United Against Fentanyl, and is a member of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime Network of Experts.

19. The Army Built an AI Talent Pipeline—But It’s Filled with Career-Killing Roadblocks

Summary:

Nathaniel Fairbank argues that the Army’s Artificial Intelligence Scholars program, built to produce tactically seasoned AI experts, is structurally misaligned with promotion timelines and evaluation systems. Scholars spend four years in school and at AI2C, leaving too little time for key development jobs and PME before promotion boards. At AI2C they compete in a tight rating pool, so many receive “below average” evaluations despite strong performance. The first cohort’s sub 60 percent promotion rate wastes heavy investment and will drive talent out. The author urges timeline fixes, stronger program management, flexible utilization, and adaptive promotion policies.

Excerpts:

While I was writing this, the Department of Defense unveiled GenAI.mil, its new enterprise generative AI platform. The timing is ironic. The memo announcing the platform declared, “Victory belongs to those who embrace real innovation”—one week after the Army failed to promote three officers who had done exactly that. Two years before GenAI.mil launched, AI Scholars built and launched CamoGPT, a secure generative AI system widely used across the joint force.

The department is celebrating an AI milestone while the Army loses the very officers who make breakthroughs like it possible. This is symptomatic of a system that publicly celebrates innovation while structurally penalizing its innovators.

If the Army wants an AI-enabled force, it must decide whether innovation is a career risk—or a path it is willing to reward.

Comment: Personnel is policy. There is no perfect promotion system, especially one that strives to be built on meritocracy and fairness. Changes to personnel management and the promotions system cannot be made quickly enough to account for the rapid changes in modern military operations especially when many of the policies are congressionally mandated (DOPMA).

I know this sounds like sour grapes but we should pay attention to this young officer (and all our young officers). We have seen many young officers take career risks thinking they are doing something innovative and important with no expectation of career enhancement (only proper career management with no disadvantage). What happened to the officers in the Afghan Hands program? What happened to the SF officers who did KD jobs as "GWOT planners" at TSOCs and did not get full KD experience in the groups (that was my personal contribution to failure when I was the SF branch chief. I am guilty). And there are so many more examples of innovative initiatives that officers volunteered for and had their careers disadvantaged because the personnel and promotion system could not be innovatively adapted to keep up. So some serious questions.

What structural reforms in promotion policy, talent management, and key development timelines are most plausible politically and bureaucratically to retain AI-capable officers without creating a privileged caste resented by the rest of the force?

If dual-domain tactical-technical expertise is genuinely decisive for future warfare, should the Army rethink branch identity itself and treat AI, data, and software as core warfighting competencies rather than enablers?

What are the strategic consequences if the Army cannot retain or cultivate AI talent at scale, does it lose battlefield advantage to peer adversaries, to industry, or to joint and allied partners who successfully build such cadres?

The Army Built an AI Talent Pipeline—But It’s Filled with Career-Killing Roadblocks - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · Nathaniel Fairbank · January 14, 2026

https://mwi.westpoint.edu/the-army-built-an-ai-talent-pipeline-but-its-filled-with-career-killing-roadblocks/

The Army is losing exactly the kind of artificial intelligence talent it insists it needs to win the next war. Only four of the seven Army Artificial Intelligence Scholars recently considered for on-time promotion to major were selected. That sub-60 percent promotion rate stands in sharp contrast to a population in which more than 80 percent of captains normally promote on time, with additional officers selected early. Not one of these scholars, nor any of the thirteen in the year group immediately behind them, was selected early. The three officers the Army declined to promote were not marginal performers: Collectively educated at West Point, Princeton, MIT, and Carnegie Mellon, one was among only three officers selected in 2021 for the program’s most technically rigorous track.

In practical terms, the Army chose not to promote officers—barely three years after finishing graduate school—in whom it had invested more than $350,000 each (counting tuition and the cost of pay and benefits while in school). In its first measurable test, the Army’s flagship AI talent pipeline produced worse promotion outcomes than the force at large, despite drawing some of the service’s most academically and technically competitive officers.

I’m writing this as a supporter and alumnus of the program; I believe in its potential to deliver an AI-capable force. Absent immediate changes, however, it faces a predictable future: hemorrhaging the Army’s technical talent, gaining a reputation as a career killer, and becoming impossible to recruit for. The AI Scholars program is structurally misaligned with Army promotion systems, and that misalignment produces attrition as worrying as it is predictable. The Army can take steps to fix the problem immediately—without new authorities or legislation—but the clock is ticking. The next promotion board convenes on January 21, 2026 and will consider thirteen additional scholars.

What Is the AI Scholars Program?

The AI Scholars program, launched in 2019, is designed to fuse officers’ tactical experience with advanced training in machine learning and data science to produce dual-domain experts who can tackle the Army’s hardest modernization challenges. Highly competitive officers earn a two-year graduate degree at a leading technical university—primarily Carnegie Mellon—followed by a two-year utilization tour at the Army’s Artificial Intelligence Integration Center (AI2C), where they build AI models, applications, and data infrastructure for stakeholders across the force.

Although the annual cohort is small—roughly twenty officers—the program’s impact compounds over time. Scholars commit to at least five years of service after graduating, meaning the Army will have over a hundred AI Scholars in uniform at any given moment, forming the core cadre from which future AI leaders and larger talent-development efforts will be built.

Structurally, this mirrors other elite Army scholar programs and fellowships, such as the Olmsted Scholar Program, the Downing Scholarship, and the Harvard Strategist Program. On paper, the model is sound. In practice, promotion outcomes reveal a system fundamentally misaligned with Army promotion timelines and evaluation structures.

What’s the Problem?

One key difference causes the traditional scholarship model to break down when applied to AI Scholars. All other programs select senior captains or junior majors who have already completed professional military education (PME), served in key developmental (KD) roles, and accumulated strong evaluations—in other words, they have checked the boxes necessary for promotion to major. The AI Scholars program does the opposite, deliberately targeting senior first lieutenants and junior captains who have not yet passed these gates.

There are rational reasons for this. Younger officers retain more technical fluency from their undergraduate degrees, have more runway to serve in technical roles, and represent a larger pool of potential applicants. But the Army’s career timeline is brutally unforgiving.

A by-the-book AI Scholar timeline

A typical officer pins captain four years after commissioning, then has roughly six years before pinning major. But officers must complete PME and KD in time for consideration by the promotion board, roughly four and a half years after pinning captain. PME takes six months, while KD requires at least twelve months—and eighteen to twenty-four is strongly preferred.

The AI Scholars program consumes four years by itself: two in school and two in utilization. Add PME and KD, and you now have five and a half years (minimum) of mandatory milestones crammed into a four-and-a-half-year window, and this does not account for geographic moves, administrative delays, course availability, or the inevitable dead time in real units—spent waiting for or transitioning into KD assignments.

In response to this mismatch, Army career managers point to two options: changing career fields or voluntarily deferring promotion. In practice, these are not genuine choices but pressure-driven exit strategies, each carrying its own penalty.

Many AI Scholars change career tracks under duress because their basic branches do not count AI2C time as KD, forcing them into new fields based on bureaucratic requirements rather than interest or aptitude.

Promotion deferral is presented as an alternative, but the suggestion is more coercive than constructive: Defer voluntarily or risk punitive nonselection and arrive at the same outcome.

None of this is disclosed to applicants. In fact, the application explicitly requires officers to attest that they will not change career fields during the program—an ironic contrast to the reality that this later becomes the primary means of avoiding career penalty.

Even if AI Scholars manage to navigate the timeline and avoid these forced choices, they still face a structural disadvantage: the rating pool at AI2C.

Promotion to major typically requires at least three “Most Qualified” (MQ) evaluations, ideally including one from a KD assignment. But upon graduating from Carnegie Mellon, all AI Scholars report to AI2C—meaning they all compete for the same fixed pool of MQ ratings. By regulation, senior raters may award MQ to no more than 50 percent of their rated population.

After completing the academic portion of other Army scholarship programs, graduates disperse into unique roles and become one of one in their rating pools. AI Scholars, by contrast, are placed into a cluster of high-performing technical officers where half must be rated “Highly Qualified” (HQ). An HQ rating may sound flattering, but it literally means that you have below-average potential relative to peers—an assessment promotion boards take at face value.

This is a known challenge in talent-dense organizations. However, two dynamics make AI2C even more punishing than other elite units like the 75th Ranger Regiment.

First, program timing leaves AI Scholars up for promotion with thinner and riskier evaluation records than peers. Captains arriving at the 75th already have multiple evaluations, including command reports, and many have already been selected for major before they are evaluated alongside fellow Rangers. AI Scholars, by contrast, arrive at AI2C with two unrated years from graduate school. Their first, and sometimes only, captain evaluations come from AI2C, so every HQ lands directly at the top of their primary promotion files.

Second, AI2C offers no structural flexibility in officer ratings. Senior raters across the Army can manage evaluation profiles by awarding HQ ratings to officers in low-stakes staff roles, saving MQs for commanders, or by assigning HQ ratings to officers who are exiting the service. None of those levers exist at AI2C. Every AI Scholar occupies the same rating category and is carried to the promotion board by the program’s service obligation, leaving no mechanism to distribute MQs strategically.

The result is a self-cannibalizing rating ecosystem in which the Army’s most technical officers enter their promotion boards with artificially depressed records.

What Are the Consequences?

These structural failures are already visible in the program’s outcomes. The 40 percent promotion failure rate for the first cohort is not a statistical anomaly. It is the predictable consequence of a flawed design.

Worse, the Army cannot simply find more AI Scholars. Even filling the annual quota has proven difficult. In my cohort, the Army nominated twenty candidates; Carnegie Mellon rejected twelve as academically noncompetitive. The program’s most technical track was designed to accept ten AI Scholars per year. In 2021, it admitted only three. The Army has just failed to promote one of them.

Beginning in 2027, the Army will confront the consequences of how it has managed its AI talent as AI Scholars’ service obligations begin to expire. They will be eight to ten years from retirement—too far to stay solely for a pension—and their decision to remain will hinge on whether they believe in the mission and whether they believe the Army has treated them fairly.

For those who feel frustrated, underutilized, or forced into suboptimal career fields, the alternative to continued service is attractive. In 2024, the median starting salary for graduates of a Carnegie Mellon program attended by AI Scholars was $150,000, excluding equity and bonuses, with top employers including Apple, NVIDIA, and Amazon. That figure does not account for the value of an active security clearance, which all officers have. If the Army cannot retain this talent, it may be forced to buy it back at two to three times the cost.

But the deeper loss is not financial. The Army is uniquely positioned to develop and sustain hybrid tactical-technical expertise. Every AI Scholar who departs or is forced to shift into a functional area represents one fewer dual-domain expert in AI and infantry, logistics, field artillery, intelligence, or sustainment. At AI2C, I saw firsthand that infantry officers built the best infantry tools, logisticians built the best logistics tools, and intelligence officers built the best intelligence tools. When branches lose technical officers, they do not just lose coding capability—they lose the people who can build the right tools, informed by lived operational experience.

A modernizing Army cannot afford that loss. Yet the system virtually guarantees it.

Patching the Program Before It Crashes: Three Immediate Fixes

Calls for talent-management reform are not new, and the full problem set is complex. But the Army can implement several high-impact corrections immediately, using authorities it already possesses. Taken together, these recommendations could help anchor the Army’s response to the Department of Defense’s recent directive on AI hiring and talent development.

1. Fix the Timeline

The Army should minimize predictable timeline friction from PME. A six-month PME requirement inserted after utilization—often requiring multiple relocations—can consume the narrow window available for KD and push AI Scholars toward career decisions driven by administrative convenience rather than professional fit. Two mitigations are straightforward: Expand the program timeline and send selectees to PME before graduate school, or deliver PME remotely, completing any branch-specific or in-person requirements during the summer between graduate school years. The remote option eliminates an additional cross-country relocation.

Utilization at AI2C should likewise be flexible, following the example of the Goodpaster Scholars, which allows officers to complete academic training, utilization, and command in nonlinear order without penalty. A default two-year tour is reasonable, but the Army must formalize the option to curtail or interrupt that tour so officers can complete KD time and remain competitive for promotion. One simple model would be:

Year 1 (Development): Serve at AI2C to receive mentorship and transition from academic training to an operational engineering environment.
Year 2 (Flexibility): Remain at AI2C, move to a KD assignment, or take a technical billet elsewhere (e.g., operational data teams).

I was allowed to follow this model, completing a one-year utilization tour that enabled a timely return to KD assignments and preserved promotion competitiveness in my basic branch. Most scholars are not afforded that flexibility.

A more aggressive alternative would place the entire utilization tour after KD time. Either approach addresses two problems at once: It allows officers to meet KD requirements and shifts their key evaluations into less structurally punitive rating pools. In doing so, it also aligns incentives appropriately—AI2C would retain scholars by offering compelling work and strong professional development, rather than by default assignment.

2. Build Ownership of the Problem

These structural fixes will fail without ownership. Branches remain essential stakeholders but are poorly positioned to manage officers in the AI Scholars program. Branch career managers are responsible for hundreds of officers but encounter only one or two AI Scholars at a time and lack visibility into the program as a whole. Branch-specific PME and KD rules further complicate management, creating a patchwork of requirements that undermines consistent, program-level decision-making. As a result, AI Scholars receive inconsistent, branch-specific guidance rather than deliberate program-level management.

AI2C previously had a lieutenant colonel dedicated to talent management who partially mitigated this problem by advocating for AI Scholars and deconflicting timelines. That position sat vacant for a year, which coincided with key career decisions by the nonselected officers. The center has likewise gone over a year without a permanent director, signaling limited institutional priority for a program billed as strategically vital.

3. Build a Real Home for AI Talent—Without Isolating It

Six years after the AI Scholars program began, the Army has created a formal AI officer career track. While this is a better-late-than-never step in the right direction, the track’s ultimate success will depend on being resourced, populated, and empowered to function as a true professional home for AI talent.

More importantly, concentrating all AI talent in a single functional area would be a mistake. Dual-domain officers are most valuable when they remain anchored in their basic branches. At AI2C, infantry scholars drove the best infantry solutions because they had personally experienced the problems they were trying to solve. They were building tools for the soldiers and noncommissioned officers they had led—and would lead again—and for themselves.

The Army’s logistics branch has already shown what right looks like. Under Lieutenant General Michelle Donahue, the branch rewrote its career model so that data-engineer and data-analyst roles count as KD from captain through lieutenant colonel. That single change allowed logistics to poach two AI Scholars—a Sapper-qualified engineer and a Ranger-qualified infantryman—and convert them into logisticians who will spend the next decade building AI-enabled systems for their new branch.

If there is a war for talent, the logisticians are winning. Every branch should be fighting just as hard.

4. Use New Promotion Authorities Where They Are Most Needed

The Army’s new adaptive promotion model allows officers in multiple year groups to be considered for promotion (under the up-or-out system, consideration is limited to a single year group) based on mission needs and demonstrated potential—not just time in grade. The first pilot is in the Medical and Dental Corps, to retain physicians and dentists whose training disrupts standard timelines.

The Army’s own release notes that this program could be expanded to fields like software development, AI, and robotics, where “traditional promotion timelines can limit agile management of rapidly evolving expertise.”

This expansion should begin immediately. If the Army can create flexible promotion windows to retain dentists, it can do the same for its strategically vital cohort of AI experts.

The Cost of Doing Nothing

While I was writing this, the Department of Defense unveiled GenAI.mil, its new enterprise generative AI platform. The timing is ironic. The memo announcing the platform declared, “Victory belongs to those who embrace real innovation”—one week after the Army failed to promote three officers who had done exactly that. Two years before GenAI.mil launched, AI Scholars built and launched CamoGPT, a secure generative AI system widely used across the joint force.

The department is celebrating an AI milestone while the Army loses the very officers who make breakthroughs like it possible. This is symptomatic of a system that publicly celebrates innovation while structurally penalizing its innovators.

If the Army wants an AI-enabled force, it must decide whether innovation is a career risk—or a path it is willing to reward.

Captain Nathaniel Fairbank was part of the second cohort of Artificial Intelligence Scholars and built CamoGPT while serving at the AI2C. He is currently a rifle company commander in the 25th Infantry Division.

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 credit: Spc. Micah Wilson, US Army

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mwi.westpoint.edu · Nathaniel Fairbank · January 14, 2026

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

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