Quotes of the Day:

"We will never allow anyone to bully, oppress or subjugate China. Anyone who dares to try to do that will have their heads bashed bloody against the Great Wall of Steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people."

– Xi Jinping, in a Tiananmen Square speech marking the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party, 1 July 2021

"For forty or fifty years past, Mr. H. G. Wells and others have been warning us that man is in danger of destroying himself with his own weapons, leaving the ants or some other gregarious species to take over. Anyone who has seen the ruined cities of Germany will find this notion at least thinkable. Nevertheless, looking at the world as a whole, the drift for many decades has been not towards anarchy but towards the reimposition of slavery. We may be heading not for general breakdown but for an epoch as horribly stable as the slave empires of antiquity. James Burnham’s theory has been much discussed, but few people have yet considered its ideological implications – that is, the kind of world-view, the kind of beliefs, and the social structure that would probably prevail in a state which was at once unconquerable and in a permanent state of “cold war” with its neighbours."

-– George Orwell, "You and the Atom Bomb"(note this is when Orwell coined the term "Cold War.")

“Xi Jinping’s China has become a master of those multiple other ways to influence and coerce. Western leaders say they do not want a new Cold War, but it is a little too late for that. The Chinese Communist Party is already waging a form of cold war and until now it has been very effective because Western democracies have been largely absent from the battlefield. Far from trying to contain China, as Beijing frequently claims, the West has facilitated its rise, and is only now–belatedly–waking up to the reality of Xi Jinping’s China and the threat it represents to liberal democracies.”

– The Fire of the Dragon: China's New Cold War by Ian Williams

1. Irregular Warfare and Competitive Statecraft: Reconceptualizing Relative Power

2. How the Exercise of American Power Is Changing Abroad — As Shared Rules Give Way to Gray Zone Unilateralism

3. Yes, America has classified directed energy weapons. No, they were not used on the Maduro raid.

4. The Iranian Protest Movement: Narrative Intelligence Detects the Ground Truths

5. Don’t expect Greenland crisis to realign EU with China, former US diplomat says

6. How narrowing China-US gap could reshape global power play by 2035

7. Money and might: How Trump’s second term is reshaping US-China relations

8. Taiwanese military’s closed-door meeting draws ‘black box’ criticism

9. ‘Woman on a mission’: Japan PM Takaichi bets on popularity and power in snap election, say analysts

10. Special Operations News – Jan 20, 2026

11. Trump to Hold Meeting on Greenland in Davos

12. Gingrich suggests Trump’s Greenland push just ‘a lot of noise’

13. Imperial Prerogative: How the Panama Invasion and the “Barr Doctrine” Set the Stage for the Maduro “Snatch” Operation | National Security Archive

14. Opinion | Davos Men Create Hard Times

15. Opinion | Hit Iran in Its Shadow Bank Accounts

16. The Fleet of the 2030s, and the Ghost of Transformationalism

17. Trump’s Year of Anarchy

18. Chaos as Condition, Order as Achievement: Rethinking US Strategic Assumptions in Twenty-First-Century Interventions

19. Greenland Is Strategic. Annexation Is Not

20. Change or Just Cheating? Overhauling Professional Military Education for the AI Era

1. Irregular Warfare and Competitive Statecraft: Reconceptualizing Relative Power

Summary:

Irregular warfare is now the primary arena of great-power rivalry, with revisionist states using cumulative, below-threshold campaigns across all DIMEFIL tools to reshape political orders without decisive battles. Ryan adapts FM 100-5 into a four-part framework for contemporary IW: offense (economic statecraft, cyber, information, lawfare), defense (cognitive, economic, cyber, legal resilience), virtual reach (maneuver through networks, narratives, and grey zones), and leadership as the integrating function. China and Russia exemplify coherent irregular campaigns that deform will and institutions rather than seize terrain. Democracies must build offensive IW capacity, harden societal resilience, expand virtual reach through trusted networks, and develop disciplined strategic leadership.

Excerpt:

Irregular warfare defines contemporary great-power rivalry. The framework of offense, defense, virtual reach, and leadership provides a coherent lens for understanding competition that unfolds across systems and domains rather than battlefields. Success depends not on decisive military victory but on resilience, influence, and sustained strategic leadership. Publication of DoDI 3000.07 and creation of the Irregular Warfare Center are great steps. It will take strong, knowledgeable leadership to follow through, synchronizing unique capabilities across the DIMEFIL elements of national power in novel ways to catchup and compete with America’s adversaries.

Irregular Warfare and Competitive Statecraft: Reconceptualizing Relative Power

by Sean Ryan

|

01.20.2026 at 06:00am

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2026/01/20/irregular-warfare/

Irregular warfare (IW) has re-emerged as the dominant mode of great-power competition in the twenty-first century, driven by accelerating globalization, digital hyperconnectivity, and the strategic behavior of revisionist states seeking advantage below the threshold of open armed conflict. Unlike conventional warfare, IW is not defined by decisive battles or territorial conquest. Instead, it is characterized by persistent, ambiguous, and multidomain competition designed to shape political environments, economic systems, social cohesion, and institutional legitimacy over time.

Modern irregular warfare operates across political, informational, military, economic, financial, intelligence, legal, and cyber domains and relies on whole-of-government—and often whole-of-society—mechanisms of influence. These activities are frequently cumulative rather than decisive, producing strategic effects through persistence and integration rather than shock or annihilation. While irregular warfare draws on historical traditions of political warfare, insurgency, and revolutionary struggle, its contemporary form is far more diffuse, transnational, and system-oriented.

The U.S. Department of Defense defines irregular warfare as a form of warfare in which state and non-state actors campaign to assure or coerce other actors through indirect, non-attributable, or asymmetric activities. This definition reflects the reality that modern strategic competition often avoids overt violence while still producing outcomes traditionally associated with war, including territorial change, political realignment, and the erosion of political solidarity or sovereignty.

Understanding this environment requires analytical frameworks that illuminate not only individual instruments of power but also the operational logic that integrates them. The 1983 edition of U.S. Army’s FM 100-5 Operations provided a compact framework for conceptualizing relative combat power through firepower, protection, maneuver, and leadership. While designed for kinetic conflict, the underlying logic of FM 100-5 remains analytically useful if adapted to the conditions of irregular warfare.

This article proposes a modernized framework for irregular warfare consisting of four interrelated components: offense, defense, virtual reach, and leadership. These elements parallel the original FM 100-5 construct while better capturing the tools and logics of contemporary grey-zone competition. Information is treated not as a standalone pillar but as a cross-cutting enabler that shapes perception, attribution, and cognitive terrain across all domains and components in the model.

Offense in Irregular Warfare

Offense in irregular warfare represents the coordinated and proactive use of political, informational, economic, financial, intelligence, cyber, and legal instruments to impose costs, seize initiative, and condition adversary decision-making without resort to conventional military force. As the irregular analogue to firepower, offensive action seeks strategic disruption, coercive leverage, and positional advantage through influence rather than physical destruction.

Economic statecraft constitutes a primary engine of irregular offense. Debt leverage, infrastructure investment, standards-setting, supply-chain manipulation, and alternative financial systems allow states to embed themselves within the economic fabric of partner or target states. These mechanisms generate long-term dependencies that can be activated during crises, often without overt coercion or military presence.

Information and cognitive offense targets trust, identity, and perception. Disinformation campaigns, narrative saturation, media co-optation, and elite capture seek to fracture social cohesion, undermine democratic legitimacy, and distort public decision-making. Because these operations exploit open information environments, they can degrade political resilience and impact decision making in ways that kinetic force cannot.

Cyber operations further expand offensive reach by enabling low-cost, deniable access to adversary networks. Cyber tools facilitate intellectual property theft, infrastructure intrusion, data manipulation, and supply-chain compromise while complicating attribution and retaliation. Cyber offense often supports other irregular instruments by providing sensitive information, coercive leverage, or latent access.

Lawfare—the strategic exploitation of legal systems and norms—has emerged as a central offensive modality. Strategic litigation, selective treaty interpretation, and norm manipulation allow states to legitimize revisionist claims, constrain adversary responses, and reshape international legal baselines over time. Diplomatic pressure campaigns and alliance manipulation reinforce these effects by isolating adversaries politically.

Defense and Resilience in Irregular Warfare

Defense in irregular warfare extends the classical concept of protection beyond physical survivability to emphasize societal, institutional, economic, legal, and cyber resilience. Rather than shielding forces from kinetic attack, irregular defense focuses on preserving strategic autonomy under persistent sub-threshold pressure.

Cognitive security is foundational. Adversaries target public opinion, trust, and identity through coordinated information operations designed to polarize societies and erode confidence in institutions. Effective defense requires media literacy, transparent government communication, independent journalism, and strong civil society to inoculate populations against manipulation.

Economic defense addresses vulnerabilities created by weaponized interdependence. Supply-chain diversification, investment screening, financial transparency, and protection of critical infrastructure reduce exposure to coercive economic practices. Economic resilience underpins political independence and limits adversarial leverage.

Cyber defense protects what has been described as the fifth domain of conflict. Continuous monitoring, rapid response, public–private cooperation, redundancy, and workforce development are essential to mitigate cyber intrusions that enable broader irregular effects.

Legal defense, or counter-lawfare, requires sustained investment in legal expertise and alliance coordination. States must contest unlawful claims in international forums, harmonize legal positions with partners, and defend rule-of-law norms to prevent the normalization of revisionist interpretations.

Virtual Reach and Maneuver in the Grey Zone

Virtual reach represents the irregular analogue to maneuver. Instead of repositioning forces in physical space, states maneuver through cyberspace, financial systems, infrastructure networks, supply chains, international institutions, and maritime grey zones. Positional advantage is gained by shaping systems and perceptions rather than seizing territory.

Cyberspace offers the most agile maneuver environment. Persistent reconnaissance, network penetration, and prepositioned access allow states to influence adversary systems at distance while remaining below escalation thresholds.

Infrastructure and economic networks function as maneuver corridors. Control of ports, railways, telecommunications, and payment systems enables states to restructure regional connectivity and generate political leverage without military deployment.

Narrative maneuver seeks dominance over interpretive terrain. In the cognitive domain, agenda-setting, narrative flooding, and cultural influence shape perceptions of legality, legitimacy, and responsibility, often determining political outcomes before material power is applied.

Maritime grey zones combine ambiguity, gradualism, and legal layering to advance territorial claims without triggering armed conflict. The cumulative normalization of such actions exemplifies irregular maneuver in practice.

Leadership as Strategic Integration—An Imperative

Leadership is the decisive integrative element of irregular warfare. Just as FM 100-5 emphasized leadership as central to relative combat power, effective IW leadership synchronizes offense, defense, and virtual reach operationally under coherent strategic intent.

Leadership in irregular warfare requires long-term vision, whole-of-government coordination, narrative discipline, and sustained legitimacy. Without integration, irregular efforts fragment into reactive actions that fail to produce cumulative advantage.

Narrative leadership is particularly critical. Strategic narratives justify state behavior, mobilize domestic support, and shape international perceptions. States that lose narrative coherence often cede legitimacy even when material capabilities remain strong.

Case Study: China as a Skilled Irregular Warfare Actor

China provides a contemporary example of integrated irregular warfare. Beijing employs economic statecraft—buying influence; cyber operations; cognitive influence—aggressively seeking to alter perceptions offensively and defensively; and, lawfare within a coherent strategic framework. Belt and Road infrastructure, maritime port ownership, digital networks, and alternative financial systems extend China’s virtual reach, while global efforts to shape positive narratives provide a defensive mechanism. Through ever evolving activities, centralized CCP leadership ensures bureaucratic synchronization.

Russia Vignette

Russia provides a distinct and instructive variant of integrated irregular warfare that maps cleanly onto offense, defense, virtual reach, and leadership. Moscow couples targeted information operations, energy coercion, economic pressure, and covert paramilitary action to shape neighbors’ political choices (e.g., Crimea/Donbas) and to fracture allied responses. Domestic media controls, security-service dominance, and legal instruments harden regime resilience against external influence and internal dissent. Cyber operations, strategic use of private military companies and proxy networks, and control over critical information vectors extend Russian influence beyond its borders without large-scale conventional deployments. Centralized decision making and blurred civil–military lines permit rapid, synchronized action across instruments of power, enabling persistent, ambiguous campaigns that complicate attribution and deterrence. Together these elements show how Russia’s IW toolbox achieves strategic effects by deforming political will and institutional cohesion rather than by seizing territory through conventional force.

Implications for Democracies

For democracies, competing effectively in irregular warfare requires strengthening all four components. Offensive capabilities must integrate economic statecraft, cyber deterrence, and legal tools. Defensive resilience depends on cognitive security, economic diversification, cyber protection, and institutional legitimacy in the face of adversaries attacking through unrestricted warfare methods. Virtual reach must be expanded through trusted networks and alliances, while knowledgeable, capable leadership must articulate strategy and sustain public trust.

Conclusion

Irregular warfare defines contemporary great-power rivalry. The framework of offense, defense, virtual reach, and leadership provides a coherent lens for understanding competition that unfolds across systems and domains rather than battlefields. Success depends not on decisive military victory but on resilience, influence, and sustained strategic leadership. Publication of DoDI 3000.07 and creation of the Irregular Warfare Center are great steps. It will take strong, knowledgeable leadership to follow through, synchronizing unique capabilities across the DIMEFIL elements of national power in novel ways to catchup and compete with America’s adversaries.

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

Tags: Cognitive Warfare, competitive statecraft, cyberspace, DIME, DIMEFIL, Economic Warfare, irregular warfare, IW, relative power

About The Author

• 
  
• Sean Ryan
• Dr. Sean Ryan is Director of Irregular Warfare Research and Program Manager in the Global Security Initiative and an Assistant Clinical Professor at Arizona State University. A graduate of the United States Military Academy, he served 30 years in the U.S. Army, retiring as a colonel in 2012, and subsequently earned a doctorate in Leadership and Organizational Change. His research and teaching address irregular warfare, strategic competition below the threshold of armed conflict, and civil-military relations.

2. How the Exercise of American Power Is Changing Abroad — As Shared Rules Give Way to Gray Zone Unilateralism

Summary:

American power is shifting from rule-bound leadership to gray zone unilateralism. Under POTUS, irregular warfare tools such as sanctions, legal assertions, maritime interdictions, and limited kinetic actions are used routinely below the threshold of war, justified by unilateral claims of national interest. Venezuela is the template: stepwise escalation made the seizure of Maduro appear normal rather than exceptional. Similar rhetoric toward Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, Greenland, and Iran signals sovereignty as conditional and coercion as ordinary. This erodes the rules-based order and legitimizes copycat gray zone methods by rivals like China, making actions “short of war” the most dangerous category of all.

Excerpts:

Defenders of this approach will argue that the rules-based order was already fraying, and that restraint without reciprocity is naïve. There is truth in that. But abandoning constraint altogether is not realism. It is impatience masquerading as strength.

Power exercised without rules does not remain unilateral for long. Others watch. Others learn. Others adapt the same logic to their own interests. Over time, shared constraints give way to spheres of discretion, and actions “short of war” become the most dangerous category of all—because they feel manageable, repeatable, and safe.

That world does not arrive with a single dramatic decision.

It arrives by normalization.

And once normalized, it is exceedingly difficult to reverse.

Comment: How can the United States reassert credible, self-binding rules for its own gray zone and irregular warfare campaigns without unilaterally disarming in strategic competition with China, Russia, and other revisionist powers? Does the American public want those shared rules or do we want to conduct "gray zone unilateralism?"

How the Exercise of American Power Is Changing Abroad — As Shared Rules Give Way to Gray Zone Unilateralism

by Michael Greif

|

01.20.2026 at 06:00am

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2026/01/20/exercise-of-american-power/

Much of the debate over Donald Trump’s foreign policy has focused on outcomes; far less attention has been paid to how the exercise of power itself is changing. Viewed through a military lens, many of the actions now being treated as routine fit squarely within what the U.S. defense community would recognize as irregular warfare (IW)—coercive measures employed below the threshold of declared war, operating in the gray zone between peace and open conflict. That distinction matters. Outcomes are contingent and contested. Methods, once normalized, tend to persist.

The central problem is the cumulative normalization of unilateralism. By that, I mean the repeated use of IW coercive tools—sanctions, legal assertions, diplomatic isolation, maritime interdictions, and implied or limited force—outside shared rules or multilateral constraint, justified primarily by unilateral determinations of national interest. Over time, repetition matters more than any one act. What begins as exceptional becomes familiar. What feels familiar soon becomes acceptable.

Venezuela provides the clearest and most advanced illustration of this emerging pattern. The United States under Trump declared the Venezuelan government illegitimate, imposed sweeping sanctions, pursued criminal indictments against its sitting president, and ultimately escalated further: U.S. forces captured Nicolás Maduro and transported him to the United States to face federal prosecution.

The United States has removed other foreign heads of state before. The capture of Manuel Noriega in Panama in 1989 stands as a clear precedent. But that episode was treated as an extraordinary rupture, not as a reusable instrument of policy. It did not inaugurate a standing claim that such actions were an ordinary option, available whenever national interest so dictated.

What distinguishes Venezuela is not the final act alone, but the path that led to it. The episode unfolded through a sequence of escalating measures—coercive rhetoric, sanctions, legal assertions, maritime interdictions, and limited kinetic actions—each framed as incremental and justified on its own terms. U.S. forces sank vessels described as drug-smuggling boats even when those vessels were not bound for the United States, and even where the factual basis for their status was contested. Over time, the boundary between pressure and force narrowed.

By the time Maduro was seized, the action could be presented not as a rupture, but as the culmination of a process already made familiar. That is how normalization works in the gray zone: escalation by accretion rather than declaration.

Nor is Venezuela the only context in which this logic has surfaced. In recent remarks, Trump has openly floated coercive options involving Mexico, Colombia and Cuba, tying the possibility of action to narcotics trafficking and governance failures. He has also revived claims over Greenland, framing U.S. entitlement there in terms of national security need rather than consent or alliance process. These statements do not announce operations. But they do something more consequential: they treat unilateral pressure—backed by force if necessary—as an ordinary instrument of statecraft rather than an extraordinary one.

At this point, the argument can no longer be confined to hemispheric exceptionalism. Venezuela, Mexico, Colombia, and Cuba might still be placed—controversially—within a modernized Monroe Doctrine framework. Greenland cannot. The justification there is not proximity, but perceived necessity. Geography recedes; discretion takes its place.

That shift is reinforced by Trump’s statements that the United States could take action if the Iranian government continues to kill peaceful protesters. The importance of that remark is not operational. It is normative. Once legitimacy becomes conditional on behavior as judged unilaterally by Washington, the governing logic is no longer regional. It is portable.

Unilateralism, at this stage, is not only practiced; it is increasingly articulated. Senior administration officials have emphasized presidential “optionality” abroad, framing American action in terms of what national interest requires rather than what shared rules permit. This is not a formally declared doctrine. But it is a governing posture—and postures, once normalized, tend to outlast the officials who adopt them.

The danger here is often misunderstood. This is not primarily about imminent war. It is about precedent. Norms erode not through dramatic rupture, but through accumulation. Each instance in which coercive action is treated as routine lowers the threshold for the next. Each assertion that rules are optional weakens the ability to argue, later, that they matter.

This matters most in the space between peace and open war. The tools now being normalized—sanctions, seizures, legal assertions, diplomatic isolation, maritime force, and limited strikes—are the core instruments of contemporary irregular warfare between states. Other powers, particularly China, have invested heavily in mastering precisely this mode of competition. When the United States treats such tools as discretionary and unbounded, it becomes harder to insist that their use elsewhere is illegitimate.

China’s decisions regarding Taiwan will not be determined by American rhetoric alone. They will turn on military balance, alliance commitments, and strategic risk. But norms shape the environment in which those decisions are made. When sovereignty is treated as conditional and coercion as routine, restraint becomes harder to defend—by anyone.

Defenders of this approach will argue that the rules-based order was already fraying, and that restraint without reciprocity is naïve. There is truth in that. But abandoning constraint altogether is not realism. It is impatience masquerading as strength.

Power exercised without rules does not remain unilateral for long. Others watch. Others learn. Others adapt the same logic to their own interests. Over time, shared constraints give way to spheres of discretion, and actions “short of war” become the most dangerous category of all—because they feel manageable, repeatable, and safe.

That world does not arrive with a single dramatic decision.

It arrives by normalization.

And once normalized, it is exceedingly difficult to reverse.

Tags: coercive statecraft, gray-zone conflict, irregular warfare, norm erosion, rules-based international order, Strategic Competition, U.S. foreign policy, unilateralism

About The Author

• 
  
• Michael Greif
• Michael T. Greif is an attorney with over 45 years of experience in law, business, and governance. His writings apply legal and institutional analysis to strategic and security contexts, with prior publications in Small Wars Journal.

3. Yes, America has classified directed energy weapons. No, they were not used on the Maduro raid.

Summary:

U.S. forces did not use a “sonic weapon” in the Delta raid to capture Maduro; the viral bodyguard story and White House retweet amplified a fabricated account. The United States does possess classified man-portable directed energy systems like the “BAD box,” causing temporary pain, nausea, and sensory effects, and HSI has acquired an adversary device linked to Havana Syndrome–type injuries. Southern Command appears to have exploited the Caracas raid for a psychological operation, seeding fear of “secret weapons” among adversaries. The episode shows how U.S. psyop, social media virality, and official amplification can blur foreign influence, domestic perception, and strategic credibility.

Excerpt:

But this was all a U.S. psychological operation, a U.S. Special Operations Command official told The High Side. U.S. Southern Command, which is in charge of U.S. military operations in South America, wanted to reverse the narrative of Havana Syndrome by suggesting that the United States had an even scarier weapon.

Southern Command “decided to try to replicate the narrative of a sonic ray capability similar to what Havana Station officers supposedly experienced at the hands of the Russians a few years ago,” the U.S. Special Operations Command official told The High Side. Given that so many of Maduro’s security detail were Cuban, the idea of them being felled by a sonic beam had a certain symmetry. The larger intent, however, was to intimidate America’s adversaries by convincing them that the United States has capabilities beyond those that actually exist, the official said.

In an email response to a query from The High Side about whether the social media post was the result of a U.S. military psychological operation, Southern Command spokesman Tech. Sgt. Paul Cook replied: “…[W]e do not provide comments on questions that are based on speculation.”

Comment: The Paul Harvey? Who is speaking out of school above?

Yes, America has classified directed energy weapons. No, they were not used on the Maduro raid.

Don't believe everything you read on social media, or everything the White House tweets.

Jack Murphy

Jan 20, 2026

∙ Paid

https://thehighside.substack.com/p/yes-america-has-classified-directed?utm

Cuba’s armed forces honor the 32 Cuban troops killed in the U.S. raid on Caracas to capture President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela. (Cuban government photo)

Social media reports of U.S. forces using a “sonic weapon” that caused Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s bodyguards to vomit blood during the January 3 raid on Caracas are not true, but U.S. forces do have a secret directed energy weapon that produces different effects, sources told The High Side.

On Jan. 9, an account on X (formerly Twitter) run by right-wing radio and podcast host Mike Netter published what he claimed was a transcript of an interview with one of Maduro’s bodyguards. The alleged bodyguard, who had apparently survived the Delta Force raid that killed 32 Cuban members of Maduro’s security detail, gave a sensational account of U.S. forces using a “sonic weapon” to subdue resistance at Maduro’s heavily fortified residential compound.

“It was like a very intense sound wave,” the guard purportedly said. “Suddenly I felt like my head was exploding from the inside. We all started bleeding from the nose. Some were vomiting blood. We fell to the ground, unable to move.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt retweeted the post, lending it credibility and resulting in it being picked up by Fox News and the New York Post.

However, special operations and intelligence community sources describe the report of U.S. forces using sonic weapons in Caracas with one word: “Bullshit.” There was “no need to leverage that type of capability against Venezuela,” a retired special operations officer familiar with the mission told The High Side.

The BAD box

But the U.S. military, including Joint Special Operations Command, which ran the Caracas raid, does have access to classified directed energy weapons, according to former special operators. “We’ve got the stuff, but it’s not like the effects described” in the alleged bodyguard’s account, said a second source in the special operations community. “More like general nausea, instant but mostly temporary bad sunburn, and hyper-tinnitus.”

If an esoteric technology such as this was even contemplated for a JSOC mission, said a third special operations source, a subject matter expert on the technology would be present when the operators pitched their concept of the operation during the planning process. The expert would brief slides on the technology, but specific details of how it worked would likely even be withheld from the operators in the room. However, none of this occurred during preparations for the Caracas raid, according to several sources in the special operations community.

But what is the reality behind JSOC’s microwave weapon capability?

U.S. special operations forces have for years had access to a man-portable microwave weapon nicknamed the “behavior adjustment device” or “BAD box,” which has a tambourine-sized emitter dish, according to a former electronic warfare soldier who has trained with the weapon. (Although it is public knowledge that the United States has much larger, vehicle-mounted non-lethal anti-personnel systems for crowd control and other tasks, The High Side was unable to find any previous public reference to the fact that a smaller, man-portable system was fielded to select units almost 20 years ago.)

The device itself is kept by the Special Operations Cryptologic Office, which interfaces with the various JSOC units, the former electronic warfare soldier said, adding that he had deployed overseas with the device, including to South America.

Small enough to be carried in a Pelican case, the BAD box fires five-to-six second bursts of directed energy that can penetrate walls and are designed to make people so uncomfortable that they have to move away from the beam, according to the former electronic warfare soldier.

One potential use would be to aim it at a terrorist safe house, forcing the militants inside to either leave or initiate phone calls or other communications that can be tracked, according to the former electronic warfare soldier, who said the device can also be used to jam a microwave antenna.

During the War on Terror, soldiers trained on the BAD box at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, which had specialized chambers for testing radios and other military electronics. (The installation has since been sold to Netflix.) Part of the training included having troops blast a chicken with microwaves from 100 feet away, according to the former electronic warfare soldier. Unlike other non-lethal weapons such as the Taser, soldiers were not permitted to test the BAD box on each other, the former electronic warfare soldier said.

The Havana Syndrome connection

The effects described by the supposed Maduro bodyguard brought to mind for many the phenomenon of Havana Syndrome, the collection of medical symptoms suffered by U.S. government employees which first came to light after more than 20 U.S. Embassy Havana personnel became sick. Many of them believe they were attacked with some sort of directed energy device, with Russia the most likely culprit.

The U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba (Credit: Bjen78 via Wikimedia Commons)

Although the effects of the BAD box on the human body are not known to be as serious as those suffered by Havana Syndrome victims, one person who was not surprised when The High Side described the weapon on which the former electronic warfare soldier had been trained was Dr. David Relman. It was Relman who, during the Biden administration, established what was known as the intelligence community experts panel on Havana Syndrome at the request of Avril Haines and David Cohen, who at the time were the director of national intelligence and CIA deputy director respectively. That panel found that the most plausible explanation for the subset of what the government calls “anomalous health incidents” that defy other solutions is a device that shoots “pulsed electromagnetic energy,” according to the redacted version of its report.

"There was technical evidence that a device could produce this type of energy, propagate it at about 100 meters, and that it can be carried by a human, and concealed,” Relman told The High Side, while acknowledging that skeptics of this explanation still exist. “That’s the part a lot of people don’t accept, because you can’t buy that technology off the shelf.”

David Relman, MD (Stanford University photo)

The U.S. devices were supposedly not designed to hurt people but had intelligence applications, according to Relman. Such devices could potentially be used in a surveillance or countersurveillance role, or to activate spy gear such as listening devices, he said, declining to further elaborate.

“We looked specifically at antennas and I can’t tell you more because that part is classified ... but there is some really interesting antenna technology that we uncovered which is not open source,” Relman said.

Relman confirmed that the “BAD box” described by the former electronic warfare soldier was similar to the sort his panel, which had access to classified information, had discussed as the possible cause of Havana Syndrome. As part of his research for the panel, Relman spoke with several U.S. government personnel who had worked with similar devices and had accidentally gotten in front of the beam, he said. Those mishaps had caused them to experience symptoms that were similar, but not identical, to those suffered by Havana Syndrome victims, he added.

One technique that could be reproduced through experimentation with “living tissue” was firing pulsed microwaves at a higher than usual energy level, which creates pressure waves within the brain and most likely affects the inner ear, which is sensitive to pressure waves, Relman said. These combined effects would account for the vertigo, headaches and loss of mental acuity suffered by many Havana Syndrome victims.

While a radio frequency device might cause inner ear damage, only pulsed microwave energy at a specific rate can damage both the inner ear and the brain, according to Relman. “If energy at just the right frequency penetrates the skin and is now delivered in very, very brief pulses, what happens is you can cause very rapid heating and cooling inside the head and this rapid heating and cooling then propagates through the head as multiple pulses are delivered and you essentially set up pressure waves that travel through the inside of the head and start to reverberate within the cranium,” he said.

However, the United States does not enjoy a monopoly on this sort of technology, according to Relman. “Others have it as well,” he said. “There is some very specific electronic technology that was not developed in this country.” He declined to confirm that Russia was one of the countries to which he was referring, but acknowledged that in its research the panel had reviewed Russian scientific documents.

Mark Zaid, a lawyer who represents more than two dozen Havana Syndrome victims, is less circumspect about what the government knows regarding this type of weapon and its use against his clients.

“I’ve had access to classified information that makes it very clear … that these are man-made energy waves of some kind,” he said. “The only way it could happen is from a foreign adversary.”

News breaks that the U.S. government has obtained a Havana Syndrome device.

On Jan. 12, three days after Mike Netter’s post on X, reporter Sasha Ingber published a story on her “HUMINT” Substack stating that U.S. Special Forces had gotten their hands on one of the devices that an adversary had been using to attack U.S. government personnel — a Havana Syndrome weapon, in other words. Her report confirmed longstanding rumors in the Havana Syndrome community that the United States had obtained such a device.

The next day, CNN reported that the device had actually been acquired by Homeland Security Investigations through surreptitious means. A former CIA official with knowledge of the acquisition confirmed to The High Side that HSI had obtained such a device, adding that multiple rounds of animal testing by the Defense Department had shown that the device does induce Havana Syndrome-type effects.

HSI paid “eight figures” at the tail end of the Biden administration to acquire the device, CNN quoted unnamed officials as saying. The device reportedly fired pulsed microwaves, different than the 5-6 second bursts of the BAD box. Describing a hypothetical device that could be behind Havana Syndrome, Relman told The High Side that it might fire dozens of pulses a second.

Some of the 32 Cuban service members killed during the Delta Force raid on Caracas. (Cuban government photos)

Was the “sonic weapon” report a psyop?

The Mike Netter post on X that Leavitt amplified (commenting “Stop what you are doing and read this…” followed by five U.S. flag emojis) appears to be based on an English translation of a Jan. 8 TikTok post in Spanish by an individual whose handle is franklinvarela09 and who hosts “Varela News” on TikTok, according to reporting by the national security site TWZ.com. In the post, the supposed Maduro bodyguard cautions his audience against taking on the United States.

“I'm sending a warning to anyone who thinks they can fight the United States,” he says. “They have no idea what they're capable of. After what I saw, I never want to be on the other side of that again. They're not to be messed with.”

But this was all a U.S. psychological operation, a U.S. Special Operations Command official told The High Side. U.S. Southern Command, which is in charge of U.S. military operations in South America, wanted to reverse the narrative of Havana Syndrome by suggesting that the United States had an even scarier weapon.

Southern Command “decided to try to replicate the narrative of a sonic ray capability similar to what Havana Station officers supposedly experienced at the hands of the Russians a few years ago,” the U.S. Special Operations Command official told The High Side. Given that so many of Maduro’s security detail were Cuban, the idea of them being felled by a sonic beam had a certain symmetry. The larger intent, however, was to intimidate America’s adversaries by convincing them that the United States has capabilities beyond those that actually exist, the official said.

In an email response to a query from The High Side about whether the social media post was the result of a U.S. military psychological operation, Southern Command spokesman Tech. Sgt. Paul Cook replied: “…[W]e do not provide comments on questions that are based on speculation.”

Varela’s TikTok account lists his location as Utah. The High Side reached out to two Facebook accounts in Salt Lake City under the name “Franklin Varela” but received no reply. (One of the accounts disappeared from view less than 24 hours after being contacted by The High Side.)

It is also unclear whether Leavitt was aware that she might have been retweeting false information, or if the White House spokeswoman herself had inadvertently fallen victim to a U.S. military psychological operation. The White House did not respond to a query from The High Side.

But if the “sonic weapon” was really a psyop, then Leavitt’s X post demonstrates the viral nature of running a psychological operation in the digital age: It isn’t just the target audience getting the message anymore.

4. The Iranian Protest Movement: Narrative Intelligence Detects the Ground Truths

Summary:

Narrative intelligence shows the 2026 Iran protests are fought in streets and in the information space. Economic collapse and brutal repression are real, but perception is shaped by competing narrative ecosystems. Regime media, Russian and Chinese outlets and pro Tehran influencers blame U.S. and Israeli “color revolution” schemes, using fear to justify crackdowns. Diaspora activists, OSINT accounts and Western media amplify footage of killings and morgues, sometimes with recycled or AI altered content. Both sides blend fact and propaganda, eroding trust. In this fog, credibility becomes a weapon, and information power helps decide escalation, legitimacy and outside intervention.

Comment: Access the entire report at the link below.

The Iranian Protest Movement: Narrative Intelligence Detects the Ground Truths

January 19, 2026 | Ellie Munshi

https://edgetheory.com/resources/iranian-protest-movement-narrative-intelligence-reveals-ground-truths?utm

This EdgeTheory Narrative Intelligence report examines the 2026 Iranian protest cycle through the lens of information power, narrative competition, and foreign influence—revealing how perceptions of instability, legitimacy, and escalation are actively shaped in the global information environment.

Drawing on geospatial analysis, narrative attribution, and network detection across websites, social media, RSS feeds, and X, the report maps how narratives around economic collapse, state violence, foreign interference, and regime change propagate and reinforce one another. The analysis traces how state media, diaspora influencers, foreign-aligned information actors, and automated networks interact—using emotional framing and coordinated amplification to shape public understanding and policy risk.

Rather than treating protests as isolated events, the report shows how narrative dominance has become a decisive factor in crisis escalation, influencing legitimacy and international response long before ground truth can be independently verified.

5. Don’t expect Greenland crisis to realign EU with China, former US diplomat says

Summary:

The Greenland crisis will not realign Europe toward China. William Klein argues the EU’s core task is to navigate intensifying US-China rivalry while maintaining a balance, not choosing sides. Trump’s bid for Greenland and tariff threats unsettle Brussels, but China’s deteriorating image in Europe, its trade practices, and perceived support for Russia limit Beijing’s appeal as a counterweight. The EU will continue de-risking from China, tightening oversight of critical dependencies, yet avoid US-style abrupt decoupling. As a rules-based, multi-stakeholder bloc deeply tied to China’s economy, Europe seeks managed competition and calibrated autonomy rather than strategic alignment with either Washington or Beijing.

Comment: An excellent Arctic map at the link.  How will Washington and Beijing adapt their economic and diplomatic statecraft to influence an EU that is determined to “balance between” rather than bandwagon with either power?

Don’t expect Greenland crisis to realign EU with China, former US diplomat says

HKU seminar hears that the core task for Brussels is to navigate US-China rivalry while seeking a balance between the two

Zhao Ziwen

Published: 12:14pm, 20 Jan 2026Updated: 1:27pm, 20 Jan 2026

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3340500/dont-expect-greenland-crisis-realign-eu-china-says-former-us-diplomat?utm

While there may be hopes in Beijing that Washington’s attempt to acquire Greenland has strained transatlantic ties and might draw European countries closer to China, a veteran US diplomat said such a fundamental realignment was unlikely.

The core task of the European Union’s foreign policy will remain navigating intensifying US-China rivalry while seeking a workable balance between the two, according to William Klein, a former charge d’affaires at the US embassy in China.

Addressing a seminar at the University of Hong Kong on Monday, Klein said he had “detected some hope in China over the past several years that, as Europe’s relations with the United States deteriorate, maybe this is an opening [for Beijing]”.

“Maybe Europe will see China as a partner and potentially, even a counterweight to the United States,” added Klein, now a partner with the consultancy FGS Global and non-resident fellow of HKU’s Centre on Contemporary China and the World.

“But I think all of those assessments, or hopes, are inaccurate … Expecting Europe to fundamentally shift how it engages China is not going to happen.”

‘This plan has historic origins’: Putin says Trump’s plan to annex Greenland is ‘serious’

Klein said that although Washington’s unpredictable policies were shaking the EU, China’s image was also deteriorating within the bloc, largely because of its trade policy and perceived support for Russia amid its invasion of Ukraine.

“China does not look better and people don’t rethink those perceptions just because of the challenges that they have with the United States.”

Washington and Brussels are in a stand-off over US President Donald Trump’s intention to acquire Greenland. On Monday he threatened 10 per cent tariffs from next month, rising to 25 per cent in June, on a slew of European countries. Europe has vowed to retaliate.

On the other front, China and the EU remain at odds over trade, even as Beijing portrayed last week’s milestone towards resolving their years-long dispute over Chinese electric vehicles as a “soft landing”.

Guidance published by Brussels on January 12 for Chinese EV exporters said they could submit price undertaking offers that were “adequate to eliminate injurious effects of subsidies and provide equivalent effect to duties”.

However, Brussels’ de-risking process is continuing, if not accelerating. For instance, despite last month’s jump in EU imports of Chinese rare earths, the bloc is promoting blueprints to further decrease its dependence on China.

Last month, Brussels also launched a proposal to closely track the bloc’s reliance on China’s goods, especially critical minerals that included rare earths.

According to Klein, the EU’s key mission for the foreseeable future was to look for a balanced approach between Beijing and Washington as “everyone else will position themselves according to their interests”.

“Europe has to fundamentally think about how it balances those challenges from China and the United States,” he said.

“What that’s going to look like in practice remains to be seen. But again, I don’t see the fundamental structure and trajectory of the Europe-China relationship changing.”

As a rules-based actor, the EU was unlikely to pursue decoupling from China or adopt Washington-style abrupt and confrontational policies towards a strategic competitor, Klein added.

And, as a complex bloc with multiple stakeholders that benefited significantly from China’s economy, the EU had strong structural incentives to avoid a full economic break between the two sides.

“We can expect, in the coming years, that the trade and commercial relationship will become more challenging [between Beijing and Brussels], but you will not see Europe take the relationship with China to where the US has taken it,” Klein said.

“Stakeholders will influence that rule-making process and, because the rules are so important, I can assure all of you that you will not wake up one morning and see a tweet from [EU leader] Ursula von der Leyen announcing new tariffs against China.”

Zhao Ziwen

Ziwen joined the Post in 2022, covering China’s foreign affairs. He holds degrees from Beijing Foreign Studies University and Hong Kong Baptist University. He worked for Caixin in Beijing, completed a study exchange in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, and undertook a reporting stin

6. How narrowing China-US gap could reshape global power play by 2035

Summary:

Yan Xuetong argues that by 2035 China will narrow, but not surpass, U.S. comprehensive national power, producing strategic rivalry on roughly equal footing. He forecasts intensified friction during POTUS’ second term, with shrinking diplomatic channels and heightened risk of crisis, yet a longer term trend toward managed, war-free competition. China is likely to hold deeper economic ties with many major states, while the U.S. retains broader security networks, driving issue-based side picking rather than bloc alignment. Europe hedges, Brazil and Russia tilt toward Beijing, and key Indo-Pacific partners stay U.S.-leaning but less eager to contain China outright.

Comment: If strategic parity and issue-based alignment emerge by 2035, how must U.S. competitive statecraft evolve now to shape those future choices rather than react to them?

How narrowing China-US gap could reshape global power play by 2035

Political scientist Yan Xuetong predicts Beijing will be on ‘equal footing’ in strategic rivalry with Washington in the post-Trump era

Orange Wang

Published: 10:30pm, 19 Jan 2026Updated: 11:44pm, 19 Jan 2026

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3340468/how-narrowing-china-us-gap-could-reshape-global-power-play-2035?utm

The United States is likely to lose its clear edge over China in strategic relations with major nations by 2035, a prominent Chinese political scientist has predicted.

Yan Xuetong, honorary dean of Tsinghua University’s Institute of International Relations, said strategic competition between Beijing and Washington was likely to remain intense in the coming decade and could escalate into a crisis during US President Donald Trump’s second term, but the risk of direct war could decline under subsequent administrations.

In his book Inflection of History: International Configuration and Order 2025-2035, published last month, Yan argues that China and the US are the only two superpowers and will continue to outpace other major countries during the second Trump administration and beyond.

“By 2035, issue-based side-picking between China and the US is likely to become a normalised international phenomenon,” the book states.

By that time, China’s strategic relationships with Brazil and Russia will be stronger than those countries’ ties with the US, while Germany and France will pursue a path of relative neutrality, hedging between the two powers, according to Yan.

He predicted that although India, Japan and Britain would maintain stronger strategic ties with the US than with China, they were expected to be less proactive about taking part in Washington’s containment of Beijing.

“The US will lose its clear advantage over China in strategic relations with major powers,” Yan wrote. “At that point, the US may lose its international dominance.”

According to Yan, most major nations are likely to have deeper economic cooperation with China than with the US, and while Washington is expected to maintain a larger network of security partners than Beijing, the two countries’ political influence will be comparable.

The new book coincides with debate over how the Trump administration’s “America first” agenda might affect the global order, especially following several recent flashpoints: the US abduction of former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife, the US president’s ramped-up talk of taking over Greenland while threatening European allies, and his increasingly hardline posture towards Iran.

There has also been growing attention to how the White House’s foreign policy approach, highlighted in its National Security Strategy last month, could shape the trajectory of China-US competition.

Both countries have been working to keep the peace ahead of possible reciprocal visits by Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The US leader has said he accepted an invitation to visit China in April.

Yan expressed caution about the view that China-US relations would stabilise or improve following a potential Beijing visit by Trump.

“Personally, I am not that optimistic,” he said during a book launch event in Beijing last Tuesday.

Recalling that Trump launched the trade war in early 2018, shortly after his trip to China in November 2017, Yan noted that it was difficult to guarantee the US leader would not repeat that pattern after a potential visit this year.

He added that he had seen no signs of a trade war “truce” emerging from the leaders’ October summit in Busan, South Korea.

Yan noted that both sides had only postponed across-the-board tariff increases and agreed to prevent competition from escalating into war, but confrontations continued in other areas of trade and technology.

Tsinghua University scholar Yan Xuetong says the US is likely to lose its clear advantage over China in strategic relations with major powers by 2035. Photo: Handout

In his book, Yan estimated that the second Trump administration could end with heightened China-US friction, with fewer than 20 official dialogue channels. The number was more than 100 at the start of Trump’s first term.

He warned that Trump’s “mafia-style extortion tactics” could risk escalating the economic competition into military conflict during the US leader’s four-year stint.

Yan predicted that by 2035, the gap in comprehensive national strength between China and the US could narrow significantly, forcing future American administrations to return to a trajectory of managed economic competition.

“Strategic competition between China and the US may remain intense after the end of the second Trump term, but the two countries may have established new mechanisms for managing competition, creating a long-term, stable and war-free state of competition,” he wrote.

According to Yan, China could narrow the gap with the US in overall national strength in the coming decade, but a comprehensive overtaking remains unlikely.

“I think that by 2035, we will be competing on equal footing with the US. The possibility of surpassing the US is still not there,” he said at the book event, adding that China still faced significant gaps in fields such as the military, basic scientific research and higher education that would be challenging to bridge in just 10 years.

Still, Yan said China might outperform the US in specific technologies a decade from now.

Orange Wang

Based in Beijing, Orange covers a range of topics including China's economy and diplomacy. He previously worked in Hong Kong and had a stint in Washington. Before joining the Post, Orange worked as a Shanghai Correspondent for ET Net, a Hong Kong financial news agency.

7. Money and might: How Trump’s second term is reshaping US-China relations

Summary:

Trump’s second term has fused economic coercion and military deterrence into a single China policy, turning interdependence into a battlespace. Tariff “Liberation Day” and triple-digit duties on Chinese goods triggered near-total trade stoppage, only partially eased after Xi–Trump talks. Beijing exposed U.S. vulnerability by throttling rare earth exports, shocking Washington and underscoring supply-chain risk. The new National Security Strategy ties Taiwan’s security directly to U.S. economic and technological primacy while expanding forward deterrence in East Asia. Yet the Maduro snatch operation and extraterritorial trials undercut U.S. claims to defend sovereignty, weakening the moral high ground in any confrontation with China over Taiwan.

Comment: How can the United States wage coercive economic and military actions against adversaries like China and Venezuela while preserving enough normative credibility on sovereignty and law to rally allies in a Taiwan, Korea, or other Asia-Indo-Pacific crisis?

Money and might: How Trump’s second term is reshaping US-China relations

channelnewsasia.com · Nick Harper

Nick Harper

20 Jan 2026 06:00PM

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Over the past year, relations between the world’s two largest superpowers have been marked by trade wars, military signalling and uneasy truces.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/usa-donald-trump-one-year-china-ties-tariffs-rare-earths-5870671

WASHINGTON: Ties between the United States and China have been on a rollercoaster ride, a year into US President Donald Trump’s second term.

The relationship has become a volatile mix of economic confrontation and military posturing, underscoring how deeply intertwined money and security have become in Washington’s China policy.

On the economic front, ties have lurched from an all-out trade war to a fragile truce, punctuated by disputes over semiconductors, artificial intelligence, rare earth exports and the future of Chinese-owned social media giant TikTok.

At the same time, security tensions have intensified, driven by US efforts to bolster military deterrence in East Asia and deepen alliances with Japan, South Korea and the Philippines to counter Beijing’s growing regional influence.

Last October, Trump met Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in South Korea, capping months of heightened tensions.

The meeting yielded several trade- and economic-related agreements, de-escalating their trade war after months of turbulence, including US tariff reductions and a pause in Beijing’s new restrictions on rare earth minerals and magnets.

TRUMP’S SECOND TERM & TARIFF SHOCK

Tensions between the world’s two largest economies began soon after Trump returned to the White House in January last year.

Within weeks, his administration imposed fresh tariffs on Chinese goods. It escalated these levies until early April, when the president declared what he called “Liberation Day” – a sweeping move imposing tariffs on imports from nearly every nation.

For China, the impact was especially severe. Within days, US tariff rates on Chinese goods surged to as high as 145 per cent, effectively grinding bilateral trade to a halt.

Former US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs Danny Russell said the scale of escalation exposed the risks of weaponising an interdependent relationship.

“We saw so much escalation to try to gain leverage over the other (in the form of) sharp tariff hikes (and) retaliatory measures,” said Russell, now a distinguished fellow at Washington-based think tank Asia Society Policy Institute.

“But the interdependence meant there was a very substantial amount of pain (as well) for the party that was administering it.”

RARE EARTHS: CHINA’S STRATEGIC LEVERAGE

That pain became clear when Beijing wielded what many see as its trump card: Dominance over rare earth minerals.

China twice tightened export controls, choking off supplies that account for nearly 80 per cent of America’s imported critical minerals.

“It was really a visible gut punch to Trump and (his) team because they just hadn’t done their homework,” said Russell, describing the move as a strategic shock to Washington.

“(Beijing) showed … that’s something that could cripple US industrial production, that had very severe potential impacts on the US military.”

While talks helped bring about a pause in tariff escalation, friction continued beneath the surface. Washington and Beijing remain locked in disputes over chips and AI technology, even as Trump pushed for greater US industrial self-sufficiency.

Todd Belt, a political management professor at George Washington University, said he does not expect those tensions to fade anytime soon.

“Trump thinks he can do this himself with US companies, by taking some of the stock and propping it up in order for them to do more manufacturing. But this doesn’t happen overnight. There’s going to be a big point of contention,” he added.

US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping speak after a bilateral meeting at Gimhae International Airport, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, in Busan, South Korea, Oct 30, 2025. (File Photo: Reuters/Evelyn Hockstein)

FOREIGN POLICIES COSTS AT HOME

Domestically, the political costs of Trump’s China-focused agenda may be mounting.

Some analysts believe his trade policies could hurt the Republicans in November’s midterm elections, with Democrats poised to argue that the president has neglected domestic priorities while driving up costs for ordinary Americans.

Hans Noel, associate professor of government at Georgetown University, said cost-of-living pressures usually weigh heavily on voters during election seasons, regardless of the underlying causes.

“Midterm elections often appear to be like a referendum on the president,” he told CNA.

“Concerns about affordability, the price of gas and groceries – how much is directly attributable to tariffs versus (other factors)? Most voters are just going to say, ‘I’m paying those prices’, and that’s not going to be good for their assessment of the president.”

US NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY

The White House’s National Security Strategy, released last November, underscored how closely economics and security have become linked in US thinking on China.

Its language on Taiwan was stronger than in Trump’s first-term strategy, drawing Beijing’s ire. The document said there was “rightly, much focus on Taiwan” because of its strategic location along major trade routes and its dominance in global semiconductor manufacturing.

Beijing views Taiwan as its own and has never renounced the use of force to bring the democratic, self-governed island under its control. China also lays claim to vast areas of the South China Sea – claims disputed by numerous smaller neighbours.

The updated strategy signals Trump’s intent to deter conflict by building up US and allied military power across the region.

However, some analysts warn that Washington’s actions elsewhere may undermine its credibility.

They point to US involvement in Venezuela, which has raised questions about America’s commitment to sovereignty, potentially weakening its moral authority when confronting China over Taiwan.

Earlier this month, Trump ordered a military strike in Caracas, capturing Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, and brought them to New York to stand trial on drug trafficking and other charges.

“The US going into Venezuela … trying to conduct some sort of regime change … this sort of gives the green light to China in some ways because the US has lost the moral high ground when it comes to respect for sovereignty,” said Belt.

For many younger Americans, however, the most tangible US-China flashpoint of the past year was TikTok.

The Chinese-owned social media platform briefly went dark for its 170 million US users before last-minute dealmaking – and promises of a majority US control – saved the popular app.

Looking ahead, April could mark another pivotal moment. Trump is expected to travel to Beijing, potentially to finalise a long-delayed US-China trade deal.

Observers hope the visit will, at the very least, stabilise the uneasy truce between the world’s two largest superpowers.

channelnewsasia.com · Nick Harper

8. Taiwanese military’s closed-door meeting draws ‘black box’ criticism

Summary:

Taiwan’s defence ministry used a closed-door briefing to push a record NT$1.25 trillion special defence budget through an opposition blockade, triggering “black box” criticism from KMT and TPP lawmakers who demand public transparency on how funds will be spent. Officials argue secrecy is required until US arms sales are formally notified, while revealing broad plans for drones, unmanned surface vessels, air and missile defence, AI-enabled command systems, and expanded local production. Analysts warn of overstretched procurement capacity, dependence on US project oversight, and looming operations and maintenance costs as new systems arrive under mounting PLA pressure.

Comment: How can Taiwan reconcile necessary operational secrecy and complex US-linked procurement with democratic transparency and sustainable defence resourcing in a protracted gray-zone contest and possible conflict with Beijing and the PLA?

Taiwanese military’s closed-door meeting draws ‘black box’ criticism

Taiwan’s defence minister delivers classified briefing on record US$39.5 billion budget in a bid to break opposition blockade

Lawrence Chungin Taipei

Published: 9:00am, 20 Jan 2026

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3340451/taiwanese-militarys-closed-door-meeting-draws-black-box-criticism?utm

Lawrence Chungin Taipei

Published: 9:00am, 20 Jan 2026

Taiwan’s military held a closed-door briefing on Monday to break an opposition blockade of a controversial NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.5 billion) special defence budget that has prompted accusations of “black box” decision-making from rival parties.

Taiwanese Defence Minister Wellington Koo Li-hsiung delivered a classified briefing to the legislature’s foreign affairs and defence committee, seeking to persuade lawmakers to allow the long-stalled bill to be referred for committee review.

The package – the largest defence spending proposal in Taiwan’s history – was announced by Taiwanese leader William Lai Ching-te in November as part of an effort to bolster combat readiness amid escalating military pressure from Beijing. The budget would fund procurement and force-building programmes through 2033.

Speaking to reporters ahead of the session, Koo said the defence ministry had “drawn up an integrated plan based on assessments of the security threat and Taiwan’s operational needs”.

He said the ministry hoped detailed explanations to lawmakers across party lines would help unlock legislative review and “allow defence modernisation and readiness efforts to move forward”.

PLA kicks off military exercises around Taiwan

The decision to brief lawmakers behind closed doors, however, immediately triggered criticism from the opposition, which has blocked the bill from entering committee review eight times.

Ma Wen-chun, a legislator from the Kuomintang (KMT), the island’s main opposition party, said it was unreasonable to hold a classified meeting when the contents of the massive special budget – funded by taxpayers – remained unclear.

“This should have been clearly explained to the public in the first place,” she said. “Otherwise, there is of course no reason to approve it.”

Ma questioned why the defence ministry insisted on secrecy when Washington had already publicised details of several arms sales to Taiwan, and asked if something was being “deliberately concealed”.

She said the KMT would subject the proposal to strict scrutiny and would not allow the government to push it through as a bundled package.

KMT caucus executive director Lo Chih-chiang added that Lai had previously “pledged to brief parliament” on major issues, arguing that Lai had failed to honour that commitment in the case of the defence budget – a lapse he said cast doubt on the administration’s reform credentials.

The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), a smaller opposition party that has aligned with the KMT in blocking the bill procedurally, also raised sharp questions.

TPP legislator Lin Yi-chun said lawmakers had a duty to scrutinise how public money would be spent, asking whether the budget amounted to a “protection fee” paid to the United States or a way to benefit specific arms suppliers.

Pressed on why the arms procurement items could not be disclosed, Koo said that “under established practice, Taiwan-US arms sales cannot be publicly revealed before Washington formally notifies the US Congress”.

As for commercial procurement, Koo said that because the special bill had not yet been referred to committee, the defence ministry must “respect the legislature” and refrain from disclosing details before formal discussion.

The ruling, independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) pushed back strongly, accusing the opposition of politicising the island’s security.

DPP legislator Wang Ting-yu said the KMT-TPP bloc had “blocked referral of the bill eight times” to the legislature’s procedure committee.

Wang rejected claims that the classified briefing amounted to a “black box”, saying Taiwanese law explicitly allowed closed sessions when sensitive security matters were involved.

“With several US arms sales still not formally notified to Congress, a classified briefing is necessary to facilitate communication while avoiding diplomatic and legal complications,” he said.

At the heart of the dispute is how much of the NT$1.25 trillion package – a ceiling rather than a final figure – will be spent on US arms sales, local production and commercial purchases.

The island’s defence ministry has said that roughly NT$300 billion would go to locally produced systems, with the remainder largely earmarked for overseas procurement, including US weapons.

Sales of five US weapons systems have been notified to Congress: M109A7 self-propelled howitzers, Himars launchers, Javelin and Tow anti-tank missile systems, and loitering munitions.

Taiwan’s military officials say an additional four major items have yet to be announced. These are widely expected to include expanded purchases of Patriot PAC-3 air-defence missiles and the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System – both central to Lai’s “Taiwan Shield”, or “T-Dome”, air and missile defence plan.

The ministry revealed after the closed-door session that, in addition to the five types of weapons already announced by the US, the island’s military planned to procure around 200,000 drones for coastal surveillance and attack roles, more than 1,000 unmanned surface vessels and anti-drone systems.

Spending will also include artificial intelligence-enabled decision support tools, tactical networks and rapid intelligence-sharing applications, as well as the expansion of home production lines for ammunition, propellants, armoured vehicles, explosives, chemical-protection equipment and night-vision devices.

The ministry added that Taipei would work with Washington on co-development and co-procurement programmes.

Taiwan’s deputy defence minister Hsu Szu-chien told lawmakers last week there was “no blank cheque or hidden authorisation”. He stressed that no special budget could be drawn up “until the legislature passes the bill” and that all spending would still be subject to line-by-line review.

Analysts said the controversy had exposed deeper structural challenges in Taiwan’s defence procurement system.

A retired officer who previously handled US arms purchases and asked not to be identified said Taiwan had long favoured government-to-government sales because the US Department of Defence managed much of the project oversight.

“But repeated delivery delays have exposed the drawbacks of that approach,” he said, adding that Taiwan “lacks sufficient negotiation and large-scale project-management expertise to rely more heavily on commercial sales”.

Chieh Chung, a professor of international relations and strategic studies at Tamkang University in New Taipei City, said major weapons procurement required “teams well-versed not only in military technology, but also in international law, supply chains and long-term logistics”.

He warned that existing manpower “may already be stretched” simply managing the volume of arms sales in the pipeline.

Other analysts cautioned that the special budget could create long-term fiscal strain. “Operating and maintenance costs will surge once systems such as the delayed F-16V fighters finally arrive,” said Max Lo, executive director of the Taiwan International Strategic Study Society, referring to 66 aircraft originally slated to begin delivery last year, with full delivery by the end of this year.

“That could squeeze personnel spending unless the regular defence budget also rises,” he said.

Beijing sees Taiwan as part of China to be reunited by force if necessary. It has intensified military pressure on the island since 2024, when Lai took office and provoked the mainland by saying that the two sides of the Taiwan Strait “are not subordinate to each other”.

Most countries, including the US, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington is opposed to any attempt to take the self-ruled island by force and is committed to supplying it with weapons.

Lawrence Chung

Lawrence Chung covers major news in Taiwan, ranging from presidential and parliament elections to killer earthquakes and typhoons. Most of his reports focus on Taiwan’s relations with China, specifically on the impact and possible developments of cross-strait relations under

9. ‘Woman on a mission’: Japan PM Takaichi bets on popularity and power in snap election, say analysts

Summary:

Japan’s new prime minister Sanae Takaichi has called a Feb. 8 snap election to convert her personal popularity into a stronger mandate for sweeping fiscal, institutional, and security reforms. Her approval sits near 70 percent, far above the LDP’s 30 percent, making the vote a high risk bid to close that gap and secure a solo lower house majority. The loss of Komeito and rise of a CDP–Komeito centrist alliance fragment the party system and raise uncertainty. Markets worry that her expansionary, debt fueled agenda and tax cuts on food could collide with rising rates even as she hardens policy toward China and Taiwan.

Comment: Tough challenges for a tough leader. If Takaichi wins a strong mandate, can she sustain tough China and Taiwan policies while reassuring markets about Japan’s debt trajectory and preserving domestic support as interest rate pressures begin to hit households? Will we see a 1992 reprise of James Carville's adage, "It's the economy, stupid?" Foreign policy and international toughness does not usually win elections in the face of economic challenges. What happens if she does not win? I wonder how China's UFWD is conducting subversive activities to influence the election.

‘Woman on a mission’: Japan PM Takaichi bets on popularity and power in snap election, say analysts

channelnewsasia.com

Louisa Tang

20 Jan 2026 03:42PM

Sanae Takaichi’s Cabinet currently has strong approval ratings, in contrast to her Liberal Democratic Party, which has governed Japan almost continuously since its formation in 1955.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/japan-snap-election-sanae-takaichi-ldp-popularity-power-analysts-5870271

Japan will head to the polls on Feb 8 in a snap general election that Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has cast as a test of her leadership.

Just three months into her tenure, Takaichi, the country’s first female leader, said on Monday (Jan 19) that she wants voters to decide whether she is fit to lead the world’s fourth largest economy.

She is also seeking a stronger mandate to push through sweeping fiscal, institutional and national security reforms.

But political analysts told CNA that the snap election is far more than a confidence vote.

Among other consequences, it could reshape Japan’s political landscape, test market confidence in the world’s most indebted advanced economy, and determine whether Takaichi’s personal popularity can overcome the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's (LDP) persistent weakness with voters.

Takaichi understands these risks, said Tomohiko Taniguchi, special advisor at the Fujitsu Future Studies Centre and former special adviser to the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

“It certainly is a gamble. Takaichi is fully aware that she's walking on very thin ice,” he added.

“‘Give me power, more authority, to make me much, much more decisive in pushing through some of the difficult legislative bills.’ That's basically what she told the nation yesterday.”

Takaichi is expected to dissolve parliament on Friday, with campaigning to begin next Monday.

STRIKING WITH HIGH APPROVAL RATINGS

For Takaichi, the timing of her election announcement is driven by unusually strong public support.

Japan is not due for another general election until October 2028.

Opinion polls by major Japanese media outlets put her Cabinet approval rating at around 70 per cent – a level rarely sustained by Japanese leaders, said analysts.

Takaichi is keenly aware that such numbers may not last, said Jeffrey Kingston, professor of history and Asian studies at Temple University Japan.

“She’s a woman on a mission, and she wants to cash in on her sky-high approval ratings,” he noted.

“She’s figuring that the news is only going to get worse and she’s going to decline, so why not hold an election now?”

Kingston said internal LDP polls suggest that the party could even secure a standalone majority in the powerful 465-seat lower house of parliament – a result that would dramatically strengthen Takaichi’s hand.

LDP’s coalition with the Japan Innovation Party has given it a fragile majority at the moment, with just enough seats to govern.

While Takaichi is popular, LDP is not. Its approval rating hovers around 30 per cent, raising doubts about whether personal support can translate into votes for the party’s candidates.

“There is a discrepancy between the popularity ratings for Takaichi and for the LDP,” Taniguchi told CNA’s Asia First.

“By winning the majority, as she said she would, she could fill the gap. She could say to the nation, to the world, that I am popular, but the LDP is also popular as well.”

FRAGMENTED ALLIANCES, UNCERTAIN OUTCOMES

The snap election will also test Japan’s evolving party system, said analysts.

Takaichi is leading a new coalition following the departure of the Komeito party, a long-time LDP partner, shortly before she took office last October.

In Komeito’s place is the Japan Innovation Party, an Osaka-based group with limited national reach, noted Kingston.

He warned that this shift could prove costly.

“Komeito was a very effective election machine. About one-quarter of the seats that the LDP won in the last lower house election are owing to collaboration with Komeito,” he pointed out.

Complicating matters further is the emergence of a new opposition grouping, the Centrist Reform Alliance – comprising Komeito as well as the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP).

When announcing the alliance’s formation last week, CDP and Komeito leaders described it as an offensive strategy to fight against the conservative ruling coalition.

Despite it being early days for the alliance and the short campaigning period leading up to the election, Kingston noted that the CDP’s and Komeito’s combined vote tally in the previous election exceeded that of the LDP.

“It’s not a risk-free gamble,” he said, though he still expects Takaichi to emerge satisfied with the election outcome.

Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) President Sanae Takaichi stands up and bows after she was selected as Japan's new prime minister during an extraordinary session of the lower house of parliament in Tokyo, Oct 21, 2025. (Photo: AFP/Philip Fong)

Other analysts like Kotaro Tamura, adjunct professor at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, said they are more confident of Takaichi’s and the LDP’s chances.

“I think she will win at least comfortably, and in my opinion, she can win a landslide,” he said, estimating the LDP could secure 270 to 280 seats in the lower house – enough to govern alone.

Despite the LDP’s weak party branding, Tamura – a former LDP politician under the Abe government – said voters are likely to ultimately rally behind Takaichi.

“LDP itself is not popular yet, but they have no choice other than to support Takaichi in the ballot,” he told CNA’s Asia Tonight.

TIES WITH CHINA

Meanwhile, the election also comes as Japan faces strained ties with China.

Takaichi suggested in November that Tokyo could take military action if China attacked Taiwan. Beijing has sought a retraction of those comments, but Takaichi has said Japan's policy on Taiwan remains unchanged.

Her tough rhetoric on China appears to have boosted her standing at home, said analysts.

“Given the steady and very high popularity ratings, the implication is that the nation is not so much discontented about the coercive actions that they see almost daily from China. Rather, they may be broadly supportive of her overall foreign policies,” Taniguchi said.

Kingston told CNA’s East Asia Tonight that the confrontation with Beijing has played directly into Takaichi’s political narrative.

“The nation has rallied around her. Part of the reason why she's riding high in the polls is the public is backing her, and they admire the fact that she has stood up to China,” he added.

“(During) her campaign for party presidency, she kept invoking the image of Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady, and here she is, in a way, delivering on that,” said Kingston, referring to the former United Kingdom prime minister.

FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY

Beyond the headlines, analysts said the election is likely to become a referendum on fiscal policy.

Takaichi has embraced an expansionary economic agenda aimed at easing the cost-of-living pressures facing households, particularly pensioners on fixed incomes.

Her Cabinet has approved a record budget for the next fiscal year, and she has proposed scrapping the 8 per cent sales tax on food – a significant departure from the LDP’s traditional emphasis on fiscal discipline.

Markets, however, are uneasy. Japan’s 10-year government bond yields climbed in early trading on Tuesday to their highest in nearly three decades.

“(One) argument is that her expansionary fiscal policy and ratcheting up Japan's already record-high public-debt-to-GDP (gross domestic product) ratio, which is now about 250 per cent, is causing … interest rates to surge,” Kingston said.

“This hasn't really yet hit the average consumer, but in the next couple of months, this is going to hit hard.”

But Taniguchi said the prime minister is not ignoring market signals and is “fully cognisant of the creeping interest rate hike”.

He noted that Takaichi has stressed her government will issue fewer Japanese government bonds than before.

Still, Taniguchi cautioned that “how the market is going to react is another question”.

“Reducing consumption tax or value-added tax for food and food materials, interestingly, is now a bipartisan consensus because the opposition party is proposing almost exactly the same thing. So, it's a new landscape,” he added.

channelnewsasia.com

10. Special Operations News – Jan 20, 2026

Special Operations News – Jan 20, 2026

January 20, 2026 SOF News Update 0

https://sof.news/update/20260120/

Curated news, analysis, and commentary about special operations, national security, and conflicts around the world.

Photo / Image: 10th SFG(A) troops fastrope from UH-60 near Aalborg, Denmark. Photo by SSG Steven Young, SOCEUR, Sep 2, 2018.

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Editor’s Note: An article published by SOF News last week, “Information Advantage in the Indo-Pacific”, had some errors. The Public Affairs Officer of the 1st TIAD set us straight. In the original article the support to SOF was overstated.The article has been edited. The revised version can be read at the link above.

SOF News

The Dangers of the Carl Gustaf RR. The Multi-Role Anti-Armor Anti-Personnel Weapon System (MAAWS) – aka Carl Gustaf 84 mm Recoiless Rifle – packs a punch in combat and is widely used by U.S. special operations forces (SOF). It was first introduced to the 75th Ranger Regiment in 1993 and then by USSOCOM four years later. While a very effective weapon in combat for SOF, it has some disadvantages. The weapon produces more overpressure than most other weapons – and has affected the health of many SOF veterans. United States Special Operations Command has conducted research on the Carl Gustaf and is taking precautions to reduce the damage done to SOF personnel. Read more in “Carl Gustaf Recoilless Rifle: The Weapon That Hits Twice”, Special Operations Association of America (SOAA), January 12, 2026.

How SF Must Posture for DAO in LSCO. MAJ Logan VonKilmer explains how U.S. Special Forces must posture for Deep Area Operations (DAO) in Large-Scale Combat Operations (LSCO). VonKilmer uses the example of the Jedburgh teams (SOF News) that parachuted into France to organize resistance networks, provide intelligence, and divert German combat units from attacking Allied forces to set the stage in his article. He argues that U.S. Army Special Forces (USSF) are well suited for DAO – but they must adapt how they infiltrate and conduct operations to be effective on the modern battlefield. He uses the DOTMLPF framework to offer recommendations to better posture USSF for DAO in LSCO. “The Shadow War Within the Larger Conflict”, Irregular Warfare Initiative, January 13, 2026.

Ex-Green Beret Forms Cyber Company. Read the story of Gene Yu and the co-founder of Black Panda – a cyber security company. (CNBC, Jan 14, 2026)

Maduro Raid, SOF, . . . and the Aftermath. The mission of capturing and detaining the President of Venezuela was a very successful special operations mission – supported by a extremely large package of air and naval assets and interagency support as well. The success of Operation Absolute Resolve could lead to a temptation to overuse SOF in the future. Read more on this by Tim Ball, a retired Special Forces officer, in “Trump and the Special Operations Panacea”, Behind the Front, January 14, 2026.

Getting Reserve CA/PSYOP Ready. MAJ Lucas Harrell, a U.S. Army Civil Affairs officer, argues that the Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations personnel in the reserves are both doctrinally and institutionally hindered from training to the level needed for a near-peer conflict. This is a critical issue as 92% of CA/PSYOP personnel and units are in the reserves. He has recommendations that will minimize the wait between frontline losses and the deployment of capable replacements in tomorrow’s fight. “No Bench, No Game: Reconstituting Special Operations Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Depth from the Reserves”, Eunomia Journal, September 22, 2025.

Boarding Tankers – How Its Done. Richard White provides the basics on how oil tankers are boarded at sea. One of the fastest ways is airborne delivery, fast-dropping from a helicopter. “Suspect tanker boarded at sea – find out how these operations are carried out”, Forces News, January 13, 2026.

Fast Roping at Sea. John Ismay, a former EOD officer with the U.S. Navy, writes about getting on ships. “U.S. Boardings of Oil Tankers Reflect Hard Lessons Learned Sea”, New York Times, January 16, 2026. (subscription)

Green Beret Shooting Rampage – What Caused It? In 2020, Sgt. First Class Duke Webb, started shooting people in a bowling alley. Three people were killed and three people wounded. Webb was an active-duty Special Forces NCO with seven deployments. A likely cause of his actions is the brain injuries he suffered while taking part in Special Forces training. “A Green Beret Went on a Shooting Spree. Is the Army at Fault?”, New York Times, January 12, 2026. (subscription)

SOF History

Detachment B-52 Recon Tips of the Trade. Barrett F. Lowe writes about the training and manuals that Long Range Surveillance Detachments (LRSD) use to prepare and train for their ground reconnaissance missions. One of those manuals was the Detachment B-52 (Project Delta) Reconnaissance Tips of the Trade published by the 5th Special Forces Group in Vietnam in 1970. Read “Throwback Thursday”, Harding Project Substack, January 15, 2026.

On January 22, 1946, President Truman directed the establishment of Central Intelligence Group, forerunner of CIA.

https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/studies-in-intelligence/1996-2/the-creation-of-the-central-intelligence-group/

On January 24, 1964, the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG) was established. It was a highly classified, multi-service U.S. special operations unit that conducted operations during the Vietnam War in Indochina. It conducted reconnaissance missions, capture of enemy soldiers, rescued downed pilots, and rescued POWs throughout Southeast Asia. Individuals assigned to MACV-SOG came primarily from U.S. Army Special Forces. However members of the U.S. Navy SEALs, Air Force, Marine Corps, and CIA were present in the organization as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Assistance_Command,_Vietnam_%E2%80%93_Studies_and_Observations_Group

On January 25, 1974, General Creighton Abrams directed the activation of the first battalion-sized Ranger unit since World War II. HQ U.S. Army Forces Command issued General Orders 127 directing the activation of the 1st Ranger Battalion 75th Infantry with the effective date of January 31, 1974. The battalion was to be an elite, light, and very proficient infantry unit. (USASOC)

https://www.soc.mil/rangers/1stbn.html

National Security and Commentary

Building Resistance Capability Prior to Invasion. Jeremiah “Lumpy” Lumbaca describes why “developing true, comprehensive, whole-of-society resistance capability, prior to invasion,” is very difficult. He defines resistance as countering an external invader – a good example is the Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion. In his article he goes on to explore how resistance would work in the United States. In this enlightening piece Lumbaca provides comments on historical perspectives of resistance and challenges for resistance advocates. This good read on resistance can be found at “Resistance is Futile . . . Until it’s Not: Assessing a Nation’s Willingess to Build Resistance Capability Prior to Invasion”, Small Wars Journal, November 11, 2025.

“Arctic Angels” Alerted. Two battalions of the 11th Airborne Division based in Alaska have received alert orders to deploy to Minnesota. President Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act in response to unrest there. A DoD spokesman said that the alert orders have nothing to do with Greenland. The division exists to ensure a U.S. Army presence and capability in the Arctic region. It was reactivated in June 2022 at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. The Army, looking forward at the Arctic region as an area of competition, announced a new Army Arctic strategy in March 2021 with the publication of a document entitled Regaining Arctic Dominance. The special operations community is also paying increased attention to the Arctic region and conducts periodic training exercises like Arctic Edge to refine and develop their Arctic capabilities.

SFABs Reorientation. Two regionally focused Security Force Assistance Brigades (SFABs) are being transferred to the newly created Western Hemisphere Command (Fort Bragg, NC). The Security Force Assistance Command (SFAC) has been inactivated as part of the Army Transformation Initiative. Six of the advisory brigades were established between 2017 and 2020 – but most of them are being inactivated. The SFABs were created to take the advisory burden off of Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs). Between 2012 and 2013, the US Army deployed brigade combat teams to Afghanistan to perform advisory missions, called Security Force Assistance (SFA), from kandak (bn) to corps level. Essentially the command and staff elements of brigades and battalions deployed leaving most of the ranks stateside – which resulted in several combat ineffective brigades.

SFABs – Force Multipliers. Dr. York Kleinhandler (CW5 Ret, SF) provides his insight on the loss of advisory capacity with the drawn down of the Security Force Assistance Brigades in the U.S. Army. In a very articulate article York explains why doing away with the SFABs is a really bad idea. “Force Multipliers, Not Force Replacements”, Special Operations Association of America, January 19, 2026.

NATO and the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS). P.A. Cegielski evaluates NATO’s WPS policy and identifies inconsistencies in policy execution, data transparency, and institutional accountability. “A La Carte Feminism: The Limits of NATO’s WPS Commitments in a Time of Crisis”, Small Wars Journal, January 13, 2026.

“Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also.”

Another Oil Tanker Apprehended. In a pre-dawn action on January 15, 2026, Marines from Joint Task Force Southern Spear launched from the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) and took control of the Motor/Tanker Veronica. She was operating in defiance of the quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean. This is the sixth tanker seized by the U.S. in the past two months. Watch a quick video (35 secs) of the helicopter fast-rope insertion posted by DVIDS.

Pipelines to U.S. for Afghan Allies Closed. Established visa pipelines for Afghan allies have been slammed shut by the Trump administration. Interpreters, Afghan SOF, and others that qualified for the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program are now left in precarious positions in Afghanistan and elsewhere. “Veterans defend Afghan ally programs as Trump closes doors”, by Patty Nieberg, Task & Purpose, January 14, 2026.

Intel, IO, Cyber, AI, IW

Cognitive Warfare. Three writers collaborate in an article on how cognitive warfare is a fight for cognitive superiority waged through synchronized military and non-military action across the continuum of competition. It targets how people perceive, make sense, decide, and act in an environment where modern technology makes attacks faster, cheaper, and harder to attribute. “Cognitive Warfare: An Allied Blueprint and a Pentagon Opportunity”, Small Wars Journal, January 16, 2026.

SF, AI, and SSE. USSOCOM is looking for ways that artificial intelligence (AI) can exploit and analyze (F3EAD) documents, computers, and data during the sensitive site exploitation phase of raids, ambushes, and other types of special operations missions. “America’s Special Forces Are Caught Up in the AI Craze”, by Stavros Atlamazoglou, The National Interest, January 14, 2026.

Intel Warning from Army. Lt. Gen. Anthony Hale, the Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence (G-2), has issued a critical warning to soldiers regarding the threat posed by foreign intelligence entities. “Army’s Top Spy Warns of Growing Threat”, U.S. Army, November 24, 2025.

AI and Pentagon Network. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says that the artificial intelligence chatbot Grok (X/Twitter) will join Google’s generative AI engine in operating inside the Pentagon network. GenAI.mil is the Pentagon’s new secure, military-focused AI platform. It provides a portal where DoD personnel can access commercial generative AI models on government systems – both classified and unclassified. Read the X.ai announcement.

New Series – Inside the CIA: Secrets and Spies. Disney has announced a new documentary series that will tell the stories of real life CIA missions and intelligence officers. https://whatsondisneyplus.com/inside-the-cia-secrets-and-spies-coming-soon-to-disney-hulu/

VOA Funded by Congress. Lawmakers from both parties and houses of Congress have agreed to provide over $600 million to fund the U.S. Agency for Global Media – of which the Voice of America is a part of. It is four times more than the administration has requested. “Congress agrees to fund Voice of America, bucking Trump shutdown order”, The Washington Post, January 13, 2026.

Stars and Stripes – DoD Taking Control. The independent military newspaper Stars and Stripes is having their wings clipped. The news outlet, which has a lineage to the Civil War, has a legacy of independence from government officials and military leadership. That is no longer the case. Congress established the independence in the 1990s after a series of military leadership getting involved in editorial decisions. Congress had mandated that the publisher and top editor be civilians. “Defense Department says military newspaper Stars and Stripes must eliminate ‘woke distractions'”, Associated Press, January 15, 2026.

Info Warfare and the Army’s Transformation. Ryan Walters writes about the U.S. Army’s emerging approach to the fight in the info environment. “Information Warfare: The Army’s Continuous Transformation in Action”, Small Wars Journal, January 15, 2026.

DoD’s Artificial Intelligence Strategy. A memorandum has been issued by the Department of Defense laying out the DoD’s artificial intelligence (AI) strategy. The U.S. military is stepping up efforts to make to make its “Warfighters more lethal and efficient.” The memorandum identifies identified seven “Pace-Setting Projects” (PSPs) that will make this happen. (PDF, 7 pgs)

Ukraine Conflict

86th IBCT Soldiers to Germany. Around 140 members of the Vermont Army National Guard will be heading to Europe to take part in a mission to train Ukrainian soldiers. They will take part in training offered by the Joint Mulinational Training Group-Ukraine. The soldiers are expected to return in November 2026. (MY NBC 5, January 12, 2026.

Partisans Fighting Russia. A clandestine resistance movement formed in late 2022 consisting of Ukrainians, Russians, and Crimean Tatars has been carrying of operations inside and outside of Russian controlled areas. The activities are intelligence, target identification, sabotage, and cyber campaigns. Like many resistance movements, it is decentralized, cell-based in structure, and multi-layered partisan network. Read more in “Inside Atesh: The Underground Partisan Movement Fighting Russia”, by Ivy Shields, Grey Dynamics, December 27, 2025.

Ten Lessons from Russia’s War on Ukraine. In February the war in Ukraine will have gone on for four years. What Putin described as a “special military operation” that would last 3 days has gone on longer than the ‘Great Patriotic War’ of World War II when the Soviet Union (alongside allies) fought and won against the Germans and its allies. Basil Gavalas and Greg Mills list some lessons learned from the conflict. “Four Years On – Ten Lessons from Russia’s War in Ukraine“, Royal United Services Institute, January 15, 2026.

• References:
• Interactive Map. Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine by the Institute for the Study of War and Critical Threats. On storymaps.arcgis.com See also https://www.national-security.info/ukraine/maps.html

Middle East

Iran. The riots and demonstrations in Iran are still continuing, but possibly at a lesser scale. The regime is likely getting control of the situation. While all this is going on the U.S. is moving the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group from the South China Sea toward the Middle East. Arrival time is predicted to be 18 January. The Nimitz class strike group consists of an aircraft carrier, supported by five warships, 90 aircraft, and more than 5,000 sailors.

Syria. The Syrian Democratic Front (SOF News) will be repositioning forces east of the Euphrates River in line with commitments under a March 10, 2025, agreement. There are concerns that the new government of Syria is mobilizing its forces to attack the SDF . . . and that Turkey will jump into the fray to attack the SDF as well. Some SDF forces in and around the northwestern city of Aleppo (map NSI) will be repositioned as part of that move.

Africa

Somalia – UAE Relationship – On the Rocks. Somalia is ending agreements with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) citing concerns of over-reach by UAE in politics, sovereignty, and territorial integrity. There is a lot of politics associated with the international recognition of Somaliland. The UAE is supporting Somaliland. Berbera is attracting a lot of international attention – some of it due to economic interest and some because of its success in fighting jihadist extremist groups.

TPS for Somalis Ends. The Trump administration is ending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Somalis. Somalis in the United States with TPS must leave the country by March 17, 2026. The initial TPS designation date was September 16, 1991. The last extension for Somalia’s TPS was announced on July 19, 2024, extending it for 18 months to March 17, 2026. “Homeland Security Terminates Somalia’s Temporary Protected Status Designation”, Homeland Security, January 13, 2026.

Arms Markets, Mercenaries, and Northeast Africa. Emadeddin Badi has a report on the impact of Sudans’ war on arms markets and mercenary networks in Chad and Libya. Collateral Circuits, Central Africa Observatory, December 2025, PDF, 52 pages.

Proxy Wars and Mercenaries. Fighters from Colombia have been recruited to fight on behalf of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan. They were recruited, flown to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and then deployed into southeastern Libya to link up with the RSF. The use of mercenaries appears to be in growing in Africa. “The Troubling Rise of Mercenary Armies in the Gulf”, World Politics Review, January 12, 2026.

Books, Podcasts, Videos, and Movies

Podcast – Resilience and Resistance: Interdisciplinary Lessons in Competition, Deterrence, and Irregular Warfare, The Trident, U.S. Naval War College, Guests Robert S. Burrell and John Collison discuss the book Resilience and Resistance, January 12, 2026, 1 1/2 hours. https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/the-trident/22/

Video – Special Forces Soldiers KIA/MIA Vietnam, The Special Operations Association has posted a 21 minute-long video of Green Berets lost during the Vietnam War. SOA, Vimeo, January 13, 2026.

https://vimeo.com/1154135151

Video – Special Ops Aviators / Ground Commandos, The Jedburgh Podcast, January 9, 2026, YouTube, 16 minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD0TlDm3Fvk

Video – Saving Lives is the Mission. Special Operations Independent Duty Corpsmen (SOIDC) with Marine Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC) conduct mission rehearsal training at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, N.C., Dec. 16, 2025. SOIDCs are highly specialized U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman, serving as embedded medical experts for elite special operations forces including MARSOC Raiders and SEALs. SOIDCs provide advanced tactical and clinical care in austere environments, managing everything from trauma surgery to preventive health for their teams. (U.S. Marine Corps video by Staff Sgt. Andrew Skiver & Lance Cpl. Jared Saul) https://www.dvidshub.net/video/991194/saving-lives-mission

Video – Thule Air Base, Greenland. A short video (60 secs) showing scenes of Thule Air Base. DVIDS, October 6, 2022. View map of Greenland showing location of Thule Air Base (NSI).

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11. Trump to Hold Meeting on Greenland in Davos

Summary:

POTUS is escalating a high-stakes bid to acquire Greenland, framing the island as “imperative” for US and global security. After a “very good” call with NATO chief Mark Rutte, he agreed to a Davos meeting on Greenland while withholding details on participants. He has announced tariffs of 10 percent, rising to 25 percent by June 1, on several European countries to pressure them to drop opposition to a US purchase. POTUS publicly rebuked the UK for plans to transfer Diego Garcia’s sovereignty to Mauritius, using it as further justification for controlling Greenland, as Denmark reinforces the island militarily.

Comment: I have to ask: How does weaponizing tariffs and alliance politics to force a Greenland deal affect long-term NATO cohesion and U.S. credibility with European partners?

Trump to Hold Meeting on Greenland in Davos

WSJ

President says he had “very good” phone call with NATO chief

By

Gary Mitchell

and

Gareth Vipers

Updated Jan. 20, 2026 3:25 am ET

https://www.wsj.com/world/trump-to-hold-meeting-on-greenland-in-davos-1d851e5b

President Trump speaks to reporters before boarding Air Force One. Julia Demaree Nikhinson/Associated Press

President Trump said he had agreed to a meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos over Greenland after a “very good” call with the head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

“I had a very good telephone call with Mark Rutte, the Secretary General of NATO, concerning Greenland,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“I agreed to a meeting of the various parties in Davos, Switzerland. As I expressed to everyone, very plainly, Greenland is imperative for National and World Security. There can be no going back — On that, everyone agrees!”

Trump didn’t specify who he would be meeting with at Davos.

After days of escalating tensions over Greenland, the president posted a series of messages to his Truth Social platform early Tuesday.

Trump shared a screenshot of what he said was a text message from French President Emmanuel Macron, which read: “We are totally in line on Syria. We can do great things on Iran. I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland.”

The text appeared to show Macron suggest a G-7 meeting in Paris on Thursday. “I can invite the Ukrainians, the Danish, the Syrians and the Russians in the margins,” the message read.

In a separate message, Trump criticized the U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer over plans to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. “Shockingly, our ‘brilliant’ NATO Ally, the United Kingdom, is currently planning to give away the Island of Diego Garcia, the site of a vital U.S. Military Base, to Mauritius, and to do so FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER,” Trump wrote.

“The UK giving away extremely important land is an act of GREAT STUPIDITY, and is another in a very long line of National Security reasons why Greenland has to be acquired,” he added.

Trump also shared a mocked-up image of himself alongside Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio planting the American flag on Greenland.

Trump has launched a series of tariff threats in an effort to pressure Europe to drop their opposition to the U.S. taking over Greenland.

Over the weekend, the president announced that he would impose 10% tariffs on imports from several European countries. The tariffs will increase to 25% on June 1 and remain in place until a deal is reached for what he called the “complete and total purchase” of Greenland, he said.

On Monday, Denmark dispatched additional troops to the island after Trump told Norway that he no longer needed to think “purely of peace” after not winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

Write to Gareth Vipers at gareth.vipers@wsj.com

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

WSJ

12. Gingrich suggests Trump’s Greenland push just ‘a lot of noise’

Summary:

Newt Gingrich downplays POTUS’s Greenland takeover threats as bargaining noise to secure tourism, economic, mineral, and security rights, not conquest. He warns military seizure would face strong bipartisan opposition, while Danish leaders slam tariff threats as a damaging farce. Gingrich says Europe’s weaker, over regulated economy makes Trump’s pressure possible.

Gingrich suggests Trump’s Greenland push just ‘a lot of noise’

by Sarah Davis - 01/18/26 7:00 AM ET

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5694321-trump-greenland-newt-gingrich/#origin=

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) is calling President Trump’s bluff on his threats to gain control of Greenland.

Gingrich cast doubts on the president’s comments, although the retired legislator acknowledged he “could be wrong,” he told John Catsimatidis in a radio interview on “The Cats Roundtable” show airing Sunday.

“I think he’s making a lot of noise to set up a negotiation to get what he wants, which is tourist rights, economic rights, mineral rights and national security rights,” Gingrich said. 

The former Speaker noted the Danish territory’s wealth of natural resources and the interests of China, Russia and the U.S. in gaining access to Greenland’s minerals and oil and gas supplies.

“It’s a huge economic opportunity,” he said. 

His comments come as a bipartisan group of U.S. legislators is on a trip to Denmark to meet with Danish leaders on this issue. Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) are the two Republicans on the visit.

Tillis said military intervention to take over the country “would be met with pretty substantial opposition in Congress.”

“Right now, people are trying to be deferential, but this is just an example of, whoever keeps on telling the president that this idea is achievable should not be in Washington, D.C.,” he said prior to the trip.

Trump said Saturday he would levy 10 percent tariffs on Denmark and several other European nations because of their opposition to his plans for Greenland.

In a Truth Social post announcing this decision, he said this import tax could be increased to 25 percent if a deal for the U.S. to purchase Greenland is not brokered by June 1. 

Danish leaders have lambasted these suggested tariffs, with Danish Chamber of Commerce CEO Brian Mikkelsen saying, “Trump’s farce continues.”

“The American president is once again using tariffs as a threat,” Mikkelsen wrote in a translated post on the social platform X. “As so many times before, it is damaging to confidence in world trade and damaging to the American and European economies.”

Gingrich also pointed to weaknesses in the European economy as a reason for Trump’s ability to apply pressure in the region, specifically identifying European countries’ decision to shift to a regulatory economic model “rather than innovation.”

“[The U.S.] made the opposite decision,” Gingrich said. “We decided we wanted to maximize innovation and then regulate lightly but not have enough regulation to crush what we were doing. That has been a disastrous decision for the Europeans.”

13. Imperial Prerogative: How the Panama Invasion and the “Barr Doctrine” Set the Stage for the Maduro “Snatch” Operation | National Security Archive

​Summary:

The National Security Archive reveals how the Trump administration’s Maduro “snatch” operation rested on a secret legal scaffolding first built for the 1989 Panama invasion. William Barr’s OLC opinions asserted a presidential power to deploy force, violate customary international law, override treaties, and assist coups even if foreign leaders die as incidental effects. This “Barr Doctrine” treats unilateral rendition and regime removal as inherent executive authorities insulated from Congress and courts. Success becomes the legitimizing logic. Failure invites scrutiny. The precedent erodes the non-intervention norm and blurs law enforcement, covert action, and war. Rivals and partners are watching closely.

Comment: Access the entire article and the archived documents at the link below. Some basic questions many analysts are asking:

Does a doctrine built on secrecy and unilateralism strengthen U.S. deterrence or diminish its credibility as a rules-based power?

If sovereignty becomes negotiable for Washington, why would Beijing or Moscow treat it as sacrosanct?

How long before Congress reclaims war powers or accepts imperial prerogative as the new normal?

Imperial Prerogative: How the Panama Invasion and the “Barr Doctrine” Set the Stage for the Maduro “Snatch” Operation | National Security Archive

nsarchive.gwu.edu

1989 legal memos said President had “inherent constitutional authority” to act unilaterally and “contravene customary international law”

CIA warned that Noriega could produce “credible new evidence...that​ would incriminate US government officials in the Iran-Contra affair”

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/2026-01-16/imperial-prerogative-how-panama-invasion-and-barr-doctrine-set-stage

Washington, D.C., January 16, 2026 - The Justice Department official who wrote the legal opinion determining that President Donald Trump had the constitutional authority to “unilaterally order” the “extraordinary rendition” of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro relied heavily on secret legal architecture authored 36 years ago by William P. Barr to justify the U.S. invasion of Panama, according to declassified documents uncovered by the National Security Archive. These include secret White House memos, highly classified intelligence reports, and sensitive legal opinions recently discovered among the George H. W. Bush presidential papers and that are published here today for the first time.

In 1989, Barr, who was then Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), wrote at least five legal opinions—at least two of which remain classified—related to U.S. efforts to remove Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega from power. Chief among them was a finding that the President had the “inherent constitutional authority” to arrest individuals abroad “even if those actions contravene customary international law” and “even if they contravene unexecuted treaties or treaty provisions, such as Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter,” which bars threats and use of force among member states except in self-defense. Barr later served as U.S. Attorney General during Trump’s first term and authorized the original U.S. indictment of Maduro in 2020.

On December 23, 2025, Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Gaiser cited two of those Barr opinions (Documents 11 and 15 below) in determining that the President can use the military for law enforcement purposes without regard to international law and without congressional authorization. While the Gaiser opinion is heavily redacted, context suggests that he also relied on a third, still classified, opinion, also written by Barr in 1989 (the conclusions of which were described in a 1996 article published in the CIA’s internal journal, Studies in Intelligence) in determining that the inadvertent killing of a head of state during a rendition operation does not carry a significant legal risk. (Document 20)

In this Electronic Briefing Book, National Security Archive research fellow Dr. Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi takes a detailed look at the U.S. decision-making process in the runup to the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama, focusing on Barr’s pivotal 1989 legal opinions, arguing that they should be understood as the “Barr Doctrine.” Barr’s opinions justifying the removal of Noriega established a comprehensive, secret legal framework asserting the President’s “inherent constitutional authority” to conduct foreign policy unilaterally, including through military force, covert action, and in law enforcement operations.

According to Jimenez-Bacardi, the Barr Doctrine “dismantled legal constraints” on the Executive Branch in determining that the President was “not bound by customary international law, may violate the non-intervention principle, can deploy military forces for law enforcement abroad, has a constitutional right to act secretly internationally, and is not constitutionally required to provide prior notification to Congress regarding covert actions.”

Other declassified highlights from today’s posting include:

• A March 1988 CIA intelligence assessment warning that Noriega might react to U.S. sanctions by providing “credible new evidence to the US media or Special Prosecutor Walsh that would incriminate US government officials in the Iran-Contra affair.” (Document 4)
• The addenda to a still classified March 1989 policy paper on Panama that proposed a “snatch” operation to get rid of Noriega and concluded that, while it was certain to provoke criticism in Latin America and internationally, that any outcry was “likely to abate quickly” if the operation succeeded. (Document 8)
• The minutes of a National Security Council meeting held six months prior to the invasion, in which a frustrated President Bush approved escalatory actions to bait Noriega: “The only option he [Bush] could see is more U.S. actions and hope that there would be some other thing happening to get this man out.” (Document 9)
• A June OLC opinion in which Barr argued that the President has the constitutional authority to “deploy the FBI to investigate and arrest individuals for violating United States law, even if those actions contravene customary international law” or the UN Charter. (Document 11)
• A fully unredacted essay published in Studies in Intelligence by CIA lawyer Jonathan Fredman that sheds light on a still classified 1989 OLC opinion in which Barr argued that the ban on assassinations did not preclude U.S. government personnel from supporting a coup against a repressive foreign government even if the death of the head of state was likely. (Document 20)
• 
  

14. Opinion | Davos Men Create Hard Times

​Summary:

Davos once symbolized confidence in a rules based, postethnic order. In 2026, the elites gather under darkening skies, fearing that project has failed. From Ukraine to the Sahel and Iran, ethnic and religious conflicts surge as old imperial borders unravel again. The West once believed democracy and growth would tame nationalism. Instead identity movements from Hindutva to MAGA and European far right parties show mobilized grievance is a path to power. As the rules based system frays and mass politics harden along tribal lines, Davos Man now worries less about shaping history than surviving its return to violent, unpredictable outcomes.

Comment: So if the rules based order no longer restrains ethnic and religious nationalism, what concrete mechanisms could realistically replace it to prevent a return to great power and tribal wars?

Do we no longer want to protect the rules based international order? Should we stop referring to it as an organizing principle?

What comes next?

Opinion | Davos Men Create Hard Times

WSJ · Davos Men Create Hard Times

The comfortable postwar order gives way as old conflicts and demons return.

By Walter Russell Mead

Follow

Jan. 19, 2026 5:05 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/davos-men-create-hard-times-ab916c68

National flags of countries participating in the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 19. Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg News

Davos, Switzerland

Last year the Davoisie practiced denial. This year they know fear.

As the skies over Switzerland darken with the usual billionaires’ jets, the old Davos agenda is falling by the wayside. It isn’t only the great nations fighting over trade or the growing tensions between the West and revisionist powers like China and Russia. It isn’t even only Donald Trump’s fixation on the conquest of Greenland and the divisions in the West Mr. Trump has exposed and deepened.

From the burned-over battlescapes of Ukraine to the rainforests of Africa, from the sands of the Sahara to the mountains of Iran, ethnic and religious conflicts are on the rise. The same sort of hatreds tore Europe apart from 1850 through 1945 as multinational, multicultural empires split up, driving millions from their homes and killing millions more. That’s what’s happening, or threatening to happen from Kurdistan to Nigeria. The flight of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh; ethnic unrest in Pakistan, Iran, Syria and Turkey; religious and tribal conflicts across West Africa and into the Horn; and the long struggle between Hutus and Tutsis in the Great Lakes region of Africa are all part of this pattern.

A century of European diplomacy struggled and mostly failed to contain the tensions and wars that broke up the Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires into dozens of successor states. Serial waves of conquest, murder and ethnic cleansing tore once-peaceful communities apart, setting neighbors at one another’s throats. More than a million Greeks fled what is now Turkey, and millions of Turks fled the Balkans as the Ottoman empire fell into decay. The dark nationalism of imperial Russia drove millions of Jews west and Muslims south.

As recently as the 1940s, involuntary mass transfers of populations from their ancestral homes formed part of the diplomatic tool kit. After waves of depopulation, ethnic cleansing and mass murder reshaped much of the Eastern and Central European landscape under Hitler and Stalin, the West accepted mass expulsions of millions of Germans from former German and Polish territories to the east and the Sudeten Germans from what was then Czechoslovakia. Millions of Hindus and Muslims were forced from their homes at the partition of British India, and well into the Cold War mass expulsions and ethnic cleansing marred the records of countries like Burma, Egypt and the former British colonies in East Africa.

The modern West tried to exorcise these demons. Franco-German enmity helped stoke and shape the century of ethnic conflict; in post-World War II Europe, Franco-German reconciliation became the foundation of what many hoped would be an enduring era of postethnic politics. The European Union and the trans-Atlantic community sought to create a rules-based international order of democratic states to banish such horrors from the world. National frontiers could never again be changed by force. Race, ethnicity and religion would no longer drive world politics.

Much of post-Cold War Western history is the story of an effort to consolidate postethnic and postreligious democracy at home and to export it to the Balkans, the former Soviet lands of Europe, the Middle East, postcolonial Africa and beyond.

In the initial years of the post-Cold War era, that effort seemed to be succeeding. Today it looks as if the great Western project might have failed. As democracy retreats globally, ethnic and religious conflicts intensify. Mobilizing such feelings rather than suppressing them seems to be the path to power in much of the world. Hindutva in India, religious nationalism in Israel, MAGA populism in the U.S., Islamism in much of the Muslim world, far-right parties across Europe—the cosmopolitan outlook that characterized the peak Davos era is steadily losing ground.

The hope was that democracy combined with economic growth would cure ethnic and sectarian hate. That seemed to be the lesson of Europe’s experience post-1945, but this was too sanguine and too simplistic a reading of a complicated history. For more than a century, rising ethnic conflicts in Europe coexisted with and were often driven by rising levels of economic growth and democratic activism. The spread of literacy and the appeal of democracy (often interpreted as the right to ethnic self-determination) sharpened the national and ethnic rivalries promoting generations of European war.

Something similar is happening across much of the world. With the increasing ethnic and religious diversity of many Western countries, ethnic tensions and the curse of identity politics are on the rise from Minneapolis to Milan.

In past years, Davos Man tried to build a new kind of world. In 2026, he worries more about how to survive the collapse of an order he once took for granted.

Free Expression: In reality the Maduros' removal from Venezuela was a superbly executed act of strategic opportunism that removed a vexing enemy, and it's a myth to suggest 'Operation Absolute Resolve' will set a precedent that will be exploited by Russia and China to achieve their own objectives. Photo: White House Press Office Handout/EPA/Shutterstock/Alexander Kazakov/Reuters

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

Appeared in the January 20, 2026, print edition as 'Davos Men Create Hard Times'.

WSJ · Davos Men Create Hard Times

15.Opinion | Hit Iran in Its Shadow Bank Accounts

​Summary:

Michael Doran argues POTUS should hit Iran where it breathes financially by freezing billions parked in offshore shadow accounts, especially in Dubai. Iran’s oil sales to China, laundered through UAE shell firms and permissive banks, generate tens of billions that fund the IRGC, repression, and weapons procurement while evading sanctions. Washington has mostly played whack-a-mole with front companies and avoided punishing Emirati banks, preserving the system. Doran urges using existing authorities to fine and, if necessary, sanction complicit banks, seizing funds that sit outside Iran’s domestic economy and also curbing China’s ability to profit from heavily discounted Iranian oil.

Comment: If the U.S. directly targets Emirati and other partner-country banks over Iran’s shadow finances, how should Washington manage the diplomatic blowback to avoid driving those allies closer to Beijing? (We are still playing on the global Go board)

Opinion | Hit Iran in Its Shadow Bank Accounts

WSJ · Hit Iran in Its Shadow Bank Accounts

Dubai-based financial institutions help Tehran escape sanctions. The U.S. has the means to stop it.

By

Michael Doran

Jan. 19, 2026 5:30 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/hit-iran-in-its-shadow-bank-accounts-bb4af3ac

David Gothard

Whether or not President Trump orders a military strike on Iran, he ought to seize the billions of dollars its rulers have hidden offshore. Freezing these assets could have an effect comparable to military attack—at a fraction of the risk.

The U.S. Treasury knows where Iran’s money is, but successive administrations have hesitated to act for fear of damaging relations with a valued ally—the United Arab Emirates. It’s time to reconsider that calculation.

To evade U.S. sanctions, Iran has built an elaborate shadow banking system—a network of shell companies and financial intermediaries that allows the regime to move money at scale. This system allows Tehran to sell oil illicitly to China and launder the proceeds to procure export-controlled technology for its military and nuclear programs.

In a report last October, the Treasury Department gave an address for the problem, stating that “companies based in the U.A.E. (99 percent of which were located in the Emirate of Dubai) transacted the highest volume of [Iran’s] potential shadow banking funds . . . and received more funds than any other jurisdiction.” This system keeps the Iranian regime alive with Dubai serving as its economic lung.

In a now-routine pattern, Chinese buyers pay for Iranian oil with funds that flow into U.A.E. bank accounts through a maze of shell companies operating abroad. Iranian actors thus systematically exploit the Dubai banking system‘s opaque corporate registries and permissive regulations to gain access to global financial services.

Until now, sanctions enforcement has amounted to a game of whack-a-mole. After Washington designates front companies, Iran dissolves them and shifts the money elsewhere. That approach has failed. Last week, the U.S. Treasury issued a new tranche of sanctions on companies aiding Iran’s illicit oil trade. The targets included Iranian banks and U.A.E.-based shell companies, but not Emirati banks. Again, Treasury refrained from penalizing the banks that process and hold Iranian funds yet claim ignorance of their origin. As a result, the sanctions didn’t alter the incentives of the Emirati banking system and—following October’s explicit warning—signaled to Dubai’s banks that they can persist without serious consequence.

What’s required now is a strategy that targets not shell companies but banks that knowingly host and move Iranian funds. This means freezing Iranian assets already in hand and forcing the banks involved—especially in Dubai—to choose between compliance and punishment.

Any financial institution that facilitates Iranian transactions should face immediate and substantial fines. Further misbehavior should be answered with sanctionings against at least one bank—a move that would leave no doubt about the consequences. Compliance would be swift. Banks understand the risks. They will end the charade.

How much money is involved? United Against Nuclear Iran, the leading tracker of Iranian oil exports, estimates that Iran sold 609 million barrels of oil to China in 2025. At $50 a barrel (a conservative estimate), those sales would have generated $30.45 billion.

Iran’s shadow banking system has been operating in its current form since 2019, when the first Trump administration designated Iran’s central bank as a terrorist entity, forcing Iran to externalize its financial operations. It’s how the Islamic Republic survives sanctions, pays its security services, and underwrites the lavish lifestyle of its elite while ordinary Iranians absorb the cost of economic collapse.

Not all this money sits in Dubai. In July, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control pointed to Hong Kong and Turkey as two other jurisdictions where Iran’s illicit profits flow with impunity. This same Treasury report designated 22 entities “for their roles in facilitating the sale of Iranian oil that benefits the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force.”

Seizing the regime’s money doesn’t require new legislation. It requires enforcement of existing authorities and coordination with regulators in those jurisdictions. A single decisive move—freezing the accounts—would cripple the regime’s ability to function.

Such action wouldn’t harm Iranian protesters or the broader population. This money doesn’t circulate in Iran’s domestic economy and its seizure could be reversed. But freezing it would strengthen America’s hand by denying Tehran resources for repression and rearmament. It would also preserve leverage for future talks and prevent regime insiders from escaping with assets that belong to the Iranian people.

Although Iran built this shadow banking system, it has become a Chinese asset, allowing Beijing to profit from U.S. sanctions by purchasing Iranian oil at a steep discount while insulating itself from enforcement. The system also pulls the U.A.E. into China’s economic orbit, binding an American ally to a financial architecture that serves Beijing’s interests. Mr. Trump grasped this logic when he cut China off from Venezuelan oil. That same logic applies here.

After years of tightening sanctions, the U.S. has reached a point where financial action against Iran can finally have some bite. Moving now against the regime’s offshore cash would enforce existing legal mechanisms while raising the price on dictatorship.

Mr. Doran is director of the Middle East center at the Hudson Institute.

Review & Outlook: European leaders including NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and the U.K.’s Chief of Defense Staff Richard Knighton are urging voters to make sacrifices to guarantee national security. Photo: Lucy North/PA Wire via Zuma Press/Kacper Pempel/Reuters/POU

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

Appeared in the January 20, 2026, print edition as 'Hit Iran in Its Shadow Bank Accounts'.

WSJ · Hit Iran in Its Shadow Bank Accounts

16. The Fleet of the 2030s, and the Ghost of Transformationalism

​Summary:

CDR Salamander warns that Navy visions for the 2030s sit in the shadow of past “transformational” failures. LCS shrank from 55 ships to 25 and cannot fight in the littorals. DDG 1000 stalled at three hulls with its main guns abandoned. Ford class carriers are late, fragile, and still not the unmanned aviation platforms imagined. CG(X) died outright, leaving no true carrier escort. As the PLAN becomes the world’s largest navy, the United States now pins hopes on BBG 1, FFX, and DDG(X), stressing proven systems, discipline, and accountability to avoid losing yet another generation of shipbuilding.

Comment: "Transformationalism" is a new word for me. :-) 

The Fleet of the 2030s, and the Ghost of Transformationalism

substack.com · CDR SalamanderJan 19, 2026

...we know where the minefield is...

CDR Salamander

Jan 19, 2026

There was a lot to get excited about at last week’s Surface Navy Association confab, and I’ll get to that in a minute, but it would be wise to temper one’s expectations.

20 years seems like a long time, but in many ways it is not. As we look forward to what our fleet will look like at mid-century, we should look back to what we were all promised in January of 2005 that was going to transform into the Navy of the 21st century.

There were four ship classes that were going to be the surface fleet that we were promised at the time, were going to ensure America’s dominance at sea for the next half century.

(NB: most of the hypertext links below go to the tags from my OG Blog that predate my move to Substack three years ago. Those will point you towards my writing two decades ago or so on these programs at the time, if you are so interested.)

LCS. We were once supposed to get 55 of the marketing/consultancy-named Littoral Combat Ship. We’ll wind up with 25. Not suitable for combat in the littorals, but steps are being made to get some use out of them…somehow.

DDG-1000. We were once going to have 32 of these. We got three. Its main weapon, the two 155mm guns, were never made operational and are being removed. The ships are being turned into weapons demonstrators for Conventional Prompt Strike. I hear great things about the engineering plant, but they have yet to do a proper deployment, nine and a half years after the commissioning of hull-1.

Ford Class CVN. A dozen years ago, we thought it would deploy with UAVs as you can see below (pause for a moment in honor of the martyred X-47B, the greatest crime of the Obama Era Navy), but no. Hull-1 took 8 years to commission. Hull-2 will take 12. Can’t seem to have a workable CHT system.

CG(X). In 2005, we thought we would build at least 19. Complete loss of control of the program to the point it was put out of its misery. We still don’t have a proper carrier escort. Looks like the Japanese will build what we should have, and the only hope we have now is…BBG-1.

Why dig all this institutional shame and dishonor up, again? Simple, we need to be humble, and the leaders today need to hoist onboard the errors of the past.

Now, back to last week. For our fleet of the 2030s and on to face the world’s largest navy (in 2005 it was the US Navy. Now it is the People’s Liberation Army Navy. Well done everyone), there are three ships right now that we have to ponder as our future surface force.

BBG-1. I am hearing that we will see 15-24 of these.

FFX. 50-65 ships. I may write a critique at some point. ES: I look forward to Flight II.

DDG(X). We still do not have a final configuration or a number we want to build…I think.

Let’s wind things up with a return to a comment I made at the top. “Why keep beating up on the Age of Transformationalism™?”

Whenever I would get pushback on my regular articles about the failure of the Age of Transformationalism™, mostly along the lines of “Why keep digging up all the negative vibes” angle from the usual suspects, I would reply that we had to keep reminding everyone of the errors of the past so that the next generation responsible for husbanding our future surface combatants will not repeat the errors.

The collapse of the Constellation Class FFG program dampened my hope that we will take the path of success, but…here we are.

Will this generation succeed to the same and opposite degree the previous generation failed? With the same program, people, and bureaucracy in place—it does give one pause, but I am a deeply closeted optimist.

With a few exceptions, we seem to be mitigating technology risk by leaning on proven systems, or systems expected to be proven. That may not be sexy, but it displaces water.

We are long overdue for world-beating ship designs to show the world what a premier naval power looks like.

We should be optimistic…but demanding when it comes to performance and discipline.

Keep a weather eye, demand accountability, and smile through the inevitable challenges. We have to get this right. We can’t lose another generation of shipbuilding.

Some of the pics above via the irreplaceable Chris Cavas.

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substack.com · CDR SalamanderJan 19, 2026

17. Trump’s Year of Anarchy

​Summary:

POTUS' first year back in office accelerates the collapse of the post 1945 U.S. led order. Instead of stewarding hegemonic stability, he behaves as a revisionist power, pursuing territorial expansion, unilateral coercion, and “optionality” unconstrained by law or allies. Abroad, he normalizes extra territorial force, tariff warfare, and threats to sovereignty. At home, he uses emergencies, purges, and politicized justice to erode checks, pushing the United States toward a Hobbesian anarchy where power, not rules, decides outcomes. This short term assertion of dominance risks long term loss of U.S. primacy as allies hedge and China gains relative appeal.

Excerpt:

The foundations of American power are rooted in the rule of law at home and credible commitment abroad, the very things that Trump has attempted to dismantle. Trump’s gutting of foreign aid and the infrastructure of U.S. scientific and technological dominance, his dangerous confrontation with stalwart European allies, and, most damaging of all, his use of the military and federal security forces to consolidate his domestic authority will, in the long run, undermine American power. Estranged allies are already reaching out to China and one another to hedge against an erratic United States. Whether these actions succeed or not, they weaken the United States and make China relatively more attractive for smaller powers seeking security. In Trump’s zero-sum global order, it is the United States that will eventually pay the price.

Comment: Questions that are being asked throughout allied capitals and in the national security community:

How should U.S. allies and partners redesign their security and economic strategies if they must now hedge simultaneously against both American unpredictability and Chinese assertiveness.

What institutional and constitutional guardrails, if any, can realistically be rebuilt or created to prevent future presidents from weaponizing America’s hegemonic toolkit in ways that destroy, rather than sustain, U.S. power.

Trump’s Year of Anarchy

Foreign Affairs · More by Daniel W. Drezner · January 20, 2026

Daniel W. Drezner and Elizabeth N. Saunders

The Unconstrained Presidency and the End of American Primacy

January 20, 2026

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/trumps-year-anarchy

U.S. President Donald Trump in Dearborn, Michigan, January 2026 Evelyn Hockstein / Reuters

DANIEL W. DREZNER is Academic Dean and Distinguished Professor of International Politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and the author of the newsletter Drezner’s World.

ELIZABETH N. SAUNDERS is Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and the author of The Insiders’ Game: How Elites Make War and Peace.

• More by Elizabeth N. Saunders

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For most Americans and Europeans alive today, a world of anarchy probably never felt quite real. Since 1945, the United States and its allies crafted and maintained an order that while neither fully liberal nor fully international, established rules that kept the peace among the great powers, promoted a world of relatively open trade, and facilitated international cooperation. In the decades that followed, the world became more stable and prosperous.

Before that long great-power peace, however, anarchy was far from an abstraction in the developed world. The first half of the twentieth century alone featured two world wars, a global depression, and a deadly pandemic. With weak global rules and weaker enforcement mechanisms, most states had little choice but to fend for themselves, often resorting to military force. But there were still limits to what sovereign states might do in a conflict. Countries were only just beginning to project military power beyond their borders, and information, goods, and people traveled less rapidly. Even during periods of international disorder, states could do only so much to one another without risking their own demise.

Today, the most powerful country is leading the world into a different kind of anarchy. Although U.S. President Donald Trump did not single-handedly bring about the decline of the post-1945 order, he has, in his first year since returning to office, accelerated and even embraced its demise. Trump’s appetite for territorial expansion eviscerates the most powerful post-1945 norm: that borders cannot be redrawn through the force of arms. And his disregard for domestic institutions has allowed him to run roughshod over any attempts at home to check those foreign expansionist dreams.

The anarchy that is emerging under Trump, in other words, is more chaotic. It is closer to the more primitive anarchy of the political philosopher Thomas Hobbes—a world of “all against all,” where sovereign power cannot be challenged domestically or internationally. In this Hobbesian order, driven by a leader who rejects any constraints on his ability to act and who is emboldened by technology to move at a whirlwind pace, anything goes. Order may well eventually emerge from this anarchy, but that order is unlikely to be led by—or to benefit—the United States.

LIVING IN THE REAL WORLD

Let’s start with what anarchy is—and what it is not. Most realist scholars of international relations take anarchy to be the starting point of their theories, and the Trump administration itself says that its policies are informed by a realist understanding of the world. Realists define anarchy simply as the absence of authority in the international system. Without any authority enforcing the global rules of the game, countries can rely only on their own power and strategy to survive. As the political scientist Kenneth Waltz put it, the international system is one of self-help. In a world of anarchy, war is a normal part of international relations.

But anarchy does not mean chaos. Realists contend that the absence of a central authority does not necessarily mean constant disruptions to the international system. Anarchy also functions as a powerful constraint, forcing states to act prudently and husband their resources. The risk of war can cause even great powers to think twice about taking aggressive actions so as to avoid triggering a balancing coalition. The realist political scientist Charles Glaser has argued that such a world view is not necessarily pessimistic, and that countries could engage in self-help through cooperation.

Realists therefore believe that order and stability are possible in an anarchic world. Indeed, although realists themselves still debate what pursuing a realist foreign policy means, they agree that anarchy should not mean abandoning strategy or taking every opportunity to fight or meddle in other countries’ affairs.

Anarchy does not mean chaos.

One of the most prominent theories of the way order emerges from anarchy is “hegemonic stability theory,” or the idea that the international system is more stable when one country dominates. For example, political scientist Robert Gilpin argued that the hegemonic state provides international public goods such as monetary institutions or security alliances, creates and enforces rules (which usually benefit the hegemon), and facilitates economic exchange and cooperation. Such hegemonic orders, Gilpin argued, emerge from global wars and were destined to eventually fall as the old hegemon overexpanded and new powers rose and challenged for global dominance.

At first glance, this story seems to describe the current moment quite well. One could argue the United States reached the point of what the historian Paul Kennedy famously called “imperial overstretch” long before Trump. The costly, failed invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq stretched American military power almost to its breaking point. A rising China, meanwhile, is challenging the United States for global leadership, technological supremacy, and economic dominance. In this view, Washington’s best bet is to conserve its resources, maintain its network of allies and partners, and prepare itself for the potential clash with its challenger.

Indeed, many observers thought the Trump administration would refocus on China, including by pulling resources out of Europe and the Middle East. Although Trump did not inherit a peaceful international environment, he still had time to act: even with wars in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan raging on, no global war had erupted, and Washington had partners in Europe to help stop Russia, the closest thing to a revisionist great power, from conquering Ukraine following its full-scale invasion in 2022. The United States still had a powerful network of allies, a competent and extensive diplomatic apparatus, and the strongest scientific research base in the world.

In one year, however, Trump has undone most of those advantages, gutting or surrendering them despite their value to the United States in its competition for great-power dominance. In their place, he has embraced extraction, corruption, and transactional arrangements he can revise at will.

HEGEMONIC INSTABILITY THEORY

Over the past year, Trump has halted efforts to preserve what is left of the U.S.-led order, picked unnecessary and increasingly dangerous fights with crucial allies, and undermined the very foundations of U.S. power. Russia’s war in Ukraine, in which Trump seems to have little interest, and the competition with China, on which the Trump administration’s latest National Security Strategy is largely silent, represent the most serious threats to the U.S.-led liberal order. Yet the U.S. military is swarming the Caribbean and moving a carrier from the South China Sea to the Mediterranean after protests in Iran. Trump’s threats to the sovereignty of Greenland and Denmark—and with it, his evident willingness to blow up NATO—have needlessly antagonized European countries who are otherwise eager to allow Washington the kind of access most countries could only dream of.

The result is a declining hegemon that is not trying to maintain its position but rather is becoming a revisionist power. The United States is injecting aggression into the system, seemingly for its own sake, while reducing the capabilities that helped create and maintain the order from which it benefited. As Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro have argued in Foreign Affairs, Trump is creating a world in which “not only would the rules be unpredictable, they would depend entirely on the impulses of whoever happens to command the most coercive power at a given moment.”

The world Trump is creating is not the anarchy that contemporary realists write about, in which states must make prudent choices about when and where to act, with whom and against whom to ally, and how and how much to impose their will on others. In that world, order remains possible. Trump, by contrast, makes critical decisions with little to no process at seemingly random times—unprompted by emergencies. By seizing the tools of hegemony, Trump is acting aggressively in multiple regions at the same time, at a speed that no previous great power could contemplate. Over the course of just one week in January, the Trump administration executed a military mission in Caracas to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, issued threats to its NATO allies about seizing Greenland, and surged the deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to Minneapolis despite widespread protests.

No other hegemon in history has had the power projection capabilities the United States still possesses or the communicative speed and reach made possible by the digital age. In the next month, it is just as possible that Trump will decide to bomb Iran again—or to cut a deal with Iran’s clerics to win oil concessions. Maybe he will reaffirm the U.S. commitment to NATO—or invade Greenland. If unpredictability has any value as a geopolitical tactic, it must be used strategically and sparingly. Trump’s mercurial impulses, on which he can act more quickly and easily than any leader in history, represent a new level of chaos.

BUILD-A-LEVIATHAN

The new Trumpian anarchy is different in another important way: at no other point in history has a dominant power that was for centuries a consolidated (if never complete) democracy so quickly started to backslide and unwind its democratic institutions. The United Kingdom, for example, slid from its great-power status as it became more democratic in the nineteenth century, not less. Today, the United States is ripping up the old international rules and attempting to tear down its domestic institutional constraints and foundations of power in the span of one dizzying year.

In this way, Trump’s world view is closer to Hobbes’s understanding of anarchy than that of the realists. Although most realists think of Hobbes as part of their intellectual tradition, his vision of order extended deeper into the domestic realm than most realists care to go. He famously described anarchy as a war of “all against all,” in which life is “nasty, brutish, and short.” Less well known is his belief that for a commonwealth to survive in such a brutal world, a sovereign has to be able to exercise nearly unconstrained power at home. Hobbes disdained any separation of powers or any domestic agglomeration of power outside the sovereign himself.

In the first year of his second term, Trump has tried to consolidate both international and domestic authority. At the international level, he has made it clear that he does not believe himself to be constrained by any form of international law or norm. In an interview with The New York Times, he declared his own morality to be the only constraint on his actions. “I don’t need international law,” he told reporters. His administration has acted accordingly. Shortly after his confirmation, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth fired the military’s top lawyers, making it clear that he believes legal limitations on warfighting to be a hindrance to U.S. power. Hegseth now stands accused of violating international law after the United States’ strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and the operation to remove Maduro in Venezuela.

Trump has also taken steps to eliminate domestic constraints on his power. During his first term, Trump chafed against a number of domestic bulwarks against his impulses and policy preferences: Congress, the judiciary, and even the so-called adults in the room within his own administration. In his second term, however, Trump has ignored, bypassed, or bulldozed over any legal or institutional restraints. With little in the way of opposition from Congress or the Supreme Court, he has declared ten different states of emergency during his first year in office on matters as varied as energy, immigration, and the International Criminal Court, actions that enhance the power of the executive. He has enacted a tariff regime of dubious constitutional provenance in an attempt to remake the global economy and rebuild the U.S. manufacturing sector. He has deployed federal officers and National Guard troops in cities in direct defiance of local leaders’ wishes to accelerate his mass deportation campaign. He has fired and attempted to fire executive branch officials previously believed to be independent from presidential prerogative. He has weaponized the Department of Justice to pursue his political vendettas. And he has assaulted the foundations of national power, slashing funding for scientific research and diplomatic expertise.

In June, one of us (Saunders) argued in Foreign Affairs that the United States has the foreign policy of a personalist dictatorship. Today, both domestically and internationally, the president of the United States acts with few constraints. The residents of the United States now find themselves subject to the same Hobbesian anarchy that Trump has unleashed on the rest of the world. Judges, juries, and citizens are pushing back and may ultimately deny Trump the consolidated autocracy he appears to seek. But rebuilding trust in U.S. institutions at the domestic level, much less the international level, will be a difficult and lengthy process.

NASTY, BRUTISH, AND SHORTSIGHTED

The political scientist Alexander Wendt once argued that “anarchy is what states make of it.” The Trump administration has seized the vast powers granted to the president of the still dominant United States to make a version of anarchy that is Hobbesian all the way down. It has called its strategy “peace through strength” and declared a foreign policy of “flexible realism,” which its authors understand as being “realistic about what is possible and desirable to seek in its dealings with other nations.”

Trump’s supporters would argue that this approach has enhanced U.S. hegemony. Indeed, with his manic actions around the world, Trump has highlighted all the advantages the United States has accrued over the course of the American century. His administration, however, is using them in ways no realist would advise.

The foundations of American power are rooted in the rule of law at home and credible commitment abroad, the very things that Trump has attempted to dismantle. Trump’s gutting of foreign aid and the infrastructure of U.S. scientific and technological dominance, his dangerous confrontation with stalwart European allies, and, most damaging of all, his use of the military and federal security forces to consolidate his domestic authority will, in the long run, undermine American power. Estranged allies are already reaching out to China and one another to hedge against an erratic United States. Whether these actions succeed or not, they weaken the United States and make China relatively more attractive for smaller powers seeking security. In Trump’s zero-sum global order, it is the United States that will eventually pay the price.

Foreign Affairs · More by Daniel W. Drezner · January 20, 2026

18. Chaos as Condition, Order as Achievement: Rethinking US Strategic Assumptions in Twenty-First-Century Interventions

​Summary:

DeMarco argues U.S. strategy has assumed that political order is natural and chaos an aberration, so removing a malign actor will let societies “snap back” to stability. Iraq, Libya, and even Panama show the opposite. Modern conflict zones are complex adaptive systems where instability is the norm and decapitation strikes trigger durable disorder. Panama’s apparent success was a deceptive outlier shaped by scale, proximity, and preexisting legitimacy. Iraq and Libya exposed the catastrophic costs of event focused intervention. He urges shifting from killing regimes to managing systems, treating Phase IV stabilization and long term governance as the real main effort.

Comment: Assumptions are a key to strategy.

The world is a complex adaptive system full of living systems. So, if chaos is the default condition, what concrete test should U.S. leaders apply before any future regime change operation (or malign actor removal operation)?

How would a true “systems first” doctrine change force structure, not just planning rhetoric?

Chaos as Condition, Order as Achievement: Rethinking US Strategic Assumptions in Twenty-First-Century Interventions - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · J. William DeMarco · January 20, 2026

https://mwi.westpoint.edu/chaos-as-condition-order-as-achievement-rethinking-us-strategic-assumptions-in-twenty-first-century-interventions/

For the better part of a century, the grand strategy of the United States has been predicated on a deeply entrenched, almost subconscious mental model: the belief that political order is the natural, baseline condition of human societies, and that chaos is an artificial aberration caused by specific malign actors. This event-based logic posits that stability is a self-righting mechanism; once the agent of disruption—be it a fascist dictator, a communist insurgent, or a terrorist warlord—is removed via decisive kinetic action, the society in question will naturally snap back to a state of equilibrium. In this view, war is a discrete event, a surgical incision to excise a tumor, after which the body politic heals itself with minimal postoperative care.

However, the first quarter of the twenty-first century has fundamentally shattered this illusion. From the sectarian slaughterhouses of post-invasion Iraq to the fragmented, militia-ruled wasteland of post-Gaddafi Libya, the United States has repeatedly demonstrated an unparalleled ability to win battles while losing wars. The military instrument has proven exceptionally efficient at breaking regimes, yet the national strategic apparatus has proven woefully inept at building the peace that is supposed to follow. In each case, the removal of the tyrant did not lead to the spontaneous emergence of Jeffersonian democracy or Westphalian stability. Instead, it unleashed a torrent of entropy—a durable disorder that proved far harder to contain than the original adversary.

This 20th-century paradigm of intervention—rooted in linear causality and the assumption of automatic order—is dangerously obsolete. Today’s operational environments are not static hierarchies but complex adaptive systems, characterized by deep interconnectivity, nonlinearity, and the capacity for chaotic emergence. In these environments, instability is not a bug to be fixed but a feature of the system. Chaos is the condition. Order is not a default; it is a fragile, laborious achievement that must be actively constructed, resource by resource, institution by institution, over decades.

US intervention strategy, therefore, is due for reevaluation. That requires tracing the intellectual genealogy of the order-as-default fallacy and contrasting the Westphalian model with the emerging reality of neomedievalism and durable disorder. That provides a forensic lens that can be applied to three historical case studies—Panama (1989), Iraq (2003), and Libya (2011)—allowing the variables that led to perceived success or catastrophic failure to be isolated. This, then, becomes a means of considering, for example, the capture of Nicolás Maduro and the risk that event-based logic might plunge the Americas into a chaotic quagmire of unprecedented scale. But ultimately and more broadly, it provides professional military practitioners and policymakers with a new intellectual framework—one that shifts the focus from controlling events to shaping systems, and from the illusion of quick victory to the reality of managed transition.

Theoretical Foundations: From Westphalian Order to Durable Disorder

The Westphalian Legacy and Linear War

The American way of war is inextricably linked to the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which established the state as the primary unit of international affairs. In joint planning doctrine, the state possesses a monopoly on the legitimate use of force within defined territorial boundaries. This framework simplified the strategic calculus: War was a contest between unitary actors. If one state (the United States) defeated the army of another (Germany, Japan, Iraq), the victor could dictate terms to the vanquished state apparatus, which would then implement them.

Classical strategic theorists like Carl von Clausewitz and Antoine-Henri Jomini operated within this state-centric paradigm. Clausewitz defined war as “the continuation of politics by other means,” a dialectic of wills between political entities. Jomini viewed war as a scientific endeavor, governed by geometric principles where seizing decisive points led to victory. This legacy instilled in US planners a linear view of cause and effect: Input A (invasion) leads to Output B (surrender and stability).

The twentieth century reinforced this model. The total victories of World War II, followed by the successful reconstruction of Germany and Japan, seemed to prove that a regime could be dismantled and rebuilt better. Even the Cold War, for all its proxy complexities, was a binary struggle that offered a grim form of stability. The Gulf War of 1991 was the apotheosis of this mindset: a limited objective, a decisive military campaign, and a restoration of the status quo. These experiences cemented the concept of the center of gravity—the idea that every enemy has a hub of all power and movement, on which everything depends. Destroy the hub, and the system collapses into a form that can be remolded.

The Neomedieval Shift and Globalization

The end of the Cold War did not create globalization or supranational governance, both of which had existed in earlier forms for decades. It did, however, accelerate and unmask their systemic effects. As bipolar competition receded, the stabilizing constraints imposed by great-power rivalry weakened, allowing long-latent dynamics to assert themselves. The monopoly of the state began to erode from above, as globalization intensified and supranational institutions assumed more prominent roles, and from below, through ethnic fragmentation, the expansion of transnational criminal networks, and the increasing privatization of violence. Political economist Philip G. Cerny captured this shift in his seminal 1998 analysis, describing globalization not as a force of convergence, but as a condition of “durable disorder.”

Cerny argued that the world was moving toward a “neomedieval” system—a fractured landscape of overlapping authorities comparable to Europe before the rise of the modern state. In this world, the state is often a hollow shell. Power resides in a complex web of warlords, criminal syndicates, religious militias, and transnational corporations. In such an environment, the security dilemma is internalized; civil war becomes the dominant form of conflict, and disorder becomes a permanent structural feature rather than a temporary crisis.

This shift has profound implications for intervention. In a Westphalian system, removing a leader changes the policy of the state. In a neomedieval system, removing a leader often dissolves the state entirely, leaving behind a vacuum that is rapidly filled by violent competition among micropowers. The state does not snap back; it evaporates.

Entropy and Complexity Science

To understand this new reality, strategists must turn to complexity science. Modern conflict zones function as complex adaptive systems. Unlike mechanical systems (e.g., a car engine), which can be disassembled and reassembled, complex systems are organic and dynamic. They are characterized by:

• Nonlinearity: Small inputs can have massive, disproportionate outputs (e.g., the self-immolation of a fruit vendor in Tunisia triggering the Arab Spring). Conversely, massive inputs (a US invasion) may be absorbed with little systemic change.
• Emergence: The behavior of the system arises from the interactions of its agents, not from a central command. Order and disorder emerge from the bottom up.
• Feedback Loops: Actions trigger reactions that loop back to influence the original actor, often in unpredictable ways.

Strategist Sean McFate, in The New Rules of War: How America Can Win—Against Russia, China, and Other Threats, argues that the world has entered an age of entropy where “durable disorder” is the norm. In this environment, the search for a decisive victory is a fool’s errand. The enemy is not a rigid hierarchy but a fluid network.

As Aaron Bazin argues in his analysis of complex adaptive operations, attempting to control such a system with linear, industrial-age warfare is akin to debugging a network by severing random connections. The system does not collapse; it reroutes, adapts, and continues to function, often in a more virulent form.

The US military’s failure to internalize this shift is the root cause of its strategic frustrations. Complex political problems continue to be treated as target sets to be serviced. The assumption persists that if the bad guys are eliminated, the good guys will naturally take over. But in a complex system defined by entropy, the removal of a dominant node (a dictator) often leads to system-wide cascading failure—a rapid descent into chaos that is self-sustaining and durable.

Panama 1989: The Deceptive Success

Operation Just Cause: The Archetype

The US invasion of Panama in December 1989, Operation Just Cause, stands as the high-water mark of the decapitation model. It is the case study most often cited by proponents of regime change to argue that military force can swiftly and effectively reset a wayward nation.

The operational parameters were clear: President George H. W. Bush ordered the invasion to protect American lives, defend democracy, combat drug trafficking, and protect the integrity of the Panama Canal treaties. The primary target was General Manuel Noriega, the de facto dictator whose regime had devolved into a narco-militocracy.

Militarily, the operation was a masterpiece of synchronization. Over twenty-seven thousand US troops, including elite Rangers and paratroopers, struck twenty-seven targets simultaneously. Within hours, the Panamanian Defense Forces were shattered. Noriega sought asylum in the Vatican nunciature but surrendered on January 3, 1990. In his place, the United States installed Guillermo Endara, the legitimate winner of the May 1989 elections, who was sworn in at Fort Clayton, a US base.

The Day-After Gap

However, the narrative of a flawless surgical strike obscures the immediate systemic shock that followed the regime’s collapse. As the Panamanian Defense Forces dissolved—the only institution capable of maintaining order—a profound security vacuum opened in Panama City and Colón. Widespread looting erupted, targeting businesses and infrastructure. The US military, focused entirely on combat objectives (the event), had not planned for a policing mission (the process).

Research indicates that the looting caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage and persisted for weeks in some areas until US forces pivoted to a constabulary role. The surgical removal of the wart (Noriega) nearly killed the patient (Panama’s economy) through the secondary infection of anarchy. Order was restored not automatically, but through the extraordinary concentration of US forces in key urban areas, where troop density approached one soldier for every hundred residents—a level rarely achievable or sustainable in larger interventions.

Why Order Was Achieved

Despite the initial chaos, Panama did stabilize. By 1994, it had a functioning democracy and no standing army. This success was not due to the inherent validity of the decapitation strategy, but rather to unique systemic variables that are virtually impossible to replicate elsewhere:

• Preexisting Legitimacy: The United States did not have to manufacture a government. Guillermo Endara had a clear electoral mandate from the Panamanian people. The order was not imposed; it was restored.
• Institutional Reform: The decision to abolish the Panamanian Defense Forces and replace it with a civilian police force (the Panamanian Public Forces) was a critical process-based intervention that broke the cycle of military coups.
• Scale and Sphere of Influence: Panama is a small nation (with a population of approximately 2.4 million in 1989) deeply integrated into the US economic and security sphere via the Panama Canal Zone. The United States had a century of knowledge about the terrain and the actors.

The tragedy of Panama is that it taught the wrong lesson. Policymakers internalized the ease of the military victory while ignoring the unique context that allowed the political stabilization to succeed. They assumed that the Panama outcome (democracy) was a natural consequence of the Panama method (invasion), failing to see that Panama was an outlier, not a precedent.

Iraq 2003: The Systemic Shock

Hubris and the Linear Fallacy

If Panama was the false positive, Iraq was the catastrophic correction. The 2003 invasion was planned with the Panama mindset on steroids: a “rapid decisive operation” designed to decapitate the Saddam Hussein regime and leave the Iraqi state largely intact.

The assumptions underpinning the invasion were breathtakingly linear. Senior officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, operated on the belief that Iraq’s disorder was solely a function of Saddam’s tyranny. Remove the tyrant, and the natural order of a wealthy, educated, secular society would emerge. As Michael O’Hanlon noted in his critique, this view dismissed the warnings of experts who saw Iraq not as a solid state but as a fragile sectarian mosaic held together by terror.

The Vacuum and Phase IV Failure

The military campaign, Operation Cobra II, achieved its tactical goals with blistering speed. Baghdad fell in three weeks. But the event of regime change triggered an immediate, systemic collapse for which the United States was totally unprepared.

The 3rd Infantry Division’s after-action report remains one of the most damning documents in military history: “Higher headquarters did not provide . . . a plan for Phase IV. As a result, [we] transitioned into Phase IV in the absence of guidance.” This was a cognitive failure. The planners did not believe Phase IV (stabilization) would be a phase of war; they thought it would be a victory lap.

When L. Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), issued CPA Order Number 2 dissolving the Iraqi military and intelligence services, he did not just fire four hundred thousand men; he destroyed the immune system of the Iraqi state. In a complex system, if you remove the primary regulator (the Ba’athist security apparatus) without an immediate replacement, entropy takes over.

The Emergence of Durable Disorder

The result was not democracy but anarchy. Looting devastated the ministries, erasing the administrative history of the state. The vacuum drew in every latent force of disorder: Shia militias backed by Iran, Sunni rejectionists, tribal warlords, and al-Qaeda. The power vacuum became the dominant strategic reality.

The United States spent the next eight years trying to retrofit a process solution (counterinsurgency) onto a botched event strategy. The 2007 troop surge was an attempt to introduce a new regulator into the system—a massive influx of troops and a shift to protecting the population. It achieved a temporary stabilization (on the surface, an achievement of order), but the underlying entropy remained. As soon as US pressure was removed in 2011, the system reverted to chaos, culminating in the rise of ISIS in 2014.

Iraq demonstrated that in a complex society marked by sectarian divides, the state is not a building you can occupy; it is a shared agreement on legitimacy. When that agreement is shattered, the result is not a blank slate, but a war of all against all.

Libya 2011: The Light-Footprint Disaster

The Responsibility to Protect (and Abandon)

The 2011 intervention in Libya was driven by a desire to avoid the quagmire of Iraq. The administration of President Barack Obama, wary of large-scale troop commitments, adopted a light-footprint strategy: US and NATO airpower would protect civilians and degrade Muammar Gaddafi’s forces, enabling local rebels to do the fighting on the ground.

This strategy was tactically efficient. It cost the United States roughly $1 billion and zero American combat lives. Gaddafi was captured and killed by rebels in October 2011. The event was a resounding success.

The Implosion of a Hollow State

Strategically, however, Libya was a disaster of omission. The United States failed to recognize that Gaddafi had spent forty-two years systematically hollowing out Libyan institutions to coup-proof his regime. There was no ministry of defense, no professional army, no parliament. The state was Gaddafi. When he died, the state died with him.

Crucially, the intervention plan included zero provision for a post-Gaddafi stabilization force. President Obama later admitted that “failing to plan for the day after” was his worst mistake. This failure was rooted in the same order-as-default assumption: Planners believed that the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) would naturally assume governance.

The Consequences of Abandonment

Instead, Libya fragmented into a kaleidoscope of rival militias. The rebels were not a unified army but a loose coalition of local brigades (Misrata, Zintan, Benghazi) with no loyalty to a central state. Without a neutral arbiter (like a US stabilization force) to enforce a monopoly on violence, these groups turned on each other.

The consequences were regional and durable. Gaddafi’s vast weapon stockpiles were looted and flowed south, fueling insurgencies in Mali and the Sahel. Libya became a bifurcated state with rival governments in Tripoli and Tobruk, a hub for human trafficking, and a sanctuary for ISIS.

Andrew Byers, writing in The Daily Economy, argues that the United States would have been better off doing nothing than triggering a collapse it was unwilling to manage. Libya proves that low-cost interventions are a mirage. The price of order is fixed; if a nation is not willing to pay it with stabilization, it will pay it in chaos.

Operational Design and Doctrinal Gaps

Over the past two decades, US military doctrine has increasingly acknowledged the limits of linear planning. Army Field Manual 5-0 and Joint Publication 5-0 both emphasize operational design as a means of grappling with complexity, encouraging commanders to develop system frames that map actors, relationships, and emergent dynamics. These documents explicitly caution against rushing to tactical action before understanding the broader system. As Huba Wass de Czege argued, design is not a method of control but a disciplined way of learning—accepting that complex systems can be influenced but not engineered into submission.

Yet the institutional lessons drawn from earlier interventions have often cut against this doctrinal logic. Operation Just Cause in Panama is commonly cited as a model of successful regime removal. But its apparent success masked the degree to which order had to be actively imposed through extraordinary force density, rapid transition to constabulary policing, and unusually favorable political and institutional conditions. What endured from Panama was not an appreciation for system management, but a simplified narrative: remove the leader, restore order, exit.

That misreading created a durable gap between doctrine and practice. While doctrinal manuals urge systemic understanding and restraint, institutional incentives continue to reward decisive, high-visibility action. Decapitation operations offer clear metrics of success and political payoff, even when they do little to shape the underlying system. The result is a force superbly optimized for winning events but repeatedly unprepared to manage what follows.

Iraq and Libya exposed the fragility of the Panama-derived model. In both cases, the event succeeded while the system collapsed. These were not failures of execution, but failures of strategic learning—applications of an event-centric template to environments where authority was fragmented, violence was networked, and disorder was not a temporary phase but the operating condition.

Recent events in Venezuela underscore how enduring the event-centric impulse remains. Even as US leaders emphasized that Washington would oversee a transition until a “safe, proper and judicious” outcome is achieved, the deeper strategic challenge persists: Decisive action may end an event, but it does not, in itself, shape the long-term trajectory of instability or order.

The US military remains essentially an industrial-age machine trying to operate in a biological age of warfare. It is optimized for the destruction of armies, not the management of entropy. As events unfold in Caracas, the Panama model is being applied to a Libya problem—a mismatch that historically leads to durable disorder.

Strategic Recommendations: From Event to System

To escape the cycle of tactical victory and strategic defeat, US intervention policy must undergo a Copernican revolution. The strategic center of gravity must shift from the event of war to the system of peace.

Recommendation 1: Institutionalize Phase IV as the Main Effort

Planning for the day after must be the primary filter for any intervention decision. When a military action with likely destabilizing effects—like Operation Absolute Resolve in Venezuela—is undertaken, resources must immediately pivot to Phase IV. The policing gap that doomed Iraq must be closed within days, not weeks.

Recommendation 2: Adopt a Regime-Evolution Strategy

In complex systems, total decapitation is often fatal to the society. Strategy should focus on regime evolution—using pressure to fracture the elite coalition and induce a managed transition that preserves the state’s administrative capacity. If the head must be removed, the body (bureaucracy, police) must be kept on life support to prevent anarchy.

Notably, the approach in Venezuela since Maduro’s capture—at least to date—reflects elements of this regime-evolution logic, as US actions have focused on removing the regime’s apex while leaving much of the administrative and security apparatus in place.

Recommendation 3: The Powell Doctrine for the Twenty-First Century

The logic of the Powell Doctrine—and the associated you break it, you own it concept—must be reinstated but updated for complexity. Leaders must be honest with the public: Intervention is not a raid; it is an adoption. It implies a responsibility to govern or support governance for a decade or more.

Recommendation 4: Design-Centric Professional Military Education

Professional military education must prioritize systems thinking over the military decision-making process. Officers should be trained in complexity science, sociology, and economics. Training must emphasize how armed actors function as social networks, not just as targets. Wargames should penalize kinetic victories that result in long-term instability, forcing students to grapple with the durable disorder that follows.

The close of the twentieth century and the opening of the twenty-first have proven to be a graveyard for the order-as-default assumption. From the looting of Panama City to the burning streets of Baghdad and the slave markets of Libya, the evidence is overwhelming: Chaos is the condition of the modern world. Order is not a natural right; it is a hard-won achievement.

Operation Absolute Resolve once again illustrates the central dilemma of modern strategy: the ease of decisive action and the difficulty of shaping what follows. The operation resolved an event, but it did not resolve the system. Whether order emerges, fragments, or simply mutates and metastasizes will depend less on the moment of intervention than on the sustained choices made afterward. The event is complete. The system’s response is only beginning to take shape.

J. William “Bill” DeMarco is a senior US Air Force civilian academic and strategist currently serving at Air University’s LeMay Center for Doctrine Development and Education. His work focuses on strategy, futures literacy, institutional adaptation, and the cognitive dimensions of modern conflict. He has published widely on military education, strategic culture, and emerging forms of competition.

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

Image: Destruction in Sirte, Libya after fighting between pro-regime forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi and rebels (credit: EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid)

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mwi.westpoint.edu · J. William DeMarco · January 20, 2026

19. Greenland Is Strategic. Annexation Is Not

​Summary:

Greenland sits at the hinge of Arctic strategy. It anchors early warning radars, guards the Greenland–Iceland–UK gap, and will matter more as ice melts and Russian and Chinese activity grows. The United States needs a larger military footprint there, including stronger air and missile defenses, more robust facilities at Pituffik, and possibly reopened bases and additional forces. But annexation or coercion would shatter NATO, create an Article 5 crisis, and hand strategic advantage to Russia and China. The smarter course is deeper U.S. presence built on trust, the 1951 Greenland Defense Agreement, and close coordination with Copenhagen and Nuuk.

Comment: The fundamental strategic question should be: how can we redesign our Arctic strategy so that every additional U.S. platform or missile battery in Greenland also strengthens NATO political cohesion and Danish and Greenlandic trust, rather than eroding it? Without the strength and cohesion of NATO I think we are hard pressed to effectively compete with China and Russia and the entire CRInKETT let alone fight a war with them.

Greenland Is Strategic. Annexation Is Not

warontherocks.com · January 20, 2026

Spenser A. Warren

January 20, 2026

https://warontherocks.com/2026/01/greenland-is-strategic-annexation-is-not/

As sea temperatures and geopolitical tensions simultaneously heat up, Greenland’s strategic importance increases. Against this backdrop, the specter of American territorial expansion has emerged as a new factor that is complicating Arctic security.

The evolving security environment in the Arctic necessitates deeper American involvement in the region. Specifically, the United States needs to enhance its military presence in Greenland by improving regional air and missile defenses. Future developments could call for other actions, such as reopening closed bases and deploying more troops to Greenland.

However, undermining the territorial integrity of Denmark — one of America’s strongest allies — would be a strategic miscalculation of epic proportions. It could fracture the European and Arctic security orders, providing greater opportunities for Russia and China. Instead of threatening Denmark, American actions in Greenland and the broader Arctic should be done in lockstep with our Danish and other regional allies.

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Trump’s Greenland Ambitions

Twin dangers in the Arctic — the acute and enduring threat of Russia and the growth of Chinese regional ambitions — have captured the imagination of U.S. President Donald Trump, along with Greenland’s mineral resources. Trump has claimed that anything less than American ownership of Greenland is “unacceptable.” According to the president, control over the territory is needed to prevent it from falling into Russian and Chinese hands. Additionally, the president states control over Greenland is necessary to complete elements of the Golden Dome missile defense architecture. His interest in annexing Greenland for strategic reasons goes back to his first term, when he proposed purchasing it from Denmark.

Both claims are grossly overblown. American ownership over Greenland is not necessary to contain China and Russia. Collaboration with America’s NATO allies in the Arctic offers a better strategy for doing so.

Nor is it required to advance the Adminsitration’s missile defense goals. The United States has missile defense assets such as early warning radars and interceptors on the territory of several allied countries. This includes radar systems already in Greenland.

While the president’s emphasis on ownership is misplaced, his assessment that Greenland is a strategically critical territory for the United States is correct. As previously written in this outlet, Greenland is a “strategic linchpin in the Arctic.” Increasing our military presence in Greenland is a strategic imperative. Washington needs to take actions that will deter Russian aggression in the Arctic and improve our ability to counter Russian actions should deterrence fail. China’s growing presence in the region exacerbates these strategic needs.

But increasing our military footprint must be done through close collaboration with Copenhagen and Nuuk. To truly enhance Greenland’s security, the United States should take advantage of existing agreements with Denmark such as the 1951 Greenland Defense Agreement that allow the United States significant freedom of action in Greenland.

Greenland and Strategic Competition in the Arctic

Greenland’s geographic position provides its critical strategic importance. It is near the top of the world, putting it close to the path of an intercontinental ballistic missile strike against the United States and making it an important location for early warning radars. It lies to the northeast of the United States, anchoring a line of early warning and air defense capabilities that protects America’s northern flank. It bounds the Greenland–Iceland–United Kingdom Gap, making it crucial for protecting North America from Russian naval capabilities and projecting Allied naval power. .

The defense of the Arctic is of growing importance. The United States and its allies have to contend with growing Russian capabilities and assertiveness in the region. Russia has expanded their conventional capabilities in the far north. They have also deployed novel nuclear-capable systems to the Arctic.

Russia’s military expansion and modernization includes the deployment of new submarine capabilities, such as the Borei-A class ballistic missile submarine, Yasen-M class attack submarine, and the highly secretive Belgorod submarine. Russia has also deployed Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missiles to the Arctic, as well as the Kinzhal aeroballistic missile. Both could theoretically carry a nuclear warhead.

Russia remains the region’s primary threat but is no longer the only one. China has growing Arctic ambitions. Beijing has increased its presence in the Arctic, embarking on a comprehensive strategy that includes growing political, economic, scientific, and military activity.

Improving Russian capabilities and growing Chinese interest coincides with melting sea ice. The impacts of global climate change have made the region more navigable, increasing both geopolitical competition and the risk of military escalation.

Strength Through Collaboration, not Confrontation

Attempts to coerce Denmark into relinquishing Greenland will do nothing to improve regional security. Instead, they threaten further integration and regional cooperation.

Moving beyond threats to action would be even more destabilizing. Military adventurism would crack open the Arctic and European security orders.

A U.S. attack against Greenland would constitute the first instance of one NATO member invading the territory of another. An invasion would create an immediate crisis for the alliance. Such action would violate Article 1 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which binds NATO parties to settle international disputes between them in a peaceful manner. Article 1 also commits member states to not engage in threats of force against member states. An attack would also create an unsolvable dilemma for NATO’s Article 5 on collective defense, the bedrock of the alliance. Either other NATO members uphold Article 5 and assist in the defense of Greenland — splitting the United States and the rest of NATO — or shirk Article 5 responsibilities. Failing to uphold Article 5 would undermine the alliance’s credibility. Upholding it would split the United States from the alliance. Even if NATO survived, it would be a far weaker alliance lacking either a credible security guarantee or the backing of the United States.

The biggest winner in this scenario is Russia. China would also see strategic benefits.

In extremis, cratering NATO would remove the primary impediment to Russian expansion in Europe and completely restructure the European security order. Even if NATO survived in a weakened state, it may not be able to deter Russian aggression against European countries.

Ending regional cooperation would also enable further Russian expansion in the Arctic, undermining the Trump Administration’s very goal of containing the Russian threat. Svalbard is the most likely site of future Russian expansion in the Arctic. Moscow is already increasingly assertive in the areas around it. Defending the archipelago from Russian attack or annexation requires deeper coordination between Norway, the United States, and regional allies such as Denmark.

Additionally, destroying the U.S.-led security order in the region would provide China with openings for diplomatic, economic, and security engagement in the area. Regional allies may turn to Beijing to counter Russian and American expansion in the region.

Deepening Security Engagement Without Ownership

Continued coercion, military or otherwise, risks creating the very scenario Washington wishes to avoid: Russian expansion and more Chinese engagement. Instead, the United States should deepen its current engagements with Denmark and Greenland’s home government.

Denmark is already a critical contributor to Arctic security. The Danes have contributed $15 billion to Arctic security initiative in just the last two years. They have a military presence in Greenland and cooperate with other Arctic and near-Arctic allies on a range of security issues. Denmark has also agreed to a Defense Cooperation Agreement with the United States that allows American access to Danish military bases.

Meanwhile, the United States already has valuable assets in Greenland. It should work with Nuuk and Copenhagen to expand and enhance these capabilities, including by improving air and missile defenses in Greenland. Currently, the United States only operates one base — the Pituffik Space Base — and stations approximately 150 troops in Greenland. The United States has had a much larger presence in the past, operating additional bases and deploying up to 10,000 troops at the height of the Cold War. While it is unlikely the United States will need to deploy that many troops or operate all of the former bases in the near future, the 1951 Greenland Defense Agreement allows the United States to reopen as many of the former bases as Washington ultimately deems necessary and deploy a force much larger than the one the United States currently provides.

One place to start improving American capabilities in Greenland is by completing the renovations that are already underway at Pituffik. The exact extent of renovations are unknown, but officials have confirmed runway repairs, the deployment of a new icebreaker, and facilities upgrades that will ensure the base can continue to function in peacetime.

Additional improvements should ensure the security of the base during crises or war. The base and future additional installations in Greenland are vulnerable to Russia’s growing missile capabilities in the Arctic. Elsewhere, I have argued that Russia’s novel nuclear-capable weapons systems — including Tsirkon and Kinzhal — provide Russia with improved regional warfighting capabilities in Eastern Europe that the United States and NATO can overcome. The same is true for Greenland.

Countering the threat that Russia’s novel weapons pose should entail the deployment of regional air and missile defense capabilities to Greenland. While more sophisticated than other Russian missile systems, Kinzhal is vulnerable to Patriot air and missile defense systems. Some claims suggest that Tsirkon may also be vulnerable to Patriot or the European SAMP/T. Denmark ordered SAMP/T systems in 2025. While there are no interceptors currently in Greenland, the United States should bolster the security of Pituffik by deploying Patriot batteries, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense systems, or other advanced missile defense capabilities.

Doing so would not make current or future early warning radars in Greenland impervious to a Russian missile attack, but that would not change with American ownership of Greenland. It does improve the security of the base, as well as Greenland as a whole, and decreases the likelihood of a successful Russian strike.

Currently, China poses a less severe military threat in the region. Countering China will require a broader Arctic strategy aimed at limiting Chinese political and economic influence while ensuring enough military capacity to deter future Chinese aggression. Greenland can play a significant role in this strategy. If necessary in the future, the United States has the option to deploy significantly more troops to Greenland. But that option only exists as long as Copenhagen and Nuuk trust that the United States will not try to conquer Greenland via fait accompli.

For its part, Denmark is likely to support an increased American presence, so long as it trusts the United States to not use expanded capabilities to take Greenland by force. Prior to Washington’s current push to annex Greenland, Denmark was urging the United States and NATO to invest more heavily in regional security. Denmark and Greenland have also telegraphed their willingness to work closely with the United States to improve Greenlandic security and support an increased American presence.

Denmark is also taking actions that will strengthen Greenland’s security. Copenhagen has invested in new naval vessels, drones, and space capabilities aimed at improving the defense of Greenland. They’ve also deployed more troops to Greenland as Trump has increasingly signaled his interest in annexing the territory. Denmark could choose to continue basing these troops in Greenland.

By working with, not against, Denmark, the United States will improve the regional security environment, better protect the North American homeland from Russian threats, and benefit its competition with China. The United States could expand its radar capabilities and deploy interceptors to bolster Greenland’s air and missile defense. Washington also has the option of increasing the American troop presence in Greenland should it be necessary. In combination with continued Danish investment in naval assets, drone capabilities, and troop deployments, Washington can achieve its strategic goals in Greenland without annexation.

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Spenser A. Warren is a Stanton nuclear security postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

Image: Quintin Soloviev via Wikimedia Commons

warontherocks.com ·· January 20, 2026

20. Change or Just Cheating? Overhauling Professional Military Education for the AI Era

​Summary:

AI “cheating” in professional military education is a symptom, not the disease. Devine and Graham argue the system was built for a pre-AI age that rewarded compliance, heavy reading loads, and rote assessments. Officers now quietly outsource thinking because incentives push them to finish tasks, not to master judgment. Bans and honor pledges cannot fix this. The remedy is systemic: curricula built around human-AI teaming, behavioral incentives that reward learning, and assessments that force applied judgment in contested environments where AI may fail. The goal is not AI replacement but disciplined integration for war.

Comment: I look forward to Jim Lacey's comment on this essay as I think he is one of the leading thinkers on AI and PME. 

A key point for discussion I think: If future victory depends on human-AI teaming, what competencies must the PME system produce that today’s force does not yet know it needs? (An unknown unknown I think - which begs another question: can AI help us identify the unknown unknowns?) 

Change or Just Cheating? Overhauling Professional Military Education for the AI Era

warontherocks.com  January 20, 2026

Tim Devine and Todd Graham

January 20, 2026

https://warontherocks.com/2026/01/change-or-just-cheating-overhauling-professional-military-education-for-the-ai-era/

Thanks to AI, cheating in professional military education is becoming pervasive. Drawing on our perspectives as a uniformed instructor and as a recent course graduate, we’re seeing officers increasingly outsource their thinking and assignments to sophisticated AI tools despite attempted restrictions. The rising, unauthorized use of AI is not merely an integrity issue. It undermines the very mission of professional military education and erodes the military’s professional ethos.

However, AI cheating is not the problem. Rather, it is a symptom of disruption in a system comprised of many complex, interconnected parts. The debate in and beyond these pages over the role of AI in military classrooms offers many thoughtful insights but falls short of outlining a comprehensive, actionable path forward. Our goal is to share an approach for integrating AI into professional military education that not only promotes its utility, as senior officials urge, but also confronts the tensions, like academic dishonesty, that AI exacerbates. We apply a familiar problem-solving methodology called “design,” to explain how AI integration is fundamentally a systems challenge requiring institutional overhaul.

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A Systemic Problem

James Lacey calls for educators to fully embrace AI or risk obsolescence, rationalizing that AI can dramatically improve performance when properly integrated. While these are valid points, Lacey’s approach is shortsighted. For one, he dismisses legitimate concerns that while some faculty and students gain purchase from the AI tools he enthusiastically endorses, others precariously offload their thinking and their judgment, as a growing body of research and trends throughout academia suggest. Further, Lacey treats rising academic misconduct among honor-bound military professionals with a passing glance despite acknowledging “well over half” his students are using AI even with attempted restrictions, namely for assessments. Policies vary by institution, but the oscillations between outright bans and conditional permissions are creating confusion.

Responding to Lacey, Matt Woessner challenges the notion that professional military education faces a binary choice to embrace AI or maintain the status quo. Woessner suggests “a middle ground,” including helpful ways to address officers’ growing dependence on AI by having them study its weaknesses, such as awareness of the “programmer’s invisible hand.” He frames the dilemma facing the military’s educational institutions more holistically, asking: “not whether they should embrace this new technology, but how to do so in a way that prepares their students for the future.” This is indeed the right question, but Woessner’s prescriptions require more detail.

While Woessner promotes AI classroom engagement to a degree, he suggests more reliance on “AI-free assessment tools,” like oral exams as checkpoints to verify learning and to create incentives for genuine engagement. This is supposedly because new technology has compromised the reliability of traditional assessments, including written essays and take-home exams. However, his approach treats AI integration primarily as a measurement issue — how to verify learning despite AI availability — rather than as a comprehensive environmental design challenge. One that equally prizes core competence with the benefits of human-AI teaming: the very issue Lacey pinpoints. Lacey responded with a biting critique of Woessner’s reasoning, doubling down on an “all-AI, all-the-time” approach. Woessner followed suit, reasserting his call for a “middle way.” Their debate should be essential reading for those with stake in these matters, including clients of the military’s educational system such as ourselves.

Despite their discerning contributions, both authors overlook the root causes of a deeper systemic problem and thus offer piecemeal solutions. For instance, Lacey’s unreserved endorsement downplays the risks involved with AI use that even its developers don’t fully understand and some researchers gravely fear. While Woessner’s AI-free assessments value authenticity, they demote the mastery of technologies that not only proliferate the operating environment but may soon revolutionize warfare.

Rather than applying patchwork fixes that aggravate intersecting tensions, the architects of professional military education should refer to problem-solving methodologies that have long been the cornerstone of the curricula. One methodology known as design not only offered us a starting point for unpacking the root causes of AI cheating, but more importantly led us to generate a roadmap for integrating AI into military classrooms that accounts for the interactions within a complex system.

Applying Design

Design is ideal for this scenario because it is a conceptual framework that serves as the basis for more detailed planning, which each institution will ultimately require based on its unique requirements, as Woessner emphasizes. Design promotes critical thinking, creative thinking, and systems thinking to understand strategic direction and guidance, to understand the environment, and to define the problem. The main output of design is a broad solution known as an operational approach.

The strategic direction and guidance for integrating AI into military classrooms are marked by a resolve to adapt. Pledges to rapidly integrate AI across the force coincide with a comprehensive review of all military education and training based on the White House’s AI policy. As adversaries use AI to streamline command processes, optimize battlefield logistics, and even place important decisions in the hands of algorithms, senior leaders make it clear that professional military education institutions cannot afford to remain static or apply haphazard measures for AI integration.

What’s clear is that the institutions should reform to better prepare military professionals for future operating environments co-inhabited (and perhaps dominated) by AI, while retaining the ability to think, act, and lead effectively without it. This dual requirement is critical. Future battlefields will likely feature a contested electromagnetic spectrum where AI tools become unavailable precisely when we need them most. Benjamin Jensen calls for transforming military schoolhouses into small, elite AI battle labs, thereby creating a niche cadre of “enlightened soldiers.” While creative, Jensen’s approach would fail to prepare the wider force for future warfare. Still, his prescriptions point to a major tension: AI is creating dysfunction by exposing vulnerabilities of a system designed for a bygone era.

Integrating AI into professional military education faces obstacles driven by several interconnected, root causes. Lacey implies that most civilian educators lack technical competence and the will to incorporate AI tools in ways that force officers to practice their judgment, exposing a gap between the educators responsible for delivering the curriculum and desired learning outcomes. Woessner’s observation that students show “strange deference” to AI — questioning classmates but accepting AI pronouncements — identifies a cognitive vulnerability. While Jensen pinpoints how the military’s enthusiasm for AI is confronting a lack of foundational preparation to integrate it effectively.

Building on these insights, we identify two additional root causes from a behavioral economics lens. First, military culture quietly tolerates unethical behavior although military professionals seldom admit it, according to Leonard Wong and Stephen J. Gerras. Their 2015 study, Lying to Ourselves: Dishonesty in the Army Profession, remains relevant because AI misuse is exacerbating the military’s ethical blind spots. Wong and Gerras argue that officers have become desensitized from a “deluge of demands” coupled with a constant need to verify compliance by putting their honor on the line. Their observations explain why signing AI policy pledges does little to promote ethical behavior, because the incentive is misplaced. In other words, the system rewards compliance over honor and desired behaviors like pursuing knowledge.

Second, cheating has never been so convenient because AI tools can quickly and effortlessly produce academic work. All academia is wrestling with this issue, and professional military education is not immune. Despite policies restricting AI use on assessments, we’re seeing officers increasingly use AI to complete their assignments, from essays to theses, producing arguments that appear watertight but, upon closer inspection, display telltale anomalies like bizarre reasoning, incorrect citations, and factual inaccuracies. When questioned, several students openly divulge generating papers or answering exam questions with AI platforms, either partially or entirely. Some have even admitted to spending more time deceiving so-called online AI detectors rather than composing original thoughts.

Empirical evidence is limited since AI cheating is difficult to prove, but ample research in behavioral economics explains why it is becoming pervasive. Humans naturally display “bounded ethicality,” which is a predictable gap between the ethical choices we want to make and the choices we actually make. “Ethical fading” is a condition where individuals facing an ethical dilemma become so focused on self-interest that ethical considerations no longer seem relevant. The convenience and anonymity of AI tools, combined with heavy workloads and other pressures, make students (regardless of their status as professionals) highly susceptible to unethical shortcuts.

The problem confronting professional military education comes down to this: how to integrate AI in ways that promote desired behaviors while achieving course objectives. Piecemeal solutions are insufficient and the current approach of peripheral reforms — such as tweaking a 10-year-old slide deck for a lesson or suddenly introducing a new AI agent during a practicum — is inadequate. The entire system of professional military education must change.

Institutional Overhaul

The operational approach we recommend amounts to institutional overhaul. We are not suggesting overturning decades of effective pedagogy and tradition, but professional military education should reform considerably given AI’s vast disruption. Our operational approach features three lines of effort for addressing the root causes listed above, pulling from the best elements of others’ proposals.

Human-AI Curricula

Rebase the curricula on Lacey’s powerful concept of human-AI teaming, which should serve as the central pillar of institutional overhaul given its downstream impacts. Individuals and groups who master the human-AI combination will exponentially outperform those who rely exclusively on either human or AI capabilities. The goal is not humans working alone, nor AI working alone, but humans learning to effectively combine their thinking and judgment with AI assistance in ways that compound over time through repeated practice. As Lacey observes, “we are rapidly entering an education environment where only those who master human-AI teaming are likely to survive.” He’s right about the imperative, though we diverge on the method: mastering this teaming requires deliberate practice in both AI-enabled and AI-restricted environments, not the AI-saturated instruction he advocates.

Institutions should embrace the “invisible hand” by tailoring AI companions, or intelligence augmentation systems, for students and faculty alike. This shift would provide students with personalized learning experiences, potentially replacing traditional homework and need for lectures. The utility of intelligence augmentation is virtually limitless. Many students are already applying this idea in practice: using large language models as interactive research assistants, Socratic counterparts for debate, and summarizers of dense texts. Faculty can use AI to quickly turn existing materials into more practical, engaging lessons, reducing the time spent in class teaching new information. These are smart uses of AI because they create efficiencies and foster genuine engagement, unlike a student outsourcing an essay to a chatbot or an educator hypocritically sharing algorithmic feedback as authentic.

Fielding these tools will be resource intensive and logistically complex. Detailed planning is critical to match resources with requirements. There are also risks of forming dependence on AI companions, which is more reason for mixing in AI-restricted environments. Educators would benefit from attending communities of practice where they can regularly share their successes, failures, and concerns about AI in the classroom. Further, institutions should retain faculty who offer expertise and authentic connection and mentorship. “Far from being driven into extinction,” Woessner states, “only humans have the capacity to teach students to evaluate strategic problems independently, thereby instilling the requisite skepticism needed to make effective human–machine collaboration possible.” The human educator may be more important than ever before, guarding students from handing their agency over to a machine.

Behavioral Incentives

Apply behavioral economics principles that nudge all stakeholder groups toward desired outcomes. This is the critical missing piece in other approaches. Policies should favor permission and limit restrictions and should address the misalignment of incentives by targeting extrinsic and intrinsic motivations. Doing the work should be the point, not simply complying with requirements. Three examples of behavioral interventions include rebranding development as “occupational training,” an idea inspired by reducing excessive academic workloads, and designing AI tools users are motivated to use.

First, enhance AI skills through ongoing, personalized occupational training for all. Augment sporadic faculty development assemblies with the same human-AI teaming concept. Reward exemplary progress with popular incentives like time-off awards or paid bonuses for civilian instructors. Use data from these activities for uniformed instructor evaluations by assessing potential to thrive with advanced technologies. Likewise, reward students, through grades or academic awards, who demonstrate mastery. To avoid “gaming the system,” assess skill in application, during classroom observation of an instructor for instance, rather than simply reward completing modules. Hosting “what’s possible?” workshops or offering sandboxes for safe failure will allow experimenting with AI without fear of breaking something. Still, policies should clearly explain the penalties of noncompliance and be willing to enforce them.

Second, scale student workload at home, namely by reducing assigned readings. Assigning hours of nightly reading is a time-worn practice, but behavioral studies show that overload can be counterproductive. Not only is there a positive correlation between high academic stress and AI-assisted cheating, but also students tend to reduce engagement with dense reading lists as courses progress. While students may forgo interacting meaningfully with an abundance of original texts, educators should meet students where they are. Viewing reading assignments as steppingstones to human-AI dialogue and in-class collaboration, rather than a comprehensive treatment of lesson material, will maximize engagement with selected works. Normalizing this approach can be done over time as the system adapts.

Third, design AI tools that avoid shortcuts and showcase developmental utility. For example, having students compose and submit an essay via a schoolhouse AI program, rather than simply uploading a file to an online repository, would curb dishonest behavior and support self-development by recording writing process analytics and offering tips. Access is critical, too. The fact that familiar AI tools are now available on government networks is a positive step, but the institution’s AI programs should be readily accessible to everyone, including hundreds of international students. A poorly designed agent could provide unhelpful or even incorrect advice, so it’s important that educators have the final say on grades and continue to offer their original critiques.

Assessments

Many traditional assessments are vulnerable to AI cheating, but that doesn’t mean they have lost their value. Composing original thoughts for an essay remains a powerful way to promote critical thinking, but ensuring students derive the intended benefit depends on the design. Administrators should assume students will use AI regardless of any stated restrictions absent controlled environments like proctored exam rooms. Assessments should be designed accordingly, including a combination of “AI-proof” and “AI-infused” assessments rather than simply “AI-free” or “AI-permitted.”

AI-proof assessments require classroom context, personal experience, and applied judgment that AI cannot replicate without human expertise. Rather than analyzing well-known historical events or cases, which AI can easily generate, create scenarios requiring personal context that AI cannot access, thus making the assessment AI proof. Asking students to analyze a real-time, unfolding situation and immediately present their findings in a live discussion or role-playing scenario will encourage constructive dialogue. AI-proof assessments will be difficult to scale, especially for time-intensive oral exams that Woessner endorses, but there are creative ways to reduce these burdens such as simulating desk-side briefings to a senior leader in small groups. In these cases, AI remains a tool for formulation rather than a substitute for presence.

AI-infused assessments can evaluate students’ ability to effectively combine human judgment with AI assistance, while developing and assessing the necessary technical literacy at the same time. Traditional assessments can be modified so AI supplements students’ work rather than replacing it. We’ve seen prototypes of AI-infused assessments that hold promise, such as an AI agent designed to support course of action development during an operational planning practicum. The agent served as an interactive medium for students to explore ideas, gain insights, and test assumptions and later provided personalized feedback on how well users leveraged the tool’s potential according to a rubric.

To reduce compliance-driven motivation, interactions should encourage students’ self-determination and guard against sycophancy. Here’s an example of a Socratic agent conducting a check on learning: “Instead of ‘tell me what you know then I’ll grade your response,’ we could start with genuine questions YOU have about joint operations. What puzzles you? What seems contradictory?” Rather than fill-in-the-blank or multiple choice, this exploratory model is more relatable and genuine, sparking interactions that emerge from intellectual curiosity over rote memorization. Likewise, it’s important to design tools that don’t provide over-flattery responses but the honest, constructive feedback military professionals need for real development.

Conclusion

Future wars may be determined by the military that best integrates AI across its formations, and this integration starts with professional military education. The goal is not simply to flood AI into the military’s classrooms, nor should institutions promote AI skepticism so sternly that it turns people away. Graduates must comprehend the capabilities and limitations of AI and know how to apply these tools wisely. As importantly, students must continue developing their cognitive skills, mature their judgment, build multi-discipline competence, and strengthen their ethical foundation during their educational journeys.

Institutional overhaul lays a foundation for comprehensive reform that architects of professional military education should consider as the basis for their detailed plans. New curricula based on human-AI teaming should be the top priority as it will shape accompanying behavioral incentives and assessment requirements. Because unique needs of each institution will vary, we expect our proposals may succeed in some cases or fall short in others or even yield unforeseen results. This is true of any plan, so it’s important to measure progress, assess risk, and adapt accordingly.

We did not write this piece to blow the whistle on AI cheating, but to demonstrate how the time-honored problem-solving methodologies taught in military classrooms can yield comprehensive solutions. Design methodology reveals that AI integration is not a binary choice between prohibition and unrestricted access, nor is it solely about technology, cognitive development, or even ethics. It is a systems challenge requiring institutional overhaul for a new era.

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Tim Devine is a U.S. Army officer in the strategist career field. He is currently serving as an instructor for Army professional military education and is a member of the Military Writers Guild.

Todd Graham is a U.S. Army infantry officer currently serving as an operations officer in the 82nd Airborne Division. He is a recent graduate of Army professional military education.

The views in this article are the authors’ and do not represent the policies or positions of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or any part of the U.S. government.

Image: Petty Officer 1st Class Brian Glunt via DVIDS

warontherocks.com · · January 20, 2026

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

https://apstrategy.org/

Executive Director, Korea Regional Review

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

Editor-at-large, Small Wars Journal

https://smallwarsjournal.com/

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com