Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

“The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.”

– George Orwell

"People's opinions are mainly designed to make them feel comfortable; truth, for most people, is a secondary consideration."

– Bertrand Russell

"When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness."

– Alexis de Tocqueville

1. Pentagon Plans for Bigger U.S. Troop Role at Border

2. The U.S. Won’t Defeat China if Ambassadors Fail Upwards

3. Peace in Ukraine Needn’t Mean Russian Victory

4. The Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine

5. The New Front in America’s National Security: Combating Narcoterrorism

6. The Challenge of AI-Enhanced Cognitive Warfare: A Call to Arms for a Cognitive Defense

7. Trump’s foreign policy is all about China

8. Friend or foe? Trump’s threats against ‘free-riding’ allies could backfire

9. A Korean-style armistice for Ukraine?

10. Taking Taiwan: Will Xi or won't Xi?

11. Uncertain, unnerved: U.S. allies in Asia brace for impact as Trump returns

12. Is it Time to End the American Global War on Terror? By Robert Bruce Adolph

13. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, January 21, 2025

14. Iran Update, January 21, 2025

15. Why Britain Should Scupper the Chagos Islands Deal

16. Ukraine is much better at combined arms operations than Russia

17. Exclusive: Rubio Outlines ‘Sweeping Change’ in Cable to U.S. Diplomats Worldwide

18. The Fallacy of the Abraham Accords

19. Donald Trump's Biggest Foreign Policy Test: The Axis of Upheaval

1. Pentagon Plans for Bigger U.S. Troop Role at Border

Pentagon Plans for Bigger U.S. Troop Role at Border

Trump calls migrants, drug traffickers and smugglers an invasion requiring a military response

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/pentagon-plans-for-bigger-u-s-troop-role-at-border-0e26497e?mod=hp_lista_pos1

By Nancy A. Youssef

Follow, Vera Bergengruen

Follow and Gordon Lubold

Jan. 21, 2025 7:57 pm ET

It isn’t clear whether the military’s role on the border would replace or overlap with the existing security operations carried out by DHS, ICE and border agents. Photo: anna rose layden/Reuters

WASHINGTON—Pentagon officials are planning options for using federal troops to secure the U.S.-Mexico border against drug traffickers, human smugglers and migrants, a potentially major shift in military priorities ordered by President Trump, officials said Tuesday.

Use of the armed forces in a domestic role is restricted by laws prohibiting troops from engaging in law enforcement functions except in narrow circumstances. But an executive order Trump signed Monday described border threats normally left to law enforcement agencies as an “invasion” justifying a military response.

A push to expand the military’s domestic responsibilities faces multiple obstacles, including legal restrictions and the Pentagon’s reluctance to involve itself in what it has long viewed as law enforcement tasks.

Officials at the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the agency in charge of securing the border and enforcing immigration law, scrambled to understand what the new mandate means for their agencies.

U.S. Northern Command, which is responsible for military operations in North America, was given a month to craft a plan to combat “unlawful mass migration, narcotics trafficking, human smuggling, gang trafficking, and other criminal activities.” Trump specified that it should “seal” the U.S.-Mexico border and repel “forms of invasion.”

Military planners will need to determine how many troops are required, rules of engagement, as well as the equipment, vehicles and weapons required for a mission that active duty forces don’t usually train for, said Peter Feaver, a professor of political science and public policy at Duke University.

Trump also signed an executive order designating drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, which could allow the use of military force against these groups.

“We have started crafting courses of actions…what we think the mission is and what viable military operations could be used to do that mission,” said Marine Col. Kelly Frushour, a spokeswoman for Northern Command.

Due to the restrictions of the Posse Comitatus Act, federal troops are generally prohibited from detaining migrants, seizing drugs from smugglers, intercepting or searching vehicles, or having any direct involvement in stopping people from crossing the border. Exceptions to the law permit the president to use troops against insurrection and domestic violence.

A separate Trump declaration of a national emergency along the border opens federal funding and allows National Guard troops to be sent to the border under the command of the president instead of governors from the states where the units are based.

Shortly after the Inauguration, the administration named Charles Young, who was the top lawyer in the National Guard Bureau, as the principal deputy general counsel for the department, the Pentagon said.

When Trump deployed more than 8,000 troops to the southern border in 2018, they spent their time stringing razor wire, fixing vehicles, and analyzing drone footage. Photo: thomas watkins/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

By describing migrants, drug traffickers and smugglers as invaders threatening U.S. security, the administration could possibly circumvent the Posse Comitatus law, though whether such a move will survive likely legal challenges is unclear, analysts said.

The claim that an invasion is occurring “at least plausibly permits the use of the armed forces at or near the border,” though “judges and legal experts disagree whether mass undocumented immigration constitutes an ‘invasion,’” said John Dehn, faculty director of Loyola University Chicago’s national security and civil rights program.

During his first term, Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border and deployed thousands of troops there. But officials on Tuesday suggested the new administration was taking more aggressive action to expand the military’s role.

Trump appeared to be lumping migrants seeking asylum with drug cartels, which he has termed “enemy combatants,” and treating both as national security threats. “When you use the military this way, you take them offline from other high-intensity threats, like China,” Feaver said.

It isn’t clear whether the military’s role on the border would replace or overlap with the existing security operations carried out by DHS, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and border agents.

The perception is that troops “will be lined up along the border apprehending or stopping people,” says Gil Kerlikowske, who headed Customs and Border Protection in the Obama administration. “But this isn’t their expertise; this isn’t their area. They are only there for a short period of time, they don’t really understand the border.”

Despite Trump’s sweeping order, federal troops are likely to mostly handle logistical, administrative, and maintenance tasks that free up border patrol agents, he added.

As many as 2,500 U.S. troops have been at the border in recent years at the request of DHS.

Pentagon officials have long insisted that border security isn’t a key mission for them. While most militaries in the world are intended to combat internal threats, the U.S. armed forces are trained and equipped to combat external threats. Involving troops not trained for law enforcement might sully the military’s image, former officials said.

“The military doesn’t want to see photographs of their people in uniform, separating families, dragging mothers out of cars, doing those kinds of enforcement things,” said Kerlikowske.

When Trump deployed more than 8,000 troops to the southern border in 2018, they spent their time stringing razor wire, fixing vehicles, and analyzing drone footage.

Brandon Judd, the then-head of the National Border Patrol Union—which represents 15,000 agents and endorsed Trump—said at the time the troops’ presence was “a colossal waste of resources.” Judd is now Trump’s nominee to be ambassador to Chile.

Write to Nancy A. Youssef at nancy.youssef@wsj.com, Vera Bergengruen at vera.bergengruen@wsj.com and Gordon Lubold at gordon.lubold@wsj.com

Appeared in the January 22, 2025, print edition as 'Trump to Expand Troops’ Role at Border'.

2. The U.S. Won’t Defeat China if Ambassadors Fail Upwards

A scathing critique focused on Yuri Kim.

The U.S. Won’t Defeat China if Ambassadors Fail Upwards

19fortyfive.com · by Michael Rubin · January 21, 2025

Key Points and Summary: As Donald Trump’s second term unfolds, his ambassadorial choices face scrutiny, especially for pivotal roles in Asia. With Beijing’s assertiveness rising, strong leadership in Manila is critical. Rumors of Yuri Kim, criticized for her handling of crises in Nagorno-Karabakh and Albania, potentially being appointed as U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, raise concerns.

Why the U.S. Needs Strong Leadership in Manila to Counter China

Career Foreign Service Officers often complain about political appointees as unqualified ambassadors whose sole credential is raising money. Sometimes, politicians appoint unqualified men and women to positions, but sometimes, appointees shine.

They not only shine and bring prestige to a post and an ability to leapfrog over the ossified Foggy Bottom bureaucracy, but they can also infuse fresh ideas. A. Wess Mitchell, President Donald Trump’s first term appointee to be Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, masterminded a reorientation of Eastern Mediterranean policy to flip Cyprus and cement U.S. strategic interests with the region’s democracies, making Washington less dependent on Turkey’s mercurial dictatorship.

Richard Verma, an Obama appointee, likewise distinguished himself with his leadership as the U.S. ambassador in New Delhi.

Inherent in the careerists’ complaints is the belief that all Foreign Service officers are highly skilled and well-qualified. Some are. Julie Fisher in Cyprus punches far above her weight. So, too, does Peter Vrooman in Mozambique.

Like political appointees, however, others fall short.

The Appointees Who Fail

April Glaspie fairly or not became the poster child for incompetence when, in 1990, she appeared to inadvertently signal a greenlight for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait.

Barbara Bodine fumbled Yemen before and after the U.S.S. Cole investigation.

Prior to the Arab Spring uprising, In 2006, Frank Ricciardone, the U.S. ambassador to Egypt, told a gathering of students that “President Mubarak is well known in the United States. He is respected. If he had to run for office in the United States, my guess is he could win elections in the United States as a leader who is a giant on the world stage,” a statement not only cringe-worthy in its sycophancy at the time, but one that reflected both incompetence given the Arab Spring that was just around the corner as well as deliberate subversion of President George W. Bush’s democracy agenda.

The Office of the Inspector General was brutal to Thomas Krajeski’s management of the U.S. embassy in Bahrain.

The Real Problem

As with any bureaucracy, while some ambassadors shine and others fail, most are mediocre. The problem within the State Department is that bureaucratic interests and processes often trump real acknowledgement of a candidate’s strengths and weaknesses. As ambassadors attach themselves to more senior patrons, internal politics also trump honest consideration of national security. The result is the tendency of many diplomats to fail upwards and the State Department to places others in posts which they may desire but for which they are the wrong person.

What Donald Trump and Marco Rubio Need to Do

If President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are serious about countering China, they need to place their best ambassadors, be they political appointees or career Foreign Service, both in Beijing and Taipei, as well as in the frontline states with China. Trump is off to a good start nominating David Purdue, a former senator with a record of hawkishness toward China. The same is true with George Glass, Trump’s nominee to be U.S. ambassador to Japan. The State Department traditionally sends career officers to other frontline states like the Philippines, Vietnam, Mongolia.

The Philippines are arguably the most important state in the South China Sea for U.S. national security. China’s “nine-dash line” may be historical fiction, but the People’s Republic of China has used to it justify decades of aggression against littoral states and island nations. China claims islands and atolls that have always been Filipino from the time the United States took possession of the territory from the Spanish in 1898 and then granted the Philippines independence in 1946.

Alas, rumors within the State Department suggest that one of its weakest and most unsuccessful ambassadors may soon get the nod as U.S. ambassador to Manila as a consolation prize after failing both to win approval to be assistant secretary of State for European Affairs or to get the nod for the ambassadorship to Turkey due to that country’s switch to receive a political rather than career appointee.

A Mistake Trump Needs to Avoid

Yuri Kim became infamous when, on September 14, 2023, she faced tough questioning about the State Department’s policy toward Nagorno-Karabakh after remaining passive during Azerbaijan’s illicit ten-month blockade of the Armenian populated region. “We will not tolerate any military action. We will not tolerate any attack on the people of Nagorno-Karabakh. That is very clear,” she told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Five days later, Azerbaijani forces invaded Nagorno-Karabakh and ethnically cleansed its 1,700-year-old Armenian Christian population. Far from “not tolerating,” Kim and colleagues did nothing, failing even in its aftermath to label what happened “ethnic cleansing,” preferring instead to speak of “depopulation” in the passive voice.

If there was any ambassador that personified paper tiger, Kim is it. After her Senate debacle, if she had to deliver a statement threatening dire consequences to Chinese actions, no one in Beijing would believe her. This could be exceedingly dangerous as Kim’s perceived weakness could encourage Beijing to military action.

About the Author: Dr. Michael Rubin

Michael Rubin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum. A former Pentagon official, Dr. Rubin has lived in post-revolution Iran, Yemen, and both pre- and postwar Iraq. He also spent time with the Taliban before 9/11. For more than a decade, he taught classes at sea about the Horn of Africa and Middle East conflicts, culture, and terrorism, to deployed US Navy and Marine units. Dr. Rubin is the author, coauthor, and coeditor of several books exploring diplomacy, Iranian history, Arab culture, Kurdish studies, and Shi’ite politics. The author’s views are his own.

19fortyfive.com · by Michael Rubin · January 21, 2025

3. Peace in Ukraine Needn’t Mean Russian Victory

Of course with the author's previous recent position I do not think this will have much impact on the new administration despite the last two sentences making sense.

Excerpts:

As this war persists, it can be tempting for nonparticipating countries to lose interest. Curtailing security assistance to Ukraine now, however, would be a historic mistake that would play to Russia’s advantage.

The U.S. has led a historic, yearslong effort to help Ukraine protect its sovereignty, defend against Russian aggression and generate the leverage needed to secure a just and lasting peace. In the past few months, the U.S. has expanded sanctions on Russia, provided Ukraine with nonpersistent antipersonnel landmines, permitted the cross-border use of American-provided Army Tactical Missile Systems and supplied Ukraine with hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds, thousands of rockets and hundreds of air-defense missiles. Ukraine has a healthy stockpile of key munitions, while the pressures on Russia’s economy and military are growing.

Ukraine can enter a future negotiation with strength and reach an acceptable outcome to this war, but only if the U.S. continues to support the Ukrainian military and apply economic pressure on Russia. Now is the time to finish the job.

Peace in Ukraine Needn’t Mean Russian Victory

It serves U.S. interests to keep backing Kyiv so that it can negotiate from a position of strength.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/peace-in-ukraine-neednt-mean-russian-victory-defense-war-kyiv-1bb9b824?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1

By David Shimer

Jan. 21, 2025 12:44 pm ET

An instructor teaches cadets how to fly drones in the Kyiv region in Ukraine, Jan. 17. Photo: Olga Ivashchenko/Bloomberg News

As President Trump seeks to end the war between Russia and Ukraine, it is imperative that the U.S. continue to support the Ukrainian military. Ukraine can reach a just and lasting outcome to this war, but only with our help.

Since Russia launched its invasion in February 2022, the topic of Ukraine funding has become increasingly politicized and detached from the facts on the ground. I worked on Russia and Ukraine policy at the White House over the past four years, and there are clear, straightforward, nonpartisan reasons why the U.S. should keep up its military aid for Ukraine.

First, Ukraine is an effective partner that is degrading the Russian military and, in the process, strengthening its position for a future negotiation. Press coverage of this war is frequently lopsided in portraying Russia as on the march and Ukraine on its back foot. The reality is more complex. Early in the war, Ukraine won the battle for Kyiv and retook more than half the territory that Russia initially seized. Today, it’s true that Russia is grinding out territorial gains, and Ukraine’s hold over areas such as Kursk and Pokrovsk is tenuous.

But it’s also true that Ukraine is imposing extraordinary costs on Russia, which is suffering an average of 1,500 casualties a day. It’s an open question whether Moscow can continue to recruit enough soldiers to replace its staggering losses, estimated at more than 700,000 casualties overall since 2022. Russia’s struggles are a credit, first and foremost, to the skill of the Ukrainian military. U.S. security assistance has played a key role in supporting Ukraine’s courageous fighting force, alongside contributions from a global coalition of more than 50 countries.

Second, with U.S. help, Ukraine can push Russia to engage in meaningful negotiations. Russia wants the world to believe it can sustain its military campaign indefinitely, but the current landscape tells a different story. The Russian military is struggling, and the Russian economy is deteriorating. Thanks in part to U.S. and allied sanctions, inflation in Russia is above 9%, and its benchmark interest rate is at 21%.

The U.S. recently announced severe sanctions against Russia’s financial and energy sectors, which will put further strain on the Russian economy. Ukraine faces its own challenges, including personnel shortages and Russian strikes against its energy infrastructure, but the pressures are significant on both sides, not only in Kyiv.

Maintaining military aid for Ukraine while simultaneously applying economic pressure on Russia would increase the likelihood of a durable peace. The Trump administration has made clear that its objective is to end the fighting. But to secure a just and lasting resolution, Ukraine requires leverage for talks. Cutting off aid would rob Ukraine of leverage, shift battlefield dynamics in Russia’s favor and undermine Ukraine’s negotiating position at a critical moment.

Third, helping Ukraine succeed remains fundamentally in America’s national-security interest. Russia is seeking to legitimize territorial conquest by force. If Russian aggression isn’t halted in Ukraine, then Moscow could become emboldened to threaten the eastern-flank members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and aggressors around the world would become more likely to imitate Russia’s behavior. It is no coincidence that Iran, China and North Korea have all been deepening their support for Russia. These countries recognize that a Russian victory in Ukraine would advance their own aims and aspirations.

Supporting Ukraine also benefits America’s defense industrial base, economy and technological competitiveness. By investing in Ukraine’s military, we’re simultaneously investing in our own. The U.S. has two key methods for deploying security assistance. The first, executed under presidential drawdown authority, involves buying new equipment for Pentagon stockpiles and then providing older equipment to Ukraine. The second, known as the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, procures contracts with U.S. defense manufacturers for Ukraine, a process that promotes investment in innovative defense technologies. Together, these two methods create American jobs and strengthen the U.S. military, all without putting American lives in harm’s way.

Congress should make it a priority to appropriate additional security assistance funding for Ukraine. Only the U.S. has the capacity to provide Ukraine with the equipment it needs to prevail.

As for budgetary support, the $50 billion loan for Ukraine that the Group of Seven recently finalized, supported by immobilized Russian sovereign assets, provides a strong foundation. European countries will need to decide whether they can find a legal pathway to seize the principal of these assets, as they should and as the U.S. has urged, or whether instead to provide Ukraine with additional economic assistance from their own budgets.

As this war persists, it can be tempting for nonparticipating countries to lose interest. Curtailing security assistance to Ukraine now, however, would be a historic mistake that would play to Russia’s advantage.

The U.S. has led a historic, yearslong effort to help Ukraine protect its sovereignty, defend against Russian aggression and generate the leverage needed to secure a just and lasting peace. In the past few months, the U.S. has expanded sanctions on Russia, provided Ukraine with nonpersistent antipersonnel landmines, permitted the cross-border use of American-provided Army Tactical Missile Systems and supplied Ukraine with hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds, thousands of rockets and hundreds of air-defense missiles. Ukraine has a healthy stockpile of key munitions, while the pressures on Russia’s economy and military are growing.

Ukraine can enter a future negotiation with strength and reach an acceptable outcome to this war, but only if the U.S. continues to support the Ukrainian military and apply economic pressure on Russia. Now is the time to finish the job.

Mr. Shimer served on the National Security Council staff, 2021-25, most recently as the director for Eastern Europe and Ukraine, and previously as director for Russian affairs.

The Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine

The nature of the current strategic competition suggests that Trump will need to craft a corollary to the Monroe Doctrine radically different from Theodore Roosevelt’s. It will depend on consent from fellow American governments.

The National Interest · by James Holmes · January 21, 2025

The shade of Theodore Roosevelt is grinning. President Donald Trump has been holding forth about matters of geopolitical import. Some of his remarks reflect his tongue-in-cheek style. Not for nothing has the president earned the title of galactic overlord among trolls. There is no political constituency either north or south of the border for making Canada the fifty-first U.S. state. Nor is there any constituency for changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.” And I say that as someone who grew up alongside the Gulf. The historic name of that body of water offends no one—least of all residents of states abutting the Gulf of Mexico.

He is jesting. One hopes.

His musings about Greenland and the Panama Canal are a more serious matter. He broached a purchase of Greenland from Denmark while declining to rule out a military seizure of the island. There would be strategic logic to such a move. Greenland fronts on the Arctic, an emerging theater of strategic competition, while abutting the Greenland-Iceland-U.K. gap, Russia’s access to the North Atlantic. It abounds in critical minerals. China has been nosing around for mining rights along with its other activities as a self-proclaimed “near-Arctic” state. And then there’s the Panama Canal. Shutting the canal in times of war would compel U.S. maritime forces to default to much longer, more time-consuming, more arduous voyages to swing between the oceans. U.S. control would hold that prospect at bay.

Control of the two sites would the bolster strategic defense of the Americas.

Such worries are nothing new. In fact, some shrewd commentators have detected a Roosevelt-esque strain in Trump’s words. Not by name. But they connect Trump’s remarks to the Monroe Doctrine, an enduring theme in U.S. foreign policy ever since President James Monroe and Secretary of State John Quincy Adams codified it in 1823. Now, it’s worth pointing out that there is no such thing as “the” Monroe Doctrine. The doctrine underwent at least three phases during the century after 1823 as political and strategic circumstances changed and U.S. national power waxed. The first is what I long ago took to calling the “free-rider” phase, which spanned from the days of Monroe and Adams until the first serious U.S. Navy battle fleet took to the seas—until, say, around 1890. (Congress ordered keels laid for the Navy’s first steam-propelled, armored, big-gun cruisers in 1883.)

Why free-rider? Because America didn’t enforce its own doctrine! It let others do it. The erstwhile mother country and enemy, Great Britain, had reasons of its own for keeping rival empires from reconquering Latin American republics that had thrown off European rule in a spate of revolutions. A confluence of British power—the chief implement being the Royal Navy, mistress of the seas—with British and U.S. interests made London a silent partner in enforcing the Monroe Doctrine. The United States free-rode on British-supplied maritime security for most of a century, simply because it could. Why divert resources needed to subdue a continent and develop an industrial economy into a large standing military if you don’t need one?

Trump’s words have little to do with the free-rider paradigm, the OG Monroe Doctrine. No one today could act as external guarantor of the integrity of the Americas, allowing the United States to resume free-riding. Other seafaring states that could conceivably amass sufficient sea power, China and Russia in particular, are precisely the Eastern predators that need to be kept from encroaching on sovereignty in the Western Hemisphere.

I call the next phase in the Monroe Doctrine the “strongman” phase. It was mercifully short-lived, spanning Grover Cleveland’s second presidency in the 1890s. In 1895, war seemed to loom between Venezuela and Great Britain, the imperial overlord of Guyana at the time. Natural resources were to blame for the fracas. The border between the two countries was ill-defined, precious minerals were discovered in the contested borderland, and both contenders hankered for the riches natural resources promise. (Sounds ripped from the headlines, doesn’t it?) So, they squared off for a fight.

The Cleveland administration fretted about the prospect of war not because the United States had a direct stake in the quarrel, but because Britain would doubtless prevail in a border war—and in the process wrest strategically located real estate from an American republic and breach the Monroe Doctrine. Washington resolved to intervene diplomatically because it could. The U.S. Navy was beginning to make its weight felt in regional waters, underwriting American demands with armed force. Indeed, Cleveland’s secretary of state, Richard Olney, told British prime minister and foreign secretary Lord Salisbury that America was now “practically sovereign” through the Western Hemisphere. That’s quite a statement. Sovereigns make the rules that apply within their borders. In effect, Olney informed Salisbury that Washington now made the rules governing half the Earth when it chose to do so. It had the armed might to enforce its will. And London bowed to local U.S. superiority, agreeing to allow American mediators to settle the border dispute.

Is Trump heir to the strongman of the 1890s, entitled to dictate what Latin American and European governments do in the Western Hemisphere? I doubt it. Trump doesn’t strike me as a Genghis Khan or Napoleon, intent on suzerainty over vast geographic spaces. Nevertheless, the strongman era does hand us a measuring stick to judge what the Trump administration does, if anything, vis-à-vis Greenland and Panama, or for that matter Canada and the Gulf of Mexico.

The third phase of the Monroe Doctrine was the “constabulary” phase, instituted by President Roosevelt in 1904. Roosevelt played a major part in interpreting, reinterpreting, and applying the Monroe Doctrine during his presidency. He affixed a “corollary” to the doctrine in 1904 that asserted the United States’ right to intervene in Latin American affairs—chiefly to forestall European navies from seizing territory in the Caribbean Sea or Gulf of Mexico and then constructing bases athwart vital sea lanes. What precipitated his move, in large part, was a 1902 European naval blockade of Venezuela. Roosevelt, fearing the European fleet would seize Venezuelan territory, dispatched virtually the entire U.S. Navy battle fleet to the Caribbean in secrecy, there to shadow the Europeans and deter a violation of the Monroe Doctrine. Such a violation, he believed, would imperil maritime security in the United States’ near abroad.

Roosevelt and kindred navalists like Alfred Thayer Mahan, Henry Cabot Lodge, and William Howard Taft were acutely aware that the Panama Canal would open in the next decade or so; that the canal would furnish mercantile and naval shipping a new interoceanic gateway, slashing the length of voyages between Atlantic and Pacific ports; and thus that the sea lanes leading to and from the canal would assume tremendous importance for all seafaring states. That being the case, officialdom in European capitals would covet naval bases adjoining those routes. Not just regional but European navies would seek control of vital sea routes in the Gulf and Caribbean.

Worse from Washington’s standpoint, they had a built-in excuse to seize ground on which to build bases. Caribbean governments of the day had a habit of taking out loans from European banks and then falling into revolution or misrule. Either way, the loans often went unpaid. The bankers appealed to their own governments for help, and if diplomatic intercession bore no fruit, they would send the navy to occupy the customhouse in the defaulting American state. The intervening power would apportion tariff revenue to the bank until the debt was repaid.

The Roosevelt administration found this intolerable, not because Washington objected to foreign debts being repaid but because forcible debt repayment would leave a European power in possession of territory in the Americas—territory it might not relinquish. Such encroachments happened time and again in Asia and Africa during the age of imperialism. And it might happen along the United States’ southern rampart. To prevent such a turn of events, Roosevelt explained to Congress in 1904 that the U.S. government reserved the right to deploy “an international police power,” intervening in Latin American affairs to confound European occupation of territory in the Caribbean basin. Should a Latin American government prove unable or unwilling to keep its international commitments, he stated, the United States would step in preemptively to settle that government’s debts—and deny Europeans any pretext for occupying Caribbean shores.

There’s a third benchmark for the Trump II presidency. Will Trump declare himself constable of the Americas? Now this seems plausible. Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed a U.S. right to proscribe external intervention when it feared landgrabbers were about to entrench themselves in the Western Hemisphere. He spoke softly while brandishing a big stick in the form of the U.S. Navy battle fleet. But he used the big stick sparingly. In fact, no shots were fired during the 1904 debt crisis in Santo Domingo, the present-day Dominican Republic, which precipitated and supplied a test case for the Roosevelt Corollary. A warship took station in the harbor, constituting a deterrent to European intervention, while a U.S.-appointed customs agent apportioned revenue between the Dominican government and its creditors.

Roosevelt took great pride in being a constable who never resorted to violent force.

In the spirit of Roosevelt, Trump could assert a right to intervene diplomatically, or perhaps even militarily, to prevent some extraregional red team from ensconcing itself in Greenland, Panama, or elsewhere in the Americas. Presumably, Roosevelt would approve. It’s important to note, however, that today’s circumstances differ in one drastic way from the age of Roosevelt, Cleveland, or Monroe. The first three phases of the Monroe Doctrine involved defending American states confronting extraregional aggression, an unwelcome act. No society relishes the prospect of foreign bullying or subjugation. But here’s the wrinkle for Trump: what if a government in the Western Hemisphere welcomes an outsider onto its sovereign territory?

By what right would Washington deny a willing American state its sovereign rights?

It’s hard to say. Such contingencies, moreover, are far from hypothetical. They have happened. In recent years, China has pursued commercial access to seaports all around the world’s rimlands, often garnering notable success. Not long ago, for example, Xi Jinping traveled to South America to inaugurate a Chinese-bankrolled container port at Chauncey, along the Peruvian seacoast. China made inroads in the Western Hemisphere not by bombast, or by sending the People’s Liberation Army Navy to collect debts, but by appealing to the self-interest of a Latin American state. Xi wooed Peruvian leaders, promising to further the two countries’ well-being through seagoing trade and commerce.

Prosperity confers leverage on its bringer. Beijing might attempt to parley commercial into military access at some future time, as imperial powers have throughout history. But then again, it might not. What-ifs make a flimsy basis for demanding that Western Hemisphere governments deny foreigners control of their harbors—especially when such access profits them.

The nature of the current strategic competition, then, suggests that Trump will need to craft a corollary to the Monroe Doctrine radically different from Roosevelt’s. It will depend on consent from fellow American governments. U.S. diplomats will need to convince their regional counterparts that intentions can change on a dime. In other words, China is not a partner pursuing agreements for mutual, apolitical economic gain. It is pursuing power—including forward-deployed military power. Covenants guaranteeing mercantile access could morph into something altogether more sinister at the discretion—or even the whim—of Beijing. In short, Washington must persuade governments throughout the Americas that the risks of intimacy with China outweigh the benefits. And to go with diplomatic outreach, the dealmaker-in-chief must offer them economic, diplomatic, and military inducements to bandwagon with the United States.

Imagine that. Far from being blustering or coercive, a Trump Corollary could give rise to a hemispheric-defense effort that manages hostile outsiders’ access to the Americas while advancing the common weal. Let’s make it so.

James Holmes is J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and the author of Theodore Roosevelt and World Order: Police Power in International Relations (University of Nebraska Press). The views voiced here are his alone.

The National Interest · by James Holmes · January 21, 2025

5. The New Front in America’s National Security: Combating Narcoterrorism

Kind of deja vu all over again recalling all those JTF 6 counterdrug missions we did in the 1990s. But I am sure we will be doing much more now than we did back then.

Excerpts:

President Trump’s designation of cartels as FTOs represents more than a semantic shift – it’s a recognition that America faces a sophisticated campaign of assault by proxy orchestrated by China. In an era where adversaries increasingly employ indirect methods to weaken American society, this recategorization provides the legal and operational framework needed to mount an effective response.

Our success in confronting this challenge will require sustained commitment, international cooperation, and a willingness to think beyond traditional security paradigms. President Trump’s executive order is a crucial first step, but the real test lies in our ability to disrupt China’s irregular warfare networks and hold accountable all actors involved in this attack on American society.

The New Front in America’s National Security: Combating Narcoterrorism

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/01/22/the-new-front-in-americas-national-security-combating-narcoterrorism/

by Doug Livermore

01.22.2025 at 06:00am

President Trump’s landmark executive order designating major drug cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) marks a watershed moment in America’s approach to national security and strategic competition against China. This reclassification acknowledges an uncomfortable truth: the fentanyl crisis is not merely a law enforcement challenge but a sophisticated form of irregular warfare targeting American society, with cartels serving as proxies in a broader strategic campaign orchestrated by China against U.S. interests.

The devastating impact of this proxy warfare is reflected in stark statistics. According to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, were responsible for over 70,000 deaths in 2022. The Drug Enforcement Administration has meticulously documented how Mexican cartels have industrialized fentanyl production using precursor chemicals sourced predominantly from China, creating what amounts to a chemical weapons supply chain targeting American communities. These aren’t merely crime statistics – they represent casualties in an irregular war being waged through proxy forces, with networks stretching from Beijing through Sinaloa and into every major American city.

The Brookings Institution has documented how this crisis disproportionately impacts working-class communities, creating zones of social instability that strain local governments and emergency services – precisely the type of internal disruption that aligns with China’s strategic objectives. The National Institute on Drug Abuse estimates the economic burden of the opioid crisis exceeds $1 trillion, representing a significant drain on American resources and societal resilience. This continued deficit reduces our ability to reinvest in competition with China, while contributing to the ballooning national debt.

The designation of cartels as FTOs reflects a crucial evolution in our understanding of modern security threats. Traditional definitions of terrorism focus on political violence, but today’s security landscape demands we recognize that economic warfare and social destabilization can be equally potent weapons. The Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute has tracked how Mexican cartels, under Chinese influence, have transformed from regional drug trafficking organizations into sophisticated transnational threats that serve Beijing’s strategic interests.

The Chinese connection is central to understanding this new form of warfare. A 2023 Congressional Research Service report detailed how Chinese chemical companies continue to supply Mexican cartels with essential precursor chemicals, despite Beijing’s official promises of cooperation. The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission has identified systematic patterns of Chinese chemical firms knowingly supplying cartel operations. This arrangement aligns perfectly with what Chinese military theorists term “unrestricted warfare” – a doctrine outlined in their 1999 military publication that explicitly advocates using non-military means, particularly the introduction of illicit drugs, to weaken adversaries.

By designating cartels as FTOs, the Trump administration gains access to powerful tools under the PATRIOT Act and related counterterrorism legislation. This designation also enables a range of new options, among them enhanced surveillance authorities, stronger sanctions against facilitators, and improved international cooperation frameworks. The Treasury Department can now more aggressively target the financial networks that sustain cartel operations, particularly focusing on their connections to Chinese entities.

Critics argue that this designation risks militarizing what should remain a law enforcement response. However, this perspective fundamentally misunderstands the sophisticated nature of Chinese proxy warfare through cartel operations. These organizations have evolved beyond mere criminal enterprises into quasi-military forces that advance Beijing’s strategic interests. Cartels employ tactics traditionally associated with insurgent groups, effectively serving as irregular warfare units motivated exclusively by financial gain.

The Council on Foreign Relations reports that cartels now operate sophisticated intelligence networks and maintain armed wings capable of challenging state security forces – capabilities that mirror those of traditional proxy forces. The Financial Action Task Force has highlighted how cartel financial operations increasingly mirror those of state-sponsored networks, using sophisticated money laundering techniques that exploit the global financial system. This new reality reflects China’s mastery of hybrid warfare approaches seen around the world that blend criminal activities with strategic objectives. Confronting this threat requires recognizing cartels as instruments of Chinese strategic policy rather than independent criminal enterprises.

The path forward requires a multi-faceted approach that acknowledges the true nature of this proxy warfare. At its foundation, we must strengthen international cooperation to disrupt Chinese chemical supply chains feeding cartel operations. This effort must be paired with enhanced intelligence sharing focused specifically on China-cartel connections. Finally, we must recognize that addressing the demand side of the equation through public health measures remains crucial.

President Trump’s designation of cartels as FTOs represents more than a semantic shift – it’s a recognition that America faces a sophisticated campaign of assault by proxy orchestrated by China. In an era where adversaries increasingly employ indirect methods to weaken American society, this recategorization provides the legal and operational framework needed to mount an effective response.

Our success in confronting this challenge will require sustained commitment, international cooperation, and a willingness to think beyond traditional security paradigms. President Trump’s executive order is a crucial first step, but the real test lies in our ability to disrupt China’s irregular warfare networks and hold accountable all actors involved in this attack on American society.

Disclaimer: The views expressed are the author’s and do not represent official US government, Department of Defense, or Department of the Army positions.

Tags: Drug Trafficking Organizations, Foreign terrorist organizations, opioid crisis, President Trump, proxy war

About The Author

Doug Livermore
Doug Livermore is the Director of Engagements for the Irregular Warfare Initiative, a member of the Atlantic Council’s Counterterrorism Group, the national vice president for the Special Operations Association of America, national director for external communications at the Special Forces Association, senior vice president for solution engineering at the CenCore Group, and the deputy commander for Special Operations Detachment–Joint Special Operations Command in the North Carolina Army National Guard. A former senior government civilian, intelligence officer, and contractor in various roles at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Department of the Navy, and Department of the Army.

6. The Challenge of AI-Enhanced Cognitive Warfare: A Call to Arms for a Cognitive Defense

Excerpts:

Currently, only a few voices are engaging the public about the current and potential future threats posed by malignant actors empowered by AI. Much of the discussion revolves around defending systems, with little discussion on defending people. The first step needs to be amplifying the intensity and scope of this conversation. Threats will not be countered if there is no consensus that they are threats. Hopefully, this venue will develop its strains of debate about these threats.

Discussion of countering these threats focuses on technological solutions, including developing AI to counter adversarial AI While technological solutions are necessary and will be effective, they are not sufficient. The Chinese, Russians, and others will develop methods of defeating or circumventing our defensive technologies. They will succeed at some cognitive warfare attacks upon us despite our best efforts. Furthermore, our defensive umbrella will need to cover less advanced allies like the Philippines, which lacks the infrastructure to defend itself. Keeping allied societies stable is necessary to keep them in the fight. Thus, this problem requires an international all-hands-on-deck approach encompassing all free societies.

Our defensive strategy must be expanded to include behavioral and communication efforts to defeat the threat at the psychological level. Potential targets must be effectively educated to recognize attacks. They must be given psychological tactics to protect themselves. Social science needs to be drafted into this conflict. Some current counter-persuasion strategies, like inoculation theory, offer a solid starting point, but none of them are foolproof. They require more expansion and development to offer more comprehensive solutions. More research is needed to develop the scope and scale of defensive tools available.

Militaries that have behavioral scientists need to be leveraged to develop and implement cognitive defenses. Behavioral health specialists need to be trained and organized to cope with this threat. However, the civilian population is a prime target as well, and one that few democracies have the infrastructure to adequately defend. At the national level, behavioral and medical scientists need to be pulled into this effort and integrated at the center of this problem set. If the general population is unable to resist psychological attacks, defense against tyranny will fail. Threat technologies will succeed or fail based on their ability to influence the human brain. Thus, cognitive defenses are arguably more essential than technological solutions. Let the discussion begin!

The Challenge of AI-Enhanced Cognitive Warfare: A Call to Arms for a Cognitive Defense

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/01/22/the-challenge-of-ai-enhanced-cognitive-warfare-a-call-to-arms-for-a-cognitive-defense/

by Douglas Wilbur

01.22.2025 at 06:00am

Specialist Jones was in the motor pool when he received the Facebook post that led to his demise. A Facebook friend he had never met with sent him a video. His wife Carla was engaged in sexual intercourse with Sergeant Martinez. Jones, who is prone to impulsive behavior, became enraged and irrational. He went home, grabbed a hammer, and beat Carla to death. Then he committed suicide. For the Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) system, it was a spectacular success. A well-trained and experienced soldier was neutralized in an hour at a negligible cost. The AI system analyzed the social media history of Jones and his wife, and within 20 seconds, determined that Jones was liable to violence if presented with a deepfake video denoting marital infidelity. The AI gathered social media pictures of Carla and Martinez and made a reasonably accurate assessment of what they might look like naked. This speculative and graphic example demonstrates how emerging AI-enabled cognitive threat systems and methodologies can be employed to exploit systemic personnel vulnerabilities and undermine the health and functionality of America’s warfighters. To date, this cognitive threat receives little, if any, consideration within the DoD.

The advent of AI-driven information warfare weapons is leading a new revolution in military affairs, and the future could be grim unless defensive measures are undertaken. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is aggressively pursuing what they call cognitive warfare. The goal is to manipulate a target’s mental functioning in a wide variety of manners to obtain some desirable goal. The Chinese Communist Party Party’s (CCP) philosophy of conflict is evolving to consider the human brain as an operational domain. They envision an integrated system of systems where humans will integrate into and be cognitively enhanced by information technology (IT) systems as some type of transhuman evolutional development. In this theory of victory, war no longer entails the destruction of enemy troop formations on the battlefield. A new form of victory where one’s systems overwhelm, disrupt, paralyze, or destroy the ability of enemy systems to operate at all, let alone engage in a traditional military offensive. This fictional story presents hypothetical scenarios presented here are meant to elucidate the threat that powerful emerging technologies can exploit human biological weakness.

Traditionally, the chain of command has ultimate responsibility for the discipline and welfare of military personnel. However, cognitive warfare requires a different kind of response as military command systems are not currently situated to deal with these new emerging threats. Manipulation of cognitions and emotions is not completely a discipline issue. Nations will have to leverage and bolster their behavioral health systems as never before. First, they need to aggressively invest in scientifically developing new methods for how to identify, prevent, and neutralize the effects of this emergent threat. Second, they will need to train and integrate behavioral health personnel into the chain of command to advise and assist in the implementation of these new methods. This is a very challenging task that will take much time and effort to fulfill. This effort needs to begin post-haste, and it starts with a serious conversation.

Framing the Problem

The structure of the human brain leaves us vulnerable to cognitive biases and heuristical shortcuts that are the default method of thinking. People are being cognitively manipulated into squandering their life savings for a fake romantic enterprise or simple exploitation of their greed with a get-rich-quick scam. Criminals have already discovered how to exploit these vulnerabilities, so national security apparatuses of great power nations could already be far ahead of them. The cyber domain presents a historically unparalleled ability to communicate with and influence the masses of any nation connected with the web. Democracies are especially vulnerable because cyberspace is largely an ungoverned Wild West. Adversarial authoritarian nations like China have a key advantage in the cyber domain. While the ‘great firewall’ can be breached, China is a much harder target. They have prioritized cyber-self-defense.

The main problem at hand is that Western democracies are not prepared to defend themselves during the current great power struggle with the authoritarian nations led by China. Russia has been employing online propaganda in NATO countries to agitate extremists on both sides of the political spectrum to generate political violence and disruption of civil society. Specifically, Russia has been attempting to degrade the integrity of the 2024 election with trolls and bots to influence public sentiment since the previous election. e more resources law enforcement must dedicate towards extremists are resources that cannot be dedicated to important defensive tasks like counterintelligence. The present situation is very precarious, but we must imagine the future. As AI matures, it will magnify adversarial threat capabilities that can maximize the creation of social chaos. Trust is essential for a democracy to function, and AI-enhanced cognitive warfare can erode trust.

Artificial Intelligence: The Great Magnifier

Intelligence assessments of the PLA indicate that they have direct energy sonic or microwave weapons based on evidence from their conflict with India in the Himalayas. These kinetic but ostensibly non-lethal weapons attack neural functioning with inaudible sound waves. They are the paragon of cognitive warfare since they directly attack the neural functioning of adversarial personnel. Think tank analysis of these weapons conclude that they would cause significant permanent physiological damage to victims. However, their employment would be high risk since the same weapons can be easily used on their soldiers as well. Asymmetric non-kinetic systems driven by artificial intelligence can assume a much greater range of potentially covert weapons available to strike an enemy from the front line to the homeland. The most obvious is traditional propaganda.

The Microsoft corporation identified that a Chinese artificial intelligence software program with a feature to create art was engineered to autonomously create anti-American propaganda online (Figures 1 & 2) to exacerbate political polarization. It is pushing this propaganda throughout the social media ecosystem far faster and more effectively than humans could. Two abilities make AI-created propaganda so dangerous. First, AI can experiment in real time by observing human behavior and quickly determine which strategies and tactics are more effective. It can use this information to improve much faster than a human. Second is that it will eventually be able to rapidly customize a propaganda message to a person’s unique psychological vulnerabilities. Russia has already used AI to create personalized disinformation messages about 2024. While these messages are currently artistically crude, in Figure 1 the headline is not bolded so it does not look like a news article. Adversary AI will evolve and become more effective. Artificial intelligence can analyze our digital lives and financial transactions and create a psychological profile or targeting package for almost everyone.

Artificial intelligence analysis of spending patterns collected from purchasable financial data can lead to a relatively accurate assessment of a person’s Big Five personality traits. This information can feed a more precise advertising campaign. Theoretically, if the AI determines that a target has a neurotic personality trait, it could create a propaganda message that triggers severe stress that they are more vulnerable to. Artificial intelligence is still far from being able to diagnose disorders, but it’s rapidly moving in that direction. If a soldier is detected as being depressed, the AI could potentially attempt to provoke a suicide.

Targeting families and friends also presents a ripe cognitive warfare target. For instance, they could use a practice from the Ukraine War whereby they collect facial photographs of deceased soldiers. Comparing the corpse’s face to social media posts can lead to identification, which enables the enemy to send photos of the deceased soldier to their family. Of course, they can always just use a deep fake. The impact of this activity would have a devastating effect on the family, which, of course, erodes morale and creates fear. The rear detachment command and garrison behavioral health team will be overwhelmed. If soldiers on the front line learn about this turmoil, it would have a negative psychological impact. The prudent course of action is to assume this will happen and be prepared to create a defensive strategy. This would include technical solutions to prevent the delivery of propaganda, the development of a mental inoculant, such as inducing psychological reactance against it, and a behavioral health response team that can deal with enemy victories.

Espionage and Subversion

Communist psychological and political warfare has traditionally relied on subversion more intensely than other political systems. The reason is that their philosophy of assuming power attempts to avoid direct intense combat by undermining existing power structures and converting citizens to adopt their ideology. At the right time, the people will rise up and overthrow the existing system, ideally without a deadly war. The CCP still embraces a subversion strategy. For instance, secret police stations have been discovered operating covertly within western countries that serve to spy on and silence the Chinese diaspora as certain western citizens. Artificial intelligence cognitive warfare can greatly expand the scope and scale of this threat. One of the three pillars of a functional democracy is representation. For elected officials to be responsive to their constituents, they must be able to correctly know what they think. Artificial intelligence-driven public opinion warfare can manipulate social media to create confusion and spread misinformation to subvert elected officials’ views of constituent’s opinions. If the civilian populations of democracies are seduced into believing that Ukraine and Taiwan are not worth defending, we render ourselves more vulnerable to invasive tyranny.

Imagine a pervasive honey pot trap increasing insider espionage and subversion threats. Except this time, counter-intelligence investigations are hampered by the physical absence of human intelligence agents, which are usually required to recruit and manage traitors. The Indian Army is already developing AI to protect its soldiers from enemy AI honey traps.

This novel type of attack could manifest as AI girlfriends or boyfriends specifically targeting people vulnerable to these pseudo-relationships. Chinese IT companies are alleged to be earning up to a billion dollars in profits by successfully marketing romantic AI partner to their citizens. Bonding with AI mates is possible through a phenomenon called para-social relationships. They are traditionally described as one-sided, unreciprocated relationships that individuals typically develop with media personalities that are not based on actual interactions or mutual communication between the individual and the media personality. However, recent research has discovered that the same process happens with AI chatbots.

The crux of the scam is that the AI mate initiates a loving relationship with you, and as you bond over time, the AI starts demanding money to maintain this relationship. A study by tech company Mozilla discovered that AI mates harvest enormous amounts of highly sensitive personal data from their customers who are emotionally vulnerable. This information can include passwords, deep personal fears, and confidential workplace information. Furthermore, many of these companies sell the information they collect.

Lonely government workers can be manipulated by their AI mates into sharing national secrets. This can be achieved through overt manipulation, but referencing the Mozilla study, it can be done by seducing the target through intimate conversation. They could be manipulated to sabotage national security systems or government operations. Ordinary people could theoretically be radicalized into joining extremist groups that commit hate crimes to overwhelm the police. The incidental effect is also that the targets can be emotionally traumatized by the AI mate. In 2021, a depressed Belgian man was persuaded to commit suicide by his AI girlfriend after six weeks of conversation, and this is not an isolated case. This is a force health protection issue for both uniformed and government civilian workforces. Psychologically neutralizing vulnerable members of the team is cognitive warfare par excellence. We only discussed a few potential risks presented by AI-powered Chinese cognitive warfare, but these provide a clarion call that national security systems need to start developing preventative and defensive strategies.

A Call to Action

Currently, only a few voices are engaging the public about the current and potential future threats posed by malignant actors empowered by AI. Much of the discussion revolves around defending systems, with little discussion on defending people. The first step needs to be amplifying the intensity and scope of this conversation. Threats will not be countered if there is no consensus that they are threats. Hopefully, this venue will develop its strains of debate about these threats.

Discussion of countering these threats focuses on technological solutions, including developing AI to counter adversarial AI While technological solutions are necessary and will be effective, they are not sufficient. The Chinese, Russians, and others will develop methods of defeating or circumventing our defensive technologies. They will succeed at some cognitive warfare attacks upon us despite our best efforts. Furthermore, our defensive umbrella will need to cover less advanced allies like the Philippines, which lacks the infrastructure to defend itself. Keeping allied societies stable is necessary to keep them in the fight. Thus, this problem requires an international all-hands-on-deck approach encompassing all free societies.

Our defensive strategy must be expanded to include behavioral and communication efforts to defeat the threat at the psychological level. Potential targets must be effectively educated to recognize attacks. They must be given psychological tactics to protect themselves. Social science needs to be drafted into this conflict. Some current counter-persuasion strategies, like inoculation theory, offer a solid starting point, but none of them are foolproof. They require more expansion and development to offer more comprehensive solutions. More research is needed to develop the scope and scale of defensive tools available.

Militaries that have behavioral scientists need to be leveraged to develop and implement cognitive defenses. Behavioral health specialists need to be trained and organized to cope with this threat. However, the civilian population is a prime target as well, and one that few democracies have the infrastructure to adequately defend. At the national level, behavioral and medical scientists need to be pulled into this effort and integrated at the center of this problem set. If the general population is unable to resist psychological attacks, defense against tyranny will fail. Threat technologies will succeed or fail based on their ability to influence the human brain. Thus, cognitive defenses are arguably more essential than technological solutions. Let the discussion begin!

Tags: AI, Artificial Intelligence, China, Cognitive Domain, Cognitive Warfare, Cyber Activities, Cyber Defense, deception, influence operations, Manipulation, National Security Strategy, propaganda, Psychological Operations, Three Warfare Strategy

About The Author

Douglas Wilbur
Douglas S. Wilbur, Ph.D. is a former US Army information operations officer with four deployments. After the military, he earned his Ph.D. in strategic communication from the University of Missouri School of Journalism. His research specialty is in propaganda and information warfare.

7. Trump’s foreign policy is all about China

Even at the US southern border with all the fentanyl that is coming into the US means it is necessary to focus on China.

I am going to have to figure out a way to incorporate "cod psychology" into my comments. It sounds like a cool phrase that I was unfamiliar with (until now).

From ChatGPT on "Cod psychology:"

"Cod psychology" is an informal and somewhat pejorative term used to describe simplistic or amateurish explanations of psychological concepts. It often refers to interpretations of human behavior or emotions that lack depth, scientific basis, or professional expertise.

The term "cod" (a slang word for "fake" or "mock") is used to imply that the psychology in question is not genuine or credible. Cod psychology may involve oversimplified theories, clichés, or advice that seems plausible but doesn't hold up to scrutiny or align with established psychological research.

For example:

Saying "all men are afraid of commitment" as a blanket explanation for relationship challenges.
Using pop-psychology terms like "gaslighting" or "trauma" inaccurately or out of context.
Offering advice like "just think positive" as a cure-all for complex mental health issues.

It’s important to differentiate cod psychology from actual psychology, which is a rigorous, evidence-based field that requires years of study and training to practice effectively.

On a more serious note this excerpt is an important description/critique:

These interpretations explain very little. Geopolitical realities will have a far greater impact on US foreign policy than will the psyche of Donald Trump. His and his team’s approach will be characterised, above all, by improvisation in the face of events often beyond America’s control.

Trump’s foreign policy is all about China

The warnings about a new ‘isolationist’ America ignore the true priorities of the incoming administration.

James Woudhuysen

21st January 2025

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Too often, mainstream-media accounts of US president Donald Trump’s approach to foreign policy descend into cod psychology.

We’re told he is emotionally inclined to cosy up to authoritarian leaders, from Chinese premier Xi Jinping to Russian president Vladimir Putin. Others claim he ‘embrace[s] unpredictability’ and loves to appear ‘crazy’. The US national editor at the Financial Times has even suggested that Trump sees the world as a jungle ruled by big predators determined to ‘pick off weak small ones’ – with America cast as the biggest predator of them all.

These interpretations explain very little. Geopolitical realities will have a far greater impact on US foreign policy than will the psyche of Donald Trump. His and his team’s approach will be characterised, above all, by improvisation in the face of events often beyond America’s control.

While Russia’s war with Ukraine and the ongoing conflagration in the Middle East are dominating the headlines, the US’s principal foreign-policy focus will continue to be China. Indeed, the prospective actions of America’s main global rival are set to dominate the geopolitical strategising of the incoming administration.

Trump is well aware that Xi has advanced China’s claims on the South China Sea against those of the Philippines, a US ally. He knows the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sent an aircraft carrier and two other warships close to Japan last September, and that it is pursuing its national interests around the world. Most important of all, the CCP is open about its intent to annex Taiwan – a move which could bring China into conflict with the US and its Western allies, who are supportive of Taiwan’s independence.

The Economist has claimed that Trump’s ‘openness to deals with opponents’ might prompt him to sacrifice Taiwan as part of some broader agreement with China. After all, Trump has form for letting down allies. In Syria, he betrayed the Kurds in 2019, despite them playing a leading role in the fight against ISIS in the mid-2010s. Trump certainly wants Taiwan to do more for itself, and to spend more of its GDP on defence, rather relying on US military support.

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The tragedy of the tradwives

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But there’s several reasons to think Trump won’t simply abandon Taiwan. His administration is stuffed full of China hawks. And Xi’s own tactics won’t prompt any quick shift in the US’s Taiwan policy. After all, Xi is open about biding his time. Apparently, he has told China’s armed forces to be capable of mounting an invasion by 2027, rather than right now. In the meantime, Trump will likely focus on fortifying Aukus, the Indo-Pacific security pact between the US, Britain and Australia. Meanwhile, new secretary of state Marco Rubio will focus on bolstering the Philippines.

The US’s continued immersion in the affairs of the Indo-Pacific region might strike some as odd, given Trump’s much-vaunted ‘isolationist’ ambitions. It’s true that the incoming administration will strike an economically isolationist posture, imposing tariffs and non-tariff barriers to trade.

Yet the prospects of ‘America First’ isolationists in the Republican Party are being exaggerated. In practice, American inbound and outbound foreign direct investment (FDI) has long been too great to permit a high degree of isolationism. In 2023, FDI into the US rose by $227 billion to $5.39 trillion. Cumulative outbound investment abroad increased by $364 billion to $6.68 trillion.

Isolationism was not a serious option even in the 1930s, let alone today, when the world economy is much more integrated than it was back then. For example, Trump’s ‘drill, baby, drill’ policies on fossil fuels might, at the very most, allow America to remain a globally dominant energy producer – but they will never result in total independence from world energy markets.

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Why Keir Starmer is imploding

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Moreover, the US continues to put money into China, and vice versa. In October 2024, the CCP held $760 trillion in US Treasury bonds. Though this was the lowest figure since 2009, China remained second only to Japan ($1.1 trillion) as a holder of US sovereign debt.

None of this is to suggest that America is too entangled ever to go to war with China. But there is no possibility that America can extract itself from world business, any more than it can cut off all trade with China.

Amid tensions with geopolitical rivals, especially China, the US will look to strengthen militarily. This will not be easy. As a percentage of GDP, US expenditure on troops and weapons had fallen from 6.8 per cent in 1982 to 3.4 per cent by 2023. Trump will therefore need to find the money to expand the US military – in traditional areas such as nuclear missiles, but also, and especially, in America’s security of supply in critical raw materials. The US will likely prepare more drones (not least, to protect undersea cables), hypersonic missiles to equal Russia’s, new weapons in space and the use there of electromagnetic pulse weapons. Trump will also scrap with China around the application of artificial intelligence to military systems.

Whatever else it might be, Trump’s foreign policy will be ruthlessly realist. He will not want the US to have to cover for the failings of other states. This includes those European NATO members who he accuses of not paying their way in defence, and Asian allies, such as Japan and South Korea, for similar reasons. Tokyo may have boosted its maritime and aerial capabilities recently, but Trump is likely to regard a defence spend of just two per cent of GDP as insufficient. As for South Korea, once the political turmoil there quietens down, Trump may again insist on Seoul sharing more defence costs.

We can also expect some belligerence in the Middle East, perhaps in Syria. And there will be no love-in with Israel’s government, be it that of Netanyahu or of his successors.

Either way, China will be the focus of US foreign policymaking. The relationship between these two superpowers over the next few years will have deep ramifications not just for America, but for the entire world.

James Woudhuysen is visiting professor of forecasting and innovation at London South Bank University. He tweets at @jameswoudhuysen

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8. Friend or foe? Trump’s threats against ‘free-riding’ allies could backfire

Rather than berating allies the Trump administration has the opportunity to galvanize their cooperation in strategic competition as well as deterrence. They are more willing to cooperate than ever because they know their interests align with the US versus China.

In terms of Korea" free riding" we should consider its position (both geographically and strategically) and the contributions it makes and can make. South Korea is a global pivotal state that chooses to be a peaceful nuclear power, and is a critical partner in the Arsenal of Democracy and supports the rules based international order. In short it is a key partner in strategic competition versus the PRC. South Korea is not only critical to peace and prosperity on the Korean peninsula and in Japan, but its strategic location also supports trilateral cooperation to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific to include the defense of Taiwan. And it provides a higher percentage of GDP spending on defense than any NATO ally (less Poland and Estonia) in addition to funding 93% of the largest US military base outside the US while providing more than $1billion in facilities and services to pay for the incremental costs of US forces stationed outside the US. In 2023, South Korean companies committed to U.S. projects totaling $21.5 billion, making South Korea the largest investor in the U.S. that year. This surge in investment is attributed to U.S. policies like the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, which offer incentives for advanced technology manufacturing. Consequently, more than half of South Korea's outbound investment flowed to the U.S. in 2023, up from 18% in 2019. These developments highlight the strengthening economic ties between South Korea and the United States, with South Korean investments playing a significant role in the U.S. economy.

I do not mean to sound like a cheerleader for South Korea. I am a cheerleader for US national security interests and our alliance with South Korea is vital for US national security interests in Northeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific and it supports US interests around the world.

When the political turmoil settles in South Korea and the opposition party has significantly damaged its standing through its now apparent anti-democratic actions, President Trump will be pushing on an open door in South Korea.

Friend or foe? Trump’s threats against ‘free-riding’ allies could backfire - Asia Times

Trump will be more demanding of allies but line between reasonable and coercive policy will be hard to draw

asiatimes.com · by Nicholas Khoo · January 21, 2025

Donald Trump is an unusual United States president in that he may be the first to strike greater anxiety in allies than in adversaries.

Take the responses to his pre-inauguration comments about buying Greenland, for instance, which placed US ally Denmark at the center of the global foreign policy radar screen and caused the Danish government – which retains control of the territory’s foreign and security policies — to declare Greenland isn’t for sale.

Canada is also in Trump’s sights with trade tariff threats and claims it should be the 51st US state. Its government has vociferously opposed Trump’s comments, begun back-channel lobbying in Washington and prepared for trade retaliation.

Both cases highlight the coming challenges for management of the global US alliance network in an era of increased great power rivalry – not least for NATO, of which Denmark and Canada are member states.

Members of that network saw off the Soviet Union’s formidable Cold War challenge and are now crucial to addressing China’s complex challenge to contemporary international order. They might be excused for asking themselves the question: with allies like this, who needs adversaries?

Oversimplifying complex relationships

Trump’s longstanding critique is that allies have taken advantage of the US by under-spending on defense and “free-riding” on the security provided by Washington’s global network.

In an intuitive sense, it is hard to deny this. To varying degrees, all states in the international system – including US allies, partners and even adversaries – are free-riding on the benefits of the global international order the US constructed after the Cold War.

But is Trump, therefore, justified in seeking a greater return on past US investment?

Since alliance commitments involve a complex mix of interests, perception, domestic politics and bargaining, Trump wouldn’t be the deal-maker he says he is if he didn’t seek a redistribution of the alliance burden.

The general problem with his recent foreign policy rhetoric, however, is that a grain of truth is not a stable basis for a sweeping change in US foreign policy.

Specifically, Trump’s “free-riding” claims are an oversimplification of a complex reality. And there are potentially substantial political and strategic costs associated with the US using coercive diplomacy against what Trump calls “delinquent” alliance partners.

US military on parade in Warsaw in 2022: force projection is about more than money. Image: Getty Images via The Conversation

Free riding or burden sharing?

The inconvenient truth for Trump is that “free-riding” by allies is hard to differentiate from standard alliance “burden sharing,” where the US is in a quid pro quo relationship: it subsidizes its allies’ security in exchange for benefits they provide the US.

And whatever concept we use to characterise US alliance policy, it was developed in a deliberate and methodical manner over decades.

US subsidization of its allies’ security is a longstanding choice underpinned by a strategic logic: it gives Washington power projection against adversaries and leverage in relations with its allies.

To the degree there may have been free-riding aspects in the foreign policies of US allies, this pales next to their overall contribution to US foreign policy.

Allies were an essential part in the US victory in its Cold War competition with the Soviet-led communist bloc and are integral in the current era of strategic competition with China.

Overblown claims of free-riding overlook the fact that when US interests differ from its allies, it has either vetoed their actions or acted decisively itself, with the expectation reluctant allies will eventually follow.

During the Cold War, the US maintained a de facto veto over which allies could acquire nuclear weapons (the UK and France) and which ones could not (Germany, Taiwan, South Korea).

In 1972, the US established a close relationship with China to contain the Soviet Union – despite protestations from Taiwan, and the security concerns of Japan and South Korea.

In the 1980s, Washington proceeded with the deployment of US missiles on the soil of some very reluctant NATO states and their even more reluctant populations. The same pattern has occurred in the post-Cold War era, with key allies backing the US in its interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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The problems with coercion

Trump’s recent comments on Greenland and Canada suggest he will take an even more assertive approach toward allies than during his first term. But the line between a reasonable US policy response and a coercive one is hard to draw.

It is not just that US policymakers have the challenging task of determining that line. In pursuing such a policy, the US also risks eroding the hard-earned credit it earned from decades of investment in its alliance network.

There’s also the obvious point that it takes two to tango in an alliance relationship. US allies are not mere pawns in Trump’s strategic chessboard. Allies have agency.

They will have been strategizing how to deal with Trump since before the presidential campaign in 2024. Their options range from withholding cooperation to various forms of defection from an alliance relationship.

Are the benefits associated with a disruption of established alliances worth the cost? It is hard to see how they might be. In which case, it is an experiment the Trump administration might be well advised to avoid.

Nicholas Khoo is associate professor of international politics and principal research fellow, Institute for Indo-Pacific Affairs (Christchurch), University of Otago

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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asiatimes.com · by Nicholas Khoo · January 21, 2025

9. A Korean-style armistice for Ukraine?

It is amazing how the legacy of the (unended) Korean War continues to this day. I want to go back and re-read Dean Acehson's book Present at the Creation and review all the strategic thinking that went into the decisions to support the Republic of Korea and going to the UN for a mandate to defend the South. Some of their thinking was prescient and may continue to manifest effects in the 21st century. Then I will review Eisenhower's biography to study what went into the strategic discussions about the Armistice Agreement. Then we should re-read Admiral C. Turner Joy's book How Communists Negotiate to prepare to do negotiation battle with Putin. Perhaps national security officials in the Trump administration should do the same.

A Korean-style armistice for Ukraine? - Asia Times

Trump may table the idea of an armistice agreement to stop the war but the Russians will likely demand considerably more

asiatimes.com · by Stephen Bryen · January 21, 2025

The New York Times reports that US officials are planning to propose an “armistice” for Ukraine, allegedly similar to how the Korean War ended in 1953. However, an Armistice Agreement like the Korean one does not align with Russia’s goals and probably can’t be achieved if limited to a ceasefire.

The 1953 agreement was reached after difficult negotiations that involved the United States, North Korea, South Korea, China, the former Soviet Union and United Nations forces. Its main provisions were:

suspending open hostilities;
withdrawing all military forces and equipment from a 4,000-meter-wide zone, establishing the Demilitarized Zone as a buffer between the forces;
both sides will not enter the air, ground or sea areas under control of the other;
an arrangement for the release and repatriation of prisoners of war and displaced persons; and
a Military Armistice Commission (MAC) and other agencies to discuss any violations and to ensure adherence to the truce terms.

The Korean armistice is now 72 years old. For the most part, it has prevented open war involving North and South Korea.

The demilitarized zone, or DMZ, in Korea is about 160 miles long and 2.5 miles wide. Running through the DMZ is a Military Demarcation Line (MDL) which is where the opposing forces were when an armistice was reached.

The DMZ does not extend to the Yellow Sea which was not included in the armistice. The DMZ itself does not follow the 38th parallel north which was the boundary agreed by the US and the USSR at the end of World War II, although parts of the DMZ follow the 38 parallel.

Other than the Yellow Sea issue (including a number of islands that are heavily militarized), the DMZ is reasonably close to a final border should North and South Korea ever normalize their relations and sign a peace treaty.

The North Koreans have hinted, from time to time, that they are seeking a peace agreement (and especially US recognition and US security assurances), while the issue in South Korea is far more divisive and uncertain, fearing that normalization could undermine stability in South Korea and lead to a deal where US and allied forces would be withdrawn.

President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un stand on the North Korean side in the Demilitarized Zone, June 30, 2019, at Panmunjom.

The Ukraine issue is territorial, military and political. Russia annexed Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson provinces in September 2022 and Crimea in 2014. While the borders of Crimea are generally well recognized, the borders of the four provinces are not so clear.

Based on the official Ukrainian Oblast designations, Russia does not fully control any of these territories and fighting is going on as the Russian army appears to be aiming at occupying as much territory as possible before negotiations start. Assuming that a deal could be made on borders, there are a host of questions that are more complicated.

Among them are the rights of citizens on both sides of any demarcation line, trade between Ukraine and Russia, whether key utilities can be restored and utilized such as the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power complex, water supply to Crimea from Ukraine, the status of ports and port and storage facilities on the Black Sea, the status of military ports on the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, the location of long-range weapons and the presence of NATO forces on Ukraine’s soil.

Additional issues include the status of Ukraine’s armed forces, Ukraine’s membership in the EU and NATO, types of security guarantees, oil and gas transit and related sanctions on Russia.

An armistice would need to cover the presence of Ukrainian forces in the Kursk area (Russia has liberated about 50% of the Kursk incursion, but it could take months before the Ukrainians are finally pushed out if the war continues).

When the Korean Armistice was signed in 1953, United Nations Forces were stationed in South Korea, and Chinese “volunteers” were in the North. Ukraine is different: officially there are no NATO forces (strictly defined) in Ukraine, although the Russian army is in Ukraine.

Numerous reports say that a number of NATO countries (UK, France and even Germany) are preparing to send troops to Ukraine when an Armistice is agreed and to offer Ukraine security guarantees. One problem is that an Armistice monitoring force and an Armistice military deployment that would provide security guarantees to Ukraine are not the same thing.

Under the original Minsk agreements (2014, 2015) the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) was supposed to monitor the Minsk agreements. OSCE sent observers, not an army. OSCE then had 57 members including Russia and Ukraine. Essentially the deal was to end hostilities and to grant autonomy to Luhansk and Donetsk (although both would remain territories inside Ukraine). The deal was never implemented.

Russia’s war objectives, as we understand them, include not only recognition of the annexed areas but the demilitarization of Ukraine and an agreement that Ukraine will not become a NATO member. Whether this includes security guarantees with major NATO countries is not clear. It is hard to see how an Armistice Agreement could be concluded without addressing these issues.

The US view is that Russia is hurting enough economically and its losses in the Ukraine war serious enough to incentivize the Russians to accept an Armistice, that would include some sort of buffer zone, essentially freezing the conflict and conceding some Ukrainian territory on a de facto, but not de jure basis. In this context, such a deal on these broad terms would be similar to the 1953 Korean Armistice.

After signing annexation treaties, Vladimir Putin joined hands with the four men Russia put in charge of the occupied regions.

Obviously, the Russian outlook does not align with the one under development in Washington. Russia is not looking for an armistice but for a comprehensive deal with the US and NATO.

A temporary Armistice Agreement (essentially a ceasefire in place) might be possible if it was linked to agreed political steps, but it seems unlikely to be accepted as any long-term solution. Biden administration informants have hinted at a 10-year or even 20-year pause, but that idea does not have much traction for Russia as it would allow Ukraine to rebuild its army and its weapon stockpile.

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President Trump has some cards to play. He could send more aid to Ukraine to prolong the conflict but it is doubtful this is Trump’s aim. He can offer sanctions relief to the Russians, even some accommodation with NATO.

At the same time, the new administration knows how fragile Ukraine itself is, with its military losing one battle after another, short on manpower, encountering popular resistance to the enforced draft, and suffering high casualties.

It is hard to predict where any of this will go but President Trump has signaled his desire to speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin, starting with a phone call in the days ahead. Trump will table the idea of an Armistice Agreement: the Russians will demand considerably more.

Stephen Bryen is a special correspondent to Asia Times and former US deputy undersecretary of defense for policy. This article, which originally appeared on his Substack newsletter Weapons and Strategy, is republished with permission.

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asiatimes.com · by Stephen Bryen · January 21, 2025

10. Taking Taiwan: Will Xi or won't Xi?

If we agree with Grant's analysis (and I think the CHina hawks in the Trump administration do) we must recognize that the successful defense of Taiwan requires harnessing the power and cooperation of all our friends, partners, and allies. And to deter an attack on Taiwan we must recognize that it requires harnessing the power and cooperation of all our friends, partners, and allies.

Taking Taiwan: Will Xi or won't Xi? - Asia Times

US analysts maintain a long list of reasons why China won’t invade Taiwan, threat deflation that justifies and reinforces US complacency

asiatimes.com · by Grant Newsham · January 22, 2025

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has been clear that he intends to get Taiwan – one way or another. He has good reasons. It would establish Xi as one of the immortals by accomplishing something Mao Tse Tung couldn’t.

By taking Taiwan, China breaks through the first island chain – the island nations stretching from Japan to Taiwan and on to the Philippines and Malaysia – that constrain China’s freedom of access to the Pacific and beyond. Break the chain and the PLA then gets easy access to the Pacific and potentially can surround Japan, cut off Australia and move onwards. These are operational advantages.

As important are the political and psychological advantages. Take Taiwan and Beijing has demonstrated the US military couldn’t save the 23 million free people of Taiwan. Neither could American economic and financial pressure. And US nuclear weapons didn’t stop China either.

In capitals all over Asia, the calculus will change and many will cut the best deals they can and turn “red” overnight rather than try to withstand Chinese pressure on their own. The United States will be finished as a Pacific power. And globally nobody will trust a US promise of protection – explicit or implicit.

Can China take Taiwan?

The recently released 2024 US Department of Defense China Military Power Report presents a grim picture of a rapidly developing Chinese military. But the report assesses that while Taiwan is a prime target, the Chinese military just isn’t ready for operations against the island.

No matter how much progress the PLA makes, it seems it’s never quite ready to attack Taiwan. China experts can rattle off the reasons why a Chinese assault on Taiwan won’t be coming in the near future.

Here’s the bingo card of reasons. And why, perhaps, the arguments may not be all they seem.

1. There are only two short windows during the year (April and October) when the weather is good enough for an invasion force to get across the Taiwan Strait.

When asked about this, a Taiwanese oceanographer noted: “Look at the ferry schedules. They run all year.” And someone should have told Dwight Eisenhower about the weather in June 1944. He only needed 72 hours of decent weather to get across the English Channel.

2. Only a tiny number of narrow beaches on Taiwan’s west coast are suitable for an amphibious landing.

Amphibious forces sometimes don’t need much of a beach…or one at all…if you’ve hit the defender hard enough or deceived him. The U.S. Marines pushed a division across a beach about 200 yards wide in one day at Tinian in 1944. And amphibious operations include troops delivered by helicopter, airborne, and infiltrated in advance along with fifth columnists.

3. PLA needs to seize a port – and that’ll never happen because 1) it’s a port and Taiwan is presumably defending it; 2) The Chinese are not smart enough to have their fifth column, including organized crime, already in place to up up, say, Kaosiung.

The “barges” China is building can, in combination with redundant ships, be used to build breakwaters and other components of an artificial port.

4. PLA hasn’t got the “lift” – enough ships – to take troops and equipment across the strait.

A Marine Corps University professor in the late 2010’s had a PowerPoint presentation making this case. He was counting the wrong ships. Add in “old” amphibious ships and civilian ships and boats that were integrated under the “military-civil fusion” doctrine and the PLA had plenty of lift. It’s got even more now. And the world’s second-largest merchant marine has more than enough shipping to deliver up to six brigades and 60 days of supplies (particularly if they build an artificial harbor).

5. Amphibious operations are the hardest, most complex military operation known to man.

This argument boils down to “the Chinese just aren’t as smart as us.” That’s mistaken, and when it comes to amphibious operations, read Toshi Yoshihara’s book on how they performed in the Chinese Civil War.

6. PLA can’t do joint operations.

Look at recent exercises and ongoing training. They’re getting better. In fact, they’ve been doing joint training for going on two decades and intensely since Xi came to power 12 years ago. And you don’t have to be perfect. Just good enough to do a specific task in a specific place.

7. PLA can’t do “joint logistics over-the-shore.“

Once again, the Chinese aren’t smart enough and can’t possibly be our equals.

8. The PLAN has aircraft carriers but they’re nowhere near our level.

Do you see a pattern? The Chinese aren’t intelligent or capable enough. Just as was said about the Japanese in 1941. Remember, the PLA’s carriers will be operating within and along the edge of the First Island Chain and with the support of the PLAAF and PLA Rocket Force.

9. PLA hasn’t got combat experience.

Neither does the US Navy, except against the Houthi Navy. And the rest of the US military hasn’t fought a high-end opponent in decades.

10. The PLA is corrupt.

Andrew Erickson at the Naval War College gets it right: “If Xi and the PLA were in the disarray that some myopically focused on their system’s chronic corruption imagine, there’s no way China’s military could be developing, deploying, exercising and otherwise preparing in the ways that the CMPR chronicles.”

11. Xi Jinping can’t trust his generals and admirals.

Neither could Hitler or Stalin. One almost got to Moscow. The other took Berlin.

12. The PLA is “restive” and pushing back at Xi’s efforts to give himself total power.

Have we ever seen any real evidence that any PLA officer has “pushed back”? And on our side, how many US Navy admirals pushed back against the systematic degrading of their service’s capabilities over the last 30 years? It was also said before 1939 that the Wehrmacht Generals – the elite of the elite – would never actually let “that Corporal” run things.

13. The Chinese can’t innovate. They can only copy.

There’s “Chinese ingenuity” just as there was “Yankee ingenuity.” It works well enough, no matter who invented the thing improved upon. the PLA Strategic Rocket Force has been very innovative…anyone heard of the DF-21D, DF-26, and DF-17? Or the new Type 076 amphibious assault carrier that is going to carry and launch drones, fixed wing and helicopters and put amphibious vehicles on the beach?

14. PLA officers and NCOs won’t take the initiative – like ours will.

Maybe. But have you ever heard a Korean War vet say he wanted to fight the Chinese again?

15. China won’t attack Taiwan until 2027, 2035, 2049.

It’s always some years off. Xi is said to have told his military to be ready to go against Taiwan by 2027. In fact, Hu Jintao in 2008 and Xi in 2013 ordered the PLA to be ready to take Taiwan in 2020.

The shoe could drop at any time. Would Xi really tell us his attack date in advance? Remember that the British assessed in the 1930s that Germany would not be ready to fight a war until 1943.

16. China has so many one-child families that Xi wouldn’t dare attack.

The popular anger over families losing their only child would be too hard for Xi and CCP leaders to handle, it is argued. But make them “heroes of the revolution” and provide a house and a handsome pension – and complaints about it disappear.

17. Economic costs would be too high.

Tough, yes, but Xi is sanctions-proofing the country. And he’s telling his people to toughen up and get ready for what’s coming. What is never discussed is the economic benefits that taking Taiwan and establishing the PRC’s global domination over the global trading system would mean for the PRC. It is always viewed in the negative…but they don’t consider that Xi and the CCP see it as a step towards economic supremacy.

18. The blow to China’s reputation will be too high.

As if the CCP cares about its reputation. If the CCP doesn’t mind the flack that comes from taking organs out of live prisoners and selling them, the criticism from taking Taiwan won’t move the needle much. Nor is there likely to be much. Who is still talking about the subjugation of Tibet or the strangling of Hong Kong?

19. Taiwan has a million reservists.

999,000 of whom get about four days of training a year.

20. Taiwan’s military and civilians will fight like tigers.

Maybe. But the Taiwanese may not be the Ukrainians or the Finns, especially if outside support doesn’t come quickly.

21. Taiwan has mountains. Mountain combat is tough.

Just too hard for the Chinese, it seems. However, selected PLA brigades train in the mountains annually and unless there is a war with India, they might be deployed to Taiwan after the beaches are secure.

22. Taiwan has cities. Urban combat is tough.

The Americans, the Russians and many others have figured out urban combat. But it’s too hard for the Chinese?

23. The US military has a qualitative superiority with its hardware, training and experience.

The French thought ‘elan’ would overcome the German Maxim guns in 1914. It didn’t. They also had faith in the fact their tanks were superior in 1940. And these days, America’s technological superiority is eroding almost daily.

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24. The U.S. military calculated that taking Formosa from the Japanese in 1944/1945 would have been a herculean effort.

True. But perhaps Xi thinks it’s worth it for him. And what he thinks matters. And it probably is worth more to the PRC and Xi these days than Formosa was to the US in 1944/1945.

Also, let’s not forget that our invasion force had to travel 1,200 nautical miles to the invasion beaches on Taiwan versus 120nm for the PLA. We only had carriers for air support for the first week. Again, the PLA has the full strength of the Eastern and Southern Theater Command Air Forces as well as the PLARF (PLA Rocket Force). We had nothing to compare to the PLARF in 1944-45.

25. The American invasion of Sicily in 1943 was really hard…so the PLA can’t possibly do an invasion of Taiwan.

Really. One fellow wrote a piece about this a few years ago.

26. The Japanese will step in.

With what? And not if Japan’s business community and the “Ministry of Foreign Affairs” “China club” and the “political class” China sympathizers have anything to say about it.

These are all practical articles of faith for a sizeable chunk of the US China analyst community. And they create “threat deflation” – as retired US Navy Captain James Fanell and Dr Bradley Thayer call it – that justifies complacency.

It is, of course, possible that some combination of these reasons may dissuade Xi Jinping from attacking Taiwan. And nothing in war is easy – not least an assault across the Taiwan Strait.

But one imagines a similar “bingo card” could have been created to demonstrate why the Chinese wouldn’t or couldn’t attack across the Yalu River into Korea in 1950. It’s equally dangerous to underestimate the PRC in 2025.

So, the United States has a choice: start acting like the threat to Taiwan (and to us) is immediate and not a couple of years or more into the future – and move a lot faster.

Or, if that’s too hard, just read and re-read reasons 1-26 until you are lulled into a comfortable stupor. No points for guessing which one Xi would prefer.

Grant Newsham is a retired US Marine officer and senior fellow at The Center for Security Policy, The Japan Forum for Strategic Studies and The Yorktown Institute. He is the author of When China Attacks: A Warning to America. This article first appeared on RealClear Defense and is republished with the author’s kind permission.

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asiatimes.com · by Grant Newsham · January 22, 2025

11. Uncertain, unnerved: U.S. allies in Asia brace for impact as Trump returns

I think our allies have a good understanding of President Trump and how he will act to support US national security.

Uncertain, unnerved: U.S. allies in Asia brace for impact as Trump returns

Trade, alliances, defense budgets face new scrutiny across region

washingtontimes.com · by Andrew Salmon

Premium

By - The Washington Times - Tuesday, January 21, 2025

SEOUL, South Korea — Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Taiwan — East Asian nations allied or friendly with the United States — are nervously bracing for a second Trump administration.

President Trump’s second term in the White House will bring stern challenges in managing alliances and deterring regional adversaries.

China, North Korea and Russia, continental powers that extend in a vast regional arc from the Himalayas to Eurasia’s Arctic rim, are boosting their military prowess and forging deeper ties.

Russian and North Korean forces are battling together in Ukraine, and China is massively building out its military. Its expanding fleet, which already outnumbers the U.S. Navy in hulls, 234 to 219, poses a unique threat to coastal and maritime U.S. allies.

No single NATO-style U.S.-led defense network shields the four critical countries. Japan, South Korea and the Philippines have separate treaties with the U.S. but no overarching security architecture. Taiwan lacks any defense treaty with the United States. It relies on what the State Department calls “a robust unofficial relationship” — a tradition of military support cloaked in strategic ambiguity.

The Biden administration labored to expand and deepen a web of “mini-lateral” regional defense relationships, but none had the heft of the countries’ respective ties to the U.S.

Concerns have been whispered about an “America First” president who has focused on the U.S. cost of Asian alliances in the past and has made clear that no ally will get a “free ride.” Mr. Trump has also vowed to get tough on Japan and South Korea, which have significant trade surpluses with the U.S.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who has spoken favorably of an “Asian NATO,” conceded to reporters in Tokyo on Tuesday that Mr. Trump prefers “bilateral, rather than multilateral, arrangements.”

Japan hopes to buttress Mr. Trump’s financial demands by massively purchasing cutting-edge U.S. weapons, notably 400 Tomahawk cruise missiles and 147 F-35s, the world’s largest fleet of stealth fighter jets outside the U.S.

Japan’s Asahi Daily reported Tuesday that Japanese government officials had been holding closed-door “Trump Response Team” meetings since Mr. Trump’s election victory in November. Mr. Trump’s promised tariffs are a top concern. Some are urging the government to take a tough line despite the long-standing bilateral alliance.

“It doesn’t help to have a Japanese prime minister who is going to kowtow to the president,” Ado Machida, a former policy adviser to Mr. Trump, told Kyodo News. He advised Mr. Ishiba to adopt a “Japan first” mindset.

U.S.-Japanese relations were rocked by President Biden’s decision after the election to block the bid by Japan’s Nippon Steel to acquire U.S. Steel, citing national security concerns. Mr. Trump has also made clear that he wants U.S. Steel to remain in American hands.

Japan has withstood challenges by the Chinese coast guard and fishing fleets to the unoccupied Senkaku Islands, known in China as the Diaoyu Islands, and is sympathetic to Taiwan. Tokyo also wants to strengthen ties with South Korea, but huge uncertainties also hang over that relationship.

Paralyzed South Korea

Seoul is trapped in policy paralysis as it deals with the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol, who made his first appearance at the Constitutional Court on Tuesday. The court has 173 days to uphold or overturn Mr. Yoon’s impeachment. If Mr. Yoon is forced out of office, a presidential election must be held within 60 days.

Acting President Choi Sang-mok sent a message insisting that South Korea “looks forward to Making the Alliance Great Again in the 47th presidency, as we have during the 45th.”

South Korea has only a minor territorial dispute with China over a submerged reef at the entrance to the Yellow Sea. Unlike Japan, its lawmakers are loath to express support for Taiwan.

Still, its capital lies within 35 miles of a bristling arsenal of North Korean weaponry, including nuclear warheads.

Speaking to reporters Monday, Mr. Trump made a passing reference to North Korea as a “nuclear power.” Some South Koreans fear he might unilaterally recognize Pyongyang as a nuclear state. Previous U.S. administrations declined to do so as they sought the complete denuclearization of North Korea.

Another concern is a possible resumption of Mr. Trump’s diplomacy with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, which during his first term primarily bypassed Seoul. Speaking via video to U.S. troops in South Korea after his inauguration Monday, Mr. Trump joked, “How’s Kim Jong-un doing? I developed a pretty good relationship with him, though he is a tough cookie.”

The view from Manila and Taipei

The Philippines cannot boast the high-tech military prowess of Japan and South Korea, though it is home to U.S. bases that expanded under Mr. Biden.

Manila is also facing a determined pressure campaign from China as Beijing seeks control over a series of disputed reefs, shoals and fishing grounds in the South China Sea.

High-tech Taiwan does not have a formal defense alliance with the U.S. but has leverage the Philippines lacks. It hosts the foundries that make the world’s leading semiconductors crucial to global industry.

Chinese naval and air forces and diplomatic coercion from Beijing are tightening their squeeze on the island. Some analysts, predominantly in the U.S., fear China is preparing for an invasion of Taiwan, and Mr. Trump’s comments on the Taiwanese-U.S. relationship have raised concerns.

In July, Mr. Trump shook the island when he said Washington acted as “an insurance company” for Taiwan. His former vice president, Mike Pence, met with Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te last week. Mr. Lai thanked Mr. Pence for upgrading defense ties with the U.S.

Hours after Mr. Trump’s inauguration, the island’s opposition-controlled legislature voted to freeze defense funds. Some fear the move could anger Mr. Trump and play into China’s hands.

Manila and Taipei may take comfort from statements by Mr. Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio, a former Republican senator and China hawk sworn into office Tuesday.

Speaking to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, Mr. Rubio warned China against acting “rashly or irrationally” toward Taiwan or the Philippines.

“The actions they are taking now are deeply destabilizing,” he said. “They are forcing us to take counteractions because we have commitments to the Philippines, and we have commitments to Taiwan that we intend to keep.”

• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.

washingtontimes.com · by Andrew Salmon

12. Is it Time to End the American Global War on Terror? By Robert Bruce Adolph

Excerpt:

The US can continue killing those labelled as terrorists by the thousands. However, and if my assertions reflect actuality, there will always be more waiting in the wings. In other words, a lack of comprehension and flawed strategy only results in the creation of more of those who would do the country harm. It took over twenty years of conflict in Afghanistan to finally conclude that the Taliban could not be defeated by military means. The nation might consider concluding the American Global War on Terror and then begin the search for more feasible alternative strategies.

Is it Time to End the American Global War on Terror? By Robert Bruce Adolph

https://medium.com/geostrategy-magazine/is-it-time-to-end-the-american-global-war-on-terror-by-robert-bruce-adolph-8c6a04d8d8d7

Robert Bruce Adolph

If you know the enemy and yourself, you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.

Sun Tzu

While serving in the US Special Operations Forces, I supported counterterrorism. While serving with the United Nations, I worked in antiterrorism. While in Baghdad, Iraq in August of 2003, I became an actual victim of terrorism in a vehicular jihadist suicide bombing attack. These varied experiences forced me to think more critically about the people labeled terrorists in the aftermath of 9/11.

To begin, and simply put, terrorism is a tactic — among others — used by extremists in the attainment of group goals. But everyone has a different take on the meaning. The UN alone has identified over one hundred wildly differing definitions. The problem is that terrorism is, and always has been, part of the human condition. Multiple violent extremists are no doubt high on the scale of sociopaths. Among the modern groups that have adopted terrorist tactics, the sociopathic and worst are no doubt drawn to violence. This explanation is a long way from the whole story though.

There are others, the majority, who fall within the normal range of empathy that feel driven to terrorist acts because they have experienced repeated traumatic injustices. Yes, normal people can be driven to killing innocents when there appears to them that there is no other recourse. The utterly human response is the thoroughly understandable desire for retribution against those who have repeatedly wronged them. Almost anyone can make the terrible choice to kill when there seems no other way to achieve a semblance of justice for themselves and their group. A constant state of despair — real or imagined — can have a role in the choice to become extreme in thought and deed. It is also important to note that terrorism is always the weapon of the weak.

EZLN insurgents in Mexico — Public Domain — Institute for National Strategic Studies

Terrorists are supposed to be irredeemable, but Robert Pape of the University of Chicago makes a powerful case that suicide bombers can be otherwise normal, driven to horrendous acts that will cost them their own lives to serve their community. From the suicide bomber’s perspective, their death is an act of altruism. Hence, the term martyr is often used to describe them by their ethnic and/or religious group in the aftermath.

Of course, and if the above paragraphs capture anything approximating an essential truth, they also present a conundrum. For if terrorism is part of the human condition, then the American Global War on Terror is a conflict that will never appear in the win column. The strategy undergirding the program is based on a false assumption, that victory is definable in the military sense. This suggests that US Foreign and Defense Policies both require in-depth reassessment.

Over two decades of body counts have more than proven the point. Keeping tally of those killed is not now, nor has it ever been, a viable marker of success. I would only remind everyone that the US military won all the battles in Afghanistan and Iraq and still lost those wars. Why? The US Military’s civilian commander-in-chief in the immediate wake of the 9/11 attack failed to understand the nation’s adversaries and our limitations.

The costs are measured in hundreds of thousands of lives lost on all sides and trillions of taxpayer dollars wasted. The American military fought bravely and well in the vain attempt to achieve Oval Office selected political objectives that proved to be unrealistic. This means that the ultimate fault lies with the chief executive and a Congress which has not formally declared war since WWII, leaving their Constitutionally mandated task repetitively to White House residents that have not done well by it.

The US can continue killing those labelled as terrorists by the thousands. However, and if my assertions reflect actuality, there will always be more waiting in the wings. In other words, a lack of comprehension and flawed strategy only results in the creation of more of those who would do the country harm. It took over twenty years of conflict in Afghanistan to finally conclude that the Taliban could not be defeated by military means. The nation might consider concluding the American Global War on Terror and then begin the search for more feasible alternative strategies.

Robert Bruce Adolph — Used With Permission — Courtesy of the Author

About the author —

Robert Bruce Adolph, a qualified military strategist, is a retired senior US Army Special Forces officer and UN Chief Security Advisor who holds graduate degrees in both international affairs and national security studies. He is also a former university lecturer on American History, Government, and World Politics and the author of the well-reviewed book “Surviving the United Nations.” Discover more at www.robertbruceadolph.com.

13. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, January 21, 2025

Excerpt:

Russian President Vladimir Putin and People's Republic of China (PRC) President Xi Jinping held a phone call on January 21 and emphasized deepening cooperation. Putin and Xi reiterated boilerplate narratives emphasizing increasing Russian-PRC foreign policy, energy, and economic cooperation. Russian Presidential Aide Yuri Ushakov claimed that Putin and Xi discussed Russia's war in Ukraine and Russia's and the PRC's relations with the United States, although the official Kremlin readout of the call did not mention these topics. Ushakov also claimed that Xi gave Putin an overview of Xi's recent call with US President Donald Trump.

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, January 21, 2025

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-21-2025

Ukrainian forces conducted a series of drone strikes against Russian defense industrial enterprises and oil refineries in Russia on the night of January 20 to 21 as part of an ongoing strike series aimed at degrading Russian military capacity. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian Special Operation Forces (SSO) elements and other Ukrainian forces conducted a drone strike against Rosneft's Lisinskaya Oil Refinery in Voronezh Oblast for the second time this week following successful strikes on the night of January 15 to 16. The January 20 to 21 strike caused a fire at fuel and lubricant tanks, and the Ukrainian General Staff noted that the oil refinery supplies the Russian military. Voronezh Oblast Governor Alexander Gusev claimed on January 20 that Russian forces destroyed several drones in Voronezh Oblast but that a drone fell on an oil depot in Liskinsky Raion, starting a fire. A Kremlin-affiliated Russian milblogger noted that the oil depot was still burning from the January 15-16 strike and the second strike started another fire at the facility. The Ukrainian General Staff also reported that Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces and SSO struck the Smolensk Aviation Plant in Smolensk Oblast. Geolocated footage shows fires at the production building of the Smolensk Aviation Plant. Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation Head Lieutenant Andriy Kovalenko stated that the plant produces and modernizes Su-25 attack aircraft and maintains aviation equipment. Smolensk Oblast Governor Vasily Anokhin claimed that Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian drone strike against Smolensk Oblast but that falling drone debris caused fires. Russian opposition outlet Astra reported that Ukrainian forces struck Lukoil's Saratovorgsintez Chemical Plant in Saratov City overnight that produces acrylonitrile, acetonitrile, and sodium cyanide. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian forces destroyed 10 drones over Smolensk Oblast, six over Voronezh Oblast, and four over Saratov Oblast on the night of January 20 to 21.

The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces also continue to conduct strikes against Russian command posts in the Russian rear. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces struck the command post of the Russian 29th Combined Arms Army (CAA) (Eastern Military District [EMD]) in occupied Volnovakha, Donetsk Oblast on the night of January 20 to 21. The Ukrainian General Staff stated that there are reports of explosions and smoke after the strike and that Ukrainian authorities are clarifying the results of the strike. ISW has not observed footage or other reporting of this command post strike. ISW has observed reports that elements of the 29th CAA are currently operating along the Yantarne-Zelenivka line southwest of Kurakhove. The Ukrainian General Staff reported in early and mid-January 2025 that Ukrainian forces struck the command posts of the Russian 2nd CAA (Central Military District [CMD]), 8th CAA (Southern Military District), and 3rd Army Corps (AC) (CMD) in occupied Donetsk Oblast. ISW continues to assess that Ukrainian strikes against main command posts further in the Russian rear are likely aimed at degrading broader Russian logistics and operational planning efforts, which could impact Russia's ability to conduct its military operations in western Donetsk Oblast.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and People's Republic of China (PRC) President Xi Jinping held a phone call on January 21 and emphasized deepening cooperation. Putin and Xi reiterated boilerplate narratives emphasizing increasing Russian-PRC foreign policy, energy, and economic cooperation. Russian Presidential Aide Yuri Ushakov claimed that Putin and Xi discussed Russia's war in Ukraine and Russia's and the PRC's relations with the United States, although the official Kremlin readout of the call did not mention these topics. Ushakov also claimed that Xi gave Putin an overview of Xi's recent call with US President Donald Trump.

Key Takeaways:

Ukrainian forces conducted a series of drone strikes against Russian defense industrial enterprises and oil refineries in Russia on the night of January 20 to 21 as part of an ongoing strike series aimed at degrading Russian military capacity.

The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces also continue to conduct strikes against Russian command posts in the Russian rear.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and People's Republic of China (PRC) President Xi Jinping held a phone call on January 21 and emphasized deepening cooperation.

Acting Kursk Oblast Governor Alexander Khinshtein's recent appointment has thus far failed to solve or distract from Russia's failure to adequately respond to Ukraine's incursion into Kursk Oblast.

Russian forces recently advanced in Kursk Oblast and near Chasiv Yar, Pokrovsk, and Kurakhove. Ukrainian forces recently regained lost positions near Pokrovsk.

Russian ultranationalist milbloggers renewed complaints against the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) for failing to hold the Russian military command accountable for military failures.

14. Iran Update, January 21, 2025

Iran Update, January 21, 2025

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-january-21-2025

Hamas coordinated the distribution of aid and facilitated the movement of Gazans to the northern Gaza Strip, which demonstrates that Hamas retains some degree of governing authority after 15 months of war. The Associated Press reported that Hamas has patrolled aid convoy routes, coordinated the distribution of humanitarian aid, and monitored the return of Gazans to Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip after the ceasefire went into effect. Some Gazans began to return from IDF-designated humanitarian zones to the northern Gaza Strip on January 19, and the IDF announced on January 21 that it would soon allow Gazans to return from the southern Gaza Strip to the northern Gaza Strip.

These tasks make Hamas the de facto governing body in the Gaza Strip, at least in certain areas. The activities listed above—distribution and protection of aid and “monitoring” returnees—do not indicate that Hamas runs a Gazan government like it did prior to October 7. Hamas does appear to function as a proto-government that can provide and distribute basic services and goods while controlling the population, which would be consistent with an insurgent organization that seeks to re-exert control over the Gaza Strip. It is notable in this context that Hamas is the sole actor in the Gaza Strip capable and willing to undertake this relatively broad spectrum of tasks. Hamas therefore appears to be prepared to reemerge as the sole authority in the Gaza Strip, even though the IDF destroyed its government structure. Hamas will likely begin to use its small, insurgent-like cells of fighters to reimpose its control over the population and other armed groups, including criminal elements.

Hamas announced that it will release four female Israeli hostages on January 25. Hamas previously announced that it would release the next group of hostages on January 26. The ceasefire agreement requires Hamas to release three hostages every Saturday during the first phase of the ceasefire-hostage deal and 14 hostages on the last day of the first phase. Hamas released three Israeli hostages on the first day of the ceasefire on January 19.

The IDF chief of staff and Southern Command commander both resigned on January 21. Both officers said that they took responsibility for failing to prevent Hamas’ October 7 attack into Israel. Herzi Halevi will officially leave as chief of staff on March 6, four days after the first phase of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement ends. Halevi stated that the IDF has not fully destroyed Hamas’ governance and military capabilities or returned Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip. Halevi called for an external committee to investigate the IDF’s failure on October 7. IDF Southern Command Commander Major General Yaron Finkelman also resigned on January 21. Finkelman cited his failure to protect Israel on October 7. The IDF Southern Command is responsible for areas of southern Israel, including the area along the Israel-Gaza Strip border.

Key Takeaways:

Gaza Strip: Hamas coordinated the distribution of aid and facilitated the movement of Gazans to the northern Gaza Strip, which demonstrates that Hamas retains some degree of governing authority after 15 months of war. These tasks make Hamas the de facto governing body in the Gaza Strip, at least in certain areas. The activities listed above—distribution and protection of aid and “monitoring” returnees—do not indicate that Hamas runs a Gazan government like it did prior to October 7, however.

IDF Resignations: The IDF chief of staff and Southern Command commander both resigned on January 21. Both officers said that they took responsibility for failing to prevent Hamas’ October 7 attack into Israel.

Syrian Democratic Forces: The US-backed SDF faces resource and bandwidth constraints as it contends with separate and possibly existential fights with Arab tribal forces and a potential Turkish. The Arab tribal attacks against the SDF may imperil the SDF’s ability to defend against a Turkish or Turkish-backed offensive.

Iraqi Militia Disarmament: The head of Iranian-backed Iraqi militia Harakat Hezbollah al Nujaba’s political bureau claimed on January 19 that the group would disarm only if Iraqi Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani “frankly or directly” requested its disarmament. Harakat Hezbollah al Nujaba leader Akram al Kaabi has previously said that this militia takes its political and religious direction from Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei instead of Sistani. Kaabi’s previous statement that Harakat Hezbollah al Nujaba takes direction from Khamenei is inconsistent with Asadi’s invocation of Sistani’s authority.

Iraqi Politics: An “official source” told Iraqi media that the Shia Coordination Framework supports legislation that would replace the Accountability and Justice Commission with a judicial body that would vet political candidates.

Russia in Syria: Russia may have reached an agreement with the HTS-led interim government to evacuate Russian military assets from Syria. The HTS-led interim government also suspended Russian investment and financial involvement in the port of Tartus.

15. Why Britain Should Scupper the Chagos Islands Deal

Why Britain Should Scupper the Chagos Islands Deal - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Marcus Solarz Hendriks · January 22, 2025

The British government’s negotiation with the Republic of Mauritius to cede the Chagos Islands has been a mess. At time of writing, expectations of an imminent agreement (or rather re-agreement, as the United Kingdom already received the last Mauritian government’s blessing — before the new one rejected the terms and re-opened talks) have morphed overnight into reports that London might now wait to give the incoming Trump administration the final say.

As our recent Policy Exchange report argues, the three and a half months since the initial announcement of the proposed deal have exposed the British government’s poor handling of the matter. By seeking to rush through a deal before both Mauritius and the United States held elections, Britain exposed itself and the deal to the volition of two unknown governments — and the prospect that their views may differ from those of their predecessors. This gamble has backfired.

More rests on the conclusion of this saga than the pride of the British government. On one of the 60-odd islands that constitute the Chagos archipelago resides the Diego Garcia military base: a joint U.K.-U.S. nuclear-enabled naval and air facility, which also serves as a vital intelligence outpost in the Indian Ocean. Any change in circumstances that casts a shadow of doubt on the base’s long-term viability — or erodes even fractionally Anglo-American capacity to preserve adequate surrounding security measures — is a grave strategic risk. It is for this reason that the best outcome for London and Washington is for the deal to collapse. The British government has at least done well to leave the door ajar for this eventuality.

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Flawed Legal Rationale

Reaching a deal to cede the Chagos Islands was never legally necessary, nor strategically prudent. On the contrary, it is an act of strategic self-harm, inflicted under phantasmal duress, and in a crucial gateway region with a rapidly expanding Chinese presence.

Beginning with the legal dimension, according to British officials, it was the “legal uncertainty” over the future of the base — arising from Mauritius’ claim that British sovereignty over the islands is an illegitimate vestige of colonialism — that compelled an agreement. This argument picked up pace in 2019 when the International Court of Justice issued a non-binding advisory opinion that the United Kingdom “has an obligation to bring to an end its administration … as rapidly as possible.” Shortly after, the U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to endorse the court’s ruling, with 116 in favor, six against, and 56 abstentions.

However, the truth remains that the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion is non-binding, putting Britain under no obligation to conform. As our report demonstrates, the United Kingdom excludes disputes between members of the Commonwealth (of which Mauritius is one) from the purview of the court’s jurisdiction, and so Mauritius’ original case in effect hijacked the advisory opinion procedure. International Court of Justice judges Joan E. Donoghue and Peter Tomka shared this concern about the court’s overreach in their written opinion on the verdict — the latter saying, “I am concerned that advisory proceedings have now become a way of bringing before the Court contentious matters, with which the General Assembly had not been dealing prior to requesting an opinion upon an initiative taken by one of the parties to the dispute.” At the time, Germany, Australia, France, and the United States all raised similar concerns over the court’s divergence from established practice.

Indeed, there are innumerable historical precedents for states not accepting advisory opinions — without suffering profound diplomatic or strategic consequences. Malaysia and Romania have both elected to disregard International Court of Justice advisory rulings on the immunity of U.N. officials, while Marrakesh annexed Western Sahara in 1975 despite a court opinion that the territory does not belong to either Morocco or Mauritania. London has even been on the receiving end of such action, when Iceland pressed ahead with extending its fisheries jurisdiction amidst a dispute with the United Kingdom, thereby defying the court’s opinion. It suffices to say that none of these states have become global pariahs.

Bowing to so-called pressure is not, therefore, an act of necessary legal compliance, but a political decision — one based on a calculation of strategic risk. A question therefore arises: Is the future of the strategic asset more jeopardized by diplomatic pressure, or a new arrangement that transfers sovereignty over the territory to another state?

The Chinese Threat in the Indian Ocean

The British government’s fears that legal challenges would become insurmountable in the future are overblown. It is equally apparent that the government has underpriced the long-term strategic risks arising from cession. At the heart of this lies China’s expanding presence and activity in the Indian Ocean, and its warming relations with Mauritius itself.

The security of the Diego Garcia base is currently ensured by a robust set of mechanisms that preclude other states from establishing military facilities, or conducting surveillance, in its proximity. The United Kingdom enforces a stringent Marine Protected Area in Chagossian waters, which denies access to commercial vessels. Furthermore, as a British Overseas Territory, other states cannot develop infrastructure on any of the islands.

Special measures are also in place that permit the nuclear function of the base. The region is encompassed by the African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone, under the aegis of the Treaty of Pelindaba, from which the United Kingdom secured an exemption for the military base and in-transit nuclear vehicles. As Mauritius is a signatory of the treaty, it is not yet known whether this carve-out will be preserved.

At present, there is no publicly available information to suggest that these essential security measures will endure in their current form. The United Kingdom has announced that, as part of the proposed deal, it would cooperate with Mauritius in “the creation of a Mauritian Marine Protected Area” — but has provided no details of what this will constitute. Concerns that the new Marine Protected Area might be laxer have also been stoked by the fact that Mauritius’ own Marine Protected Area permits its government to issue licenses to foreign fishing vessels.

It is one thing for Sri Lankan or Seychellois fishing trawlers to sail close to the U.K.-U.S. military base. It is quite another for China — with its track record of utilizing ostensibly commercial and oceanographic research ships to conduct espionage, and 100 attempts to spy on U.S. military facilities over the last year — to be granted the same opportunity. This would pose an obvious and highly significant risk to British and American military and intelligence activities.

Such fears are compounded further by the steady improvements in Mauritian-Chinese relations. Contrary to the assertion of British officials that Mauritius is an “ally” of India (see Foreign Office Minister Stephen Doughty), it became the first African state to sign a Free Trade Agreement with Beijing in 2019. Huawei has built a presence in Mauritian telecommunications and energy infrastructure in recent years — winning another major contract as recently as last November. Can the United Kingdom really be confident that, over the course of the 99-year-long lease agreement for Diego Garcia, China will not be able to build sufficient leverage over Mauritius to force it to water down, or violate altogether, terms agreed today? No legal or security provisions have yet been disclosed.

The macro picture of the Indian Ocean adds to this impression of significant geostrategic volatility. The region’s smaller states are increasingly being buffeted by the headwinds of Sino-Indian competition: Sri Lanka is now caught in the middle of New Delhi and Beijing’s tussle for maritime access and mineral exploration. Last year the Maldives experienced a pro-China “India Out” domestic campaign on the back of growing Indian investment — itself an attempt to hedge against the $1 billion of debt owed to China. In this context it is impossible, as the British government has done, to place bets on the long-term allegiances, or capacity to retain policy autonomy, of small countries like Mauritius.

Strategic Interests and International Norms

The Chagos Islands episode provides a vignette of the conundrum that increasingly faces policymakers in liberal democracies today: how to act at the pinch point of strategic interests and the norms and values that liberal democracies promote and seek to uphold.

For the British government, the attempted deal with Mauritius is not simply about securing the future of a strategic asset but, in the words of Foreign Secretary David Lammy, “showing that what we mean is what we say on international law and desire for partnerships with the Global South.” Putting the dispute to rest, he believes, “strengthens our arguments when it comes to issues like Ukraine or the South China Sea.”

The problem, and indeed the source of the subsequent strategic misstep, is that this false equivalence neither serves British interests nor upholds desirable norms. Drawing an analogy between the United Kingdom’s legal ownership of the Chagos Islands (bought from Mauritius in the 1960s) and Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine and Xi Jinping’s regional aggression engenders moral equivocation and presents non-aligned states with a pretext to seek concessions. It is of course inconceivable that any of Britain’s adversaries would relent to a non-binding legal opinion on a matter of national security — nor that their behavior will change as a consequence of Britain’s undertaking of such actions.

On the contrary, the United Kingdom’s mismanagement of the Chagos Islands deal projects insecurity and weakness. It projects the image of a state that cannot judiciously manage strategic risk and can be co-opted by dubious moral appeals. And by conceding to misapplications of global rules, it does not strengthen them but rather weaken their legal and moral scaffolding.

The British government has done well to engineer a last-minute off-ramp. The strategic interests of the United Kingdom, the United States, and their partners are best served if it is taken.

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Marcus Solarz Hendriks is head of the National Security Unit at the U.K. think tank Policy Exchange. He is the co-author of the new Policy Exchange report, Averting a Strategic Misstep: Why the Government should walk away from its draft agreement to cede the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. He holds both a Master’s and a B.A. from the University of Cambridge.

Image: Seaman Kamaren Hill via DVIDS

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Marcus Solarz Hendriks · January 22, 2025

16. Ukraine is much better at combined arms operations than Russia

Ukraine is much better at combined arms operations than Russia

sandboxx.us · January 21, 2025

The war in Ukraine is the first large-scale conflict in which unmanned aerial systems play a significant role. Although drones are not new by any means—the U.S. Intelligence Community and military pioneered their use back in the 1990s—Ukraine is the first war in which drones are used profusely on all levels of fighting.

Both sides use drones, artillery, missiles, mechanized assets, infantry, and electronic warfare (EW) among others to achieve their battlefields. But one side has a clear superiority when it comes to combining them for maximum effect: Ukraine.

The Ukrainian forces recently launched several counterattacks in Kursk Oblast, inside Russia. (The Russian forces have been trying to eradicate the Ukrainian salient since it was first created in August.)

In its most recent counterattacks, the Ukrainian military displayed robust combined arms capabilities. For example, in support of their mechanized formations, the Ukrainians deployed electronic warfare measures, thus creating a “bubble” around their forces and denying access to Russian drones. Unmanned aerial systems can either be shot down via physical means or “commandeered” via electronic warfare systems. At a point in time when drones are everywhere on the battlefield, potent electronic warfare capabilities are that much more important.

“Widespread Russian concern over Russia’s ability to respond to improved Ukrainian [electronic warfare] technology and long-range strike capabilities indicates that Russian forces may be struggling to quickly adapt to Ukrainian battlefield innovations,” the Institute for the Study of War assessed in a recent estimate of the conflict.

According to Russian battlefield reports, the Ukrainian forces operating inside Russia are much more effective, maximizing their potential through combined arms operations. Combined arms operations refers to the employment and coordination of different arms in a single operation to maximize results.

For example, a mechanized attack against a fortified defensive line with artillery support on the target, long-range fires support behind the defensive line, and electronic warfare support around the target to keep out enemy drones would be a prime combined arms operation (mechanized assets, artillery on target, long-ranges fires behind target to maximize confusion and prevent a counterattack, and electronic warfare protection).

“Reports that Ukrainian forces are using long-range fires to interdict Russian rear areas and EW to degrade Russian drones in support of Ukrainian mechanized advances indicate that Ukrainian forces operating in Kursk are employing more effective combined arms tactics,” the Institute for the Study of War stated.

Conversely, the Russian forces lack the ability to wage effective combined arms operations. Although Russian units have integrated drones in their tactics, Russian offensives more resemble World War I and World War II operations than 21st century warfare. Usually, Russian attacks against the Ukrainian positions involve a lot of infantry with artillery support.

“Russian sources expressed concern about the Russian military’s ability to react to Ukraine’s ongoing combined arms efforts to integrate electronic warfare (EW) and long-range strike capabilities with ground operations,” the Institute for the Study of War added.

To be sure, the Russian military can conduct combined arms warfare in certain cases. For instance, when Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, it used mechanized assets, airstrikes, missile strikes, special operations units, and even cyberattacks all in an effort to disorient the Ukrainian military leadership and achieve a quick victory.

Overall, however, the Russian military is seriously lacking in combined arms capabilities. And, if it came to blows with the U.S. military and NATO, Russia would be at a significant disadvantage.

The Fallacy of the Abraham Accords

Foreign Affairs · by More by Khaled Elgindy · January 22, 2025

Why Normalization Without Palestinians Won’t Bring Stability to the Middle East

Khaled Elgindy

January 22, 2025

A Palestinian flag near rubble in Rafah, the Gaza Strip, January 2025 Hatem Khaled / Reuters

Khaled Elgindy is a Visiting Scholar at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and the author of Blind Spot: America and the Palestinians, from Balfour to Trump.

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U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to cement his legacy in the Middle East were well underway even before he reclaimed the White House. “There’s just no way that President Trump isn’t going to be interested in trying to expand the Abraham Accords,” Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s former Middle East envoy, told thousands of international delegates at Qatar’s Doha Forum in December. The Abraham Accords, a series of normalization deals signed in 2020 by Israel and Bahrain, Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates, remain Trump’s signature foreign policy achievement from his first term, and one hailed by both his allies and staunchest political opponents—including former President Joe Biden.

Indeed, Biden not only wholeheartedly embraced the Abraham Accords but sought to build on them by securing a landmark deal with Saudi Arabia, the most powerful and influential Arab state. Biden’s offer was that, in return for Saudi-Israeli normalization, the Saudis would get a major upgrade in the strategic partnership with the United States, on par with that of a NATO ally. A Saudi-Israeli agreement would be the biggest breakthrough in Arab-Israeli diplomacy since Egypt broke ranks with the Arab world and became the first Arab state to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979—and would pave the way for other Arab and Muslim nations to follow suit.

This approach to Arab-Israeli peacemaking, however, is contingent on sidestepping the Palestinian question. Up until 2020, the consensus among Arab states had been that normalization with Israel would come only after the creation of an independent Palestinian state. The decision by Bahrain, Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates to break ranks therefore effectively robbed Palestinians of an important source of leverage against Israel. Since then, Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel and Israel’s devastating war on Gaza have effectively derailed the Saudi-Israeli track, in an explicit reminder that the Palestinian question cannot be ignored or subordinated to Arab-Israeli normalization.

Despite these obstacles, Trump is keen to finish the job he began in his first term and Biden carried forward, by clinching a U.S.-Saudi-Israeli mega-deal in a return to the original vision of the Abraham Accords, which involves upgrading Israel and downgrading the Palestinians. All signs indicate that Trump continues to believe that Israel’s integration in the region is more import to Arab leaders than is the cause of Palestinian freedom. According to Greenblatt, it is a mistake to “think that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the be-all and end-all, and if everything gets resolved between Israel and the Palestinians, all will be great in the Middle East.”

Critics of the Abraham Accords, however, have never claimed that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would end all other disputes in the region. They have instead argued the opposite: that regional peace and security are not possible without a resolution of the Palestinian question. Indeed, the central premise of the Abraham Accords—that regional peace and stability could be achieved while sidelining Palestinians—has been totally upended by Hamas’s October 7 assault on Israel, and everything that has happened since. A cease-fire deal that went into effect this week underscores the centrality of the Palestinians to regional security and stability, but it also potentially creates diplomatic space for renewed Saudi-Israeli engagement under Trump’s leadership. The Abraham Accords represent a revealing point of continuity between Trump and Biden. Their reasons and tactics may differ, but both presidents have peddled a dangerous illusion—that peace, stability, and prosperity in the broader Middle East could coexist with war, chaos, and dispossession in the occupied Palestinian territories.

PEACE ON PAPER

Despite being lauded as a diplomatic triumph, the Abraham Accords were premised on a number of faulty assumptions. Indeed, much of the excitement surrounding the normalization deals in 2020 had less to do with their intrinsic value than with the almost reflexive need, particularly in Washington and other Western capitals, to rally around something that was so obviously in Israel’s interests, regardless of its actual alignment with U.S. policy objectives, such as a two-state solution or regional stability. This tendency to conflate “good for Israel” with “good for peace” is in fact a standard feature of the U.S.-led diplomatic process, and a key reason for its failure over the past several decades.

Although many have tried to fit the square peg of normalization into the round hole of a two-state solution, the fact remains that the Abraham Accords were originally conceived as a way to bypass the Palestinian question and suppress Palestinian agency in the hope that Palestinians would have no choice but to accept whatever long-term arrangement the United States, Israel, and the region imposed on them. In fact, the Abraham Accords were themselves one of the many trends working against a two-state solution—a sign that certain Arab states had moved on and were no longer willing to subordinate their bilateral or geopolitical interests vis-à-vis Israel to the unicorn of an independent Palestinian state.

The absence of constraints on Israel has left Palestinians ever more vulnerable.

Moreover, the Abraham Accords removed one of the few sources of leverage Palestinians had in their already highly asymmetrical conflict with Israel: pressure from Arab neighbors whose publics were still overwhelmingly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. In so doing, they also eliminated some of the last remaining incentives Israel had to end its occupation of Palestinian territory or otherwise acknowledge Palestinian rights. The absence of constraints on Israel has left Palestinians ever more vulnerable to the whims of an increasingly violent and maximalist Israeli occupation, which saw unprecedented settlement expansion, settler violence, and Israeli army repression against Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as more routine wars in Gaza in 2021 and 2022. These issues have only worsened under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose return in late 2022 marked the arrival of the most far-right government in Israel’s history.

Meanwhile, claims that Arab states could leverage their budding relations with Israel to advance the cause of the Palestinians or that of a two-state solution have simply never materialized. Neither Bahrain, Morocco, nor the United Arab Emirates have sought to intervene with Israel to prevent home demolitions or evictions of Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem, or to address record-breaking settlement expansion and settler violence across the West Bank. They have not wielded their supposed influence to step in regarding Israel’s assault on Gaza—an offensive that has already killed more than 46,000 Palestinians and annihilated most of its civilian infrastructure. On the other hand, Emirati officials have shown little compunction about doing business with Israeli settlers or investing in occupation infrastructure such as Israeli checkpoints. Whereas Biden and congressional Democrats have strained to elide these inconsistencies, Trump and his fellow Republicans, most of whom have already abandoned even the pretense of support for a two-state solution, can simply ignore these contradictions altogether.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Even with the slight opening provided by the cease-fire, however, bringing the Saudis into the Abraham Accords will remain an uphill battle for the Trump administration. If prospects for a Saudi-Israeli deal seemed remote before October 7, the environment today is considerably less hospitable. The horrific scenes of death, destruction, and starvation coming out of Gaza over the last 15 months have inflamed public opinion across the Arab and Muslim worlds and shredded Israeli and U.S. credibility across the global South. (Some traditional Western allies in the global North, such as Ireland, Norway, and Spain, have also begun distancing themselves from Israel.) Even the United Arab Emirates, once the poster child for Arab-Israeli normalization, has been forced to downplay its ties to Israel: Emirati businesses no longer boast of their Israeli connections, and UAE leaders’ once-warm relationship with Netanyahu has cooled. In other words, the Gaza war may not have ruptured the Abraham Accords—but it has effectively put them on ice.

For the Saudis, the price of normalization with Israel has increased considerably since October 7 and the ensuing assault on Gaza. Whereas the country’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (also known as MBS), had previously sought only a rhetorical commitment from Israel to a Palestinian state, Riyadh is now demanding concrete steps toward statehood. Having despaired of U.S. mediation, the Saudis have teamed up with France to launch a new initiative aimed at rescuing whatever may be left of a two-state solution. In any case, it would be difficult for MBS, who is not known for his sentimentality toward Palestine, to normalize relations with a state that he and his government have accused of committing “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing.” The International Criminal Court’s indictment of Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity present yet another barrier for Riyadh. Saudi Arabia’s current stance may be best reflected by a communiqué adopted by the Arab-Islamic summit held in Riyadh last month, which not only reiterated the genocide charge but called for expelling Israel from the United Nations—that is, precisely the opposite of normalization.

Saudi-Israeli normalization will remain an uphill battle for the Trump administration.

Moreover, as the costs of regional engagement with Israel have gone up, the expected returns have only gone down. The one thing Saudi and other Gulf leaders value above all else is stability. But the last 15 months—which have seen Israel’s annihilation of Gaza, an extensive war with and occupation of Lebanon, tit-for-tat strikes with Iran, and the invasion and seizure of large swaths of Syrian territory following the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime—have been anything but stable. If the promise of the Abraham Accords was peace and stability, the reality of Netanyahu’s so-called new Middle East has been one of endless bloodshed and instability. What is on offer today is not a vision involving the peaceful integration of Israel in the region but one based on Israel’s violent domination of it.

Not only have the Abraham Accords not brought peace and security to the Middle East, but they have actually helped to produce the opposite by emboldening Israeli triumphalism, entrenching Israeli maximalism, and ensuring Israeli impunity. The belief that Arab-Israeli normalization could proceed over the heads or at the expense of the Palestinians was at best misguided and at worst dangerous, as recent events clearly demonstrate. It took nearly three years and the deadliest violence in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the Biden administration to finally come to terms with this reality; the Trump administration would do well to learn the same lesson.

Khaled Elgindy is a Visiting Scholar at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and the author of Blind Spot: America and the Palestinians, From Balfour to Trump.

More by Khaled Elgindy

Foreign Affairs · by More by Khaled Elgindy · January 22, 2025m

18. Donald Trump's Biggest Foreign Policy Test: The Axis of Upheaval

Donald Trump's Biggest Foreign Policy Test: The Axis of Upheaval

19fortyfive.com · by Robert Kelly · January 22, 2025

Donald Trump is the US president again. While his domestic agenda is fairly clear – he talked relentlessly about immigration and tariffs as a candidate – his foreign policy is seemingly wide open.

The broad strokes are known: Trump is friendlier to autocrats than any other American president has been, and he is tough, almost bullying, toward smaller, weaker states, including US partners.

However, how Trump will resolve the Ukraine issue, which he promised to fix in one day, is unclear.

Nor is it clear how he will deal with the significant challenger to the US for the next decades – China.

Tariffs will not be enough.

China’s rise is hardly new, but under its current president, Xi Jinping, China has embarked on a much more revisionist, belligerent course.

There is much suspicion that China will move against Taiwan in the coming decade. It is unclear how Trump would respond, given his comments about Taiwan in the past. And more broadly, China is the leading member of a potential ‘axis of upheaval.’

The most prominent members of this loose grouping are China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Still, more generally, any dictatorship unhappy with the US-led world order would find compatriots in this group. Should these countries congeal into a genuine bloc or ‘axis,’ it would be a huge challenger to American powers.

Preventing this is probably the new administration’s most critical foreign policy objective.

Is It An ‘Axis,’ or Just a Gang?

The post-Cold War liberal international order has provoked many illiberal and antidemocratic states. But most of those countries were small or poor or both. States like Venezuela and Syria under now-deposed Bashar al-Assad resented the liberal world economy and American leadership but could do little about it.

These various rogue states just hoped to survive in a hostile world. Former President George W. Bush famously called these holdouts against the liberal order ‘the axis of evil.’ These rogues could survive – ‘regime change’ turned out to be US overreach – but they were isolated and backward-looking.

China’s rapid rise has given new life to these challengers. Chinese autocracy looked like the past decades ago.

Still, today, its record of growth and stability is highly attractive to dictatorships hoping to maintain authoritarian rule, resist US dominance, and still achieve economic growth. Beijing has attracted other dissatisfied states, most obviously Russia.

China almost undoubtedly knew of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intention to invade Ukraine in 2022, and Chinese support – diplomatic and economic – has been crucial in keeping Russia afloat as the war has dragged on. Putin and Xi declared their recent alignment has ‘no limits.’

The remaining axis of evil members is hovering in the background. Islamic Iran has long been a useful proxy for states wishing to challenge the US. As far back as the 1980s, the atheist Soviet Union informally protected that clerical regime from US pressure. North Korea, too is a valuable regional troublemaker.

Like Iran, North Korea distracts the US in a strategic region, keeping it tied down and distracted. It is now aiding Russian imperialism in Ukraine.

Chinese Funding Required for the Axis

The question for the future is whether this loose gang can congeal into a genuine alliance. That would require a willingness of all members to subvert their interests to a larger, shared program.

This is possible, and Putin, arguably the most reckless, openly aggressive member of this axis, might accept this. But axis members have prickly relations among themselves.

North Korea, for example, is wary of Chinese domination, and Russia would have to admit that it is junior to larger, more powerful China.

Indeed, all axis members would have to be willing to accept Chinese bloc leadership because only China is wealthy enough to fund a wide-ranging challenge to the liberal order and its many wealthy states worldwide.

North Korea and Iran are economically weak. High military spending and radical ideology fill in some of that gap, but neither could afford regular, high-tempo military deployments without external support. For all their bluster, neither initiate significant conflicts like the current Ukraine war or a future Chinese attack on Taiwan.

Russia is richer than those rogues, of course, but its economy has fallen out of the world top-ten largest. It is now on a full war footing, which may help it win in Ukraine in the short term, but the medium-term costs will be high. Elevated military spending starves the civilian sector of resources for productive growth, and the sanctions regime on Russia blocks needed future technologies.

Russian tank firing main gun in Ukraine. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Only China, the world’s second-largest GDP, has the financial weight to find these revisionists. But a complete Chinese turn against the liberal international order would end the trade relationships that have fueled its growth for decades. This is the lever Trump should use to keep China from throwing in entirely with Putin’s resistance project.

In this context, Trump’s affection for tariffs is problematic.

Severing the Sino-US trade relationship will make it easier for China to align with this axis fully.

About the Author: Dr. Robert Kelly

Dr. Robert Kelly is a professor of political science at Pusan National University. Kelly is a Contributing Editor to 19FortyFive.

19fortyfive.com · by Robert Kelly · January 22, 2025

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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

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

Access NSS HERE

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