Quotes of the Day:

“Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. It is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.”

–​ Martin Luther King​, Jr., ​"Why We Can't Wait​"

​"You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.​"

–​ Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," 16 April 1963

“Nonviolent resistance attacks evil rather than the evildoer.”

– ​Martin Luther King, Jr., "Stride Toward Freedom"

 Note: For those who would like to access a cleaner version of this message please access the Director’s Corner of the Korea Regional Review here: https://www.upi.com/Korea-Regional-Review/Directors-Corner/

On or about 1 March (anniversary of the 1919 March First ​Korean ​Independence Movement) we will be transitioning ​both the Korean News and Commentary and the National Security News and Commentary newsletters to a new service from the Korea Regional Review​ and UPI. ​You can see the much cleaner versions there now and access them at any time.

They will continue to be linked on Small Wars Journal as well. https://smallwarsjournal.com/

1. The Relevant Discourse from Small Wars Journal

2. In Trump’s Drive for Greenland, NATO Is the First Casualty

3. Opinion | The Greenland War of 2026

4. Trump’s Dangerous Greenland Game

5. Can a U.S.-Greenland Partnership Work? Just Look at These Pacific Islands

6. Commentary: China’s foreign policy calculus goes beyond the current White House occupant

7. Cherry-picking influence: Why China is cautious about filling gaps left by US global retreat

8. Taiwan says Chinese drone made 'provocative' flight over South China Sea island

9. Taiwan’s Response to “Justice Mission-2025”

10. China’s Global Fishing Offensive | U.S. House Select Committee on China

11. How Iran’s regime retook the streets

12. GenAI.mil – Making the Best of Us Better and the Worst of Us Worse

13. Power Without Illusion: Global Signals from the U.S. Operation in Venezuela

14. The Brotherhood, Turkey, and the Future of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy

15. Opinion | Gaza’s ‘Phase Two’ Peace Trusts Hamas

16. International Criminal Liability and U.S. Boat Attacks in the Pacific and Caribbean

17. Own the Night or Die

18. Why the Tech World Thinks the American Dream Is Dying

19. Living Dr. King's Example in Dangerous Times

1. The Relevant Discourse from Small Wars Journal

​This newsletter describes our most read articles from December 2025. Note the article on the Army's Information Warfare Branch was the number one article.

You can sign up to receive updates like this from Small Wars Journal on our home page at this link: https://smallwarsjournal.com/ (See "sign me up")

The Relevant Discourse

December 2025

By Col. (Ret.) David Maxwell

Editor at Large, Small Wars Journal

Introduction

December closed the year with sharp contrasts. The month’s strongest articles did not look back in nostalgia. They looked forward with a kind of clinical urgency. The seams between peace and conflict are widening. Irregular competition, cyber intrusion, financial corruption, and information pressure are converging into a new environment that rewards adaptation and punishes complacency. By spanning questions of force organization, battlefield adaptation, gray-zone competition, and regional conflict, December’s leading articles reveal a widening disconnect between how war is increasingly fought and how it is still commonly conceptualized, planned, and resourced. The character of war is changing faster than the institutions and

assumptions built to fight it.

Below is a synthesis of the seven most consequential December works, why they matter, and what they tell us about the future of irregular warfare and national security. Each entry ends with a strategic question for readers to carry into the year ahead and that will perhaps prompt future articles.

Transforming and Modernizing Army Information Forces: Creating the Information

Warfare Branch, by William Bryant (16 December 2025)

December’s most-read article strikes at the center of institutional identity. The author argues that the U.S. Army treats information as a supporting function rather than a warfighting capability. Cyber, electronic warfare, psychological operations, and public affairs remain scattered across commands and career fields with no unifying doctrine or branch to bind them into a coherent instrument of power.

The power of the piece lies in its bluntness. Adversaries have already solved this problem. Russia, China, and Iran have fused cyber, influence, and deception into integrated campaigns that operate through daily pressure rather than episodic conflict. The absence of an Information Warfare branch left the Army structurally misaligned with the wars it will face rather than the wars it prefers to imagine. The author describes how the Army is adapting to solve this problem.

If information is contested terrain, then force design cannot lag behind concept. This article contributes directly to U.S. national security by showing how an institutional gap becomes a strategic vulnerability and correction that is necessary: the creation of the Army’s Information Warfare (IWar) Branch.

Strategic question: If information is decisive now, what kind of Joint Force is required to fight and win in the information domain?

The Reconnaissance Reality Gap: Western Doctrine vs the Ukrainian Battlefield, by Kai Gilmour Gath (9 December 2025)

This piece cut through illusions. The author used evidence from Ukraine to show how drones, electronic warfare, and precision strike have collapsed time and space on the battlefield. Reconnaissance is no longer a phase of war. It is war. Every unit that can be found can be killed. Doctrine that assumes sanctuary or sequencing has no place in this environment.

For irregular warfare, the implications are profound. Surveillance once belonged to states. It now belongs to anyone with a drone and a data link. Armed non-state actors have gained access to the high ground of modern reconnaissance at negligible cost.

This article matters because it forces readers to question their assumptions. War does not reward doctrine. It rewards adaptation.

Strategic question: If the battlefield now sees everything, what does concealment and surprise look like in the next war?

Afghanistan, A History Already Forgotten, by Daniel Rix and Doug Livermore (31 December 2025)

Published at year’s end, this article served as a warning against strategic amnesia. The author argued that Afghanistan’s lessons in governance, legitimacy, and insurgency are already fading from institutional memory. With attention shifting to great power competition, the United States risks discarding the hard-earned knowledge that irregular conflict does not end because policymakers wish to pivot elsewhere.

The resonance of the piece comes from its quiet anger. It reminds readers that insurgency, state failure, and political warfare remain persistent features of the international system. Great power rivalry will not erase them. In many regions it will amplify them. This work matters because it reasserts the truth that irregular warfare is not a temporary distraction. It is a permanent condition.

Strategic question: Why do states forget the lessons of irregular war so quickly, and who benefits from that forgetting?

How Criminal Networks Launder Money Out of the United States, by Albert Hadi (24 December 2025)

This article widens the battlespace. It shows how criminal networks use financial instruments, shell firms, and permissive jurisdictions to move illicit capital through U.S. systems. Money laundering enables corruption, covert influence, and organized crime. It also supports hybrid actors and hostile states who thrive in the gray space between legality and illegality. The national security community often treats finance as peripheral. This piece shatters that view. The financial system is now terrain. Criminal syndicates, cartels, and revisionist states all use money as a political weapon.

This article matters because it reveals a vulnerability that no military maneuver can solve. Irregular warfare is often financial before it is violent.

Strategic question: If money is a strategic weapon, how should the United States defend its financial system as part of national defense?

From Paper to Permafrost: Applying Irregular Warfare Doctrine to Arctic Homeland

Defense, by Stephen Gagnon (2 December 2025)

The Arctic remains a strategic frontier with thin infrastructure, sparse population, and contested access. The author argued that irregular warfare doctrine offers a better framework for understanding Arctic defense than conventional thinking. Influence, presence, and governance matter as much as firepower.

The value of this article is its conceptual boldness. It shows that irregular warfare is

geography agnostic. Wherever state presence is limited and legitimacy is contested, irregular tools become decisive. The Arctic is no exception.

Strategic question: What forms of power matter most in places where terrain and distance make conventional responses slow?

(When) Will Israel Attack Iran Again, by Siamak Naficy (12 December 2025)

This analysis treats Israeli strategy toward Iran as calculation. It examines signaling, deterrence, escalation, and domestic politics. The author argues that timing is less important than conditions. Israel will strike when costs align with perceived necessity, not when observers predict it.

The piece matters because it avoids sensationalism. It illuminates how limited strikes, covert action, and gray-zone warfare serve as extensions of policy.

Strategic question: When strategy depends on managing escalation, how does a state know when action becomes worth the risk?

Small Wars in the New Strategic Era, by Joe Funderburke (15 December 2025)

This was the month’s synthesizing article. Its core claim is simple. Despite talk of decisive great power war, the United States will face a future of limited conflicts, proxy struggles, and persistent competition short of total war.

The article matters because it breaks through a common illusion. Small wars are not distractions from great power competition. They are how great power competition will most likely be fought.

Strategic question: If small wars are the future, why do major powers keep preparing for the war least likely to occur?

Closing Observation

December showed that modern conflict is not bounded by clear lines. It spans information, finance, terrain, memory, and morale. Irregular warfare is not the edge of strategy. It is the center. The nations that grasp this first will gain advantage. The nations that refuse will learn slowly and at cost.

Taken together, December’s most-read essays reinforce a critical insight: modern conflict is increasingly fought in the seams between peace and war, among state and non-state actors, and in kinetic and non-kinetic domains. Information, legitimacy, reconnaissance, finance, and memory itself have become decisive terrain.

As we begin this new year, Small Wars Journal’s December discourse serves as a reminder that strategic advantage will belong not to those who cling to familiar frameworks, but to those willing to adapt institutions, doctrine, and thinking to the realities of contemporary conflict.

Thank you for being part of this mission. Your engagement, reading, writing, and debating makes Small Wars Journal a living, thinking institution dedicated to global security and informed public debate.

Respectfully,

David Maxwell

Editor-at-Large

Small Wars Journal

P.S. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Youtube to stay in the loop!

2. In Trump’s Drive for Greenland, NATO Is the First Casualty

​Summary:

POTUS’s threat to impose tariffs on European allies that refuse a U.S. takeover of Greenland has fused trade and security tensions, pushing NATO into its deepest crisis since World War II. European governments, already uneasy with Washington’s hostile rhetoric and a softer U.S. line toward Russia and China, now question U.S. commitment to Article 5 and the very logic of Pax Americana. Denmark and seven allies vow a united response while fearing escalation or even NATO’s collapse. Veterans warn that trust, the alliance’s true center of gravity, is shattering in ways that primarily benefit Putin and Xi.

Comment:  I am missing the strategic logic of tariffs on our allies over Greenland. How does tying tariff escalation to forced acquisition of Greenland undermine NATO’s core deterrent credibility against Russia in Europe’s east and the Arctic?

If European states conclude U.S. security guarantees are no longer reliable, what alternative defense architecture might they pursue, and how would that reshape U.S. global strategy and resources available for the Asia-Indo-Pacific?​ 

​The big question is what comes next? What is going to happen to the alliance? What does a successful outcome to this situation look like? I do not want to be chicken little with the sky falling but...

In Trump’s Drive for Greenland, NATO Is the First Casualty

WSJ

The threat of a new trade war with Europe is pushing the trans-Atlantic alliance into its deepest crisis since World War II

By Marcus Walker

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 and Daniel Michaels

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Updated Jan. 18, 2026 11:24 am ET

https://www.wsj.com/world/in-trumps-drive-for-greenland-nato-is-roadkill-50af37ec

Greenlanders protest against President Trump’s demand that Greenland be ceded to the U.S. Marko Djurica/Reuters

BRUSSELS—A few months ago, officials on both sides of the Atlantic hoped that they had saved the Western alliance—the world’s biggest economic and military community.

Today, the team that won the Cold War and led the globe is in tatters.

President Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on European allies that resist a full U.S. takeover of the Danish territory of Greenland has fused two areas of trans-Atlantic tension—trade and security—into an explosive cocktail that is plunging the alliance into its deepest crisis in over 70 years.

“World Peace is at stake!” Trump posted on Truth Social, saying that China and Russia would take over Greenland unless the U.S. did.

He attacked European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for sending military personnel to the territory at Denmark’s invitation, saying that only the U.S. could secure the island. Then came the threat of escalating tariffs until they agreed to the U.S. owning Greenland.

Trump’s economic threat and dismissal of allies’ usefulness have added to the sense of shock across Europe, where governments are reeling from the unprecedented outbursts of U.S. hostility since Trump returned to the White House a year ago.

NATO, which was founded on a sense of a common destiny among Western democracies, has relied as much on trust and political cohesion as on its military infrastructure. The belief that the U.S. was deeply committed to its European allies and would defend them against an attack has been the foundation of NATO’s credibility and its power to deter enemies.

That trust and commitment are now in serious doubt. Many veterans of the alliance on both sides of the Atlantic wonder if it can recover.

“The organization will survive, but the trust—the glue that has held it together for over 75 years—has been shattered, so it will not be effective,” said Doug Lute, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general and former U.S. ambassador to NATO.

President Trump emphasized the U.S. must own Greenland, the semiautonomous Danish territory, ‘for national security’ during a roundtable discussion on healthcare in Washington. Photo: Alex Brandon/Associated Press

Deferential displays

Trump’s revived threat to take over Greenland is testing the limits of the allies’ approach of managing the White House by offering cooperation and limited concessions.

European leaders are now searching for a response, and are caught between fear of further provoking Trump’s ire and determination to draw a line in the ice over Greenland.

Some countries want to show Trump that his pressure will also have consequences for the U.S., such as jeopardizing the trade deal reached with the European Union last summer that avoided a trade war and stood to benefit American businesses. Some officials are looking at ways they could trigger harsher trade retaliation, while other leaders hope to defuse the latest row with behind-the-scenes outreach to administration officials.

The leaders of Denmark and seven European allies on Sunday issued a statement warning that the “tariff threats undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral.” The group pledged “to stand united and coordinated in our response.”

European countries have been loath to criticize Trump for the past year, despite deep misgivings over his handling of trade, the Russia-Ukraine war and trans-Atlantic relations more generally. Their strategy amounted to a trade-off, sacrificing economic benefit for security.

Allied leaders have tried using flattery and deference to manage Trump, such as when NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte called him “daddy” last summer. But Europeans are increasingly concerned that displays of praise and fealty aren’t working.

Trump and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte. Remko de Waal/ANP/Zuma Press

Most European governments fear that a full-blown rift could lead to Trump declaring the end of NATO, which would force them to build their own military alliance without the U.S.—a costly challenge for countries struggling with chronically low economic growth and strained public finances.

Early last year, verbal barrages and abrupt policy shifts from the White House fed a sense that the U.S. was turning its back on the trans-Atlantic world that Washington built after World War II. The administration attacked Europe’s democracies over immigration and free speech while threatening to impose heavy tariffs on European goods. Its push to end the war in Ukraine involved rapprochement with Moscow and arm-twisting of Kyiv.

Relations appeared to thaw last summer following strenuous European efforts to persuade Trump that allies are useful for U.S. interests and not a hindrance. In June, he gave NATO his blessing after allies agreed to spend a lot more on defense, and when eight European leaders left a White House meeting with Trump in August, they felt cautiously optimistic that trans-Atlantic relations had stabilized.

It didn’t last. Trust between Europe and the U.S. took another beating when a U.S. peace plan for Ukraine emerged that favored Russia. Then the White House’s new national-security strategy in December targeted European allies while taking a soft line on the West’s main adversaries, Russia and China.

Damaged articles

Europeans have for years argued that while they didn’t spend as much on arms as the U.S., they consistently stood by it and defended Western interests.

The sole time that NATO invoked its founding treaty’s mutual-defense clause, known as Article 5, was to support the U.S. after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In Afghanistan, Denmark incurred the highest per capita fatality rate among all NATO countries, including the U.S.

Now, the administration has essentially said that past efforts don’t affect current U.S. thinking. “Just because you did something smart 25 years ago doesn’t mean you can’t do something dumb now,” Vice President JD Vance told Fox News recently.

A British soldier in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2007. Paula Bronstein/Getty Images

Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on U.S. readiness to stand behind Article 5. During his first term, he stunned allies on an early visit to alliance headquarters by not making the routine U.S. pledge to defend NATO members.

During his re-election campaign in 2024, Trump said he would encourage Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to allies that don’t meet spending targets. He also questioned whether European countries would come to America’s aid in a crisis.

Before a NATO summit last June, when asked if he stood by the pact, Trump replied: “Depends on your definition. There are numerous definitions of Article 5.” Last week, he wrote on Truth Social: “I DOUBT NATO WOULD BE THERE FOR US IF WE REALLY NEEDED THEM.”

Veterans of the Atlantic alliance warn that the West’s adversaries will be the main beneficiaries of the rift.

“Ultimately this is only damaging America’s standing in the world, and America—like Europe—needs friends and allies in this more dangerous world,” said Oana Lungescu, who served as NATO spokeswoman for 13 years, including through Trump’s first term, and is now at the Royal United Services Institute, a London think tank. “The only people I see benefiting from this are Putin and Xi. They must be ordering popcorn,” she said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

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Trump’s demand to own Greenland is particularly perplexing to Europeans because to them, and many Americans, it lacks logical basis—unlike his gripes over Europe’s low military spending.

Trump is just the most forceful in a long string of U.S. presidents who have demanded that NATO allies contribute more to their own security. Europeans have for years acknowledged their shortcomings. On trade, while Europeans questioned Trump’s economic arguments, they understood his political agenda and the need to engage on it.

But with Greenland, Trump has almost no sympathetic ears in Europe. Even one of his staunchest supporters in the region, British euroskeptic firebrand Nigel Farage, on Saturday criticized Trump’s tariff threat, saying: “We don’t always agree with the U.S. government and in this case we certainly don’t.”

Trump’s skepticism about NATO has been on display for years, but his willingness to pick a fight with European allies appears to be rising as he grows bolder about wielding U.S. power.

One of Trump’s most consistent views over several decades has been that the Pax America—the U.S.’s global hegemony since World War II, managed via a system of alliances—is a burden on America, allowing allies to exploit the U.S.’s provision of both military security and consumer demand for goods.

Dogged defense

European and other U.S. allies have long recognized the inevitability of the U.S. retreating from its role as the world’s policeman. But they weren’t prepared for the Trump administration’s expressions of disdain and hostility. On Saturday, Trump again dismissed Denmark’s capacity to defend Greenland as amounting to “two dog sleds.”

On Truth Social, Trump accused Denmark and other European allies of endangering world peace by sending a small number of military personnel to Greenland.

Denmark had invited the allies to Greenland for exercises and informed NATO about them. “Exercises like the one Denmark is undertaking, as well as the deployments of additional troops, bolster our collective defenses there,” said U.S. Army Col. Martin O’Donnell, spokesman for NATO’s military command, on Thursday.

A Danish military vessel sails near Nuuk, Greenland. Marko Djurica/Reuters

Governments including the U.K., France and Germany have billed the deployments as an effort to show that NATO allies are committed to defending Greenland against rivals such as Russia, but Trump said their purpose was unknown.

“This is a very dangerous situation for the Safety, Security and Survival of our Planet. These Countries, who are playing this very dangerous game, have put a level of risk in play that is not tenable or sustainable,” Trump wrote. He said the European countries involved would face a 10% tariff on all goods sent to the U.S. from Feb. 1, rising to 25% in June, unless a deal is reached for “the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland.”

Denmark has said the U.S. is welcome to beef up its military presence in Greenland and has sought to open talks on cooperation there. But Copenhagen and the government of Greenland have said the island isn’t for sale.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that a forcible U.S. annexation of an ally’s territory would be the end of NATO. Europe’s major countries have backed Denmark, saying only Danes and Greenlanders can decide the future of Greenland.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen. Tom Little/Reuters

NATO has survived serious internal tensions before, such as during the 1956 Suez crisis, when the U.S. forced the U.K. and France to break off their invasion of Egypt, and the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, which France and Germany opposed.

Those moments were difficult for the alliance, but it persevered, said Lungescu. “But this feels like a very dangerous moment,” she said. “One we haven’t seen before.”

Write to Marcus Walker at Marcus.Walker@wsj.com and Daniel Michaels at Dan.Michaels@wsj.com

Copyright ©2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

WSJ

3. Opinion | The Greenland War of 2026

​Summary:

POTUS’s tariff threats over Greenland turn a strategic concern into an alliance-wrecking crusade. He plans new 10 to 25 percent tariffs on key European allies that joined exercises to reassure Washington about defending the island, despite existing access and Danish willingness to deepen cooperation. The editorial argues this bullying undercuts NATO, shreds recent EU and UK trade deals, raises prices for Americans, and drives Europe, Canada, and others toward China and Russia. Allies now hedge against U.S. unpredictability, casting doubt on any bargain with Washington.

Comment: Is this a "Cronkite moment?" The WSJ Editorial board is criticizing our Greenland moves. (for those too young to remember, or who haven't studied our history, when Walter Cronkite came out against the Vietnam War someone famously opined and lamented that if you lose Cronkite you lose the American people. If POTUS loses the WSJ does he lose support from among certain factions of his political base?). 

At what point do European hedging moves over Greenland quietly evolve into a durable post-American security and economic architecture?

Opinion | The Greenland War of 2026

WSJ · The Greenland War of 2026

Trump’s lesson in how to turn U.S. allies into China’s friends.

By The Editorial Board

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Jan. 18, 2026 6:52 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-greenland-war-of-2026-europe-trump-tariff-e27b8b98

Journal Editorial Report: What the U.S. wants from the Arctic island. Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

For more than 75 years, the fondest dream of Russian strategy has been to divide Western Europe from the U.S. and break the NATO alliance. That is now a possibility as President Trump presses his campaign to capture Greenland no matter what the locals or its Denmark owner thinks.

Mr. Trump on Saturday threatened to impose a 10% tariff starting Feb. 1 on a handful of European countries that have opposed his attempt to obtain U.S. sovereignty over Greenland. The tariff would jump to 25% on June 1. Presumably this tariff would come on top of the rates Mr. Trump already negotiated in trade deals last year (10% for Britain, 15% for the European Union).

The targets are Denmark (which owns Greenland), Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland and the United Kingdom. All participated in a recent military exercise on the world’s largest island that was intended to reassure Washington that Europe wants to work with the U.S. to defend Greenland from Russia and China.

But Mr. Trump isn’t taking alliance cooperation for an answer. He wants the U.S. to own Greenland, its ice, minerals, strategic location and 56,000 residents. And he seems prepared to push around everyone else to get it.

There are good reasons for Washington to care about Greenland, including the island’s strategic position and untapped reserves of rare-earth minerals. Mr. Trump isn’t the first President to suggest buying it outright, but the U.S. already has a high degree of access to the island and Denmark is willing to negotiate more. Tariffs in the cause of bullying imperialism is the wrong way to make a deal, and they might stiffen opposition on the island and in Europe.

Mr. Trump is taking reckless risk with the NATO alliance that advances U.S. interests in the arctic. If he doesn’t believe us, he can look up Norway, Sweden and Finland in an atlas. The latter two joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization recently, and already are discovering that with Mr. Trump no good strategic deed goes unpunished.

The economics are nonsensical too. All of the countries on his tariff list except for the United Kingdom are members of the European Union with a common trade policy. This means any tariff he imposes on those countries will have to extend to the entire 27-member bloc. So much for the trade deals Mr. Trump negotiated to great fanfare last year with the EU and the U.K.

Members of the European Parliament, which still must approve the U.S.-EU agreement, are threatening to put that pact on ice. This bullying plays poorly with the European public, making it harder for politicians to give Mr. Trump what he wants on Greenland or anything else. The message to these countries is that no deal with Mr. Trump can be trusted because he’ll blow it up if he feels it serves his larger political purposes.

The Greenland Tariff War of 2026 imperils other U.S. priorities. The trade tax on Britain could upset an agreement Mr. Trump struck last year under which Britain will pay more for pharmaceuticals in exchange for Washington dropping tariffs on medication imports from the U.K. Speaking of which: Why Mr. Trump would want to head into midterm elections foisting higher prices on voters worried about affordability is a mystery.

***

No one should underestimate the shock his Greenland project is producing among allies. Along with his tariffs and his tilt toward Russia against Ukraine, he is alienating Western Europe in a way that will be hard to repair. It’s true that Europe may not be in a position to resist if Mr. Trump really wants to go to war over the island. But say good-bye to NATO.

The sad irony is that China and Russia may be the biggest winners, though Mr. Trump justifies his Greenland necessity in the name of deterring both. Canada’s Prime Minister bent the knee to Xi Jinping this past week, and Britain’s PM is heading there this month. The EU and South American countries have struck a big free-trade pact.

The West is in the process of a diplomatic and economic hedging operation against Mr. Trump’s might-makes-right diplomacy. Whether or not Mr. Trump believes it, the U.S. needs friends in the world. He seems to think that if he captures Greenland, history will remember him as another Thomas Jefferson (Louisiana purchase) or William Seward (Alaska). The cost of his afflatus to U.S. interests will be greater than he imagines.

Copyright ©2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

WSJ · The Greenland War of 2026

4. Trump’s Dangerous Greenland Game

Summary:

 POTUS has chalked up hard-power wins: crippling Iran’s nuclear program, pressuring Hamas through Qatar and Turkey, and capturing Maduro in a bold special operation. The editors argue these successes prove the utility of decisive unilateral action. Yet Trump’s fixation on acquiring Greenland by threatening tariffs and hinting at military options against Denmark is backfiring. It alarms NATO allies, feeds European drift toward China, and risks unraveling the very coalition structure that magnifies U.S. power. The piece warns that bullying a loyal ally over Greenland could squander a historic chance to transform Iran, Venezuela, and even Cuba toward democracy.

Comment: What comes next and how do we turn this in our favor?

THE FREE PRESS

Trump’s Dangerous Greenland Game

The president’s petulance has created a diplomatic crisis—and risks undermining his foreign policy achievements.

By The Editors

01.18.26 —

U.S. Politics

https://www.thefp.com/p/trumps-dangerous-greenland-game

In the last year, President Donald Trump has racked up impressive foreign policy achievements. He authorized the bombing run that decimated Iran’s nuclear program. His hardball diplomacy with Qatar and Turkey helped bring enough pressure on Hamas to return the remaining Israeli hostages the terrorists kidnapped on October 7, 2023. And he ordered one of the most stunning special operations missions in U.S. history this month with the raid that brought Venezuela’s tyrant, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, to a New York courtroom.

These victories are a testament to the virtues of muscular unilateralism. While past presidents often bowed to the constraints of the United Nations, Trump has ignored the bureaucrats in Turtle Bay. Quaint respect for the sovereignty of Iran and Venezuela did not deter them from threatening their neighbors. Operations Midnight Hammer and Absolute Resolve did.

But Trump’s my-way-or-the-highway foreign policy has downsides as well. He risks turning his foreign policy successes into a strategic liability. Instead of striking fear into the hearts of America’s adversaries, he is now alienating America’s allies.

Consider Trump’s obsession with Greenland, the Arctic territory that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It’s true that rising global temperatures have made the Arctic the object of great power competition, with new shipping routes opening up in a geopolitically crucial region. Greenland is rich in the rare-earth minerals necessary for competing in an AI-driven economy. There are sound strategic reasons why America would benefit from acquiring this frozen land.

Read

John Bolton: Why America Needs Greenland

But the way Trump is trying to secure Greenland is deeply counterproductive. The White House is treating Denmark, a steadfast NATO ally, like an undersized kid at recess who has too much lunch money. Trump’s announcement over the weekend that he will impose a 10 percent tariff on European countries that oppose the U.S. acquisition of Greenland is not bold global leadership. It’s a geopolitical temper tantrum.

Why would the White House suggest that “military options” for acquiring Greenland remain on the table? Even many of Trump’s allies in Congress recognize the ridiculousness of such a threat. We cannot improve on Republican Senator John Kennedy’s assessment that attacking Greenland is “weapons-grade stupid.”

Instead of striking fear into the hearts of America’s adversaries, he is alienating our allies.

Already Trump’s petulance and bullying has created a diplomatic crisis. On Sunday, the eight countries targeted by Trump’s new tariffs issued a rare warning to America that the NATO alliance risked a “dangerous downward spiral.” These are the kinds of threats our European allies usually issue against adversaries like Russia or China.

Last week, Canadian prime minister Mark Carney concluded meetings with Chinese premier Xi Jinping. Canada agreed to remove its 100 percent tariff on China’s electric cars in exchange for China lowering tariffs on Canadian agricultural exports. While the deal doesn’t represent a new strategic partnership, it nonetheless counts as a major win for Beijing, a rival America should be building a coalition to counter.

Read

Trump’s 10 Moves That Changed the Middle East

This is not hypothetical. One of the underrated success stories of Trump’s first presidency was his quiet campaign to persuade key allies to avoid purchasing Huawei ground stations and equipment as they built up their 5G wireless networks. China controls the data that go through Huawei networks, and it would have given them a massive advantage in wartime if U.S. allies like the UK were reliant on Chinese tech for internet and cell service. In the Huawei case, respectful, normal diplomacy worked. Many allies ended up restricting Huawei’s equipment for their 5G networks.

There are certainly those that believe that NATO has outlived its usefulness for American interests. And there is some truth to the criticisms. In particular, Europe has long shirked its own defense responsibilities, free-riding off America’s military. At the same time, though, NATO has managed to knit the continent together and prevent the intra-European competition that brought the world to war twice in the 20th century. What’s more, because of Trump’s threats and Russia’s aggression, the Europeans have started to pick up the slack for their own defense, with even Germany building up its armed forces. Allowing the North Atlantic alliance to unravel hands a gift to America’s greatest adversary, Russia, which has long sought to weaken NATO.

One of our greatest advantages against China and Russia is that we don’t dominate our allies the way they do.

All of which brings us back to Greenland. If Trump is only worried about the new race between China, America, and Russia for the Arctic, he needn’t fret. Greenland is part of the NATO alliance. There is no resistance in Europe to America establishing more bases there. However, Trump’s bellicose rhetoric could change that. No doubt the administration could cut deals that would give it access to its rare-earth minerals. The objection is to Trump’s revival of gunboat diplomacy. And that should worry all Americans. The long-term cost of strong-arming Denmark is not worth the short-term gain of the natural resources America might acquire from snatching Greenland.

One of our greatest advantages against China and Russia is that we don’t dominate our allies the way they do. After World War II, foresighted presidents like Harry Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower did not make Western Europe a set of vassal states. Instead, they rebuilt the countries devastated by the Nazi war machine, Germany included. Over time, America secured markets for its goods and services as its allies thrived. And as Western Europe prospered, the countries consigned to live behind the Iron Curtain stagnated. That contrast is what ultimately led brave Czechs, Poles, East Germans, and others to choose America and the West over Moscow. This approach helped win the Cold War.

Read

How Rubio Won

Trump now is faced with a series of consequential choices. He has removed Venezuela’s tyrant and has to decide how to deal with that country and its current leadership. In Iran, he has an opportunity to tip the balance in favor of the Iranian people, who are protesting against an illegitimate regime that is willing to kill them to stay in power. If he can transition Iran, Venezuela, and perhaps even Cuba into a democratic future, he will make an indelible contribution to world peace. But he won’t be able to pull that off without allies who want to follow America’s lead. Greenland is simply not worth sabotaging the extraordinary moment Trump has created.

5. Can a U.S.-Greenland Partnership Work? Just Look at These Pacific Islands

​Summary:

The article argues that a U.S.–Greenland compact of free association is conceptually feasible but politically unrealistic. Washington’s Pacific compacts with Micronesia, the Marshalls, and Palau traded billions in aid and open migration for exclusive defense and basing rights, with mixed results: economic uplift, critical military access, but nuclear legacies, governance frictions, and intensified Chinese gray zone pressure. Greenland’s context is different. It already sits under a NATO ally, Denmark, enjoys substantial Danish support, and polling shows little interest in shifting to the U.S. A Greenland compact could deepen U.S.–China competition in the Arctic and strain an alliance that already works.

Comment: Is this a useful analogy? Or is there still no rhyme with apples and oranges?

The $64K question: Is there any sustainable pathway for the U.S. to expand strategic influence in Greenland through economic and political compacts without undermining Denmark’s sovereignty and triggering a broader escalation with China and Russia in the Arctic?

I think the answer was yes based on existing treaties, alliances, and an understanding of the mutual threats.

We just should not be treating this as a hostile real estate deal. There are too many national security issues at stake here.

I also have to think of this in terms of the global Go/Wei Chi/Baduk board. Where is China going to place it's stones now given this significant friction within the NATO alliance (and the 2d and 3d order effects on the silk web of alliances in the Asia-Indo-Pacific?) What territorial opportunities does it foresee for Chinse influence and capture? 

Can a U.S.-Greenland Partnership Work? Just Look at These Pacific Islands

WSJ

U.S. agreements with three island nations have benefited both sides but have also had challenges

By Mike Cherney

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Jan. 19, 2026 5:30 am ET

https://www.wsj.com/world/can-a-u-s-greenland-partnership-work-just-look-at-these-pacific-islands-9ffcc1d0?mod=hp_lead_pos3

Over the past 40 years, the U.S. has sent billions of dollars to three remote island nations in the Pacific. In return, the U.S. got access to important military sites in a region where Washington is now competing with Beijing for influence.

U.S. officials have floated the idea of exploring a similar arrangement, known as a compact of free association, for Greenland, the Danish-controlled island President Trump says he wants to acquire for national-security purposes.

The main obstacle isn’t whether this model is feasible, some former U.S. officials and analysts say, but whether Greenlanders would want it. For now, Greenland’s leaders say they want to stick with Denmark, and polling shows that most Greenlanders don’t want to join with the U.S.

Greenland’s size doesn’t appear to be a problem. Its population of roughly 57,000 is smaller than the Federated States of Micronesia, one of the freely associated island nations in the Pacific, which a recent census showed had some 73,000 people, according to an Asian Development Bank report. Though made up of tiny islands, Micronesia’s exclusive economic zone is larger than Greenland’s because it stretches over a vast area of ocean.

Micronesia and the other two freely associated states, the Marshall Islands and Palau, are technically independent but have negotiated their own compacts with the U.S. They get economic assistance from the U.S. and access to certain federal programs. Their citizens can live and work in the U.S. and join the U.S. military. In return, Washington is in charge of defense.

The agreements have helped lift the island nations’ economies and preserved exclusive U.S. military access to the islands. According to one tally from the Congressional Research Service, the U.S. provided more than $6 billion to the three nations through the 2023 fiscal year. An additional $7.1 billion will be provided across the next 20-year term, under a renewal of the compacts’ economic provisions that was approved by Congress in 2024.

On the military front, the U.S. is building a radar system in Palau, operates a missile range in the Marshall Islands and is upgrading infrastructure in Micronesia.

“Overall, they deliver a lot of benefits for those Pacific signatories, as well as for the United States,” Mihai Sora, director of the Pacific Islands program at the Lowy Institute think tank and a former Australian diplomat, said of the compacts. The recent renewal is “strong evidence that both sides of those agreements see a lot of enduring value.”

A U.S. Navy aircraft crashing during a campaign in the Marshall Islands in 1943.

U.S. tanks clearing Japanese troops from Palau in 1944.

U.S. military action in the Marshall Islands and Palau in the 1940s. Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images, Keystone/Getty Images

But not everything has gone smoothly. During the last round of negotiations to renew the agreements, tensions arose around costs for the U.S. Postal Service, which operates in the islands, and whether the Marshall Islands should get more aid for the lingering effects of Cold War-era nuclear tests.

Efforts to improve services to U.S. military veterans in the three nations have been choppy. A trust fund to help islanders displaced because of the U.S. nuclear tests was drained by local leaders, prompting questions from U.S. lawmakers. And the ability to move to the U.S. has fueled rapid rates of migration—some 94,000 citizens of the three states live in the U.S., including children born in the U.S.

Some experts point out that the political context for a compact with Greenland is different than it was in the Pacific. The international community, through the United Nations, placed the islands under U.S. administration after World War II. Decades later, the nations voted in referendums to enter into the compacts with the U.S.

Today, Denmark, a U.S. ally and North Atlantic Treaty Organization founding member, oversees Greenland’s defense and provides substantial funding to the island. The U.S. already has military access to Greenland.

“In the abstract, could it work? Sure,” Robert Riley, a former U.S. ambassador to Micronesia, said of a free association agreement with Greenland. “In the real world? No, I don’t think it would work at all.”

“There is a country that is working closely with Greenland, and that’s Denmark,” he said. “Why would we interfere with that? And they’re an ally, so I don’t think it makes any sense.”

Greenland has a population of roughly 57,000. Oscar Scott Carl for WSJ

The compacts can be a double-edged sword. Having a close association with the U.S. makes the islands more of a target for Beijing’s influence operations, which use so-called gray-zone tactics rather than overt military moves. Illegal Chinese fishing and maritime surveillance has been a problem.

That could be a downside for Greenland if it moves closer to Washington.

Free association “may serve to further escalate that strategic competition between the U.S. and China, or between the U.S. and Russia,” said Sora of the Lowy Institute. “It could act as an antagonizer in what is already a pretty tense European context.”

In Palau, local officials have warned about Chinese influence efforts and organized crime linked to Chinese nationals. They have said Chinese interests are leasing property near U.S. military sites. China has used trade as a coercion tool, sometimes stopping the flow of Chinese visitors to the island, to pressure the tourism-dependent country to end its recognition of Taiwan.

The U.S. partnership can stir up local controversy. In December, Palau’s president’s office said the country agreed to accept up to 75 “third country nationals,” noting the “serious migration pressures faced by the United States”—an apparent nod to the Trump administration’s efforts to deport immigrants who entered the country illegally. In return, Palau got $7.5 million for public services.

The Palauan president, Surangel Whipps Jr., said many Palauans are happy with the free association. As a small nation—population about 18,000—Palau needs help to provide education, healthcare and infrastructure for its citizens. And given Palau’s strategic location, global powers will have an interest in Palau whether the island nation wants it or not, he added.

“There’s no way we’re going to have our own navy and our own army and our own air force,” he said. “The best option for a small country is to align with a partner that can provide that for us.”

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

Would the compact of free association model work with Greenland? Join the conversation below.

He added: “We value democracy. We value the rule of law. And really, if we would be saying no to the United States, it’s indirectly you’re saying yes to China.”

One hurdle to persuading Greenland to sign on to free association could be Trump’s adversarial approach. Administration officials have suggested military force is an option to get Greenland, though this could be a negotiating tactic.

Alan Tidwell, director of the Center for Australian, New Zealand and Pacific Studies at Georgetown University, said talks should instead focus on independence for Greenland. That would then allow Greenland to decide if it wants to negotiate free association with the U.S. or another country.

“This conversation could have been had through normal channels in a normal way that didn’t involve threats,” said Tidwell, who thinks free association is viable for Greenland.

The U.S. and the Pacific states had their differences during the recent compact talks, which ultimately were successful. “None of it was fraught with threats of invasion,” he said.

Write to Mike Cherney at mike.cherney@wsj.com

WSJ

6. Commentary: China’s foreign policy calculus goes beyond the current White House occupant

​Summary:

Beijing reads POTUS' 2025 NSS as mixed signals. Economically, it hears talk of “mutually advantageous” trade and reciprocity. Militarily, it sees harder lines on Taiwan and the South China Sea and a louder “America First” in the Western Hemisphere. Chinese strategists still bet on “the East is rising, the West is declining,” yet Xi must husband resources for domestic headwinds and social strain. Expect China to push quietly in the Asia-Indo-Pacific with gray zone pressure on Taiwan and in the South China Sea, while avoiding direct clash, and to exploit widening rifts between Washington and its allies.

Comment: China has always been known for taking the long view.  

So, how can the United States signal resolve and reduce Chinese temptations for gray zone opportunism without reinforcing Beijing’s narrative that a declining America is lashing out to contain China? Who has the advantage in the battle of the narratives? With the complex situations in Europe, the Arctic, and Latin America, how does the silk web of US allies in the Asia-indo-Pacific counter Chinese malign activities which may increase due to perceived opportunities of due US distraction?

Commentary: China’s foreign policy calculus goes beyond the current White House occupant

channelnewsasia.com

Lyle Morris

19 Jan 2026 06:00AM

(Updated: 19 Jan 2026 05:32PM)

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/china-us-venezuela-taiwan-foreign-policy-5863831

ARLINGTON, Virginia: The policy challenges China faces in 2026 already run deep: from a stagnating economy, societal discontent and youth unemployment at home, to worsening ties with Japan, South China Sea tensions and a leader in Taiwan it considers a troublemaker – and to top it all off, of course, the sprawling nature of United States-China competition.

Add to that the US’ recent audacious capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and ambitious plans to control Venezuelan oil (of which China is the biggest buyer) and US President Donald Trump’s fixation of needing Greenland to counter China. From Beijing’s perspective, there are plenty of potential landmines primed to knock long-term plans off course.

But issues are never treated in isolation in Beijing. Politics, economics, society and foreign policy are interlinked and exert influence in mutually reinforcing ways.

Given the interactive nature of these issues, how will President Xi Jinping approach foreign policy in 2026 and beyond, considering significant domestic challenges? How does Beijing view the balance of power between China and the United States, and how might this perception impact US-China relations and regional security?

SPLIT SIGNALS IN NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY

A second Trump presidency was a scenario Beijing prepared for. His administration’s National Security Strategy (NSS), released in December 2025, offers more information that will influence Beijing’s calculus on US-China relations.

Most striking were the split signals on China regarding trade and defence.

On trade, Mr Trump struck a much more conciliatory, softer tone about rebalancing the economic relationship, “prioritising reciprocity and fairness to restore American economic independence”, adding that “trade with China should be balanced and focused on non-sensitive factors”.

It also highlights a new approach to China, including an intent to pursue a “mutually advantageous economic relationship with China,” despite rhetoric elsewhere in the document highlighting China’s unfair trade practices.

The 2025 strategy was more muted, compared to the 2017 NSS during Mr Trump’s first term, which labelled China a “revisionist” power bent on reshaping the world in ways “antithetical” to US interests.

When coupled with rhetoric on pursuing a “mutually advantageous” economic relationship with Beijing, Mr Trump seems to be opening the door for new economic opportunities with China that did not exist under his predecessor Joe Biden.

But if there was any hope in Beijing that Mr Trump might be softening his approach to China in the military domain, the NSS put those hopes to rest.

On Taiwan, the document noted that deterring any conflict over the island China sees as its own is a priority. On the South China Sea, it stated that “strong measures must be developed along with the deterrence necessary to keep those lanes open, free of ‘tolls,’ and not subject to arbitrary closure by one country”.

The NSS laid out a new, stark vision for the US’ role in the world, injecting an “America First” ideology and a renewed emphasis on the Western Hemisphere.

THE VIEW FROM BEIJING

But China always thinks beyond the current person in the White House. While changes in US national security strategy undoubtedly influence China’s thinking, they do not always lead to wholesale shifts in perceptions.

So, how the NSS shapes Beijing’s thinking on the balance of power and foreign policy should be considered within a larger and longer narrative.

The notion that “the East is rising and the West is declining” (东升西降) has become embedded in some parts of China’s strategic discourse, as my colleagues examined in the Asia Society’s China 2026 report, published by the Center for China Analysis. While not uniformly held, Beijing believes that time is on its side, that the US will face divisions domestically and with allies and that China may well outpace the United States in comprehensive power.

Still, how it perceives the power balance shifting is one of the key elements in understanding whether China will adopt an increasingly assertive foreign policy approach in 2026.

Should Beijing remain convinced that China is rising while the United States is in terminal decline (as some in Beijing believe), China may respond aggressively to efforts to curb its global influence. It could intensify political outreach and economic diplomacy in areas like the Global South. China might also look for opportunities to exploit frictions between the US and its allies.

But it should not be forgotten that Mr Xi likely prioritises domestic issues, such as regional development and political governance, over expansive foreign policy, especially if China continues to face economic headwinds. Thus, even if a consensus over US power being in decline is reached, that does not mean that he will invariably become more risk-tolerant on the world stage.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG

If the above conclusion holds true, China will likely consolidate its regional influence in the Indo-Pacific while stopping short of triggering direct, large-scale conflict with the US.

Beijing is keenly aware of US comprehensive national power and military might. It will likely seek to control escalation and not risk destabilising of the overall relationship.

Persistent frictions between the Trump administration and its allies will be viewed as the hollowing out of what was long considered to be “iron-clad” US alliance partnerships in Asia and Europe. The NSS is case in point, harshly criticising NATO and the EU for failing to increase their defence budgets and not pulling their collective alliance weight.

This will likely embolden China to quietly advance its interests using grey-zone tactics at the expense of the US and its allies. This could include continued harassment of Philippine vessels and intensified naval patrols in the South China Sea and military coercion targeting Taiwan. Beijing is increasingly confident that its vast toolkit of grey-zone tactics is sufficient to deter Taiwan’s president Lai Ching-te from crossing Beijing’s “red lines”.

The American strike on Venezuela is unlikely to fundamentally alter its foreign policy. If anything, the event provides China with an opportunity to portray the US as a global hegemon that flouts international legal norms.

Going forward, the key long-term risk lies in mutual miscalculation. If Beijing overestimates US weakness, or Washington overreacts to perceived Chinese aggression, flashpoints in the relationship risk tipping into confrontation.

Lyle Morris is Senior Fellow on Foreign Policy and National Security at Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis. This analysis draws on the China 2026: What to Watch report issued by the Center for China Analysis at Asia Society Policy Institute.

7. Cherry-picking influence: Why China is cautious about filling gaps left by US global retreat

​Summary:

China is not rushing to replace the US in global institutions after Washington’s retreat from 66 bodies. Beijing is instead cherry-picking arenas where influence can grow gradually, costs are shared, and political risk is limited. It is likely to deepen roles in development, climate governance, and international law, and exploit gaps in Pacific and Asian regional forums, while avoiding highly politicised security leadership. Domestic economic pressures and regime-stability concerns constrain overreach ahead of the 2027 Party Congress. Beijing’s preferred outcome is a fragmented, multipolar order where developing states gain voice and no single power dominates, rather than a China-centric hegemony.

Comment: Xi is selectively placing his stones on the Go/Wei Chi/Baduk board (as you can see it amazes me to see how this board game continues to apply to geostrategic problems around the world - the world is a Go board). 

How will China’s cautious “selective engagement” strategy affect smaller and middle powers that relied on US leadership for protection and agenda-setting?

In which domains does a more multipolar, fragmented rules system most increase the risk of coercion or norm erosion by powerful states?

What adjustments should the US and its allies make in specific institutions (law, climate, maritime security) to prevent quiet norm capture while it must now accommodate a larger Chinese role left by a US vacuum?

Cherry-picking influence: Why China is cautious about filling gaps left by US global retreat

channelnewsasia.com

As Washington withdraws from 66 global institutions, China is expected to step up selectively rather than seek to replace the US as a new centre of authority, analysts say.

Lee Gim Siong

19 Jan 2026 06:00AM

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/us-withdrawal-international-organisations-china-strategy-analysis-5864236

BEIJING: Washington’s retreat from 66 global organisations may have created openings across global governance but Beijing is unlikely to rush in to take its place, analysts say.

Instead, it is more likely to pursue a cautious strategy - stepping up where influence can be gained gradually, interests align and costs remain manageable, while steering clear of roles that bring political risk or heavy obligations in the year ahead.

This cautious approach reflects Beijing’s assessment of costs and risks, experts add, as it seeks to avoid high-profile leadership roles that invite scrutiny or binding commitments - all while managing economic pressures and safeguarding political stability ahead of the Communist Party’s 21st Congress in 2027.

United States President Donald Trump signed a proclamation on Jan 7, withdrawing the US from 35 non-United Nations (UN) organisations and 31 UN entities because they promoted “radical climate policies, global governance, and ideological programmes that conflicted with US sovereignty and economic ⁠strength”.

These include the Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF), International Energy Forum (IEF), the World Health Organisation (WHO), UN Peacebuilding Fund and the UN International Trade Centre.

A US retreat “widens China’s lane in development and capacity-building bodies such as UN DESA (Department of Economic and Social Affairs) … where agenda-setting, training, and technical assistance shape Global South policy preferences”, said Jonathan Ping, an associate professor at Bond University in Gold Coast, Australia.

Ping noted that these platforms “align closely with China’s Global Development Initiative, reinforcing South-South cooperation narratives and normalising Chinese development models”.

Others have cautioned against overstating China’s capacity or appetite.

“The China of today is not the PRC of ten years ago”, said political scientist Chong Ja Ian, also an associate professor at the National University of Singapore (NUS), noting it is “far less flush with money that it can throw around”.

While engagement can yield diplomatic and strategic gains, it can also “bring backlash” when projects go wrong, Chong said. “And they sometimes do.”

This mix of opportunity and restraint helps explain why China is more likely to cherry-pick its engagements than seek to lead across the board, experts added.

WHERE BEIJING COULD STEP UP

Rather than filling gaps left by the US, China is more likely to increase its influence in selected institutions, experts said.

An area where the impact could be most consequential is international law.

In particular, the International Law Commission (ILC), a UN body of experts responsible for helping develop and codify international law, stands out, said Chong of NUS - because its draft texts often “become the basis for new treaties”.

With the US stepping back, countries such as China and Russia may find it easier to advance interpretations of international law that better serve their interests, Chong said.

While not inherently positive or negative, fewer restraints on major powers could leave middle and smaller states more exposed to pressure, Chong added.

Singapore’s former foreign minister George Yeo said that the US pullback from global institutions would accelerate the emergence of a more fragmented, multipolar world.

In an interview with Shanghai digital news outlet The Paper that was published on Jan 9, Yeo said Washington’s withdrawal was a sign that “a multipolar world is quickly forming and becoming clearer”.

As global power becomes more diffused, regions and major players will be forced to find new balances - from Europe’s relationship with Russia to stability across Asia - while the UN itself will need to adapt to a changing global distribution of power, Yeo said.

Singapore’s former foreign minister George Yeo said the US pullback from global institutions is accelerating shifts in the international order. (Photo: TODAY/Ooi Boon Keong)

Climate governance is another area where Beijing could gain ground.

A US retreat from key UN climate institutions creates space for China to shape agendas around implementation norms, green finance and technology standards, said Bond University’s Ping.

China’s position as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and a dominant clean-energy manufacturer, gives it practical leverage, Ping added - allowing it to influence timelines, metrics and South-South cooperation frameworks - which focus on collaboration, financing and technology sharing among developing countries.

But at the same time, Beijing’s influence is constrained by mistrust from advanced economies, as well as its reluctance to accept binding commitments, and competing centres of power such as the European Union, climate-vulnerable coalitions and private-sector standard-setters - making a fragmented, multipolar outcome more likely than a China-led order, Ping said.

Within Asia, the US withdrawals could also open narrower but strategically important lanes, he added.

Washington’s exit from two bodies - the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) and the ReCAAP agreement - risks ceding agenda-setting in Pacific environmental governance and maritime security coordination, said Ping.

SPREP is an intergovernmental organisation based in Samoa charged with protecting and managing the environment and natural resources of the Pacific, while ReCAAP is the first regional multilateral agreement to promote and enhance cooperation against piracy and armed robbery against ships in Asia.

In the Pacific, funding gaps could increase reliance on Chinese climate finance and infrastructure-linked adaptation projects, Ping said.

In maritime Southeast Asia, weakened ReCAAP capacity may open space for Chinese-backed information sharing, training and patrol cooperation framed as capacity-building.

Any Chinese role, he added, would likely lean toward bilateral assistance and technical missions rather than overt multilateral leadership.

From Beijing’s perspective, these choices reflect a deliberate calculus rather than opportunism.

Sun Chenghao, a fellow at Tsinghua University’s Centre for International Security and Strategy, told CNA that China tends to assess multilateral engagement not in terms of high risk or low return, but based on controllability, institutional fairness and alignment with its developmental stage.

Areas that provide public goods, expand shared interests and enhance the voice of developing nations - such as development, infrastructure, public health, food security and selected climate cooperation initiatives - are seen as more attractive.

By contrast, highly security-sensitive and politicised domains are viewed as more likely to generate uncertainty.

CHERRY-PICKING OVER LEADERSHIP

China’s response is guided less by the sheer scale of the US pullback than by whether influence can be exercised gradually, responsibilities shared, and outcomes aligned with Beijing’s development-first priorities - without exposing itself to disproportionate costs or political risk, observed analysts.

That calculus helps explain why China is wary of stepping into high-profile leadership roles that carry heavy expectations or a high risk of blowback.

Even well-supported development projects can backfire, Chong said, also noting that “UN agencies, funders, and even the PRC have all supported development projects that have fallen through, resulting in harms locally and backlash”.

He cited numerous examples - ranging from the World Bank-backed Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline to labour disputes at Chinese-invested mines in Zambia, as well as the troubled Kajaki Dam project supported by the US in Afghanistan.

Such cases underline how involvement “can bring benefits in terms of cooperation” and also “backlash when projects go wrong”, Chong said.

Similar trade-offs loom in security and cyber cooperation, where leadership often comes with heightened scrutiny.

The withdrawal of US support weakens counterterrorism coordination by reducing “intelligence-sharing, training, and funding for capacity-building in fragile states”, said Ping - and could create gaps where China could potentially fill through UN programmes, regional forums or bilateral assistance.

But this can come at a cost - “increased reliance on Chinese systems, reduced transparency, and the diffusion of security practices that prioritise regime stability over civil liberties”.

From Beijing’s perspective, this reinforces the appeal of selective engagement rather than sweeping leadership.

The main draw lies in enhancing China’s institutional influence when “governance vacuums, rule instability, or insufficient public goods provision emerge”, allowing Beijing to steer agendas closer to developing countries’ concerns while avoiding being drawn into bloc confrontation, said Sun of Tsinghua University.

What China seeks, he added, is not unlimited responsibility but to shape outcomes through cooperation, “avoiding the instrumentalisation of global mechanisms by a minority of nations”.

This helps explain why China is likely to be selective about where it steps in, focusing on areas where engagement is seen as sustainable, while remaining cautious about assuming leadership roles that carry broader political, financial or reputational implications, said Sun.

CONSTRAINTS AT HOME

Analysts believe China’s selective approach to global engagement is tied to pressures at home, where economic management and political stability are taking precedence in the coming year over expansive global commitments.

With youth unemployment rates still a concern and spending confidence yet to fully recover, Beijing will be focused on stabilising the economy and boosting domestic consumption this year as it embarks on the 15th Five-Year Plan.

Domestic priorities loom especially large ahead of the Communist Party’s 21st Congress in 2027, a politically-sensitive milestone when leadership continuity and social stability will be closely watched.

The 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) convenes its fourth plenary session in Beijing on Thursday, Oct 23, 2025. (Photo: Xinhua via AP/Ding Haitao)

“Domestic priorities - enhancing economic growth quality, managing employment and social expectations, and safeguarding political stability - inevitably elevate the opportunity cost of external commitments”, said Sun of Tsinghua University.

But it will not mean that China is retreating from the international stage altogether.

Instead, emphasis will be on areas where domestic and external interests overlap, Sun added.

“The key lies in delivering public goods where domestic objectives align with external benefits,” he said, pointing to development cooperation, infrastructure connectivity, public health, disaster relief, selective climate and energy initiatives, peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance.

Such engagement, he added, allows China to contribute internationally without overextending itself.

To manage costs and risks, Beijing is also expected to place greater weight on multilateral channels that diffuse responsibility.

China is likely to prioritise “amplifying the efficiency of its contributions through multilateral platforms”, said Sun - particularly through the UN and broadly participatory mechanisms, in order to share burdens rather than assume them alone.

Ping noted that greater involvement can bring trade-offs, including “debt sustainability concerns, perceptions of politicised assistance, and resistance from recipient states seeking strategic autonomy”.

Overreach risks backlash, he added, particularly if Chinese-backed programmes are seen as “undermining transparency, local ownership, or institutional independence”.

Sun said China does assess “the manner and boundaries of its engagement”, but stressed that the starting point “is not avoidance”, rather a desire to prevent the “passive assumption of asymmetric obligations” or being drawn into politicised “traps”.

China will also be wary of filling gaps left by others that could be framed as geopolitical expansion or an institutional challenge, potentially triggering “further stigmatisation and antagonistic mobilisation”, Sun added.

As a result, Beijing is likely to operate within broad multilateral frameworks such as the UN, where responsibilities are shared through established rules and procedures.

“China is not reluctant to shoulder responsibilities,” Sun said, but emphasised that shared responsibility, contribution according to capacity, and adherence to equitable rules reflect a broader concern that global governance should not become a mechanism for a small number of countries to shift costs onto others.

A MULTIPOLAR WORLD, NOT A VACUUM

Chinese leaders have recently repeatedly framed global change through a more multipolar lens, one which sees international players moving away from US dominance towards a more globally-dispersed distribution of power.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has used platforms like meetings linked to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), to call for a world marked by “greater balance”.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has also warned against what Beijing sees as the politicisation and instrumentalisation of international institutions by “a small number of countries”.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tianjin on Sep 1, 2025. (Photo: Sputnik/Alexander Kazakov/Pool via Reuters)…

For analysts, that rhetoric offers important clues to how China views the US retreat from global bodies.

Rather than seeking to replace Washington as a new centre of authority, Beijing appears more interested in reshaping the environment in which power is exercised, they said.

China’s emphasis on multipolarity is not about establishing a new hierarchy, but about promoting a more decentralised form of governance that expands the voice of developing countries, said Sun.

This means encouraging broader participation in agenda-setting and rule-making, he said.

At the same time, analysts caution that a more multipolar system might not necessarily produce consensus or stability.

With the US stepping back, China could “have an easier time pushing norms that favour less restraint on state behaviour”, said Chong of NUS - also adding that opposition does not disappear simply because Washington is absent.

“Other states may find reason to oppose or seek demands as well,” Chong said, adding that most international organisations still operate on principles of formal equality - meaning even a louder Chinese voice does not translate into uncontested control.

US pullback is likely to accelerate a shift towards a more contested and uneven global order, analysts said, one which sees China taking on a larger role in some areas, but stopping short of assuming the kind of sweeping leadership once exercised by Washington.

In that sense, Beijing’s vision of multipolarity may be less about filling a vacuum, and more about ensuring no single power dominates it.

channelnewsasia.com

8. Taiwan says Chinese drone made 'provocative' flight over South China Sea island

​Summary:

China flew a reconnaissance drone into airspace over Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands in the South China Sea, loitering eight minutes at high altitude before departing after radio warnings. Taipei condemned the “provocative and irresponsible” incursion as a violation of international norms, vowed heightened vigilance, while Beijing dismissed it as routine training.

Comment: Just one of many malign activities in the gray zone that could escalate to conflict.

Taiwan says Chinese drone made 'provocative' flight over South China Sea island

Taiwan's defence ministry said the Chinese reconnaissance drone was detected around dawn on Saturday approaching the Pratas Islands and flew in its airspace for eight minutes at an altitude outside the range of anti-aircraft weapons.

17 Jan 2026 06:06PM

(Updated: 17 Jan 2026 06:35PM)

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/china-drone-taiwan-south-china-sea-5865481

Chinese and Taiwanese flags are seen in this illustration. (File photo: Reuters/Dado Ruvic)

TAIPEI: A Chinese reconnaissance drone briefly flew over the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands at the top ⁠end of the South China Sea on Saturday (Jan 17), in what Taiwan's defence ministry called a "provocative and irresponsible" move.

Democratically governed Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, reports Chinese military activity around it on an almost daily basis, including drones though they very rarely enter ‍Taiwanese airspace.

Taiwan's defence ministry ⁠said ‍the Chinese reconnaissance drone was detected around dawn on Saturday approaching the Pratas Islands and flew in its airspace for eight ⁠minutes at an altitude outside the range of anti-aircraft weapons.

"After our side broadcast warnings on ‍international channels, it departed at 0548," it said in a statement.

"Such highly provocative and irresponsible actions by the People's Liberation Army seriously undermine regional peace and stability, violated international legal norms, and will inevitably be condemned," it added.

Taiwan's armed forces will continue to maintain strict vigilance and monitoring, and will respond in accordance with the routine ‌combat readiness rules, the ministry said. 

A spokesperson for China's Southern Theatre Command said that drones had conducted "normal flight training" ‍in ‌the airspace, in a statement on its official WeChat account.

China also views the Pratas as its own territory.

In 2022, Taiwan's military for the first time shot down an unidentified civilian drone that entered its airspace near an islet off the Chinese coast controlled by Taiwan.

Lying roughly ‌between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance - more than 400km - from mainland Taiwan.

The Pratas, an atoll which is also a Taiwanese national park, are only lightly defended by Taiwan's military, but lie at a highly strategic location at the top end of the disputed South China Sea.

9. Taiwan’s Response to “Justice Mission-2025”

​Summary:

Taiwan treated “Justice Mission-2025” less as a kinetic crisis and more as a cognitive one. The MND, Coast Guard, and Presidential Office moved fast to frame the drills as coercion, raise readiness, and dominate the information space with real-time data, maps, and clarified rules of engagement. They stressed “no escalation, no provocation,” debunked blockade and drone rumors, and explained warning protocols and reservist call-ups to blunt panic and PRC psychological warfare. Yet the exercises exposed shortened PLA warning timelines, heavy air and maritime pressure, and deep partisan division over a stalled US$39.8 billion defense budget that could undercut deterrence.

Comment: Can Taiwan sustain an information-dominance strategy if domestic polarization repeatedly blocks the defense investments needed to back its narrative with credible hard power?

 At what point do ever more “routine” PLA rehearsals normalize crisis conditions and erode public sensitivity, making it easier for Beijing to mask a real attack inside one more “exercise”?

Sustained exercises create a new normal that could instill complacency and silence those who offer warnings calling them "chicken little" and eventually become the prelude to an actual large scale military operation. 

Then again sustained exercises can contribute to political friction among allies and domestic political instability which support the subversion activities of unrestricted warfare and the three warfares. This could make an invasion unnecessary (this would be the Chinese hope) by creating the internal political conditions that lead to reunification by coercion.

Taiwan’s Response to “Justice Mission-2025” - Taiwan Security Monitor

tsm.schar.gmu.edu · Jaime Ocon · January 16, 2026

https://tsm.schar.gmu.edu/taiwans-response-to-justice-mission-2025/

Author: Jaime Ocon

Taiwan’s response to China’s “Justice Mission-2025” was less about matching PLA moves and more about controlling the narrative and information environment. Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (MND), Coast Guard Administration (CGA), and Presidential Office moved quickly to reassure the public by framing the drills as coercive and to signal readiness through press conferences and real-time activity updates. Taiwan also tried to preempt Beijing’s psychological operations by debunking blockade claims, clarifying live-fire and warning-system protocols, and pushing back on rumors of territorial air/sea space intrusions, drones, reservist mobilization, and air and maritime safety.

Initial Responses from the Defense Ministry

On December 29, after the PLA Eastern Theater Command had announced live-fire drills, and as PLAN assets had already begun moving into position, Taiwan’s MND reported at 0950 that the ETC was conducting live-fire exercises in the waters and airspace around the Taiwan Strait.

The MND stated that in the days leading up to the drills announcement, the PLA was continuously carrying out military harassment and cognitive operations around Taiwan and the Indo‑Pacific, heightening regional tensions. These operations included China Coast Guard (CCG) ships breaching restricted waters in the outlying islands of Kinmen and PLA UAVs wrapping around the southern portion of Taiwan’s mainland.

Defense Minister Wellington Koo speaks with members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

In response to the exercises, Taiwan’s military raised its alert level, directing all personnel to maintain a “high level of vigilance,” remain fully prepared, and “act to safeguard national sovereignty and the security of the homeland.” The MND established an emergency operations center to implement rules of engagement and authorization procedures at strategic, operational, and tactical levels to monitor and, if necessary, intercept PLA activity. It was also announced that Taiwan’s armed forces would conduct “immediate combat exercises” across the country for an unspecified period.

Local media reported that Mirage-2000 fighter jets had scrambled from Hsinchu Air Base shortly thereafter, and that the MND repositioned additional assets, including F-CK-1s, F-16s, and P-3C aircraft, to Hualien Air Base. A portion of Taiwan’s F-16s were ordered to maintain a high state of readiness and were equipped with AGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missiles.

Taiwan’s Coast Guard

Shortly after the ETC announced Justice Mission-2025, Taiwan’s CGA detected four Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) vessels approaching Taiwan’s northern and eastern waters. PLA Navy (PLAN) surface combatants were also dispatched to maritime exercise zones announced by the PLA. In response, the CGA deployed its own patrol vessels and established an emergency response center to work jointly with the MND on information sharing and countermeasures.

Taiwan CG ship “Yilan” shadows Chinese Coast Guard Vessel 1303 in the distance.

Presidential Office

While the MND and CGA mobilized their operational response, Taiwan’s Presidential Office condemned the drills, calling them a “direct challenge to international law and order and a violation of international norms”.

In the statement, Taiwan’s Presidential Office said Beijing is using military intimidation to threaten neighboring countries and risks becoming a troublemaker that undermines regional peace. Taiwan continued urging China to act rationally, exercise self‑restraint, avoid misjudgment, and immediately halt irresponsible provocations.

First Images

The first images of CCG vessels came from Taiwan’s CGA, as CGA vessel Yilan intercepted CCG vessel 1303 approximately 23 nautical miles northwest of the Pengjia Islets. Another CGA vessel, the Taoyuan, trailed CCG 1306 just 30 nautical miles from Hualien, off Taiwan’s east coast. Linked here is a video of the reported activity and radio warnings from Taiwan.

Taiwanese F-16s also captured images of various PLA aircraft operating around Taiwan.

Taiwan’s MND Holds Day 1 Press Conference

At 1630 on December 29, Taiwan’s MND held an emergency press conference to provide more information on the scale and specifics of China’s large-scale exercise. The MND reported that it identified 89 PLAAF military aircraft and drones operating in the area, 67 of which entered Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), during the first seven and a half hours of the exercise. It had also tracked 18 PLAN and 14 CCG surface ships operating around Taiwan, along with a Type 075 Amphibious Assault ship and three escort vessels sailing 160 nautical miles southeast of Taiwan.

Taiwan’s MND noted that the announced exercise zones in the south, east near Taitung, west near Penghu, and north all overlapped into Taiwan’s restricted territorial waters. That said, it clarified that no PLAN or CCG vessels had entered the restricted 12 nautical mile barrier. Finally, the MND reported that although the PLA had not conducted live-fire exercises on the first day of Justice Mission-2025, it was tracking the PLA’s Rocket Forces for signs that it might conduct such drills in the coming days.

Taiwanese intelligence officers explain Chinese military movements in a press conference.

Aviation authorities reported that 857 flights and more than 100,000 travelers were affected by China’s exercises. Roughly 74 domestic flights to Kinmen and Matsu were cancelled, affecting about 6,000 passengers. Media questions prompted Taiwan’s military to admit that the transition time between China’s routine training and large-scale exercises has shortened, increasing pressure on the country.

Day 2

Taiwan’s CGA released a statement early on the second day of “Justice Mission-2025” confirming that 14 CCG vessels were still operating near Taiwan and in the restricted maritime zones near Matsu, Kinmen, Wuqiu, and Dongsha (Pratas). The CGA responded by dispatching 14 of its own vessels to designated sectors, pairing each Chinese vessel with a “one-to-one shadowing formation” to monitor and attempt to repel CCG ships.

Total PLA activity from the MND’s daily ADIZ report showed that from 0900 on December 29 to 0900 on December 30, 130 PLA aircraft and 22 naval and coast guard vessels had operated in the region. 90 of these aircraft breached the ADIZ median line, the 2nd most since China conducted its Joint Sword-2024 B exercises in October 2024.

At 1130, the MND reported that approximately two and a half hours earlier, PLA rocket artillery units in Fujian Province conducted live-fire exercises targeting the northernmost exercise zone, with impact zones scattered around Taiwan’s 24-nautical-mile line. Taiwan’s CGA later clarified that 7 PCH-191 rockets were fired into Zones 1 and 2.

Taiwan and Chinese Coast Guard ships sailing side by side in waters near Matsu.

Taiwanese Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (Gu Lixiong) reported that the military, under the President’s directive of “no escalation, no provocation,” would stay on standby and continue to monitor and intercept Chinese assets approaching Taiwan’s maritime and air domain. In a press release, Koo also stated he would remain at the Joint Operations Command Center in Taipei with senior officers to maintain full situational awareness and monitor the readiness of reconnaissance, radar, and air defense units. Taiwan’s CGA also released a statement denouncing China’s state media’s claim of a blockade of four Taiwanese ports. The CGA flagged this reporting as false information intended to mislead public opinion. It further said that all ships heading towards Taiwanese waters would be intercepted to ensure the border is protected. All normal maritime operations continued as usual.

Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te released a statement condemning the live-fire drills, stating that “the country continues to face various forms of harassment and influence operations, emphasizing that Taiwan will not escalate tensions or provoke confrontation but will act responsibly to maintain stability”. Lai criticized the Chinese Communist Party for its efforts to amplify military pressure, remarking that such behavior is unworthy of a responsible major power.

Taiwan’s MND Holds Day 2 Press Conference

Taiwan’s MND held a second-day press conference on the exercises, reporting that it had detected 27 rocket impacts in zones 1 and 3, 71 PLA aircraft (35 entering Taiwan’s ADIZ), 15 CCG ships, 13 PLA Navy ships, and one amphibious assault group consisting of a Type 075 and three additional vessels as of December 30 at 1500. The MND also stressed that it had not observed the PLA launching Dongfeng missiles; that no PLA or CCG ships entered Taiwan’s territorial waters; and that Chinese operations in the “Zone 8” off of Taiwan’s east coast had concluded by noon.

Taiwanese intel officers answer questions from the media on Day 2 of “Justice Mission-2025”

The MND also issued clarifying information regarding the two waves of live-fire rocket launches. The first salvo at 0900 comprised 17 rockets launched from Pingtan, Fujian, which landed about 70 nautical miles northeast of Keelung, outside 24 nautical miles and without overflying Taiwan. PLA units fired a second salvo of 10 rockets from Shishi, Quanzhou at approximately 0100. These rockets splashed down about 50 nautical miles southwest of Tainan. Taiwan’s military also took advantage of the press conference to clarify some grey-zone and psychological warfare concerns. It stated that reports that a Chinese drone breached territorial airspace to photograph Taipei 101 were false, noting that all drones remained outside the 24-nautical-mile limit. The clarification came after ​​Chinese outlets circulated a detailed photo of Taipei’s urban landscape and claimed it was taken by a PLA TB-001 drone, prompting online discussion. The military said that, in addition to kinetic activity, Beijing was pairing its exercises with cognitive warfare and invited people interested in photography and video editing to help analyze imagery and counter Chinese disinformation.

An alleged image captured from a Chinese TB-001 showing Taipei 101, claiming to breach Taiwan’s territorial airspace.

Taiwanese reporters also pressed the MND as to whether rocket or missile launches might trigger activation of the national emergency warning system. The MND emphasized that established protocols govern both air alerts and live-fire contingencies: if rockets or missiles pass through Taiwan’s territorial airspace, the JAOC would issue mobile alerts through the Airborne Threat Warning System. If assessments indicate that projected impact areas could endanger Taiwan or Penghu, commanders are authorized to sound air-raid sirens, issue public warnings, and order appropriate countermeasures.

Regarding reports that the MND was activating reservists, the military clarified that immediate combat readiness drills automatically activate air and naval combat units. Only ground units tasked with securing key infrastructure as well as command posts, response centers, and support elements recalled personnel, and only those needed based on preplanned structures and mission needs.

The MND emphasized that since 2022, PLA exercises have integrated cognitive warfare by combining military and non-military means to shape perceptions in Taiwan, among allies, PRC domestic audiences, and third countries with minimal cost. Examples include distributing pre-packaged and heavily edited media alongside military drills to create the illusion that certain exercises are larger than they are. Taiwan’s military reiterated that its joint Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance systems had already detected abnormal PLA movements ahead of this drill, allowing preparations before the public announcement. Even after Beijing declares an end to the exercises, Taiwan’s forces would continue monitoring deployments, training patterns, and overall posture to avoid readiness gaps. China’s ‘Justice-Mission 2025’ would conclude later that day.

National Security Bureau Conducts Review

On 1/8, about a week after China’s drills, Taiwan’s National Security Bureau (NSB) was called to submit a report to the Legislative Yuan.

Taiwan’s NSB said that China’s exercises around Taiwan were part of a campaign to counter growing international support for the island. NSB officials added that the drills could also have been an attempt to divert attention from Beijing’s economic situation. NSB officials said the drills have a clear political intent: to push back in the international arena against democratic partners’ support for Taiwan. The report also confirmed that the exercises were the most expansive to date in terms of geographic scope. The drills are part of a broader “hybrid” pressure campaign combining military intimidation and economic coercion against Taiwan,

Taiwan’s military shows a map of “Justice Mission-2025” military activity

Sentiment Among the Political Parties

Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) condemned China’s exercises and used the moment to criticize KMT chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), accusing her of prioritizing cross-strait political engagement, specifically the prospect of meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, over Taiwan’s security. Cheng argued such a meeting would be “strategically significant,” but the DPP countered that the KMT’s approach puts relations with Beijing ahead of deterrence and defense readiness.

In a separate statement, Cheng blamed China’s military pressure on what she called the Lai administration’s “wrong cross-strait policies.” She said the DPP’s confrontational posture was raising security risks while failing to deliver tangible improvements for Taiwan’s forces, including better troop conditions and compensation.

The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) also condemned the drills, arguing they do nothing to promote regional stability and instead deepen cross-strait tensions. Echoing the DPP and the Presidential Office, TPP officials urged Beijing to halt military activities they said undermine stability in the Taiwan Strait.

Members of Taiwan’s DPP protest the exclusion of a defense budget bill during a Legislative Session.

These exchanges are unfolding amid heightened domestic polarization, especially over defense spending. For the fifth time, and during the second day of “Justice Mission 2025,” opposition lawmakers blocked a proposed special defense budget of US$39.8 billion. The DPP argues the package is needed to fund new U.S. weapons, equipment, and training, while the KMT insists President Lai must brief the legislature in person before lawmakers consider the plan, arguing that a short summary is insufficient. The KMT and TPP have also advanced a motion to initiate impeachment proceedings, while the DPP accuses the opposition of using fiscal procedures in an unconstitutional way.

China’s “Justice Mission 2025” drills intensified pressure in an already fraught Taiwan security environment. The exercise, Beijing’s sixth large-scale drill of this kind since 2022, saw dozens of PLAN and PLAAF assets rapidly converge around the island and showcased an increasingly sophisticated rehearsal of Taiwan-focused operations. The key question now is whether these developments will galvanize support for passing Taiwan’s defense budget, or instead strengthen calls to dial back steps seen as likely to provoke Beijing.

tsm.schar.gmu.edu · Jaime Ocon · January 16, 2026

10.  China’s Global Fishing Offensive | U.S. House Select Committee on China

​Summary:

A House Select Committee investigation charges that China runs the world’s largest distant-water fishing fleet, about 16,000 vessels, as a state-directed tool of power. It says Beijing uses illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, forced labor, and heavy subsidies to strip global fisheries, dominate seafood processing, and shape markets. More than 80 percent of U.S. seafood imports now pass through China-centered supply chains, creating strategic dependence. The report highlights China’s maritime militia role, intelligence collection, and coercive tactics at sea, and urges a U.S. response built on expanded Coast Guard training and patrols, stronger maritime domain awareness, and a “Fish for Security” coalition.

Comment: Fishing as a major malign activity (or cover for malign activities). Who would have thought such a seemingly benign and necessary activity would be so hostile. 

China’s Global Fishing Offensive | U.S. House Select Committee on China

by SWJ Staff

|

01.18.2026 at 10:53pm

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2026/01/18/chinas-global-fishing-offensive-u-s-house-select-committee-on-china/

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

January 15, 2026

China’s Fishing Offensive: How China’s Fishing Fleet Monopolizes Food Around the World

Today, Chairman John Moolenaar (R-MI) of the Select Committee on China and Chairman Carlos Giménez (R-FL) of the House Homeland Security Committee’s Transportation and Maritime Security Subcommittee released a new investigation detailing how China is the world’s largest perpetrator of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. The investigation details how China commands the world’s largest distant-water fishing (DWF) fleet—estimated to include upwards of 16,000 vessels—and uses it to intimidate other countries, control the world’s food supply, and decimate fisheries around the world. The fleet also relies on forced labor and human rights abuses that go unchecked while China monopolizes seafood processing. More than 80 percent of U.S. seafood is imported, and much of it relies on supply chains controlled by China.

“The Select Committee has documented how numerous American industries have supply chain concerns that leave the United States vulnerable to China, and the food supply is no exception. This investigation details how the CCP turned unregulated fishing to its advantage and manipulated the world’s food supply in the process. Working with allies we can address vulnerabilities to the food supply the American people rely on and put a stop to China’s exploitation of the oceans,” said Moolenaar.

“Communist China’s fishing fleet is not a commercial enterprise; it is a weapon of the Chinese Communist Party. The CCP commands the world’s largest fishing armada like a military force, using it to strip resources from nations, exploit forced labor, destroy marine ecosystems, and dominate global seafood supply chains. The Communist Chinese strategy to monopolize food systems, while devastating economies from West Africa to Latin America, have directly impacted our national security. Our laws were written to regulate fishermen, not to confront a subsidized, state-run fleet designed to evade enforcement and project power. This investigation exposes the reality: the CCP is using seafood as a tool of coercion, and the United States must treat this threat for what it is, a direct threat to our national security and economic sovereignty,” said Giménez.

The investigation’s five core findings are:

• China developed a global system that removes distance as a limit on fishing.
• China has monopolized the processing of global seafood supplies through Chinese hubs.
• China engineered a permanent, state-supported cost advantage across all major production inputs.
• China converted seafood processing dominance in global seafood processing power.
• China manipulates global seafood markets to eliminate U.S. processing capacity and increase American dependence.

“These findings expose a deliberate, state-directed campaign by the CCP to achieve maritime dominance, monopolize food systems, and undermine the rules-based international order—constituting a direct threat to U.S. national security, economic sovereignty, and global stability,” the investigation writes.

“The United States now imports over 80 percent of its seafood, facing a deepening dependence on supply chains controlled by the PRC, the world’s largest seafood exporter with $18.5 billion in annual trade.”

The investigation details how China uses the fleet to extend state power beyond its borders: leveraging fishing access for diplomatic purposes, subordinating civilian vessels to military command, and deploying the fleet for intelligence collection. The military integration is explicit in the seas closest to China, where it maintains a state-directed maritime militia drawn from fishing vessels. Operating under the command of China’s military, these vessels feature reinforced hulls and water cannons for coercive tasks, while specialized reconnaissance elements track foreign naval activity and report to Chinese military leaders.

The investigation outlines several policy recommendations to combat the PRC’s distant water fleet, including:

• Enable allied and partner nations to detect, disrupt, and eliminate IUU fishing in their waters by authorizing and funding the United States Coast Guard (USCG) to expand training operations, targeted patrols, and international engagements.
• Increase the visibility of the ties between Chinese commercial fishing and illicit maritime activity by mandating an interagency study on the connections between Chinese commercial fishing and illegal activity and directing the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to expand maritime domain awareness and intelligence sharing.
• Require all international fishing vessels to obtain unique identifiers and empower an U.S. Interagency Working Group on IUU Fishing to lead a ‘Fish for Security’ coalition linking fisheries governance and maritime stability.

Read the full investigation here.

Tags: China, Committee on Homeland Security, House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, Illegal Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing, Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Strategic Competition, SWJ Documents and Reports, Transportation and Maritime Security Subcommittee of the House Committee on Homeland Security

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11. How Iran’s regime retook the streets

​Summary:

Iran’s latest uprising surged from economic anger into open revolt against clerical rule, only to be crushed by a coordinated regime counteroffensive. Once Reza Pahlavi’s call brought mass crowds to the streets, the state severed internet links, unleashed lethal force, and pushed a narrative of “terrorists” and foreign plots. Security forces fired into unarmed protesters, carried out mass arrests, and flooded state media with televised confessions. Confusion over armed agitators and outside meddling helped Tehran recast revolution as chaos. The result is a grim pause, not an end, in a recurring cycle of protest, repression, and unresolved structural crisis.

Comment: What can we learn from this?

How can Iran’s opposition learn from this “Tiananmen moment” to build more resilient, decentralized resistance that cannot be isolated, decapitated, and reframed as foreign backed riots in a single decisive crackdown?

Given that loud promises of “help on the way” may fuel regime propaganda and false hopes among protesters, what mix of quiet support for secure communications, targeted sanctions, and multilateral pressure could aid Iranian civil resistance without handing Tehran an easy narrative of American engineered revolution?

And given the above are we going to simply wait until the next time? Or are we going to do the necessary work (e.g., preparation of the environment) to help the oppressed to free themselves? (do we have sufficient understanding of resistance and revolution and the application of basic unconventional warfare principles to help those who seek self-determination of government?)

How Iran’s regime retook the streets

Financial Times · Mehul Srivastava

Details emerge of unprecedented crackdown, raising questions over future of protest movement

Mehul Srivastava and Najmeh Bozorgmehr in London

PublishedJan 16 2026

UpdatedJan 16 2026, 11:31

https://www.ft.com/content/d1848379-0bc0-453a-a748-b02f8ea1b3f0

The images that trickled out of Iran showed a country gripped by chaos: tens if not hundreds of thousands of protesters; body bags laid outside morgues; gunfire ringing in the streets.

The unrest appeared last week to have such momentum that the Islamic republic’s foes speculated that the regime was near collapse and its supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was plotting an Assad-style escape.

But just days later, Iranians reached over sputtering phone lines and secret satellite internet connections, along with international observers, say the protests appear to have faded.

With little reliable information escaping Iran’s internet curbs, and misinformation flooding into the gap, establishing exactly what happened across a nation of 90mn is nearly impossible.

But in phone interviews, smuggled messages from encrypted communications set up by activists and stark testimonies collected by human rights activists, a bleak picture is emerging.

They depict a bitter national convulsion as protesters, armed agitators and the authoritarian government’s security forces battled each other for control of the streets. They provide some details of a violent, far-reaching response by the regime, an unprecedented crackdown that could prove akin to the Islamic republic’s own Tiananmen Square moment.

They also show a precarious moment of great anticipation, “that the US and Israel will be taking some sort of action”, said one resident.

The protests were rooted in economic anguish, starting in late December as traders in central Tehran closed their shops in anger at the Iranian currency’s precipitous collapse and high inflation.

But they quickly spiralled into a much broader movement against the regime itself, with chants of “death to Khamenei” and “death to the dictator” echoing in towns and cities around the country.

The regime’s initial response — at least by its own brutal standards — appeared restrained, as officials sought to appease the demonstrators’ economic concerns.

“In the first few days, the numbers were growing, but there wasn’t an atmosphere of fear,” said one history professor, speaking through a Starlink connection. After the government asked colleges and universities to cancel classes in early January, the professor’s students joined the protests.

“I did not see any violence — not from our side, not from the government,” they said.

That changed at 8pm on Thursday January 8, when mass crowds appeared to flood the streets in response to a call by Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the Shah deposed in the 1979 revolution that brought the Islamic republic to power.

Immediately, the regime cut off the internet and international phone calls. With Iranians isolated from the outside world, the crackdown began, according to witnesses, videos leaked online and human rights groups.

Amnesty International said security forces used residential buildings, mosques and police stations to fire live ammunition at unarmed protesters, “targeting . . . their heads and torsos”. Three people, all speaking via voice notes shared by internet freedom activists, corroborated that account.

“You could hear gunshots at night, people screaming in fear,” said one woman, who said she scurried home soon after sunset and refused to let her daughter out on the streets.

On Friday, Human Rights Watch said thousands of protesters and bystanders were believed to have been killed by the regime, pointing to a large-scale, nationwide crackdown. The rights group said it had counted hundreds of body bags at one morgue alone, and had verified footage of protests in 27 of Iran’s 31 provinces.

Bahar Saba, senior Iran researcher at HRW, said the ongoing internet shutdown, militarised climate and the harassment and persecution of families of those killed meant the true scale of atrocities remained unknown.

“We have been documenting Iranian authorities’ lethal crackdown on protests for years now, where security forces have used unlawful lethal force, killing and injuring protesters and bystanders,” she said.

“But even in the context of Iran, where authorities’ bloodshed during successive rounds of protests has been well documented, this scale of killings is unprecedented.”

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Cars on fire, people protesting in the street and gunshots in Tehran on January 8

Gunshots fill the air as people in Tehran protest on January 8 © Reuters

Mohammad Ali Abtahi, Iran’s former reformist vice-president, said battles had taken place between armed opposition and security forces. The government drew a distinction between what it characterised as violent rioters and peaceful demonstrators.

Testimonies from the scenes of the unrest — some spoken directly to the FT, in addition to those smuggled out through intermediaries — reveal a muddied account of the turmoil itself, in which agitators mingled with genuine protesters. Clashes claimed the lives not just of unarmed citizens who formed part of the leaderless crowds, but of well-equipped security personnel.

“There were groups of men in black clothes, agile and quick,” said one demonstrator in Tehran. “They would set one dustbin on fire and then quickly move to the next target.”

Another witness in western Tehran told the FT he saw about a dozen fit men, “looking like commandos”, dressed in similar black clothing, running through the area and calling on people to leave their homes and join the protests.

“They were definitely organised, but I don’t know who was behind them,” he said.

The regime was quick to portray the protests as engineered by foreign powers, planned in advance and fuelled by traitors, paid by Israel. Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, told his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Friday that “it is evident that the US and the Zionist regime had a direct role” in the unrest.

Western sympathy for Pahlavi, who is based in the US, and the public celebration by Israeli and American politicians, added to a counter-narrative that the protest movement had been hijacked by enemies of Iran.

US President Donald Trump urged protesters to continue and promised that “help is on the way” — an intervention that some Iranian analysts and western diplomats said convinced some demonstrators the US was preparing to overthrow the regime.

But having itself risen to power through street revolts in the waves of unrest that led up to the 1979 revolution — and with deep experience putting down previous protests — the regime “has a systematic strategy to encircle and fatigue the protest movement”, said Sanam Vakil, the director of Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.

“These are protests that the regime can manage, and they are really effective at creating the narrative that the protests are violent, that they are more like riots or vandalism.”

Protesters lit fires and gathered in the streets of Tehran before the crackdown © Getty Images

By Saturday, the regime could no longer hide evidence of its crackdown.

Iran’s state television broadcast images of rows of bodies in a morgue in southern Tehran, and Amnesty International counted 205 body bags from five other videos, shot by distraught family members searching for their loved ones.

“Everybody said they knew somebody who had lost a family member,” said the second person reached via Starlink.

Iranian officials said hundreds of police and security personnel were among those killed, some allegedly beheaded or burned, with foreign minister Abbas Araghchi describing the unrest as “day 13” of Israel’s 12-day war against Iran in June.

“This operation had been planned for years, and terrorist cells were activated,” said an Iranian official. “They carried out acts of violence against police, protesters and health workers.”

A third person reached through Starlink, a pharmacist ordered by his boss to make sure he went to work every day, said the confusion had only helped the regime.

“I am scared. My entire family is scared,” he said, according to a transcript of a voice message shared by an internet rights activist. “I believe only what my family and friends tell me, nothing else.”

Body bags lie on the floor as people search for their loved ones in Tehran © UGC/AFP/Getty Images

There were also mass arrests. Tasnim News Agency, which is affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, reported on Friday that “security officials have announced that 3,000 members of terrorist groups and individuals who played a role in the riots have been arrested”.

The agency did not specify what groups were involved. Iranian authorities frequently label ethnic groups in border provinces, foreign-based opposition groups and the exiled Mojahedin-e Khalq — an organisation with a history of armed struggle against the Islamic Republic — as “terrorists”.

Iranian state media has also aired televised “confessions” by some Iranian nationals claiming they were recruited by Israel to carry out operations within Iran and were paid in cash or cryptocurrency.

Following the protests, a witness in Tehran described a “dead and suffocating” atmosphere. “After the extremely brutal massacre, people are now busy searching for the bodies of their loved ones or trying to get their wounded treated,” the person said.

Now, as diplomatic manoeuvrings take the place of street protests, many ordinary Iranians remain cut off from the outside world, including the news that Trump and the Iranian government are engaged in indirect negotiations on issues such as potential executions of demonstrators.

In the past, street protests have taken on an ebb and flow of euphoria and exhaustion. The 1979 revolution that toppled the Shah took more than a year to crest, with waves of unrest punctuated by weeks of deceptive tranquillity.

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Vakil said the regime itself was capable of some reform. But she noted that the underlying problems that propelled the discontent remained. Iran’s economy continues to suffer under US sanctions, endemic corruption and the cost of its regional rivalry with wealthy, US-backed Israel.

“At the end of the day, there are certain truths and uncertainties about this specific protest,” Vakil said. “But what we do know is that protests in Iran are growing, and it is inevitable that they will return.”

She added: “We can’t tell you what will trigger them, but something will.”

Cartography by Aditi Bhandari

Financial Times · Mehul Srivastava

12. GenAI.mil – Making the Best of Us Better and the Worst of Us Worse

​Summary:

The Pentagon’s new GenAI.mil platform promises efficiency, but it will magnify both strengths and weaknesses in the force. Large language models can clean up bad writing, draft routine paperwork, and speed analysis. They can also flood commanders with “workslop,” hide hallucinations, and tempt leaders to outsource counseling, performance reviews, and even personal decisions to flattering chatbots. Overstretched officers may treat AI as clerk, staff, and therapist, deepening loneliness and bias while eroding trust in human leadership. Because LLMs require subject mastery and careful prompting, untrained users risk security breaches, bad advice, and shallow thinking. AI cannot replace judgment, character, or command responsibility.

Excerpts:

There are plenty of hyperbolic statements about AI. Somewhere between the dystopian vision of Terminator’s Skynet and the utopian belief that ChatGPT might cure cancer next week is the banal reality that artificial intelligence tools replicate human beings with all their flaws. They have the capacity to turn great work into exceptional work. They can also perpetuate laziness and out-of-touch leadership.

In short, it makes the best of us better. And the worst of us worse. And that’s the boring future we live in.

Comment: The conclusion above is a cautionary note and probably the most important words I have read about AI.

GenAI.mil – Making the Best of Us Better and the Worst of Us Worse

by Crispin Burke

|

01.19.2026 at 06:00am

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2026/01/19/genai/

Recently, the Defense Department launched Google Cloud’s Gemini for Government as the first of many programs comprising the Pentagon’s new Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform, GenAI.mil. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrote that “AI tools present boundless opportunities to increase efficiency, and we are thrilled to witness AI’s future positive impact across the War Department.”

AI can be a powerful productivity tool. Secretary Hegseth offered examples ranging from drafting correspondence to analyzing drone footage. Outside the military, large language models (LLMs) and other AI tools take notes during meetings, transcribe speech, and serve as all-purpose assistants.

But as any AI user will tell you, the technology is hardly flawless. In 2023, a judge sanctioned a pair of New York lawyers after discovering the two had cited fake court cases, thanks to a ChatGPT hallucination. Several companies have also seen employees feed sensitive customer and proprietary data to AI applications, resulting in security violations. And who among us hasn’t seen social media flooded with garbage content ranging from AI influencers to Shrimp Jesus. It’s become so ubiquitous that one dictionary named “AI slop” as its Word of the Year for 2025.

As the military begins adopting AI tools into its daily workflows, it’s worth watching how the private sector handles this technology. Despite promises from the tech industry, most businesses simply are not seeing a return on investment from AI technology. Others bemoan that a deluge of AI-generated “workslop” only creates more work for managers who must correct poor products. A study from AI company Anthropic found that many employees hide their use of AI at work. Some respondents claimed they brushed their AI use under the rug for fear of being replaced entirely by AI, while others admitted to using AI to complete routine tasks quickly and spending the rest of the time zoning out at work.

Like workers everywhere, the military will have to adapt to this new technology in its everyday life. However, large language models (LLMs) have several shortcomings that could adversely affect military leadership and organizational culture. Organizations can mitigate these challenges through thorough training on Large Language Models, a deceptively simple technology that requires immense effort to master.

A Brief Note on Artificial Intelligence

Google search results for the term “AI” exploded tenfold following the public release of ChatGPT in November 2022. But although AI has rapidly spread into our daily lives, few understand what this technology truly is. Although there is no formal, established definition for “artificial intelligence”, the term generally applies to technologies that mimic many human functions, including decision-making and content creation. One popular form of artificial intelligence is a large language model, a type of Generative AI that can mimic human writing patterns by training on large amounts of text. The most famous, of course, is OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Others include Google’s Gemini (now part of the DOD’s GenAI.mil suite), X’s Grok, Anthropic’s Claude, and Meta’s Llama. Although there are many forms of AI, many of which will undoubtedly have military applications, this article will focus on LLMs.

AI is Not a Replacement for Leadership

A quick Google search shows that leaders across the Armed Forces are using ChatGPT and other LLMs to help them write evaluations, awards, counseling statements, and memos. Indeed, it is tempting to use LLMs for personnel actions. These are often tedious and can take up an inordinate amount of time.

Large Language Models excel at proofreading and cleaning up language in administrative documents. Let’s face it, Army writing was bad to begin with, and it’s only gotten worse with lapses in American education and the military’s over-reliance on PowerPoint bullets. And unlike the old days when specially trained clerks produced much of the Army’s correspondence, we’ve given everyone a laptop and expect them to write like Hemingway.

Not to mention, it’s tempting to outsource personnel actions to AI because there simply isn’t enough time to keep up with all the work the military expects of service members. Counseling, awards, evaluations, and other personnel actions are often the first items leaders push off their plates when they get overwhelmed.

We’ve all seen the results. Awards and evaluations are often late. Although few will admit to the practice, many leaders copy and paste achievements from one award or evaluation into another. (I know this because my first PCS award in the Army – mailed to me two years late – was clearly an award written for another officer several years ago with my name substituted in his place) A landmark study from 2015 also found that many leaders do not conduct their required quarterly counseling with their subordinates, instead fabricating dates for it.

Many private-sector managers have begun using AI to help them draft performance reviews, and not just because the process is faster. Managers can offload the emotional burden of providing honest feedback to employees onto chatbots.

A recent episode of the satirical cartoon “South Park” shows just how problematic outsourcing human interaction to LLMs can be. In the episode “Deep Learning”, the students show little remorse about using ChatGPT to write essays. Likewise, their teacher did not feel guilty about using the program to grade students’ AI-generated homework. The real kicker, however, was when the boys used chatbots to have emotional conversations with their girlfriends. Indeed, the practice of using ChatGPT to engage with women on dating apps, as well as the disappointment when a man struggles to make small talk in real life, has become so pervasive that there’s even a term for it – “Chatfishing“. (One woman was wary of the practice because, claiming she’d been “chatfished” into bed already once before. Truly, we live in dystopian times.)

Put yourself on the other side of AI-generated counseling. How much faith would you have in AI-generated feedback, even if it were completely correct? It’s safe to say that some subordinates would simply prefer no feedback to AI feedback, even if the content was valid. Not to mention, AI use in performance reviews is a liability nightmare. Who’s looking forward to IG complaints over bias in AI systems? And you can bet the IG isn’t looking forward to the headache involved in questionable AI detection tools.

Human beings generally use automation to perform tasks that they’d rather not do themselves, freeing up time for more critical work. The use of AI is a powerful indicator of an organization’s priorities – using AI overwhelmingly for personnel actions gives subordinates the impression that they are not a priority.

AI is Not a Replacement for Your Staff. Or Your Therapist.

“Chat and I are really close lately,” said Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor, the top U.S. Army officer in Korea, during the annual Association of the U.S. Army convention. Although Taylor noted the technology’s use in predicting logistical shortfalls, he also spoke of using the chatbot to make personal decisions, even encouraging his subordinates to do so.

Maj. Gen. Taylor is not alone. During a recent conference, OpenAI founder Sam Altman claimed that young people often used ChatGPT to help make major life decisions, adding that “It has the full context on every person in their life and what they’ve talked about.” Despite OpenAI’s clear warnings against the practice, some users have turned to large language models for mental health and relationship advice – often with dangerous results.

The military is a people business, filled with personality conflicts, bureaucratic turf wars, and petty tyrants. There’s no shortage of counterproductive leadership, ethical lapses, and tricky personal problems that leave even the best of us dumbfounded. It’s tempting to confide in and vent to ChatGPT over personal problems. It’s always there. It’s nonjudgmental. It can even “remember” previous chats, serving as a long-term confidante. One study suggests that ChatGPT may be the largest mental health resource in the country. The study’s survey respondents claimed they turned to LLMs for mental health support, citing the technology’s accessibility, affordability, anonymity, and lack of waitlists.

Much has been written about the effects of large language models on young people’s cognitive functions. But few have considered how this technology can affect senior executives’ decision-making. This demographic has unique vulnerabilities to the harmful effects of LLMs and fewer guardrails on their behavior.

Senior leaders may be more susceptible than the average person to the harmful effects of AI chatbots because they may have more exposure to the technology. Early research from private industry suggests that senior executives are far more likely to use AI and LLMs than lower-level employees, though the reasons aren’t entirely clear. One theory may be that senior executives are more pressed for time and may turn to LLMs for assistance. Another theory might be that lower-level employees might be more reluctant to use AI programs for fear that the technology might replace them. Senior executives may also have greater confidence in LLMs’ abilities than lower-level employees, who may be disproportionately affected by hallucinations and AI slop.

Additionally, military leadership is inherently lonely, a key risk factor in AI-induced psychosis. One senior military leader even confided in me that the higher in rank you get, the less honest the people around you become, highlighting the fact that high-ranking officers often perceive the reality their subordinates want them to see. Military leaders often feel they cannot show vulnerability in front of subordinates, which can be perceived as weakness and undermine credibility and confidence.

The prevalence of AI chatbots as mental health companions, combined with the unique vulnerabilities of military leadership, will undoubtedly prompt many military leaders to use them for venting and seeking advice. Unfortunately, this can be a recipe for disaster. Chatbots only know one user’s side of any situation, and even then, many users, consciously or unconsciously, control the information they share. Users can also modify their questions or requests to “trick” chatbots into giving them the answers they want. Researchers have also noted LLMs’ tendency towards “sycophancy” – the tendency to spout false information or give bad advice that aligns with a user’s preferences. This is even more dangerous, given that Army senior leaders tend to be less willing to seek out alternative viewpoints and debate those with differing opinions than the general population, according to one Army War College study.

In short, Army senior leaders now have their own personal “yes man” on call 24/7. LLMs will always take your side in a workplace dispute (“You’re absolutely right to feel that way.”). The LLM sycophancy program is so pronounced that ChatGPT told one user that his purported plan to “sell shit on a stick” was “not just smart – it’s genius!” Although OpenAI claims it has since modified its models, other chatbots face the same challenge.

Of course, sycophantic subordinates have always existed. And Bad Idea Fairies have been leading senior leaders astray long before LLMs. But without proper education on the harms of Large Language Models, senior leaders risk falling into AI-induced psychosis. And staffs may struggle to contain them. It takes a thorough appreciation of one’s own susceptibility to AI’s worst effects, as well as a keen understanding of the inner workings of Large Language Models, to avoid AI-induced psychosis.

Finally, there’s a practical reason to avoid sharing one’s deepest thoughts with chatbots. OpenAI founder Sam Altman warned, “People talk about the most personal shit in their lives to ChatGPT… If you talk to a therapist or a lawyer or a doctor about those problems, there’s legal privilege for it. And we haven’t figured that out yet for when you talk to ChatGPT.”

Conversations with commercial LLMs are not private. Law enforcement can access LLM chats with search warrants, as was the case with the U.S. Army soldier who used ChatGPT to help plan a bombing in Las Vegas on New Year’s Day 2025. Communications on government platforms have even fewer privacy safeguards. As a standard warning banner on government communication systems states, communications on government information systems are not private, save for legitimate privileged communications with lawyers or clergy members. Even members of the general public can request access to correspondence carried out on government platforms. An adage about government emails holds just as true for Large Language Models: “Don’t tell anything to GenAI.mil that you wouldn’t want to read in the New York Times.”

Users Need Training on AI

Large Language Models seem easy to use at first. Simply type in a request, and your favorite chatbot spits out a convincing-sounding answer. But LLMs require considerable effort to master.

I say this as someone who spends considerably more time with ChatGPT than the average person, according to the program’s 2025 annual statistical roundup. ChatGPT can easily turn a 0% product into a 70% product in a few seconds. It’s certainly efficient, even if the quality is lacking. Where the technology shines, however, is in transforming a 95% product into a 100% product. The only problem is that it takes significant effort to eke out those last five percentage points. And even then, you’ll need a 95% product to begin with. Users require a keen understanding of the subject material to combat AI hallucinations. It also helps to know your goal for any given product to filter out responses that simply don’t fit your end state. Finally, LLMs require expertise in prompt engineering to produce a high-quality final product.

Most users do not have formal training in LLMs. Despite the stereotype that young people will instantly grasp how to use AI because they are “digital natives”, there is a growing sense that young people, even those who may spend hours each day online, lack basic computer skills and digital literacy. In other words, the ability to copy and paste your homework prompt into ChatGPT and then copy and paste the response into a Word document does not necessarily make someone an expert in LLMs.

I’ll be the first to admit that I absolutely hate the thought of more mandatory training. I also realize that nearly every agency in the Pentagon bureaucracy loves to insert itself into Professional Military Education at all levels, often in one-hour blocks of instruction that many students snooze through. Not to mention, I also shudder at the thought of giving some poor soul an additional duty as an “AI advisor”. That said, the services could offer optional coursework and certificates on LLMs, perhaps with incentives to complete the course, such as promotion points for junior enlisted service members. It’s not much, but it’s a start.

Our Boring Future

There are plenty of hyperbolic statements about AI. Somewhere between the dystopian vision of Terminator’s Skynet and the utopian belief that ChatGPT might cure cancer next week is the banal reality that artificial intelligence tools replicate human beings with all their flaws. They have the capacity to turn great work into exceptional work. They can also perpetuate laziness and out-of-touch leadership.

In short, it makes the best of us better. And the worst of us worse. And that’s the boring future we live in.

(Author’s note: The opinions expressed in this paper are the author’s own.)

Check out all of Small Wars Journal’s great content.

Tags: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Department of Defense, military leadership, US Army War College

About The Author

• 
  
• Crispin Burke
• Crispin Burke is a retired Black Hawk helicopter pilot who served in Iraq from 2008-2009. He served as an Unmanned Aerial Systems Observer-Controller/Trainer at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels, Germany, from 2010-2012. Following his retirement, he earned a Master of Arts in Strategy, Cybersecurity, and Intelligence from Johns Hopkins University. He is a volunteer docent at the International Spy Museum, a hobby drone pilot, and a longtime contributor to Small Wars Journal.

13. Power Without Illusion: Global Signals from the U.S. Operation in Venezuela

​Summary:

The seizure of Maduro is framed as a narrow, decisive act that ripples far beyond Venezuela. It reassures Taiwan, unsettles Japan, and becomes data for China, Russia, and Iran about U.S. resolve, risk tolerance, and escalation thresholds. Latin America confronts sovereignty strained by criminalized regimes that export instability. Cuba loses its key patron. Europe and Denmark worry more about precedent and process, especially as Washington eyes Greenland with clumsy rhetoric. The core argument is blunt. In a fragmented, post-normative order, American power still matters, but deterrence without clear limits invites miscalculation. Venezuela is not a model. It is a warning.

Excerpts:

The U.S. intervention in Venezuela will not rewrite international law, nor does it confer license for aggression by adversaries elsewhere. What it does clarify is the operating environment of the early twenty-first century: norms are contested, deterrence rests on perception as much as capability, and sovereignty without governance is increasingly untenable.

This assessment reflects an early snapshot of how key global actors have interpreted the U.S. intervention in Venezuela, based on initial reactions in the days immediately following the operation. Time will tell whether this snapshot holds or whether subsequent actions provide greater clarity.

George Kennan warned that the greatest danger in foreign policy is not action itself, but confusion about interests and limits. In this case, deterrence without clarity means a powerful signal from the United States—credible and costly—but one whose thresholds and boundaries remain undefined, inviting allies and adversaries alike to draw their own, potentially dangerous conclusions.

Venezuela was not a template.

It was a warning.

Power Without Illusion: Global Signals from the U.S. Operation in Venezuela

by Ron MacCammon

|

01.19.2026 at 06:00am

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2026/01/19/power-without-illusion-global-signals-from-the-u-s-operation-in-venezuela/

Abstract

The U.S. capture of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro marks a rare instance of decisive American intervention in a contested international order. This article assesses early global reactions across East Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America, while situating the operation within established strategic theory. Drawing on insights from leading political scientists and classic thinkers on deterrence, realism, and escalation, it argues that Venezuela functions less as a template than as a signal—clarifying U.S. resolve while exposing risks of misperception. The central lesson is that deterrence without clarity invites miscalculation.

Introduction

The U.S. capture of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro marked a watershed moment not only for Latin America, but for the international system as a whole. While Washington framed the operation as a targeted action against a criminalized regime, the reverberations extend far beyond Caracas. Allies and adversaries alike are reassessing what the intervention reveals about American resolve, precedent, and the evolving use of force in a post-normative world.

This analysis, written in the immediate aftermath of Operation Absolute Resolve offers an initial assessment of the operation’s potential global reverberations. Perceptions and responses from key actors remain in flux; the interpretations here draw on established strategic frameworks but will undoubtedly evolve as events unfold.

The 3 January 2026 operation that captured Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, ended decades of authoritarian rule intertwined with narcotics trafficking and international sanctions. What followed was immediate and intense global reaction: condemnation on grounds of sovereignty and international law, praise from democratic governments, calls for negotiated transitions, and debate within institutions such as the United Nations Security Council. For some, the operation represented overdue enforcement against a criminalized state. For others, it raised unsettling questions about precedent and escalation.

For allies such as Japan, the concern is precedent and escalation. For Taiwan, the operation signals resolve. For China, Russia, and Iran, it provides data—on U.S. willingness to act, alliance cohesion, and escalation tolerance. And for Latin America, it forces a reckoning long deferred: whether sovereignty alone can justify tolerance of regimes that export instability.

Japan and Taiwan: Deterrence, Precedent, and Alliance Tension

Japanese unease following the Venezuelan operation is not rooted in sympathy for Caracas but in concern over precedent. As the United States’ most important ally in East Asia, Japan depends on American military power for deterrence while living in close proximity to an increasingly assertive China. Any perceived erosion of norms governing the use of force is therefore not abstract. It directly shapes Japan’s security environment.

Tokyo’s anxiety is that Beijing could selectively cite U.S. action in Venezuela as rhetorical cover for coercive moves against Taiwan—even if the analogy is legally and strategically flawed. Geography sharpens this concern. Any Taiwan contingency would immediately implicate Japanese territory, U.S. bases in Okinawa, and vital sea lanes that carry most of Japan’s energy imports. Japan’s 2022 National Security Strategy explicitly identifies a Taiwan emergency as an existential threat, underscoring how closely these issues are linked in Japanese strategic thinking.

At the same time, Japanese policymakers are realistic. Few believe that Chinese restraint on Taiwan rests on legal consistency or respect for Western precedent. Beijing has already demonstrated a willingness to reinterpret international norms when core interests are at stake, from the South China Sea to the dismantling of Hong Kong’s autonomy. The concern in Tokyo is therefore less about legality than about perception—how actions elsewhere may reshape escalation dynamics closer to home.

In Taipei, the interpretation is markedly different. Taiwanese officials have largely read the seizure of Maduro as reassurance rather than destabilization. The lesson drawn was not ambiguity, but American operational capability and political will. For a society long accustomed to doubts about U.S. staying power, the operation strengthened deterrence rather than undermined it. This divergence highlights a central challenge in alliance management: an action that reassures one ally may unsettle another, even when both depend on the same guarantor.

China, Russia, and Strategic Observation

For Beijing and Moscow, Venezuela was less provocation than observation.

China has invested tens of billions of dollars in Venezuela through loans-for-oil arrangements and infrastructure projects designed to secure long-term access to energy resources. Despite this material stake, Beijing’s response has been notably restrained. Chinese officials condemned the U.S. action as a violation of international law but avoided direct confrontation. Venezuelan oil remains important to China, but not at the cost of escalation with the United States.

This response reflects a broader realist logic. As scholars such as John J. Mearsheimer have argued, great powers prioritize core interests and avoid unnecessary overextension. From this perspective, Beijing’s posture represents calculated pragmatism: protect economic equities where possible, absorb diplomatic loss where necessary, and allow Washington to bear the political cost of action.

Russia’s reaction has been even more subdued. Despite longstanding ties to the Maduro regime, Moscow appears focused on higher-priority theaters, particularly Ukraine. Recent reporting underscores that Kremlin decision-makers view Venezuela as expendable compared to negotiations over Ukraine’s future and sanctions relief. From a realist standpoint, this restraint reflects hierarchy of interests rather than weakness of will. Venezuela matters; Ukraine matters far more.

Iran, the Middle East, and Escalation Control

In the Middle East, the Venezuelan intervention intersects with rising internal unrest in Iran and Tehran’s increasingly explicit framing of confrontation as “full-scale” against Israel, the United States, and the West. Domestic pressures—marked by protests, economic strain, and legitimacy erosion—constrain Iran’s freedom of maneuver even as its external rhetoric grows more belligerent.

This aligns closely with deterrence theory. As Thomas Schelling observed, the most dangerous moments in international politics occur when states feel both threatened and constrained. Regimes under internal stress are more prone to misinterpret signals and take risks others might avoid. Applied to Iran, this suggests that Western pressure must be calibrated carefully: credible enough to deter, restrained enough to avoid unintended escalation.

Recent public commentary by senior U.S. military leaders, including former Iraq and Afghanistan commanders, underscores that American power today operates along a spectrum—from informational and economic measures to precision strikes designed to avoid occupation or regime collapse. This calibrated approach reflects a conscious effort to retain coercive leverage while managing escalation.

Gaza and the Israel–Hamas conflict further shape this environment. For Tehran, Gaza functions as both pressure valve and proxy arena, allowing indirect confrontation with Israel while avoiding direct war with the United States. Washington’s posture—robust support for Israel combined with restraint aimed at preventing regional spillover—reinforces a broader pattern visible in Venezuela: selective, asymmetric application of power rather than open-ended intervention.

Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states act as additional stabilizers and constraints. The Trump administration’s close relationship with Riyadh and other Gulf partners underwrites a regional balance that deters Iran while seeking to avoid energy shocks or broader war. Gulf states benefit from U.S. credibility but remain acutely sensitive to escalation risks that could threaten infrastructure, shipping lanes, or regime stability.

Latin America: Sovereignty Under Strain

Nowhere are the implications more immediate than in Latin America. For decades, regional diplomacy rested on the assumption that internal repression and state collapse were insulated by sovereignty norms. Venezuela’s implosion rendered that assumption increasingly untenable.

The Maduro regime functioned for years as a hub of regional instability—exporting narcotics, enabling transnational criminal networks, and sustaining allied authoritarian regimes, most notably Cuba. Its removal forces uncomfortable questions across the region.

Cuba is the most exposed. The island relied heavily on subsidized Venezuelan oil to sustain an already collapsing economy. With Caracas no longer able to guarantee that lifeline, Havana faces intensifying internal pressure marked by blackouts, shortages, and mass emigration. Recent reporting in the Wall Street Journal highlights how the loss of Venezuelan oil threatens to push Cuba toward a crisis rivaling the post-Soviet “special period.” The regime’s response—heightened repression and nationalist mobilization—reflects survival instincts rather than confidence.

Colombia and Mexico present different challenges. Colombia, despite enduring years of migration pressure, cross-border criminality, and armed-group spillover from Venezuela, has publicly criticized the U.S. operation on sovereignty grounds. Mexico has likewise condemned the intervention rhetorically while quietly adapting to the economic and security consequences. Both cases illustrate hedging behavior: normative resistance paired with pragmatic adjustment.

As Robert D. Kaplan has long argued, geography and material reality reassert themselves when norms falter. Migration flows, energy networks, and criminal economies do not respect diplomatic abstractions. They shape strategy whether governments acknowledge it or not.

Hemispheric Signaling, Greenland, and Alliance Friction

The Venezuelan operation coincides with renewed U.S. attention to Greenland, another case where strategic interests are clear but signaling has proven destabilizing. Greenland’s importance—missile defense, Arctic access, rare-earth minerals, and emerging sea lanes—is widely recognized. The Arctic is rapidly becoming a theater of strategic competition involving the United States, Russia, and China.

Yet rhetoric suggesting the possible use of force, even as negotiating leverage, has unsettled allies. Danish and Greenlandic leaders have rejected any notion of acquisition or coercion, while European partners—including France and Norway—have criticized the Venezuela operation on legal grounds. Their concern is less about outcomes than about process and predictability.

This friction illustrates a recurring dilemma. Deterrence built on shock and dominance can succeed tactically while complicating alliance politics strategically. In a system where alliance cohesion underpins deterrence itself, reassurance matters as much as resolve.

Conclusion: Power, Perception, and Discipline

The U.S. intervention in Venezuela will not rewrite international law, nor does it confer license for aggression by adversaries elsewhere. What it does clarify is the operating environment of the early twenty-first century: norms are contested, deterrence rests on perception as much as capability, and sovereignty without governance is increasingly untenable.

This assessment reflects an early snapshot of how key global actors have interpreted the U.S. intervention in Venezuela, based on initial reactions in the days immediately following the operation. Time will tell whether this snapshot holds or whether subsequent actions provide greater clarity.

George Kennan warned that the greatest danger in foreign policy is not action itself, but confusion about interests and limits. In this case, deterrence without clarity means a powerful signal from the United States—credible and costly—but one whose thresholds and boundaries remain undefined, inviting allies and adversaries alike to draw their own, potentially dangerous conclusions.

Venezuela was not a template.

It was a warning.

Tags: Deterrence Clarity, Post-Normative World, Strategic Signaling, U.S. Intervention Venezuela

About The Author

• 
  
• Ron MacCammon
• Ron MacCammon, Ed.D., is a retired US Army Special Forces Colonel and former political officer at the US State Department who has written extensively on security, governance, and international affairs. He has lived and worked in Latin America for more than 20 years and was assigned to the US Embassy, Caracas, Venezuela, from 1999 to 2002.

14. The Brotherhood, Turkey, and the Future of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy

​Summary:

The essay argues that the Muslim Brotherhood is less a terrorist “group” than a resilient ideological network that flourishes where governance is weak, justice systems are corrupt, and outside patrons intervene. Libya shows the cost of U.S. misalignment: tacit backing for a Brotherhood-linked government with shallow legitimacy while Russia and Turkey wage proxy war through Haftar and Islamist factions. Turkey’s dual role as NATO ally and Brotherhood patron compounds the problem, especially as Gaza becomes a global propaganda battlefield and AI supercharges recruitment. The author’s core prescription is clear. Counterterrorism must center on governance resilience, rule-of-law integrity, and institutional capacity.

The Brotherhood, Turkey, and the Future of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy

by Ara Joseph Sarian

|

01.19.2026 at 06:00am

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2026/01/19/the-brotherhood-turkey/

Abstract

Islamist movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood, when combined with state sponsorship and governance vacuums, create resilient networks that challenge U.S. counterterrorism priorities. Turkey’s dual posture as a NATO ally and patron of Islamist networks complicates alliance cohesion and reshapes irregular warfare dynamics. Libya illustrates the limits of U.S. policy: By tacitly supporting a Brotherhood‑linked government, Washington aligned with a faction lacking legitimacy across much of the country, while Russia entrenched rival authoritarian forces. Contemporary developments – including Gaza’s propaganda battlefield and the rise of AI‑driven extremist recruitment – magnify these threats. This essay argues that U.S. policy must recalibrate to integrate governance resilience, institutional capacity development, and prosecutorial integrity into counterterrorism strategy, while anticipating new recruitment methods in the digital domain. Without these measures, Islamist networks will continue to exploit instability and erode fragile states.

U.S. Capitol and Muslim Brotherhood symbol (Reuters)

Introduction

Ideology is the true battlefield of irregular warfare — a contest of minds as much as arms. While US strategy rightly emphasizes containing Russia, it risks neglecting Islamist threats whose tentacles extend globally. The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, remains a transnational Islamist movement dedicated to reshaping societies and governments through political Islam. Its affiliates — from Hamas in Gaza to Ennahda in Tunisia — demonstrate how ideology, state sponsorship, and governance vacuums combine to create resilient irregular actors that undermine both US national security and international stability.

Great power competition and counterterrorism are not mutually exclusive. Russia’s support for authoritarian proxies, such as General Khalifa Haftar in Libya, intersects with Turkey’s cultivation of Brotherhood‑aligned movements, creating proxy battlegrounds where US policy risks being reactive rather than strategic.

Historical Context: The Brotherhood’s Ideology

The Brotherhood’s origins under Hassan al‑Banna blended religious revivalism with political activism, seeking to Islamize society through governance, education, and social institutions. Yet beneath this veneer lay a radical agenda: the imposition of its version of Islam across the Muslim world, and ultimately beyond.

Rejecting the Brotherhood is not rejecting Islam. It is rejecting a politicized movement that weaponizes religion for power, often through violence. This distinction is critical for US policymakers: Conflating Islam with politicized extremism risks alienating allies while empowering adversaries.

Libya Case Study

Libya illustrates the complexity of these geostrategic games. Its fractured camps — Brotherhood‑aligned forces backed by Turkey and Haftar’s forces supported by Russia — have long exemplified proxy conflict. Despite international recognition, the Brotherhood‑aligned Government of National Accord failed to consolidate authority or deliver stability.

The return of Saif al‑Islam Qaddafi, son of the late dictator, underscores Libya’s contested political landscape. His re‑emergence signals that large segments of the population remain disillusioned with Islamist‑aligned governance and are willing to rally behind a figure promising to “take Libya back again.”

This development exposes the limits of US policy: By tacitly supporting a Brotherhood‑linked government, Washington aligned with a faction lacking legitimacy across much of the country.. Meanwhile, Russia’s backing of Haftar entrenched a rival camp, creating a proxy battlefield where Turkey and Russia pursue competing ambitions. The result is a Libya caught between Islamist networks and authoritarian revival, with neither path offering genuine stability.

Turkey’s Dual Posture

Turkey’s ambitions complicate alliance management. As a NATO ally, Ankara benefits from Western security guarantees. Yet it simultaneously cultivates ties with Islamist networks as instruments of regional influence. Its willingness to provide political sanctuary, rhetorical support, and diplomatic cover for Brotherhood affiliates magnifies their resilience.

This dual posture creates friction within NATO and undermines cohesion at a time when alliance unity is critical. Turkey’s sheltering of Hamas and export of fighters from Syria to Libya illustrate how Ankara leverages Islamist networks to project influence. Erdogan’s broader strategy — reviving Ottoman influence and pivoting toward Africa and the Middle East — positions Turkey as both ally and challenger within NATO.

Contemporary Developments

The tragedies unfolding in Gaza have provided fertile ground for Islamist propaganda. The Muslim Brotherhood has capitalized on these grievances, portraying itself as the defender of the oppressed and positioning its narrative as a moral counterweight to Western policy. Reports suggest Brotherhood‑linked networks have even exploited Gaza fundraising campaigns, siphoning donations and reinforcing their claim to ideological leadership. This exploitation of human suffering underscores the movement’s ability to weaponize crises, turning legitimate outrage into recruitment fuel.

At the same time, extremist recruitment strategies are entering a new frontier. The rise of generative artificial intelligence, deepfakes, and synthetic media has given groups unprecedented tools to radicalize audiences. Research shows that AI‑driven propaganda now circulates in hyper‑realistic videos and fabricated narratives that blur the line between truth and deception. This evolution represents a profound challenge for counterterrorism: the battle is no longer only on the ground but also in the digital domain, where extremist narratives can be manufactured, amplified, and tailored to vulnerable populations at scale.

Practitioner Lessons

Experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan reveal how governance vacuums empower irregular actors. Rule‑of‑law integrity and prosecutorial frameworks are as vital as battlefield success. Conferences with judges, mentoring of legislators, and embedding legal advisors alongside military planners demonstrated that institutions must be fortified to resist ideological infiltration. Without governance resilience, irregular threats regenerate faster than they can be suppressed.

Strategic Warning

Egypt’s brief experiment with Brotherhood governance under President Mohamed Morsi from June 2012–July 2013 demonstrated how Islamist rule destabilized national institutions and provoked mass unrest, providing a cautionary precedent for U.S. policymakers. The Trump Administration’s designation of Brotherhood chapters as terrorist organizations was a step toward clarity. Yet clarity alone is insufficient. Policy must anticipate second‑order effects: how Turkey’s ambitions will shape Brotherhood resilience, how alliance politics will complicate enforcement, and how governance vacuums will invite irregular actors to exploit instability.

Policy Options

US policy must weigh overlapping approaches. A containment strategy would limit Brotherhood influence through sanctions and designations while bolstering regional actors who oppose politicized Islam. Yet containment alone risks leaving Turkey’s disruptive role unaddressed. A confrontation strategy would challenge Ankara directly, reassessing NATO’s dependency on Turkish bases and exposing the contradictions of an ally that shelters Hamas and empowers Brotherhood affiliates. But confrontation risks fracturing alliance cohesion at a time of great‑power rivalry. The most viable path is a hybrid approach: balancing deterrence of Russia with recognition of ideological threats, investing in counter‑propaganda and AI‑driven monitoring, and embedding governance resilience into fragile states. This hybrid vision acknowledges Turkey as both ally and challenger, while ensuring US counterterrorism policy anticipates the irregular threats of the next decade.

Conclusion

The Brotherhood’s ideological resilience, Turkey’s dual posture, and Russia’s authoritarian patronage converge to reshape irregular warfare priorities. For US policymakers, the imperative is clear: counterterrorism must integrate governance resilience and alliance accountability. Without these, Islamist networks will continue to exploit vacuums, and adversaries will weaponize ideology against fragile states.

Future policy must confront ideological threats early, balance great‑power rivalry with regional realities, and anticipate new recruitment strategies in the digital age. Redemption lies not in personal vindication, but in ensuring that rigorous analysis is heeded before threats metastasize into crises. The lessons of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya demonstrate that institutions, not militias, are the true bulwark against extremism. Embedding rule‑of‑law integrity, prosecutorial frameworks, and governance resilience into fragile states is not optional — it is the strategic imperative that determines whether irregular threats are contained or metastasize.

The United States must therefore recalibrate its counterterrorism vision. This means confronting Turkey’s disruptive role within NATO, distinguishing Islam from politicized extremism in all policy messaging, and investing in counter‑propaganda strategies that anticipate AI‑driven recruitment. It also means valuing dissenting practitioner analysis — the kind that warned against appeasing Brotherhood‑aligned regimes years before policy reversals validated those concerns.

In the end, the fight against irregular threats is not only about defeating adversaries on the battlefield. It is about fortifying institutions, safeguarding legitimacy, and ensuring that governance itself becomes the strongest weapon in America’s arsenal.

Check out all of Small Wars Journal’s great content.

Tags: COIN, counterterrorism, Counterterrorism strategy, irregular warfare, Muslim Brotherhood, Russia, terrorism, Turkey, Türkiye

About The Author

• 
  
• Ara Joseph Sarian
• Ara Joseph Sarian, JD, LL.M, is an attorney and institutional reform architect with more than three decades of litigation and governance experience. Due to his deep knowledge and over twenty years of regional engagement in Middle Eastern affairs, he was tapped to serve in senior advisory roles where law, security, and governance intersected. He served as a Senior Rule of Law Advisor with the United States Department of State in Iraq, where he led US military officers and advisors in Anbar Province to embed rule‑of‑law frameworks during counterinsurgency operations. He later served as Justice Advisor in Afghanistan with the State Department’s INL Bureau, mentoring judges and prosecutors to strengthen governance resilience. Earlier, under the Department of Defense and Coalition Provisional Authority, he supervised a team of lawyers and linguists gathering evidence of atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein’s regime, supporting war crimes prosecutions and regime crimes investigations. He has also served as Senior Jurist Expert for the European Commission in Iraq, advising on counterterrorism, governance, and institutional resilience. Throughout, he has maintained a full‑service law practice while deploying in elite advisory roles for US and EU institutions, embedding ethics, prosecutorial integrity, and rule‑of‑law principles in fragile environments.

15. Opinion | Gaza’s ‘Phase Two’ Peace Trusts Hamas

​Summary:

POTUS' “phase two” Gaza plan moves forward with lower expectations and higher reliance on Hamas restraint. An International Stabilization Force will not disarm Hamas, since Arab contributors refuse to confront it. Washington is now coordinating with Hamas on governance, contradicting earlier pledges to exclude it from any role. Officials talk about removing “heavy weaponry,” not the rifles and coercive apparatus that sustain Hamas rule. A Board of Peace, including pro-Hamas Turkey and Qatar, will oversee reconstruction, but Hamas has not disarmed and continues cease-fire violations. The editorial warns U.S. engagement risks legitimizing Hamas and leaving Israel to disarm it alone.

Comment; Does trust have a place in international relations and international and national security? Or does only hard power influence minds and will?

Opinion | Gaza’s ‘Phase Two’ Peace Trusts Hamas

WSJ · Gaza’s ‘Phase Two’ Peace Trusts Hamas

Heavy U.S. engagement with the terrorists risks entrenching their power.

By The Editorial Board

Follow

Jan. 18, 2026 12:01 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/gaza-phase-two-peace-plan-white-house-israel-donald-trump-80677aea

Displaced Palestinians shelter at a tent camp in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Jan. 14. Haseeb Alwazeer/Reuters

The opening of “phase two” of President Trump’s Gaza peace plan signals rising hopes but dimming ambitions. As the White House realizes how little an International Stabilization Force will do, its vision hinges more than ever on Hamas seeing the light.

“We’ve talked to a number of Hamas people, and we’re hearing throughout the Arab world that people don’t want to be at war anymore,” a senior U.S. official briefed reporters on Wednesday. “They want what everybody else in this world wants: just a good life, and a good life doesn’t occur through military means.”

This is a case of what Israelis call the “Oct. 6 mind-set”—the pattern of thought common before the Hamas massacre on Oct. 7, 2023, exposed it as dangerous naivete. If Hamas simply wanted “a better economic future for their families,” as the U.S. official claims, it wouldn’t have sent death squads to slaughter some 1,200 Israeli men, women and children.

Qatari money failed to buy peace from Hamas before the war, but now it is supposed to work as part of Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff’s “Project Sunrise” to rebuild Gaza. At least Mr. Trump, if no one else, seems to understand that Gaza will see no peace as long as Hamas wields power.

“We will secure a COMPREHENSIVE demilitarization agreement with Hamas, including the surrender of ALL weapons, and the dismantling of EVERY tunnel,” the President wrote Thursday on Truth Social. The U.S. officials briefing reporters spoke only of taking Hamas’s “heavy weaponry,” leaving out what would happen to the AK-47s on which Hamas’s power and ability to murder dissenting Gazans rests.

Either way, an International Stabilization Force is no longer expected to lead disarmament. Arab states and others have made clear they have no interest in challenging Hamas’s power, which carries risk.

Instead the U.S. is engaging and coordinating with Hamas on all matters of Gaza’s current and future governance, which legitimizes the terrorists. What happened to the point in Mr. Trump’s plan that said “Hamas and other factions agree to not have any role in the governance of Gaza, directly, indirectly, or in any form”?

For now, the Trump plan proceeds with a Board of Peace, including an executive committee with members representing pro-Hamas Turkey and Qatar, and another committee of Palestinian technocrats to administer Gaza. Reconstruction could begin in Israeli-controlled areas of Gaza, but Israel will need to see some movement from Hamas as well. The terrorist group still holds the body of one hostage, Ran Gvili, a continuing cease-fire violation.

Israel counts 78 violations by Palestinian terrorist groups since October, including shootings and infiltrations. But the biggest remains Hamas’s refusal to disarm. That’s what holds back progress for Gazans and Israelis.

Perhaps Hamas will hand over some weapons, but the Israelis expect to have to do the job themselves once U.S. officials realize no one else will. The smart move would be for the Board of Peace to impose a deadline on Hamas to disarm and let Jerusalem enforce it. Having received all the living hostages up front, Israel can no longer be blackmailed.

Journal Editorial Report: The week’s best and worst from Bill McGurn, Allysia Finley and Kim Strassel. Photo: Storyblocks/Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press/Heather Ainsworth/Bloomberg News

Copyright ©2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

WSJ · Gaza’s ‘Phase Two’ Peace Trusts Hamas

16. International Criminal Liability and U.S. Boat Attacks in the Pacific and Caribbean

​Summary:

The article argues that U.S. personnel involved in anti-drug boat strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific may face long-term international criminal liability, even after Maduro’s capture. Because many targeted vessels may be registered to Rome Statute state parties such as Venezuela, Colombia, or Ecuador, the International Criminal Court could claim territorial jurisdiction over alleged war crimes or crimes against humanity. The January 3 raid on Venezuela strengthens the case that an international armed conflict exists, creating war crimes exposure under Article 8, while a pattern of lethal strikes against civilians could support murder as a crime against humanity under Article 7.

Excerpts:

The U.S. attacks against boats in the Caribbean and Pacific alleged to be carrying drugs supposedly destined for the United States have been condemned as extra-judicial killings and violations of international law by U.N. human rights experts, and labeled a crime against humanity by former International Criminal Court Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo. Given the widespread, albeit not unanimous, conclusion that these strikes lack a legal basis under domestic and international law, it is likely that U.S. servicemembers and their leaders — including Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth — can be held liable under international law for the deaths resulting from these strikes. New reporting of possible perfidy only adds to the available prosecutable offenses under Article 8 of the Rome Statute.

Apart from the political decision of national governments and the International Criminal Court whether to investigate or prosecute the attacks as crimes against humanity, multiple courts outside the United States likely have jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute what can be characterized as crimes against humanity or murder. Referring to a classified Office of Legal Counsel opinion justifying the attacks, a U.S. Department of Justice spokesperson claimed “the strikes were consistent with the law of armed conflict, and as such are legal orders” for which servicemembers are “not subject to prosecution.” This opinion, however, does not govern future U.S. administrations, the International Criminal Court, or other countries, all of which can pursue investigations and prosecutions for murder or crimes against humanity. Given that such crimes have no statute of limitations, many U.S. nationals will be subject to a long tail of criminal liability.

Comment: Since our leaders insist these strikes are lawful, how should they prepare commanders and operators for the real risk that foreign courts and the ICC may judge those same actions crimes for which there is no statute of limitations?

International Criminal Liability and U.S. Boat Attacks in the Pacific and Caribbean

warontherocks.com · January 19, 2026

Dru Brenner-Beck

January 19, 2026

https://warontherocks.com/2026/01/international-criminal-liability-and-u-s-boat-attacks-in-the-pacific-and-caribbean/

Even after Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was captured, U.S. nationals may still be prosecuted under international law for the country’s previous attacks against suspected drug-carrying boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, including those that happened as recently as Dec. 31, 2025. Here’s why: Confining these attacks to the high seas does not necessarily overrule the assertion of jurisdiction by the International Criminal Court, which explicitly recognizes that its territorial jurisdiction extends to crimes committed onboard a vessel or aircraft registered to countries that are members of the Court. Thus, war crimes or crimes against humanity, if committed on a vessel registered to Venezuela, or Ecuador, or Colombia — all countries that have joined the Court — fall within its jurisdiction. Moreover, other countries with domestic criminal jurisdiction based on what is known as “universal jurisdiction” — crimes that offend all counties like crimes against humanity or war crimes — or “passive personality jurisdiction” — conduct that harms their own countries — could seek to prosecute U.S. nationals in their own courts.

Liability for war crimes under Article 8 of the Rome Statute — the international treaty that founded the International Criminal Court — was unlikely prior to the U.S. raid against Maduro on January 3. This was because such liability would require the International Criminal Court to accept the theory that the “drug boat” campaign was an armed conflict. But, with the January raid, there is no longer an impediment to proving the United States and Venezuela are involved in an armed conflict, broadening this international criminal exposure. Now, the Court might see these attacks, if perpetrated against Venezuelan-registered vessels, as an integral part of an armed conflict between the two countries, triggering the Court’s war crimes jurisdiction. And, regardless of the existence of an armed conflict, the Court’s jurisdiction over murder as a crime against humanity may already exist depending on the country of registration of the destroyed boats.

BECOME A MEMBER

The International Criminal Court and the United States

The International Criminal Court was created by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in 1998 to provide a permanent international court to prosecute four crimes listed in the treaty: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. The statue entered into force on July 1, 2002. Currently, there are 125 countries that are “state-parties” who have signed and ratified the treaty, including Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and many other Central and South American countries. By becoming a state-party, these countries have consented to the Court’s jurisdiction to try individuals for the listed crimes if committed within their territories or by their nationals. Although Venezuela’s National Assembly voted in Dec. 2025 to repeal the country’s accession to the treaty, any withdrawal from the Rome Statute would only take effect one year after notifying the U.N. secretary-general.

While the United States was instrumental in negotiating the treaty and President Bill Clinton signed it in 2000, it was never forwarded to the Senate, the body responsible for ratifying such an agreement, due to concern that the International Criminal Court prosecutor (the lawyer responsible for investigations and prosecutions) would assert jurisdiction over non-party states such as the United States. Subsequently, in 2002, President George W. Bush notified the U.N. secretary-general that the United States did not intend to join the Rome Statute, essentially “unsigning” the treaty. Since then, the United States has consistently objected to any assertion of International Criminal Court jurisdiction over U.S. nationals, even for alleged crimes committed within the territory of a state-party, such as in the Afghanistan war. The administration of President Donald Trump has also imposed sanctions on International Criminal Court personnel, to include judges from U.S. allies.

International Criminal Court Jurisdiction

The International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction is based on the non-controversial territorial and active personality principles of international law. This means the court can exercise jurisdiction over the listed international crimes when they are committed within the territory of a state-party or are perpetrated by a national of a state-party. Thus, there is no legal impediment to prosecuting U.S. nationals for crimes alleged to have been committed in the territory of a state-party (assuming, of course, the Court is able to obtain physical custody over the individual).

So, what about the attacks against boats suspected of carrying drugs in the Caribbean and Pacific? These could result in charges and prosecution under two conditions: first, if the strikes occurred within the territory of a state-party and therefore within the Court’s jurisdiction; and second, if the individual allegedly committed a crime listed in the Rome Statute. Many commentators assume that because the strikes occurred on the high seas outside the territorial waters of any state, the territorial jurisdictional provisions of the Rome Statute do not apply. However, Article 12(2)(a) of the statute says otherwise. Under this article, territorial jurisdiction includes jurisdiction over crimes committed on board vessels or aircraft registered to that state. So, if any of the ships attacked were registered to Venezuela (or any other state-party), Venezuela (or any other state-party) may refer the matter to the International Criminal Court prosecutor or the prosecutor may independently initiate an investigation. If this jurisdictional link were established, the Court could investigate both war crimes and crimes against humanity resulting from the U.S. campaign, even for attacks in international waters.

Armed Conflict: Can War Crimes be Prosecuted?

Before the U.S. raid in Venezuela on Jan. 3, 2026, the Trump administration’s assertions that it was targeting suspected drug boats as part of a non-international armed conflict with the Tren de Aragua drug cartel — which it claimed was being sponsored and directed by the Venezuelan government — had been seen with considerable skepticism by the vast majority of international law experts. Further contradicting the administration’s claim, the U.S. intelligence community concluded in April 2025 that the Maduro regime “does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA [Tren de Aragua] and is not directing TDA movement to, and operations in the United States.” The existence of a non-international armed conflict is an objective inquiry requiring a non-state armed group to have some degree of military organization and for there to be some degree of intensity of hostilities. While the threat of importation of illegal drugs is a serious law enforcement issue, Geoffrey Corn and Ken Watkin argued in these pages that Tren de Aragua fails to meet the organizational requirements to qualify as a non-state armed group capable of engaging in a non-international armed conflict, echoing the determination of the U.S. intelligence community. This is especially significant as it relates to an assertion of International Criminal Court jurisdiction for any alleged war crime, because nexus to an armed conflict is essential for establishing such jurisdiction. It is unlikely the Court will simply accept the U.S. assertion of armed conflict for this jurisdictional purpose absent credible objective support for that assertion — support which has been lacking since the beginning of the campaign.

The Maduro raid adds a new dimension to the jurisdictional question. The International Criminal Court could now interpret the earlier boat strikes as part of the U.S. military incursion into Venezuela, providing nexus to an international armed conflict. If so, it may view Article 8 (governing war crimes) of the Rome Statute as directly applicable. The Trump administration will likely continue characterizing the raid as a “law enforcement operation,” but that in no way controls what the International Criminal Court does. Under the four 1949 Geneva Conventions and decades of customary international law practice, an international armed conflict exists whenever: “[a]ny difference arising between two States … lead[s] to the intervention of armed forces … even if one of the Parties denies the existence of a state of war.” This would make it plausible for the International Criminal Court to consider the boat strikes part of a broader international armed conflict between the United States and Venezuela, thus triggering war crimes jurisdiction. Given recent reporting on alleged U.S. perfidy for using aircraft “painted to look like a civilian plane” to commit the boat attacks, war crimes liability before the International Criminal Court could include the offenses of perfidy or of deliberately targeting a civilian population.

Crimes Against Humanity

And yet, there is another wrinkle. Even if the International Criminal Court views the boat attacks as separate from the subsequent U.S. military incursion into Venezuela, it might seek to allege different charges — namely, crimes against humanity — based on evidence that some of the struck boats were registered to a Rome Statute state-party. In this regard, an important precedent is the Court’s 2019 decision that “the Court may exercise jurisdiction over crimes when part of the criminal conduct takes place on the territory of a State Party.” This would include not only war crimes, but the crime of murder as a crime against humanity under Article 7 of the Rome Statute. Thus, in the case of the boat attacks, if the crime of murder — such as the killings of one or more persons — in violation of Article 7(1) of the Rome Statute occurs on a vessel or aircraft registered to a state-party, the territorial requirement of Article 12(2)(a) is met and the Court has jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute regardless of the existence of an armed conflict. It is true that we don’t yet know whether any of the over 30 boat attacks were against Venezuelan-registered vessels. But the International Criminal Court, like any court, has the authority to determine its jurisdiction, which would be established if the prosecutor provided evidence proving state-party registration of even one of the boats. Of course, the Court’s jurisdiction is conclusive if attacks occur in Venezuela’s territorial waters or on its land territory.

Crimes against humanity, under Article 7 of the Rome Statute, unlike war crimes, do not require nexus to an armed conflict, so the International Criminal Court can investigate these crimes even if it determines that no armed conflict exists. Specifically listed in Article 7(1) is the crime of murder as a crime against humanity, which entails three elements: that the perpetrator killed one or more persons; that the conduct was committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population; and that the perpetrator knew that the conduct was part of or intended the conduct to be part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population. Critically, in order to constitute a crime against humanity, the crimes listed in Article 7 must be “committed as (1) part of a widespread or systematic attack (2) directed against any civilian population.” Article 7(2)(a) defines “attack directed against any civilian population” as “a course of conduct involving the multiple commission of acts referred to in paragraph 1 [such as murder] against any civilian population, pursuant to or in furtherance of a State or organizational policy to commit such attack.”

Thus, to meet the requirement for murder as a crime against humanity, there must be multiple acts of murder committed against a civilian population, pursuant to or in furtherance of a state or organizational policy to commit such an attack. For the same reasons that the Trump administration’s assertion of the existence of a non-international armed conflict has been nearly universally rejected, the characterization of the victims of these attacks as unlawful combatants is equally dubious. Even criminals retain their status as civilians so long as they are not direct participants in an armed conflict. As a result, it is plausible — if not likely — the International Criminal Court would consider the victims of the boat attacks civilians under the law and attacks against them as within the scope of Article 7 of the Rome Statute.

Moreover, with over 30 attacks resulting in more than 100 deaths, the requirement of multiple commissions of the crime of murder is undoubtedly satisfied. And, were the Court to conclude (in alignment with most legal commentary) that the U.S. campaign is in fact not an armed conflict, it would nonetheless meet the requirement for multiple attacks under Article 7(2)(a) to prove “an attack directed against any civilian population.” The requirement that the attacks be “part of a widespread or systematic attack” is also likely met. The wording of Article 7 requires that the attack be part of either a widespread or systematic attack, not both.

Article 7(2)(a)’s requirement that the attacks be “pursuant to or in furtherance of a State or organizational policy to commit such attack” is easily demonstrated. On Dec. 2, 2025, Department of Defense spokesperson Kingsley Wilson stated in an official press briefing that, “Each … strike conducted against these designated terrorist organizations is taken in defense of vital U.S. national interests and to protect the homeland.” Thus, the attacks are not random acts of violence but are explicitly acknowledged to be part of a formal U.S. military operational plan, dubbed “Operation Southern Spear.” Because these attacks are conducted under an official policy of the U.S. government, they are both systematic and “pursuant to or in furtherance of a State policy to commit such attacks,” and are known by their participants to be such.

Future attacks, if they occur in Venezuelan or any other state-party’s waters or territory would unquestionably implicate International Criminal Court territorial jurisdiction. The United States has — and undoubtedly would in the future — object to the assertion of the Court’s jurisdiction over U.S. nationals even if they are accused of committing a crime within the territory of a state-party. But the assertion of such international jurisdiction is not controversial, as it is based on the core principle of territorial sovereignty. Although ultimately a discretionary decision on the part of the International Criminal Court prosecutor, if evidence of the registration of the vessels to a state-party exists, there is likely sufficient information to initiate an investigation into the U.S. boat attacks as crimes against humanity.

Other National Courts Jurisdiction

Finally, there is a risk of prosecution by any of the numerous countries that authorize prosecution of crimes against humanity or war crimes in their national courts as an exercise of universal jurisdiction. Even absent International Criminal Court prosecution, cases against those who plan and implement these strikes against what a prosecutor in such a country might determine is the civilian population could be pursued, even if the country has no connection to the operation or the victims. Many states also have legislation criminalizing the murder of their citizens wherever they occur under the “passive personality” principle. This means jurisdiction would be valid based on evidence that one of the victims of the strikes was a national of that country, potentially creating extensive criminal liability under the laws of the states of the victims even without the assertion of universal jurisdiction.

Conclusion

The U.S. attacks against boats in the Caribbean and Pacific alleged to be carrying drugs supposedly destined for the United States have been condemned as extra-judicial killings and violations of international law by U.N. human rights experts, and labeled a crime against humanity by former International Criminal Court Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo. Given the widespread, albeit not unanimous, conclusion that these strikes lack a legal basis under domestic and international law, it is likely that U.S. servicemembers and their leaders — including Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth — can be held liable under international law for the deaths resulting from these strikes. New reporting of possible perfidy only adds to the available prosecutable offenses under Article 8 of the Rome Statute.

Apart from the political decision of national governments and the International Criminal Court whether to investigate or prosecute the attacks as crimes against humanity, multiple courts outside the United States likely have jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute what can be characterized as crimes against humanity or murder. Referring to a classified Office of Legal Counsel opinion justifying the attacks, a U.S. Department of Justice spokesperson claimed “the strikes were consistent with the law of armed conflict, and as such are legal orders” for which servicemembers are “not subject to prosecution.” This opinion, however, does not govern future U.S. administrations, the International Criminal Court, or other countries, all of which can pursue investigations and prosecutions for murder or crimes against humanity. Given that such crimes have no statute of limitations, many U.S. nationals will be subject to a long tail of criminal liability.

BECOME A MEMBER

Dru Brenner-Beck is an attorney and expert in international law and the law of armed conflict, and a retired U.S. Army Judge Advocate who served in senior legal roles in U.S. Army Europe and the Army Inspector General, and later clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. She has written extensively on international humanitarian law, treaty practice, and military justice; led the Houston Mutiny Clemency Project, culminating in the 2023 exoneration of 110 Buffalo Soldiers; and is a former president of the National Institute of Military Justice and law professor. She holds degrees from Georgetown University, Boston University School of Law, and the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General School, and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in international law at the University of Edinburgh.

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

Image: U.S. Southern Command

warontherocks.com · January 19, 2026

17. Own the Night or Die

​Summary:

John Spencer argues that in recent wars conventional forces have largely ceded the night, limiting major combat to daylight while only elite units operate after dark. By contrast, Operation Absolute Resolve showed what decades of US joint training can achieve in complex night urban raids. He traces painful learning from Eagle Claw and Just Cause to today’s uneven night proficiency, noting that technology alone is insufficient. True night dominance demands force-wide cultural expectation, repetitive training from basic to CTCs, and large-scale combined arms exercises in darkness so the US Army treats night as decisive advantage, not constraint.

Comment (and do not forget Son Tay executed at 0200). So if future peer adversaries learn to fight effectively at night, what specific changes in US Army training and culture are most urgent now to ensure that “owning the night” remains a real advantage rather than an outdated slogan?

Not only ready to fight tonight, but ready to fight AT night in order to own the night.

Own the Night or Die - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · John Spencer · January 19, 2026

https://mwi.westpoint.edu/own-the-night-or-die/

One of the most striking patterns I have observed across recent wars has little to do with drones, artificial intelligence, or precision fires. It has to do with darkness. In three major conflicts involving forces that range from professional to semiprofessional—the 2020 war between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, and Israel’s campaign against Hamas after October 7, 2021—large-scale night operations have been notably rare. Outside of highly specialized units conducting limited raids, most decisive fighting has occurred during daylight. At night, both sides tend to pause, reorganize, and recover. In effect, the night is ceded rather than dominated.

That reality stands in sharp contrast to what the US military demonstrated in Operation Absolute Resolve. US forces executed a complex, high-risk mission deep inside a dense capital city at night. The operation required joint and interagency integration across air, land, sea, and cyber domains and fusing intelligence, special operations forces, and other capabilities. Power was cut. Targets were overwhelmed. The mission concluded with zero American casualties and zero loss of equipment. It was a near-flawless demonstration of a capability that takes decades to build and years to sustain.

That success is even more striking when viewed against earlier US experience. Operation Eagle Claw remains a cautionary case of what happens when night operations exceed institutional readiness. The 1980 hostage rescue attempt in Iran required unprecedented joint coordination and depended on a complex, multiphase plan involving long-range infiltration, helicopters, and clandestine ground movement deep inside hostile territory, much of it planned for execution under conditions of limited illumination and degraded visibility. Mechanical failures, severe dust storms, and navigation challenges reduced the assault force below the minimum required to continue the mission. During the withdrawal from Desert One—a staging area where the mission was aborted—a helicopter operating in degraded visibility collided with a transport aircraft, killing eight US servicemembers. Eagle Claw exposed serious deficiencies in joint planning, rehearsal, and integration. Strategically, it revealed the limits of American power projection in denied environments and directly drove sweeping reforms, including the creation of US Special Operations Command.

A decade later, Operation Just Cause marked significant progress but also underscored how darkness magnifies the challenges of identification, control, and coordination. The 1989 invasion of Panama involved approximately twenty-seven thousand US troops and successfully dismantled the Panamanian Defense Forces within days. The operation deliberately began at night, with major assaults initiated around midnight and continuing through hours of darkness, requiring near-simultaneous airborne and ground attacks against multiple objectives across Panama. During the opening night of the operation, including the seizure of Torrijos-Tocumen International Airport and other key sites, fratricide occurred amid limited visibility, compressed timelines, and the rapid convergence of aircraft and ground forces. The Joint Chiefs of Staff history of the operation highlights the extraordinary command-and-control demands created by this nighttime tempo, illustrating how darkness, density of friendly forces, and speed of execution strained identification and coordination even within an increasingly capable joint force. Just Cause demonstrated growing US proficiency in large-scale night operations, but it also showed that darkness punishes even small lapses in control, communication, and situational awareness.

The difference between those operations and more recent successes was not technology alone. It was mastery earned through relentless training, professionalization, and a force-wide expectation that fighting at night is not exceptional. It is preferred.

That mastery already exists within parts of the US Army. The special operations community has spent decades institutionalizing night operations as a baseline expectation rather than an advanced skill. Units routinely conduct helicopter infiltration, assault, and exfiltration in zero illumination, degraded weather, and complex terrain. Organizations such as 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment have built an entire culture around flying at night under the most demanding conditions imaginable. But this level of proficiency remains unevenly distributed. While special operations forces assume night dominance as a prerequisite for mission success, the same expectation is not consistently applied to brigade- and division-level combined arms formations. Night operations at scale remain something many conventional units prepare for episodically rather than master as a standing, force-wide expectation.

For more than two decades, US conventional forces, especially the Army, operated continuously in Iraq and Afghanistan, including extensive activity at night. But night operations for conventional forces during those wars meant something fundamentally different than they did for special operations forces. Special operations units exploited the night to conduct majority of their assigned missions of the campaign, intelligence-driven kill or capture missions that deliberately used darkness as a tactical advantage. Conventional forces also operated at night, conducting mounted patrols under blackout conditions, base security, and raids and other limited offensive actions. Yet the most important and decisive tasks of stability and counterinsurgency operations occurred overwhelmingly during daylight. Protecting the population, conducting patrols, meeting with local leaders, building infrastructure, and separating insurgents from civilians required persistent daytime presence. This operational reality shaped habits and preferences. Conventional forces could operate at night, but they did so far less frequently because their mission demands emphasized daylight activity. It is therefore unreasonable to expect conventional formations to possess the same instinctive night proficiency as special operations forces when they have not faced the same operational requirements. Large-scale combat operations against a peer enemy will reverse that reality. Future wars will demand that conventional units not only see at night, but fight, maneuver, and command with confidence in darkness, treating night not as a constraint, but as a decisive advantage.

Assessments of peer competitors’ night training and operations suggest significant variation in capability and experience. Russian conventional forces have not demonstrated a systematic ability to exploit night operations in Ukraine, with observable attacks and maneuver still occurring predominantly during daylight hours. Western analyses of Russian training indicate that many units deploy with limited preparation and constrained combined arms proficiency, conditions that directly inhibit their ability to coordinate and sustain operations in darkness. China’s military, by contrast, has placed increasing emphasis on joint and combined arms training, including night activities, as reflected in recent large-scale exercises and doctrinal publications. However, the People’s Liberation Army has not conducted major combat operations since the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979, meaning its night-fighting proficiency remains largely untested outside exercises and controlled training environments. Taken together, available evidence suggests that while Russia and China are studying night operations and investing in capability, neither has demonstrated the institutional confidence and habitual exploitation of darkness that comes from repeated large-scale combat experience, reinforcing the need for the US Army to deliberately preserve and expand its own night dominance.

Despite the widespread availability of night-vision technology, few militaries have translated access to the equipment into habitual, force-wide proficiency in conducting major ground operations at night. In the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, Azerbaijani forces achieved decisive effects through drones, fires, and mounted and dismounted maneuver, yet their main ground operations largely unfolded during daylight, especially in high-casualty events such as breaching mine-wired obstacles. In Ukraine, despite extensive Western support and adaptation, sustained large-scale night maneuver remains limited, with darkness dominated by reconnaissance, harassment fires, and small-unit actions rather than major offensives. In Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces, among the most technologically advanced militaries in the world, conducted relatively few large-scale ground operations at night for extended periods of the campaign, relying instead on specialized units for nocturnal missions.

This raises an obvious question. If night-vision goggles have existed for decades, and if even basic systems are widely available, why do so few militaries truly operate at night?

The answer is simple and uncomfortable. Night combat is hard. It is hard at the individual level, where soldiers must move, shoot, communicate, and make decisions with limited sensory input. It is hard at the small-unit level, where control measures become fragile and errors multiply. It is exponentially harder at scale, where brigades and divisions must synchronize maneuver, fires, logistics, aviation, and command and control in darkness. Owning the night is not about possessing devices. It is about institutional mastery.

This is where the US Army retains a decisive advantage. It is built on an all-volunteer professional force, sustained by the world’s most capable noncommissioned officer corps, and reinforced by training systems that demand repetition under stress. Night operations cannot be treated as a novelty or a niche skill. They must be embedded across the force, and these factors enable the Army to do so.

For decades, the Army embraced the phrase “own the night.” Early on, that advantage rested in part on exclusive access to military-grade night-vision devices. That monopoly is gone. At the same time, the skills and habits required to conduct large-scale night combat with conventional forces atrophied over years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, where mission requirements emphasized persistent daytime presence rather than sustained maneuver in darkness. Night-vision technology proliferated, but institutional mastery of its employment in large-scale combat operations did not keep pace. The ability to integrate night systems into brigade- and division-level maneuver, synchronize fires, maintain control, and sustain tempo in darkness requires extensive training, leader development, and repeated collective exercises. These are perishable skills, and without deliberate reinforcement, they erode.

The advantage of the US Army’s dominance during night operations is not guaranteed. It must be deliberately protected and expanded.

Owning the night must be treated as a force-wide requirement, starting at the very beginning of a soldier’s career. Night movement, night marksmanship, night command and control, and night sustainment must be integrated from basic training onward. Advanced individual training, unit collective training, and leader development must reinforce that expectation. At the combat training centers, night should not be an inconvenience or a scheduling constraint. It should be the default.

That expectation should begin before soldiers ever arrive at their first unit. Leader development and training institutions must set this expectation from the very start across basic and advanced individual training, noncommissioned officer education, and officer commissioning sources. At West Point, for example, cadets could be required to demonstrate proficiency in night land navigation under night-vision goggles, qualify with their service rifles at night, and plan and lead squad and platoon operations in darkness across complex terrain. These would not be exotic events reserved for select training blocks, but baseline graduation requirements. A lieutenant who enters the Army having already maneuvered formations, controlled fires, and made decisions under night conditions will not view darkness as a risk to be avoided but as an advantage to be exploited. Over time, this approach would do more than build skill. It would build confidence, instinct, and a cultural preference for operating at night, ensuring that future leaders do not merely tolerate darkness, but actively seek it.

One other simple reform would reveal much. Stop allowing major attacks during training to begin at dawn. At the National Training Center, I have watched dozens of brigade-level urban assaults begin precisely as the sun rises. The breach coincides with daylight. This may be convenient for observation and evaluation, but it trains the wrong instinct. If adversaries prefer to fight in daylight and pause at night, then attacking at dawn meets them on their terms. We should be attacking when visibility is denied, when control of the light spectrum matters, when electricity is cut, smoke is employed, and confusion favors the force that has trained hardest.

This applies especially to the most difficult tasks in urban warfare. Breaching obstacles. Crossing minefields. Seizing dense terrain. Coordinating fires and maneuver amid civilians and complex infrastructure. These are the operations that separate professional militaries from those that rely on mass, brutality, or standoff destruction. If our enemies can fight at dusk, then dusk is not good enough. We must master what they cannot do.

There is also a psychological dimension that technology alone cannot replace. Darkness amplifies fear and uncertainty. For forces that lack training and confidence, night becomes paralyzing. For forces that have mastered it, night becomes a weapon. Dominating the night imposes a constant mental burden on the enemy, eroding rest, cohesion, and morale. It communicates superiority without words.

Technological innovation will continue to matter. Advances in sensors and fused imagery that can see through smoke, weather, and obscurants will expand what is possible. Companies such as Anduril Industries are pushing next-generation vision systems well beyond traditional night-vision goggles by integrating digital night and low-light imaging, augmented reality overlays, and AI-assisted situational awareness into mixed-reality headsets and helmets that enhance detection, identification, and coordination in darkness and complex environments.

But technology is an enabler, not the foundation. The foundation is training. Years of repetition. Institutional commitment. Leaders who demand proficiency in darkness rather than tolerate avoidance.

The United States still possesses one of the most decisive military advantages in the world: a force capable of conducting massive, coordinated, ground-centric operations at night. That advantage has not disappeared, but it will erode if it is not deliberately maintained.

The US Army can still own the night. It must.

John Spencer is chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute, codirector of MWI’s Urban Warfare Project, and host of the Urban Warfare Project Podcast. He served twenty-five years as an infantry soldier, which included two combat tours in Iraq. He is the author of the book Connected Soldiers: Life, Leadership, and Social Connections in Modern War and coauthor of Understanding Urban Warfare.

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.

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mwi.westpoint.edu · John Spencer · January 19, 2026

​18. Why the Tech World Thinks the American Dream Is Dying

​Summary:

Silicon Valley fears AI will create a tiny class of ultra-rich tech owners while everyone else is pushed into a “permanent underclass.” Talk of UBI and “universal high income” collides with American ideals of earning one’s way and having agency, even as Musk and others predict radical disruption, social unrest, and abundance. Rumors that this is the “last chance” to build generational wealth feed a gold-rush mentality around AI startups, IPOs, and San Francisco real estate. Amid hype, anxiety, and speculation, no one agrees whether AI will widen inequality or democratize opportunity, only that the stakes feel historic.

Comment: I am not ready to give up on our Democracy and the experiment of our Republic. But the tech-bros raise questions that must be addressed. I still am not imaginative enough to understand how we can have "AI-driven abundance."  

Will AI-driven wealth concentration trigger political backlash strong enough to rewrite America’s social contract, or will existing elites adapt just enough to survive?

If money loses meaning in an age of AI-driven abundance, what new sources of status and purpose will societies use to hold themselves together?

Why the Tech World Thinks the American Dream Is Dying

WSJ

Silicon Valley fears this is the last chance to amass generational wealth before AI makes money worthless

By Tim Higgins

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Jan. 18, 2026 5:30 am ET

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/why-the-tech-world-thinks-the-american-dream-is-dying-daf793dc?mod=hp_lead_pos8

Silicon Valley is filled with all sorts of dreams. But one of those wild-eyed ideas, long debated on subreddits and in hacker houses, is becoming a real-life nightmare: Will the AI boom be the last chance to get rich before artificial intelligence makes money essentially worthless?

The argument is that tech companies (and their leaders) will become a class unto their own with infinite wealth. No one else will have the means to generate money for themselves because AI will have taken their jobs and opportunities.

In other words, the bridge is about to be raised for those chasing the American dream. And everyone is worried about being left on the wrong side.

It’s the kind of FOMO that on first blush seems to require a huge suspension of disbelief. But the idea’s mere existence helps explain some of the increasing class worries in California, where a growing movement to tax billionaires is roiling the Democratic Party, affordable housing is a real concern and the idea of the middle class seems out of reach.

Yes, it smacks of sci-fi thinking. But in San Francisco it feels real. And it’s made more believable by the exploits of Elon Musk, the rise of OpenAI’s Sam Altman and warnings by Anthropic’s Dario Amodei about Great Depression-like worker displacement.

“The transition will be bumpy,” Musk said this month on a podcast. “We’ll have radical change, social unrest and immense prosperity.”

And that’s Musk’s best-case scenario.

History is filled with technology booms that create new winners and losers. AI optimists like to point out that a rising tide has tended to lift all boats.

What’s being talked about now—massive job loss to automation and the need for public safety nets, in the form of universal basic income—paints a dramatically different future. It’s still not clear there’s any appetite for so-called UBI, which runs counter to many Americans’ bedrock ideals of personal achievement.

“I used to be really excited about UBI…but I think people really need agency; they need to feel like they have a voice in governing the future and deciding where things go,” Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, said last year when asked by a podcaster about how people will create wealth in the AI era. “If you just say, ‘OK, AI is going to do everything and then everybody gets…a dividend from that,’ it’s not going to feel good, and I don’t think it actually would be good for people.”

OpenAI’s Sam Altman, left. Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg News

If money is out, scarce assets, like art, could become key. Musk has said as much himself. His vision for the future involves robots who handle physical tasks while humanity struggles to keep up with AI thinking, leading to what he calls “universal high income” and an era of abundance.

“If you don’t have a scarcity of resources, it’s not clear what purpose money has,” he said at a conference last year. More recently, Musk suggested people shouldn’t even worry about saving for retirement, predicting AI will provide healthcare and entertainment. “It won’t matter,” he said of retirement savings.

Bold statements from a guy who insisted on a $1 trillion pay package from Tesla, where he is CEO—which he has argued wasn’t about the money, but about maintaining control over the company from misguided activist investors.

Still, it can look like the rich are trying to get richer. So maybe it’s not surprising the San Francisco tech community has been infused with a get-rich-now-or-die-trying vibe.

Sheridan Clayborne, a young man working in the AI-startup scene, seemed to embody the current zeitgeist when he was quoted this past fall in the San Francisco Standard. “This is the last chance to build generational wealth,” the online news site quoted him saying. “You need to make money now, before you become a part of the permanent underclass.”

It was a sentiment that would have felt at home a few years earlier during the meme-stock craze and YOLO investing approach.

Weeks later, social-media posts on Facebook, X and LinkedIn began claiming Nvidia’s Jensen Huang had said something similar. The CEO, these breathless posts claimed, was warning “the period from 2025 to 2030 may be the last major chance for everyday people to build real wealth through technology.”

Scary stuff, except Huang didn’t say it. Rather, his numerous public appearances in the past few months have been filled with talk about the potential for AI to be more of an equalizing force for technology.

“We’re going to have a wealth of resources, things that we think are valuable today, that in the future are just not that valuable…because it’s automated,” Huang told Joe Rogan last month.

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It can be hard to sort fact from fiction in an era of technology that seems pulled straight from an Iain Banks novel. And backers of AI companies have billions, if not trillions, of reasons to hope their gambles aren’t just once-in-a-generation jackpots, but once in a human existence.

Further contributing to the FOMO in San Francisco is the expectation that local AI companies, such as OpenAI and Anthropic, will soon go public, minting many more millionaires.

After the New York Times ran a headline this past week about the wave of “mega” IPOs expected this year, local real-estate agent Rohin Dhar posted on X: “May I humbly suggest you buy your house in San Francisco before this.”

The tech entrepreneur, who was once part of Y Combinator years ago, told me he was drawn to real estate in part because of a belief new AI wealth will fuel a housing boom. Or, as he predicted last year, “the mother of all tech booms is coming.”

Get some while you can.

Write to Tim Higgins at tim.higgins@wsj.com

WSJ

​19. Living Dr. King's Example in Dangerous Times

Comment: Civic Engagment. This is the way to make our Democracy and the experiment of our Republic continue to progress. I do not think anyone could disagree with the words here. The words below should resonate with everyone across the political spectrum who believes in America and its continued potential for greatness.

Tony Johnson

Living Dr. King's Example in Dangerous Times

Why Civic Engagement Is Our Only Way Through

Tony Johnson

Jan 19, 2026

https://substack.com/home/post/p-185067763

On this Martin Luther King Day, I find myself thinking less about the monuments and more about the marching.

We are living through a season when many Americans are rightly angry and afraid. We see government power used in ways that feel punitive rather than protective. We watch reckless rhetoric and escalatory military moves that treat war as a talking point instead of a last resort. We feel institutions that were supposed to serve and protect us are drifting further away, insulated from accountability and indifferent to us — the people they represent.

Fear and confusion in a moment like this is understandable. But paralyzing despair is not our only option.

Dr. King knew something about living under abusive power and constant threat. He did not answer those abuses by withdrawing. He answered them with disciplined, courageous engagement — the hard, unglamorous work of organizing, educating, marching, negotiating, and, when necessary, sitting in a jail cell rather than surrendering his conscience.

King’s moral genius was not abstract. He showed people how to push back against injustice, stand up to tyranny, and turn private conviction into public courage. He reminded us that “the time is always right to do what is right,” not when it is easy or safe, but when justice is on the line.

Our democracy is not held together by hashtags or press conferences. It is held together by the connective tissue between citizens and institutions — the habits of participation, the practice of holding power to account, the willingness to insist that national security and national dignity belong to all of us, not to a frightened few behind closed doors.

Reconnecting our republic means living in community with empathy, integrity, and responsibility. Taking actions that honor and strengthen our connection to each other.

Today, following King’s example means at least three things.

First, refuse to remain silent. When we see abuses of power at home or reckless saber-rattling abroad, we do not shrug and change the channel. We ask hard questions. Like our fellow Americans in Minneapolis, we demand lawful, constitutional conduct from those who wield the instruments of surveillance, force, and coercion. We insist that the policies made and actions taken in our name be worthy of the people they affect.

Second, choose responsible and disciplined civic action over performative outrage. Dr. King did not confuse moral clarity with online fury. He built coalitions, testified, marched, organized economic pressure, and forced the country to look in the mirror. In our time, that may look like running for school boards and city councils, serving on oversight bodies, protecting election systems, or working inside institutions to bend them back toward law and justice. These methods may seem quaint against the backdrop of real trauma being visited on Americans now. Yet our history shows them as proven tools for action and the minimum starting point for enduring change.

Third, widen the circle. Inclusivity is the “strength in numbers” we most need now. The fight for our democracy is not just for some Americans, or my identity versus your identity. It’s for all of us. King’s dream was not a narrow one; it insisted that America’s promise must belong to all peoples, or it will ultimately belong to none.

In an age of cheap division, recommitting to that vision means defending the equal worth and safety of our neighbors — across race, faith, party, and place — even when we disagree on policy. That is not sentimentalism; it’s strategic. A republic in which citizens and neighbors cannot see each other’s humanity will not hold together under pressure.

King often spoke of the “arc of the moral universe” bending toward justice, but he never suggested it bent by itself. It bends when ordinary people decide to pull — again and again — toward courage, truth, and shared dignity.

On this day, in these extraordinarily challenging times for our nation and communities, holding on to America’s living mosaic is not about weaponized nostalgia or torching the shared stories that made ‘we the people’ imaginable. It is about recognizing that our history is complex and messy, and our democracy imperfect and evolving.

It is about citizens who refuse to be spectators to their own history, who choose civic engagement over escape, and who take up Dr. King’s example as a moral champion for a just America — not as a story from our past, but as an assignment for the present struggle to protect and perfect our democracy.

The work of reconnecting the republic is ours. The moment is now. Dr. King would not hesitate. Neither should we.

Thanks for reading! This post is public, so feel free to share it.

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