​Quotes of the Day:

"I have no other view than to promote the public good, and am unambitious of honors not founded in the approbation of my Country."

– George Washington

"It's hard to get people to overcome the thought that they have to take care of themselves first. It's hard to get players to give in to the group and become selfless as opposed to selfish."

–​ Isaiah Thomas

​"Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.​"

–​ Muhammad Ali

1. Special Forces Mission & Mindset: Reclaiming Unconventional Warfare in the Renewed Age of Irregular Conflict

2. Defense Primer: What Is Irregular Warfare?

3. Secretary Marco Rubio Remarks to Employees

4. Priorities and Mission of the Second Trump Administration’s Department of State

5. Intentions v actions (DOS Priorities)

6. further on State

7. Two officers were fired for bucking their chain of command. Now they're going to work at the Pentagon.

8. Deep cuts in Army, EUCOM downsizing among plans pushed by 2 Trump defense strategists

9. U.S. Special Operations Command Cut the Size of One of Its Most Controversial Programs

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

11. Report: To Fix Deterrence, Rethink Goldwater-Nichols, Boost Budget

12. Trump must rally international support against the Chinese Communist Party

13. White House sidelines 160 National Security Council staffers, aligning the team with Trump's agenda

14. The Quad foreign ministers joint statement: short and sweet

15. A Returning President Trump Takes on The World

16. Start Making Sense: Strategy and Grand Strategy in the Trump Administration

17. Spy vs. Spy in Taiwan

18. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, January 22, 2025

19. Iran Update, January 22, 2025

20. The Cold War Putin Wants

21. Exclusive: US deploys Typhon missile launchers to new location in Philippines

22. Trump and the Perils of Ungoverning

23. Crimson Moon Rising: A Defiant Spark Ignites in the Shadows (Fiction)

24. Silk Web of Alliances: Trump’s Legacy and the Indo-Pacific’s Future

1. Special Forces Mission & Mindset: Reclaiming Unconventional Warfare in the Renewed Age of Irregular Conflict

​Hear. Hear. I could not agree more with Dr. Ross. We need UW in the contemporary operating environment, and SF must maintain a UW mindset.

I would just add this quote:

“Unconventional Warfare (UW) … remains uniquely Special Forces'. It is the soul of Special Forces: the willingness to accept its isolation and hardships defines the Special Forces Soldier. Its training is both the keystone and standard of Special Forces Training: it has long been an article of faith, confirmed in over forty years of worldwide operations, that "If you can do the UW missions, you can do all others." The objective of UW and Special Forces' dedication to it is expressed in Special Forces' motto: De Oppresso Liber (to free the oppressed).     

–Robert M. Gates, Remarks at dedication of OSS Memorial, 1994

Special Forces Mission & Mindset: Reclaiming Unconventional Warfare in the Renewed Age of Irregular Conflict

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/01/23/special-forces-mission-mindset-reclaiming-unconventional-warfare-in-the-renewed-age-of-irregular-conflict/

by Daniel Ross

|

01.23.2025 at 06:00am

Introduction

The post-Global War on Terror (GWOT) United States (US) Army Special Forces (SF) Regiment faces a unique opportunity to rejuvenate its identity as it seeks to find balance with the overarching US Army’s evolving concentration on irregular warfare (IW), Multi-Domain Operations (MDO), and large-scale combat operations (LSCO) against peer and near-peer adversaries. During the GWOT, the SF Regiment uncharacteristically engaged heavily in direct action (DA) and combat-oriented foreign internal defense (FID) principal tasks. Nevertheless, unconventional warfare (UW) has long been SF’s organizing principle and core task. The shift away from this UW identity during the GWOT presents a dilemma for current SF leaders attempting to integrate the SF Regiment’s unique capabilities into the US Army’s plans for future irregular conflicts and potential direct conventional confrontations with strategic competitors. The following article provides background on the resurgence of IW in military doctrine and academia following the conclusion of the GWOT era and discusses the importance of the UW principal task to the SF Regiment. The article then explores some essential ongoing debates circulating throughout the SF community concerning the level of focus on UW as a philosophical mindset or exclusively as a doctrinal mission. The central argument is that SF leaders currently have a distinct opportunity to re-stake their claim on the UW aspect of IW, re-elevate the UW mission to prominence, and foster a UW mindset in the SF Regiment’s organizational culture. Special Forces’ reconcentrated efforts on UW can contribute to fortifying and operationalizing US IW policy and become a pivotal component of the Department of Defense’s (DOD) efforts to compete globally and maintain an enduring strategic advantage against peer and near-peer threats well into the future.

Background and Context

Irregular warfare has experienced a tremendous ascent back into the spotlight of US military doctrine and academia following the perceived end of the GWOT era. Rightfully, to remain adaptable and evolve the Joint Force (JF) for future conflicts, strategic US Army leaders must seek new opportunities for innovation and pursue essential initiatives such as those related to IW. Yet, with this resurgence in popularity, the IW phenomenon has caused a tendency for some stakeholders and leaders across the armed services to disproportionately adjust their attention toward this movement to the detriment of other equally important areas of focus. For the SF Regiment, one of these focus areas involves rebalancing its identity and shifting away from the GWOT counterterrorism (CT) orientation back toward the UW side of the IW spectrum. Special Forces must also grapple with its future role in MDO and LSCO. The renewed IW-specific emphasis sweeping across all scholarly and operational military domains should not shift attention to such an extent that SF leaders become so immersed in the complexities of “the big picture” that attention to the sub-components of IW, specifically UW, becomes neglected or ignored.

The subsequent sections of this article explore some essential ongoing debates circulating through the US Army SF community related to UW. This community, known for its longitudinal expertise in UW, is currently deliberating the relevance of UW, a vital component of IW, in this “current age” of collective attention concerning irregular conflict and future LSCO. One of the most prominent ongoing conversations centers around whether UW realistically has any utility in the future of armed conflict, specifically the overt peer-to-peer LSCO environment exemplified by the enduring territorial conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Though the SF Regiment generally understands the fundamental importance of UW, the military and policymaking community at large does not fully understand or appreciate the concept and views it as of little worth in modern GPC.

Ancillary to this conversation, many in support of maintaining an emphasis on UW continue to debate the concept in terms of doctrinal mission or as a theory or philosophical mindset. Overall, stakeholders in the SF Regiment should pursue a meaningful understanding of UW doctrine and theory and place renewed attention on cultivating a UW mindset among its ranks. Moreover, to not be eclipsed by the IW strategic perspective, SF leaders must reclaim unconventional warfare, own it, embrace it, and re-elevate it in both theory and practice to the forefront of the Regiment’s organizational culture. To accomplish this task, SF leaders must firmly understand UW’s place in the spectrum of contemporary warfare.

Unconventional Warfare Revisited

Before delving into the realm of UW and IW, a basic understanding of conventional (traditional) warfare establishes an important context for the following dialogue. Conventional warfare continues to present existential threats to nations across the globe; however, the future of warfare indicates a more irregular and unconventional nature of conflict. Conventional warfare is a violent struggle for domination or superiority between nation-states or coalitions of nation-states. Department of Defense Joint Publication (JP) 1 most recently amplified the definition of conventional warfare as “a violent struggle for domination between nation-states or coalitions and alliances of nation-states, fought with conventional forces.” The term conventional warfare connotes a direct fight between enemy forces; the struggle habitually occurs with comparable military systems and organizations. Conventional warfare typically concentrates on overpowering enemy militaries, warfighting capabilities, and controlling or occupying key terrain and populations to influence an enemy government’s behavior or actions definitively.

Understanding the relative fluidity of contemporary definitions and discussion remains pertinent when deliberating upon the doctrine, theories, and application of UW. A crucial component of modern UW theory revolves around understanding the concept nested within the recently re-popularized concept of IW. The 2018 National Defense Authorization Act defined IW as the activities conducted “in support of predetermined U.S. policy and military objectives conducted by, with, and through regular forces, irregular forces, groups, and individuals participating in competition between state and non-state actors short of traditional armed conflict.” In 2022, Field Manual 3-0 provided a US Army-specific definition as “the overt, clandestine, and covert employment of military and non-military capabilities across multiple domains by state and non-state actors through methods other than military domination of an adversary, either as the primary approach or in concert with conventional warfare.” The definition has now evolved in the 2023 version of JP 1 to indicate IW as “a form of warfare where states and non-state actors campaign to assure or coerce states or other groups through indirect, non-attributable, or asymmetric activities, either as the primary approach or in concert with conventional warfare.” Regardless, UW has remained a persistent aspect of the collective present-day understanding of IW theory and practice.

Figure 1. USSOCOM Activities

Current US military doctrine considers UW a subset and core component of IW, a category of warfare that also includes stability operations, counterinsurgency (COIN), foreign internal defense (FID), and counterterrorism (CT). Unconventional Warfare is currently defined as “activities conducted to enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt, or overthrow a government or occupying power by operating through or with an underground, auxiliary, and guerrilla force in a denied area.” Unconventional (clandestine) or irregular (open) warfare methods remain harder to defend against due to their operational existence in the grey zone between peace and war. This unconventional realm of warfare has long been the organizing principle and core task of the US Army Special Forces Regiment.

UW: SF Core Task and Organizing Principle

The nuanced origins of UW and examples of implementation across the globe can be traced back as far as a historian is willing to venture. Other authors have done an excellent job capturing the holistic evolution of UW in brief (i.e., Kilcullen). Thus, to reiterate, the scope of this article merely necessitates a focused discussion on what UW means to the US Army SF today. Careful analysis and discussion concerning the history of UW as Special Forces’ organizing principle and enduring core task remains necessary for SF leaders to capitalize on the opportunity to re-stake their claim on the UW aspect of IW, elevate the UW mission to prominence, and cultivate a UW mindset within the SF Regiment’s organizational culture.

The current global order faces numerous unconventional challenges of strategic interest to the US. Recent conflicts across the globe do not resemble the regular or conventional engagements of the past, as UW and broader IW situations present profoundly asymmetric threats to established governments. Guerrilla forces have an intrinsic advantage over state military forces because the latter suffer from eroded or absent situational awareness and are hesitant to inflict significant damage on the civilian populace where guerrillas hide. In 2019, Traben Pleasant highlighted numerous historical examples demonstrating how the increasingly unconventional nature of contemporary warfare indicates a continued dialogue about cultural knowledge and war. Many of the examples support the argument that battles can be won or lost based on the appropriate or inappropriate use of cultural knowledge. Cultural knowledge is a significant portion of foundational SF UW doctrine and individual soldier UW competencies. Special Forces soldiers strive to develop genuine expertise in the cultures and languages in their assigned global regions. Special Forces’ ability to adapt to and respect wide and varied cultures enables them to employ UW immediately and globally when required.

Under the umbrella of the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and the United States Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) Core Activities, UW remains the core task and organizing principle for US Army Special Forces. Unconventional warfare efforts involve activities conducted to enable a resistance movement, insurgency, or opposition movement to remove an established government, governing authority, or occupying power. This notion translates operationally to a US-supported or inspired insurgency or the creation of a total warfare environment for an indigenous population to affect a regime change. Doctrinally, but not always in practice, UW operations occur in seven phases: preparation, initial contact, infiltration, organization, buildup, employment, and transition.

Figure 2. Phases of UW

The UW task characterizes the foundational knowledge SF leaders use to accomplish all other SF missions. The publication of Field Manual (FM) 31-21 (1951), Organization and Conduct of Guerilla Warfare, can be argued as a leading influence in establishing the US Army SF to compensate for gaps that arose after the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) disbanded following the end of World War II. Some of these operational gaps included intelligence collection and analysis, special operations, and unconventional warfare capabilities. Field Manual 31-21 helped establish the inaugural doctrine, framework, and operational foundation for the US Army SF. Special Forces have historically been linked to UW since the publication of that foundational FM, and the linkage solidified through subsequent releases of FM 31-20, Special Forces Group.

Ever since, the US Army has specifically selected and trained SF leaders to conduct UW due to the regionally focused, foreign language qualified, and culturally sensitive orientation of the SF Regiment. The very nature of UW requires military leaders to carefully analyze and consider the costs or benefits of employing a strategic tool such as UW. Ultimately, UW operations represent a politically sensitive and strategic initiative aimed at altering a balance of power within a country or between sovereign powers. Special Forces represent the primary instrument capable of utilizing and employing this national and strategic politico-military tool on the United States Government’s (USG) behalf. Nevertheless, how closely the contemporary SF Regiment should continue to embrace and emphasize its core task and organizing principle in both action and theory remains a vital discussion when juxtaposed against the looming IW shadow cast across all US military services.

Special Forces Mission & Mindset

An ongoing debate exists within the higher echelons of the post-GWOT SF Regiment and overall Special Operations Forces (SOF) academia concerning GPC and the relevance of the UW mission and mindset in LSCO or on the contemporary conventional battlefield. Subsidiary to this debate, those in the pro-UW camp continue to discuss what seems at first a superficial argument over the meaning behind certain UW doctrinal and organizational beliefs. The discussion revolves around whether UW exists solely as a standalone SF mission (singular among other SF principal tasks) or whether UW represents a holistic mindset and approach that SF leaders must employ to accomplish all aspects of their job. On the surface, this healthy debate may appear to be a classic conundrum of causality.

Nevertheless, central to this debate of “mission versus mindset” is whether UW is merely a specific mission (separate principal task) that SF undertakes “to enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt or overthrow a government or occupying power by operating through or with an underground, auxiliary, or guerrilla force in a denied area.” Or rather, does SF accomplish all other principal tasks (i.e., FID, Security Force Assistance, COIN, DA, Special Reconnaissance, CT, Counter Proliferation, & Preparation of the Environment) under the overarching UW core mission set? Alternatively, does the SF Regiment necessitate a holistic UW mindset, based in theory, to accomplish operations at the operational and strategic levels of war? Though all crucial questions, the renewed IW-specific emphasis sweeping across all scholarly and operational military domains may leave SF leaders immersed in the complexities of “the big picture,” leaving UW neglected or overlooked. In reality, both sides, mission and mindset, contribute to SF’s opportunity to re-stake their claim on the UW sub-component of IW.

SF Mission

There is value in rejuvenating the UW mission to prominence in the SF Regiment. From a basic troop leading procedures (TLPs) standpoint, a mission is a task and purpose that clearly indicates an action to be taken and the reason for the action. Thus, the argument that UW represents a critical SF mission, core activity, and principal task remains relatively clear-cut in basic military terms. Unconventional warfare melds within the construct of IW and exists as one of USSOCOM’s Core Activities. United States SOCOM Directives 10-1cc: Terms of Reference- Roles, Missions, and Functions of Component Commands(U) and 525-89 (S//NF) establish USASOC as the lead component concerning UW. Unconventional warfare represents the organizing principle and core task for the US Army SF under USASOC. Special Forces DA PAM 600-3, Special Forces Branch, further indicates that UW is a core activity and mission of the US Army SF Regiment. The term “mission” means activities or actions completed to achieve an end state. Regarding the phases of UW, SF leaders accomplish preparation, initial contact, infiltration, organization, buildup, employment, and transition during UW missions. Dissecting the definition of UW, SF works with and through underground, auxiliary, (and) or guerrilla forces toward an end state of achieving the overthrow or disruption of a government or occupying power. Historically, legally, doctrinally, and in practice, UW is unequivocally SF’s mission and responsibility.

SF Mindset

Fostering a UW mindset equally strengthens the SF Regiment’s organizational culture and claim to the UW aspect of IW. A generally accepted definition of the term mindset describes an established set of attitudes or ways of thinking that individuals or groups adopt to guide the implementation of goal-directed activities. As discussed earlier, US Army FM 3-18, Special Forces Operations (2014), indicates that the UW task characterizes the foundational knowledge SF leaders employ to accomplish all other SF missions. Much credit is due to David Maxwell for staunchly defending the importance of contemporary UW and the necessity of a UW mindset or philosophy as the SF Regiment moves forward to find its balance in post-GWOT, GPC, and near-peer environments. Maxwell argues that stakeholders in the UW debate should not overly focus on the constraints of UW doctrine. Instead, there should be more emphasis on practically developing and applying the mindset and philosophical underpinnings of UW that have made US Army SF overwhelmingly successful since 1952. He discusses how the field of philosophy represents a collective assemblage of wisdom and that, similarly, a “UW mindset” or “UW thinking” has been behind every successful SF mission. The core aspects of this mindset include “problem-solving, using unique, non-doctrinal, and non-conventional methods, techniques, people, and equipment to solve (or assist in solving) complex political-military problems.”

Why not both?

One important thing to note in this debate is that both positions agree on the importance of UW to the SF Regiment, whether action-based or theoretical, as well as to future LSCO environments. However, rebuilding this capability may take considerable time. Recently, there has appeared to be much more of a unified front in opposition to the notion that UW represents an archaic and obsolete relic of the past. For example, Tovo, Atwell, and Marco recently argued in support of incorporating UW doctrine into professional military education, preserving the military’s unconventional warfighting capability, and maximizing the interaction and integration between conventional and special operations forces. Understanding the legal, doctrinal, practical, and theoretical facets of UW as it relates to SF should continue to be of paramount importance to stakeholders from USASOC, the 1st Special Forces Command (SFC), and cascade all the way down to the lowest levels of each Special Forces Group (SFG). Additionally, a case for continued promotion of, and study into, UW mindset, thinking, and problem-solving remains quite relevant to the success of future SF endeavors. The conversation concerning the UW mission and mindset provides a robust dialogue that serves to bring UW back into the spotlight again.

Though some aspects of this debate may seem minor at first glance, many thought-provoking points emerge that are worth noting. Foremost, the SF Regiment needs to take a deep look at what UW will mean to its organizational culture in the future. The hot topic of the day remains IW, but what often becomes lost in its broad wake is the foundational importance of the UW sub-component to the theory and action of IW. On an even more profound level, SF leaders risk becoming so immersed in the complexities of “the big IW picture” that the core activity and principal task of UW cede ground to all the other intricacies of the irregular conflict concept. What is needed in the future is a consensus from all stakeholders in the SF Regiment that an understanding of UW doctrine and theory and a renewed emphasis on the UW mindset should be at the forefront of the organization’s collective mind.

Conclusion: Reclaim Unconventional Warfare

In the near future, UW operations worldwide can be expected to evolve considerably. Adversarial enhancements in UW and the capability to influence populations pose significant threats in the gray zone between peace and war. Of course, a certain level of unpredictability exists due to the non-linear development of many modern conflicts and trends in warfare. With this in mind, UW operations should be monitored, rigorously assessed, and adapted continuously to keep pace with these developments. It will be incumbent on the SF Regiment to rise to the occasion and adapt UW to fit the current and future operating environment as it has successfully accomplished in past conflicts. Likewise, US Army SF stakeholders must continue to take ownership of this critical mission and foster the mindset necessary for enduring operational and strategic success. Of course, none of these efforts happen in a vacuum. As always, special operations missions, specifically UW, require non-SOF support (Fifth SOF Truth) and interservice cooperation. Therefore, this “call to arms,” per se, aims to reinvigorate the conversation concerning UW’s critical importance to SF within the IW concept and application in future conflicts.

Special Forces leaders must reclaim unconventional warfare, own it, embrace it, and re-elevate it in theory and practice to the forefront of the organizational culture. From a legal aspect, UW remains a USSOCOM core activity delegated down to USASOC and, thus, the SF Regiment. Doctrinally, UW exists as the organizing principle and core activity for the US Army SF under USASOC. All other SF principal tasks can be executed underneath the UW core activity. Many of these principal tasks (i.e., FID, CT, COIN) are all named missions within IW that SF already executes. Furthermore, a UW mindset and philosophy have continually fostered SF’s mission success for over 70 years.

The IW juggernaut that has gained steam across all military branches need not cause an undue shift in focus or a massive identity shift for the SF Regiment. Yes, IW remains relevant and vital to modern warfare and the fights to come; nevertheless, this does not mean SF leadership should lose sight of its core responsibility within the IW realm. Unconventional warfare remains a critical tool for irregular conflicts and provides policymakers with flexible options to achieve national security objectives. Special Forces contribute to this effort through their expertise in leveraging resistance movements and indigenous forces to counter adversaries effectively. The UW component of IW allows SF to address threats through asymmetric and non-traditional means. In the context of GPC, UW enables the USG to compete successfully below the threshold of war, particularly against near-peer adversaries. Moreover, UW nests well with the current irregular threat environment and plays a strategic role in countering both state and non-state threats while maintaining political deniability. The USG indicates that both primary and supporting IW efforts, including UW, can contribute substantially during LSCO.

Special Forces’ reconcentrated efforts on UW can help to fortify and operationalize US IW policy and become a pivotal component of the DOD’s efforts to compete globally and maintain an enduring strategic advantage against peer and near-peer threats well into the future. The SF Regiment must seize this opportunity to contribute and integrate into the overall JF’s IW efforts through multiple means. First, SF leaders should lead a concerted effort to reclaim the UW aspect of IW by embracing its historical roots as the US Military’s only organized and trained force capable of conducting UW. Paramount to this effort is the ability of the SF Regiment to move past the GWOT mindset of DA, CT, COIN, and combat-FID. Secondly, elevating the UW mission back to prominence allows the SF Regiment to gain buy-in with conventional forces and potentially complement operational and strategic efforts during future LSCO. Through its UW capabilities, SF can help shape the operational environment before and during LSCO, conduct deep area disruption, provide targeting and intelligence support, employ psychological operations, and sustain resistance activities behind enemy lines. Thirdly, SF must foster a UW mindset throughout its organizational culture, prioritizing flexibility, creativity, cultural knowledge, and collaboration with partner forces or resistance networks in complex and ambiguous environments.56 Capitalizing on these factors related to UW can help solidify SF’s post-GWOT identity, integrate the SF Regiment more efficiently into the overarching IW conversation, and, more broadly, prepare SF leaders to succeed in LSCO environments shaped by strategic and great power competition.

Tags: doctrine, irregular warfare, Military strategy, organizational culture, Unconventional Warfare, United States Army Special Forces

About The Author

• 
  
• Daniel Ross
• Dr. Daniel W. Ross earned a Master of Science in 2015 and his Doctorate degree in 2023, both in Management and Homeland Security. During his career, Dr. Ross has served at various levels with the 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) and deployed to conflict zones in Africa, Ukraine, and Afghanistan. He also teaches graduate-level university courses related to homeland security, homeland defense, national security, terrorism studies, counterterrorism, weapons of mass destruction, emergency and disaster management, and intelligence analysis. Dr. Ross has been published in ProQuest, Special Warfare, and the NCO Journal.

2. Defense Primer: What Is Irregular Warfare?

​I think it is interesting to note that CRS references the definition of US from SEC 1097 of the 2016 NDAA (1097 was the section on directing DOD to develop a counter-UW strategy against our adversaries who are conducting UW around the world. DOD never fully complied with Congress' direction). 

Can anyone recognize the difference between the law and the DOD definition in JP-1-02?

Unconventional Warfare. P.L. 114-92, Section 1097, National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY2016, defines UW as “activities conducted to enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt, or overthrow a government or occupying power by operating through or with an underground, auxiliary, or guerrilla force in a denied area.” UW is a core component of IW. 

​JP 1-02 and JP 3-05 defines UW as “activities conducted to enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt, or overthrow a government or occupying power by operating through or with an underground, auxiliary, and guerrilla force in a denied area.”

I am happy to provide the backstory of the difference to anyone who is interested.

Defense Primer: What Is Irregular Warfare?

Updated November 29, 2024

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12565/5

Introduction 

U.S. military doctrine distinguishes between two types of warfare: traditional warfare and irregular warfare. In Department of Defense (DOD) Joint Publication (JP) 1 Joint Warfighting, conventional warfare is characterized as “a violent struggle for domination between nation-states or coalitions and alliances of nation-states, fought with conventional forces.” The publication differentiates between that and irregular warfare (IW), which is defined as “a form of warfare where states and non-state actors campaign to assure or coerce states or other groups through indirect, non-attributable, or asymmetric activities, either as the primary approach or in concert with conventional warfare.” IW is a joint activity not limited to special operations forces (SOF); the IW operating environment includes all domains and the information environment (IE). According to JP 3-04 Information in Joint Operations, the IE is “the aggregate of social, cultural, linguistic, psychological, technical, and physical factors that affect how humans and automated systems derive meaning from, act upon, and are impacted by information, including the individuals, “organizations, and systems that collect, process, disseminate, or use information.

​Read the remainder of the report at this link: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12565/5

3. Secretary Marco Rubio Remarks to Employees

Video at the link link: https://www.state.gov/secretary-marco-rubio-remarks-to-employees/?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=hero&utm_campaign=s_remarks_employees

​Excerpt:

This is an extraordinary honor and a privilege to serve in this role, to be here; frankly, to oversee the greatest, the most effective, the most talented, the most experienced diplomatic corps in the history of the world resides in this building. (Applause.)

Secretary Marco Rubio Remarks to Employees

Remarks

Marco Rubio, Secretary of State

January 21, 2025

Secretary of State Marco A. Rubio delivers remarks to employees upon arrival

Secretary of State Marco A. Rubio delivers remarks to employees upon arrival at the Department of State, on January 21, 2025

Play Video

SECRETARY RUBIO: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Thank you. It’s a blessing and an honor to be with all of you today. And I want to introduce you to my family. I want you to meet them. I – we’ve been able to manage them for the last – (laughter) – twenty-something years and counting. And so it’s – I said this earlier today when the Vice President swore me in: My most important job, I believe the most important job any of us will ever have, is the job we do at home. And I don’t mean that – both here at home domestically in our politics, but in our lives.

And I’m very proud of my wife and my four children and their support. My wife Jeanette, who – (cheers and applause). Her parents immigrated here from Colombia. Anybody here from Colombia? Anybody cover Colombia? (Cheers.) And then my oldest daughter, Amanda. Say hello, Amanda. (Applause.) And then came Daniella. (Applause.) And now Anthony. (Applause.) And our youngest, Dominick. (Applause.)

So these three – these three are in school, meaning college and even jobs. We’ve got – we’re still working; he’s doing good. (Laughter.) He’s a junior in high school. And obviously, my family beyond that is here, who made this possible. Jeanette’s mom Maria is here, and my sisters Barbara and Veronica are here, and a lot of friends that came from Miami who joined us here today. And I’m grateful. And thank you.

I also want to recognize my former colleagues from the congressional branch, who also happen to be appropriators and authorizers. And so I thought it was important – (laughter). Three people I’ve known for a long time, and by coincidence Florida is very well represented in the authorization and appropriations in the House. Mario Díaz-Balart, who I – (applause) – who I’ve known as a personal friend; we served together in the Florida legislature – in fact, sat next to each other on the floor. Who would’ve thought, Mario, back in the day? And now here we are. And two Cuban Americans. If we had a third, they’d call it a conspiracy, but there’s only two, so we’re in shape. (Laughter.)

Congresswoman Lois Frankel – we also served in the legislature together. Again, I know this – (applause). I know it looks suspicious – she just happens to be from Florida as well, and they happen to – (laughter) – she happens to be on that committee. And then of course my colleague, who – Brian Mast, who – thank you for being here as well. (Applause.) I have asked them as a personal favor to be nice to each of you who we send over to testify and appear before their committees, so – (laughter) – and to be nice to us when they write those appropriations bills and pass those laws. And – but we are – I’m really grateful you joined us, because our partnership will be critically important.

I want to thank President Trump for nominating me. This is an extraordinary honor and a privilege to serve in this role, to be here; frankly, to oversee the greatest, the most effective, the most talented, the most experienced diplomatic corps in the history of the world resides in this building. (Applause.)

And it’s important to remember that obviously they serve our national interest and our foreign policy; they also serve Americans. And as a member of the Senate, we often would get calls – for a brief period of time, panicked calls about passports, as you remember that era when everyone forgot their passport expired and their cruise was on Saturday, and it’s Friday 5:00 p.m. (Laughter.) So we were – why are you guys chuckling? Is that – you know it’s true. It’s happened. (Laughter.) And then of course – but we also serve Americans that sometimes find themselves overseas and lost their passport, or even worse something terrible or tragic happened and their families are impacted by it. And so it’s important – it’s an important task and one that I know is critical to our mission.

Beyond that, this is the face of the United States. In fact, if you think about it, for many people on this planet, their only interaction with America – most will never travel here – their only interaction with America in many cases – whether they be leaders or everyday people – will be the men and women who serve us abroad and do so with tremendous integrity and dedication. They are literally the face of our country – whether it’s through the aid we’ve provided or through the services.

I also want to say hello – and is this being livestreamed somewhere? Like, people watching this in all of our missions? Good. I want to thank them. I know they can’t be with us here today and depending on where they are in the world, it’s probably not as cold as it’s been – at least for a Floridian. (Laughter.) So I also think the brilliance of this organization shows by hosting these events indoors which – (laughter) – it’s already showing, and we’re grateful for that as well. But I want to tell you that I want to thank you – all of those who were serving overseas and abroad, some in places that are strong and stable and others that are more tenuous and dangerous.

And I want to do something also special – I want to also thank the locally employed staff, the nationals of those countries who work with us. (Applause.) Without their help, without their support, it would be impossible for us to conduct our mission, and in many ways years later I’ve run into people – literally run into people in the United States that are either conducting business or visiting as tourists or what have you, and they will tell me they were a locally employed in our – they were locally – local employees of our missions abroad, and as a result their love for our country is never-ending.

I am new to this department. Today is my first day on the job literally, but I am not a stranger to it. I have interacted with many of you – both in my travels abroad and in our daily functions. My job now is different. And our job in some ways will be different. In our republic, the voters decide the course of our nation, both domestically and abroad, and they have elected Donald J. Trump as our President when it comes to foreign policy on a very clear mission. And that mission is to ensure that our foreign policy is centered on one thing and that is the advancement of our national interest, which they have clearly defined through his campaign as anything that makes us stronger or safer or more prosperous, and that will be our mission. That will be our job across the world, is to ensure that we have a foreign policy that advances the national interest of the United States.

I expect every nation on earth to advance their national interests. And in those instances – and I hope there will be many — in which our national interests and theirs align, we look forward to working with them. This is in many ways – and again, it was referenced by President Trump yesterday in his speech that he designs – that his overriding goal for global policy is the promotion of peace, the avoidance of conflict, and no agency will more – be more critical in that regard than this one. In fact, it’s its founding principle and purpose. And that’s what we endeavor to do – to promote peace around the world, because that’s in our national interest. Without peace, it is hard to be a strong nation, a prosperous nation, and one that is better off.

But there will also be challenges. We recognize that there will be those times unfortunately as humans interact with one another because of our nature that there will be conflict. We will seek to prevent them and avoid them, but never at the expense of our national security, never at the expense of our national interest, and never at the expense of our core values as a nation and as a people. We are – at the end of the day – a nation founded on a powerful principle, and that powerful principle is that all men are created equal, because our rights come from God our Creator – not from our laws, not from our governments.

And we hope the entire world can one day live under that, and we will always – always – be strong defenders of that principle – never at the expense of our national interest, never at the expense of pragmatic foreign policy, never at the expense of the reality that oftentimes in foreign policy our choices are not between – are between two – a bad option and a good option. Sometimes in foreign relations our options are two bad ones, and we’re just trying to figure out which one of them is least bad. And that’s unfortunate, but it is true. And that’s a tough job. It’s our job. And we’ll seek to do it right and well. That is the core mission of this agency, and it will be the core mission while Donald Trump is President, and we will be effective on his behalf.

I also want this agency to be – and I don’t mean – not that it’s irrelevant now, but I want it to be where it belongs. I want the Department of State to be at the center of how America engages the world – not just how we execute on it, but on how we formulate it. Some of the brightest minds in foreign policy reside within this building and within this government, and we need to ensure that we have an environment here that’s conducive to creativity, to boldness, to new ideas, to recognizing the dynamic world in which we live – one that is changing faster than it has ever changed before. And we need to be ahead of it.

When the time comes for the principals to gather or even deputies, I want the Department of State to have the best ideas and the best options available for the President, and then I want us to be able to execute them better than any agency in our government. That will also be a task of mine. I have watched from the congressional side from time to time, administrations in both parties, in which sometimes the Department of State has been sort of relegated to a secondary role because some other agency can move faster or seems to be bolder or more creative. It’s not your fault, but we’re going to change that. We want to be at the centerpiece, and we want to be at the core of how we formulate foreign policy, because we’re going to have the best ideas of any agency and because we’re going to execute it better and faster and more effectively than any other agency in our government. And I know we have the right team to do it.

There’s no other agency in the world – there’s no other agency in our government – that I’d rather lead because of the talent that’s collected here in this room and those watching around the world. That will be our mission, and I hope we will be able to do it together. There will be changes, but the changes are not meant to be destructive, they’re not meant to be punitive, they’re not out of – the changes will be because we need to be a 21st century agency that can move, by a cliche that’s used by many, at the speed of relevance. But we need to move faster than we ever have because the world is changing faster than we ever have, and we have to have a view that some say is called “look around the corner,” but we really need to be thinking about where are we going to be in five, seven, 10, or 15 years.

Some of the issues that confront humanity today have no precedent. They have no historic precedent. Some of the challenges we face have no historic precedent. We can compare it to another era, to another time, but they’re not the same. Things are moving faster than ever. Think about how much the world has changed in the last five years. Imagine how much it will change over the next 25 years. And my sincerest hope and my prayer is that we will, as a nation, be able to leave the future generations with a country and a planet safer and better than the one that was left for us, and you will be a big part of achieving that goal.

It is an honor to be able to lead this agency. I hope to do it with distinction and with integrity, working harder than anyone ever has at this role. And that will not be easy, because some pretty hard-working people have come before me. (Laughter.) But I know that we are up to the task, and I’m glad that I’m in the job, that I’m in the job on day one. I was sworn in at about 9:15. I didn’t mess up the oath. (Laughter.) And we’re ready to go to work and I know you are as well. Thank you. God bless all of you. God bless our country. Thank you. (Cheering and applause.)

4. Priorities and Mission of the Second Trump Administration’s Department of State

Excerpts:

Every dollar we spend, every program we fund, and every policy we pursue must be justified with the answer to three simple questions: 

Does it make America safer? 

Does it make America stronger? 

Does it make America more prosperous?  

Priorities and Mission of the Second Trump Administration’s Department of State

Press Statement

Marco Rubio, Secretary of State

January 22, 2025

https://www.state.gov/priorities-and-mission-of-the-second-trump-administrations-department-of-state/

Serving as America’s 72nd Secretary of State is the highest honor of my professional life.  President Trump has given me a clear direction to place our core national interest as the guiding mission of American foreign policy.  Every dollar we spend, every program we fund, and every policy we pursue must be justified with the answer to three simple questions:  

• Does it make America safer?  
• Does it make America stronger?  
• Does it make America more prosperous?  

To advance our national interest, we will build a more innovative, nimble, and focused State Department.  This will require replacing some priorities, deemphasizing some issues, and eliminating some practices. 

First, we must curb mass migration and secure our borders.  The State Department will no longer undertake any activities that facilitate or encourage mass migration. Our diplomatic relations with other countries, particularly in the Western Hemisphere, will prioritize securing America’s borders, stopping illegal and destabilizing migration, and negotiating the repatriation of illegal immigrants. 

Next, we must reward performance and merit, including within the State Department ranks.  President Trump issued an executive order eliminating “DEIA” requirements, programs, and offices throughout the government.  This order will be faithfully executed and observed in both letter and spirit. 

Relatedly, we must return to the basics of diplomacy by eliminating our focus on political and cultural causes that are divisive at home and deeply unpopular abroad.  This will allow us to conduct a pragmatic foreign policy in cooperation with other nations to advance our core national interests. 

We must stop censorship and suppression of information.  The State Department’s efforts to combat malign propaganda have expanded and fundamentally changed since the Cold War era and we must reprioritize truth.  The State Department I lead will support and defend Americans’ rights to free speech, terminating any programs that in any way lead to censoring the American people. While we will combat genuine enemy propaganda, we will do so only with the fundamental truth that America is a great and just country whose people are generous and whose leaders now prioritize Americans’ core interests while respecting the rights and interests of other nations. 

Finally, we must leverage our strengths and do away with climate policies that weaken America.  While we will not ignore threats to our natural environment and will support sensible environmental protections, the State Department will use diplomacy to help President Trump fulfill his promise for a return to American energy dominance. 

In short, President Trump’s forward-looking agenda for our country and foreign relations will guide the State Department’s refocus on American national interests.  Amid today’s reemerging great power rivalry, I will empower our talented diplomatic corps to advance our mission to make America safer, stronger, and more prosperous. 

5. Intentions v actions (DOS Priorities)

​A discussion of:

Priorities and Mission of the Second Trump Administration’s Department of State

https://www.state.gov/priorities-and-mission-of-the-second-trump-administrations-department-of-state/

​

Excerpts:

Diplomacy is a single instrument among several our country uses to achieve our objectives. It cannot achieve everything on its own nor can any other instrument, including military power. Strategy is the orchestration of instruments, sequenced and applied in concerted effort to achieve objectives to support our national interest. As I have quoted a former career diplomat from a private conversation several weeks back, diplomats work to advance our national interests rather than trying to change the rest of the world. We seem to forget that too often because it’s uncomfortable and doesn’t fit a common American recipe for running the world.

Secretary Rubio will be busy at home and abroad but his actions will be vital within his department to assure our foreign policy successes. Diplomats are not perfect but they are hard working representatives of this country on the front lines, day in and day out. Some likely did not recognize when they took their jobs that the front lines would be at home as much as in the field. The Secretary has a role in addressing that.

Intentions v actions

how they’re viewed

https://cynthiawatson.substack.com/p/intentions-v-actions?utm

Cynthia Watson

Jan 21, 2025

My sister-in-law alerted me to Kristin Hannah’s novels last spring, sparking a marked revision in my reading habits. For over forty-five years as an academic I felt guilty reading anything that wasn’t relevant to national security issues as there were so subjects to follow to be ready to teach national security practitioners. I am finding Hannah’s works both quite engaging for an aging boomer woman but also poignant in ways I did not anticipate.

She had a line in Home Front that I copied the day before yesterday without anticipating its relevance to today’s topic on changes afoot in our new era. It’s pretty obvious yet merits remembering.

“It’s not intentions that matter. It’s actions. My drill instructor used to say that all the time. We are what we do and say, not what we intend to.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, sworn in this morning as the fourth man in line to the presidency, met early with that small cadre of personnel charged with conducting the majority of our diplomatic foreign engagements (I make that distinction as clearly the senior military and some other agencies also use diplomacy but State’s role is solely that). Rubio may not be aware of it, having served as a Senator rather than a career diplomat, but it’s hard to underestimate the knocks his department’s personnel absorb on a regular basis. I fear he will learn rather quickly.

Most Americans have little interest in diplomacy, viewing it as a weak, unsophisticated instrument, preferring military power with its machismo and cojones. Certainly in the past half century, we embraced the belief that weakness prevented our victories in Korea, Vietnam or the greater Middle East rather than asking whether we had objectives that were unachievable. If we are harsh, unbending and hard, our desired outcome will result in too many American eyes. As far back as I can recall, the State Department, with no domestic constituency, was cast as full of softies who attended polo matches, played tennis, and surrendered U.S. interests to the demands of others.

I had an exchange with someone here on substack several months ago on this topic. The reader basically found FSOs worthless (not his word but pretty close) based on his experiences in another agency. I responded that I found that assessment incorrect, giving my reasons, but primarily arguing they are intended to talk talk talk because that exchange of ideas is what any diplomats do. We ultimately terminated the exchange with neither of us budging from our positions as our assumptions of both value and the role of diplomacy in national security diverged. Fair enough. I respected him taking time to respond, even if I vehemently with his criticisms.

As a society, we are, of course, notoriously ahistorical and uninterested. Americans hate lots of things without knowing much about them, often deploying gross generalizations because we don’t bother learning nuance of how our government works on our behalf. This is goes back to at least the Reagan administration when Americans bought the argument that so many of their taxes go into foreign aid. I once was on a radio show in Chicago where a caller talked about 50% of the federal budget (yes, you are reading that correctly) goes to foreign aid. Nothing I could say mattered to this man, especially when I noted foreign aid is such a miniscule portion of the federal budget but most diplomats don’t give aid at all. The late North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms loved to drone on about sending foreign aid down rat holes, with the United Nations being at the top of his (and many Americans) hit list. But, the evidence simply has never supported the charges. Plus, assistance has its role as an instrument but that’s another topic.

How many of us know that we sought to locate the United Nations in New York and had traditionally paid a significant portion of its operating budget to assure we have a disproportionately strong influence over the body’s actions? History is not always welcome, but I digress.

Diplomats are the patient, nuanced, long-term interlocutors with the world. That’s what we pay them to do. Most of the time that takes a whole lot longer than we like but it’s also much cheaper than using the military which is the less surgical and a huge, blunt instrument of foreign policy. Some problems just don’t respond to force but the country’s leadership, the command authority, decides on which instrument to use in any situation under every administration. State certainly operates within that system.

Diplomats are often, if not always, the some of the smartest people you’ll ever meet. Their language is careful for a reason: they never like to foreclose options but want to return to negotiation, talks to reach an agreement. Yes, they likely are somewhat risk averse but that’s how their culture approaches the mission. At least as importantly, the diplomats we send overseas go to some pretty crappy posts around the globe (no, not every Embassy is Canberra or the Mayflower district of London. Try the consulate in Shenyang which is a ramshackle building in a declining, polluted city in northeast China so imagine Mogadishu or Dacca) to be our eyes and ears. Diplomatic cables tell us why the actions of forces on the ground need be part of our calculations; other societies have their own interests and panoply of players we rarely understand from far away.

Much of the time other countries (including some of our closest allies) cannot be persuaded to alter their objectives anymore than we can: think Beijing’s on going threat to Taiwan or Lebanon throwing out Hezbollah. It’s not as if diplomats don’t try to advance our senior level talking points, in constant coordination with the White House via the National Security Council staff, to assure Beijing or any other country knows our position. We have told Pyongyang for decades under Democrats and Republicans that they must abandon their nuclear program to no avail.

Diplomats, I observed hundreds in the unfettered learning environment of a not-for-attribution seminar room, are also generally much more “realist” than military or any other government officials. Your read that correctly: my experience is that diplomats understand the raw hard choices of power because they know the limits of their craft and those of the rest of the government. They persist in dialogue as that’s how negotiations work: through painstaking conversation, give and take, reexamining topics, and hammering our accords. But I have only known perhaps four diplomats in my thirty years’ teaching who were anything other than the harshest advocates for U.S. national interests. The SINGLE most Realpolitik, hard power person I have ever known had spent much of his career on the DPRK so he knew that limits exist, regardless of our cultural aspirations and expectations to the contrary.

All of which comes back to what the New York Times says Secretary Rubio had to say to his troops this morning. The subtext to the headline reads “Marco Rubio told State Department Employees that changes under President Trump ‘weren’t meant to be destructive, not meant to be punitive’” yet that is precisely how the changes are are being unveiled.

Traditionally, all ambassadors tender their resignations upon the closure of an outgoing administration, regardless who follows. Ambassadors serve as the head of state’s personal envoy to another country, rather than as some independent agent of the U.S. government. The ambassadors who served Joe Biden tendered their resignations last week as expected. I strongly doubt any of them will retain ambassadorships under the new administration which is President Trump’s prerogative.

But the Foreign Service Officers are a career field within our government, one of the most difficult positions to achieve. Literally hundreds of applicants fail to make the cut so these seasoned personnel, chosen carefully to advance our interests rather than to promote individual agendas or the ideas of an independent foreign policy, need a feeling that their positions can remain a career field. To dismiss those whose specialized skills in writing cables, assessing political contexts, economic challenges, and anything else because they served under a prior administration would be diabolical for our foreign policy.

Diplomats may not agree with individual policies but they then do not necessarily thwart it. Instead, FSOs are professionals who subjugate their personal beliefs or they resign, precisely as any military officer or government official.

The real challenge is when political appointees, who every single President has the right to appoint as his personal envoy, don’t do their homework or misunderstand where their country fits into the national security aspirations of this nation. FSOs, particularly under the watchful eye of any embassy’s Deputy Chief of Mission who is a career rather than political person, serve to keep the State Department aligned with the policies as well as with the host nation where we maintain contacts.

Yet the State Department career field seems the single most common target for Americans frustrated that we don’t always get our way in the world. Turns out, to take a political science term, the rest of the world gets “agency”, or a vote on policy as much Americans do, yet we blame our diplomats when they don’t achieve our grandiose and often unachievable goals (Afghanistan or Iraq come to mind).

This takes us back to Kristin Hannah’s quote. Secretary Rubio has a tough road ahead to convince State personnel that attacks on their mission and career field integrity are not punitive. The incoming Secretary must lead a sustained effort that may not be achievable since so many critics seem to seek retribution against career diplomats by blaming them to failures that are far more multi-causal than diplomacy.

Diplomacy is a single instrument among several our country uses to achieve our objectives. It cannot achieve everything on its own nor can any other instrument, including military power. Strategy is the orchestration of instruments, sequenced and applied in concerted effort to achieve objectives to support our national interest. As I have quoted a former career diplomat from a private conversation several weeks back, diplomats work to advance our national interests rather than trying to change the rest of the world. We seem to forget that too often because it’s uncomfortable and doesn’t fit a common American recipe for running the world.

Secretary Rubio will be busy at home and abroad but his actions will be vital within his department to assure our foreign policy successes. Diplomats are not perfect but they are hard working representatives of this country on the front lines, day in and day out. Some likely did not recognize when they took their jobs that the front lines would be at home as much as in the field. The Secretary has a role in addressing that.

I welcome your thoughts, rebuttals, and questions on this or any Actions create Consequences column. My goal, as I have noted, is to expand measured, civil dialogue on the challenges (such as foreign policy) which we confront. I don’t have all of the answers but try framing the questions in some ways that may be useful.

I appreciate your time every day. I also thank the paid subscribers who support this effort. You can become an annual subscriber for less than a dollar a week.

Be well and be safe. FIN

Kristin Hannah, Home Front: A Novel. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2022.

Edward Wong, “Rubio Oversees Halt to Foreign Aid and Meets with Asian Diplomats on Day 1”, NewYorkTimes.com, 21 January 2025, retrieved at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/21/us/politics/marco-rubio-trump-administration.html

6. further on State

​Two views on Secretary Rubio's cable to the Department.

Excerpts:

Specifically, Rubio’s cable to all posts and the employees at Foggy Bottom demands dropping DEI policies (consistent with new orders throughout the federal government), stress mass migration concerns, demand energy dominance, and “end censorship of the American people”. These means will lead to a safer, stronger, and more prosperous America in alignment with President Trump’s vow the revitalize the country.

This guidance limits the ways and means FSOs can use to achieve their mission. The essence of a successful strategy is always, repeat always orchestrating the widest array of tools in a creative manner, often completely unconventional approach, to achieve the desired endstate.

...

In short, Rubio needed some messaging to assuage concerns about how those operating differently in the past will be treated in the new administration. The interpretation by those the cable reached will, as I said, require actions rather than merely intentions to assure how we treat those we need to be most productive diplomats across the globe.

....

The second thing I want to cite is a response from a subscriber to yesterday’s column. Lest you think I only mention those of you who agree with me, a loyal, thoughtful reader sent me an extended response which I excerpt for our dialogue.

“My military duties frequently took me into U.S. Embassies around the world working with Country Teams, CoS’s [Chiefs of Staffs], DATs [Defense Attaches] and other agencies with representation in the embassies…As you said, some of these locations are less than posh and some are downright dangerous for those working there as well as their families living in the area with school-age children…I was mostly impressed with the passion State Dept personnel displayed…I was, however, very often disappointed at the Country Team’s overall lack of understanding of the ‘blunt instrument’ that is the military. Often I found they had a pretty good understanding of the SDO [senior defense official] and/or DAT but other DOD “outsiders” who had legitimate missions requiring Embassy awareness, support, and often approval to operate in the country were seen as potential threats to the diplomatic mission vs. Force multipliers…I always wondered if career Foreign Service Officers received any texts re: DoD in their training. Many worker-level State Department folks…seemed clueless about how the DoD worked and trained…and did not seem inclined to learn…”

The author watched the Secretary’s remarks (I have only read them) which left him confident that Mr. Rubio’s grasp of the implication his cable has along with a generally positive thrust for State personnel. Particularly the author found Secretary Rubio’s goal of making the Department the focal point for diplomatic policy in the future most encouraging, starting the administration off with an exceptionally optimistic attitude.

further on State

follow ups

https://cynthiawatson.substack.com/p/further-on-state?utm

Cynthia Watson

Jan 22, 2025

Twenty-four hours provides much time for feedback and for further details on topics covered in this column. Yesterday I discussed the changes underway for the State Department

https://cynthiawatson.substack.com/p/intentions-v-actions

Let me start with the latter on why the Secretary of State felt compelled to argue that actions involving his new underlings were not punitive. According to Realcleardefense.com, Secretary Rubio condemned the Department’s employees for putting internationalist ideology over U.S. national interest. He ordered not a single penny go towards anything other than advancing U.S. national interests, with the implication that a single, clearly articulated approach to advance those interests by means other than the ones the Department has been using for the past century.

Specifically, Rubio’s cable to all posts and the employees at Foggy Bottom demands dropping DEI policies (consistent with new orders throughout the federal government), stress mass migration concerns, demand energy dominance, and “end censorship of the American people”. These means will lead to a safer, stronger, and more prosperous America in alignment with President Trump’s vow the revitalize the country.

This guidance limits the ways and means FSOs can use to achieve their mission. The essence of a successful strategy is always, repeat always orchestrating the widest array of tools in a creative manner, often completely unconventional approach, to achieve the desired endstate.

If the Department must focus on the four matters discussed above, then those tools available are limited. An example would be if we are trying to undermine the Taliban’s credibility in the Islamic world by stressing its barbaric treatment of women as a excluded population precisely as we are limiting eliminating the values of equity and inclusion, not to mention diversity, in our argument to others. Afghanistan may not be a popular topic for Americans these days but represents perhaps the starkest difference between a society bent on advancing the interests of a segment (men) of its population versus advancing the standards for a society. Rubio’s cable is a constraint for the diplomatic corps, likely confusing the prioritization of U.S. domestic changes with national security issues abroad. Harder, though probably not impossible though the ending of DEI will probably reduce the number of women serving abroad, limiting their creative contributions to advancing those causes the Secretary cites.

It’s also hard to see the moves as supporting the careers of anyone other than white men. That doesn’t seem important perhaps in an era where the argument will be “the best person for the job” but race, gender, and experiences play into the image we project overseas as others watch us. Limiting any factors that would consider Asian American background, for example, paints a picture of our country that is vastly at odds with our professed constitutional guarantees of providing for the common defense and prosperity for all. That the first Cuban American Secretary issued this cable is fascinating but fully legal under any president’s prerogative, of course.

In short, Rubio needed some messaging to assuage concerns about how those operating differently in the past will be treated in the new administration. The interpretation by those the cable reached will, as I said, require actions rather than merely intentions to assure how we treat those we need to be most productive diplomats across the globe.

The second thing I want to cite is a response from a subscriber to yesterday’s column. Lest you think I only mention those of you who agree with me, a loyal, thoughtful reader sent me an an extended response which I excerpt for our dialogue.

“My military’s duties frequently took me into U.S. Embassies around the world working with Country Teams, CoS’s [Chiefs of Staffs], DATs [Defense Attaches] and other agencies with representation in the embassies…As you said, some of these locations are less than posh and some are downright dangerous for those working there as well as their families living in the area with school-age children…I was mostly impressed with the passion State Dept personnel displayed…I was, however, very often disappointed at the Country Team’s overall lack of understanding of the ‘blunt instrument’ that is the military. Often I found they had a pretty good understanding of the SDO [senior defense official] and/or DAT but other DOD “outsiders” who had legitimate missions requiring Embassy awareness, support, and often approval to operate in the country were seen as potential threats to the diplomatic mission vs. Force multipliers…I always wondered if career Foreign Service Officers received any texts re: DoD in their training. Many worker-level State Department folks…seemed clueless about how the DoD worked and trained…and did not seem inclined to learn…”

The author watched the Secretary’s remarks (I have only read them) which left him confident that Mr. Rubio’s grasp of the implication his cable has along with a generally positive thrust for State personnel. Particularly the author found Secretary Rubio’s goal of making the Department the focal point for diplomatic policy in the future most encouraging, starting the administration off with an exceptionally optimistic attitude.

I encourage precisely these responses to anything I say or quote. I offer two thoughts to the excellent summation. Secretary Rubio’s hope to center State as the focal point of foreign policy will depend on President Trump’s management preference, specifically via the National Security Council. I cannot think of an administration in the post-1945 period where the chief diplomat did not anticipate the same sort of recrafting of State’s centrality yet we still see the policy decisions rarely made in Foggy Bottom. The Department tends to implement rather than coordinate or dominate decision-making. Instead, as I noted yesterday, the Department carries out U.S. diplomatic goals as established by the White House, often through NSC activities. How the incoming National Security Advisor, former Congressman Michael Waltz, views the Council—operational versus advisory to the president, top down versus collaborative with the cabinet secretaries, or a host of other organizational models—will be every bit as important as anything Secretary Rubio may desire. Henry Kissinger was only de jure Secretary of State for the second Nixon term yet as the National Security Advisor under a hub-and-spoke, secretive model, Kissinger left the initial Secretary of State, William Rogers, embarrassed and shut out of decision-making for almost all topics, especially the significant ones. Kissinger-rather than the Secretary or even Nixon-won the Nobel Prize for negotiating with Hanoi to end U.S. ground troops in Vietnam.

Second, the author makes an invaluable point about State personnel being unaware of many DoD capabilities. This results, I suspect, not only from the protective sense of bureaucratic turf as a much being a considerably smaller agency watching the vast resources of the defense community. State must deliver to stay alive, even if that sadly doesn’t understand how to effectively use partnership with others. But the author is absolutely correct that strategy is not an individual or single agency sport but a coordinated activity.

And, the small size of the Foreign Service partially explains why ignorance about others persists. According to the Foreign Service Association, the State Department had 13,910 officers in Fiscal Year 2019 (most recent numbers I found), with an additional 1700 in the U.S. Agency for International Development, 279 in the Foreign Commercial Section, 200 in the Foreign Agricultural Service, and 25 in the Agency for Global Media. The aggregate 15,600 Foreign Service personnel, augmented by a small number of non-FSOs and “local hires” for drivers, administration, etc., represent the United States in 276 posts around the world.

By comparison, active duty U.S. military personnel in 2023 numbered 168,000 in a comparable number of countries.

One of the greatest complaints from the Foreign Service I have ever known is that they wish they had more time for professional education, learning about the rest of the national security community, and grasping the interplay between various tools of statecraft. The National War College began in 1946 to be a part of that overall expansion of understanding our own capacities and limitations within the emerging Cold War security community, State being a major player from the beginning.

But we the public don’t want to pay for more FSOs (remember my point yesterday that they are the smallest cabinet agency by far) so they are stretched extremely thin and the agency has no professional education of its own. This is partially why FSOs tend to be so highly educated and experienced when hired. That is not an alibi for not knowing what the author above found but it is reality. By comparison, the military officer serving a comparable twenty year (the retirement cut off for anyone in uniform) career would have had at least junior level professional military education, if not also senior level, plus likely other educational opportunities. Or, let’s remember the National War College is one of nine institutions offering a master’s degree in national security education in one form or another; State has none of its own once the Senior Seminar, a small cadre program, closed a generation ago. Arguably, our distaste for paying for anything “foreign” is cutting our noses off to spite our faces but it’s as American as is watching college football.

These are two points I wanted to expound on to give us a fuller understanding of the issues in yesterday’s column. Please send me any thoughts, challenges, queries or rebuttals as I welcome them.

Thank you for your time today. If this is valuable, please feel free to circulate. Thank you to the paid subscribers who make this possible. It’s less than a dollar a week for a year’s subscription.

Be well and be safe. FIN

“Map Showing Number of ‘Active Duty’ Serving Troops Overseas”, brilliant maps.com, 24 November 2024, retrieved at https://afsa.org/foreign-service-numbers

Julie Nutter, “Where We Stand”, afsa.org, 2019, retrieved at https://afsa.org/foreign-service-numbers

Philip Wegmann, “Exclusive: Rubio Outlines ‘Sweeping Change’ in Cable to U.S. Diplomats Worldwide”, RealClearPolitics.com, 21 January 2025, retrieved at https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2025/01/21/rubio_outlines_sweeping_change_cable_us_diplomats_worldwide_152229.html

7. Two officers were fired for bucking their chain of command. Now they're going to work at the Pentagon.

Two officers were fired for bucking their chain of command. Now they're going to work at the Pentagon.

President Donald Trump has tapped two former lieutenant colonels, Stuart Scheller and Matthew Lohmeier, for Defense Department positions years after they were relieved of command for publicly criticizing senior military leaders.

Jeff Schogol

Posted 18 Hours Ago

taskandpurpose.com · by Jeff Schogol

Two of President Donald Trump’s picks for Pentagon posts are former officers who publicly challenged senior military leaders and during the most recent administration: Former Space Force Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier and former Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller.

Trump prizes loyalty first and foremost in his subordinates and he has shown an eagerness to reverse many of his predecessor’s policies. The fact that Scheller and Lohmeier are critics of the military under President Joe Biden, and the views that got them in trouble in uniform now mirror many that Trump has publicly endorsed, could give them clout with the new administration.

Along with Trump’s nominee for defense secretary Pete Hegseth, both men have criticized military diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, or DEI.

Lohmeier has been nominated to serve as undersecretary of the Air Force. In May 2021, he was fired as commander of 11th Space Warning Squadron at Buckley Air Force Base, after talking about his book “Irresistible Revolution: Marxism’s Goal of Conquest & the Unmaking of the American Military” on the “Information Operation,” podcast hosted by Creative Destruction, or CD, Media, Military.com reported.

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“Our diversity, inclusion, and equity industry and the trainings we’re receiving in the military via that industry are rooted in critical race theory, which is rooted in Marxism,” Lohmeier said. “And the language of the training, which most people don’t understand but I help laid out in the book, was devised by Marxists.”

In a Jan. 17 post on X, Lohmeier thanked Trump for nominating him and wrote that he was looking forward to “continuing my service to our great men and women in uniform.”

“To all men and women with a desire to serve your country in uniform, come join us now!” Lohmeier wrote. “We want the best, brightest, and strongest of you at this critical juncture in American history.”

Separately, Scheller made headlines for posting videos, while in uniform, in which he criticized senior military leaders over the Afghanistan withdrawal, and was later sent to the brig and subsequently court-martialed. He announced on Monday that he had “accepted the position of Senior Advisor to the DoD Under Secretary in personnel and readiness.”

Scheller received a punitive letter of reprimand and was ordered to forfeit $5,000 of one month’s pay in October 2021 after pleading guilty to showing contempt toward officials, showing disrespect toward superior commissioned officers, willfully disobeying a superior commissioned officer, dereliction in the performance of duties, failure to obey an order or regulation, and conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.

On Monday, Scheller posted on social media that he had accepted a position with the Defense Department. He also accused the Biden administration of “incompetence” and claimed that no senior active general officers have accepted responsibility for their mistakes in recent history.

“DEI, incompetence, and moral weakness (telling people what they want to hear or not speaking up) are all symptoms of the larger problem: a system incentivizing career progression over performance,” Scheller wrote.

Both Scheller and Lohmeier were among a small group of field grade officers who publicly lashed out at the Biden administration in 2021. Their actions were highly unusual because the Uniform Code of Military Justice prohibits active-duty troops and other service members serving on active duty from showing contempt or disrespect toward superior officers and certain U.S. government officials.

Trump’s selection of Lohmeier and Scheller is an indication that he is willing to embrace people who openly break with established norms in the military and who lean into political messaging while in uniform. He has also nominated Air Force Reserve Col. Doug Collins to serve as Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary and Army Reserve Lt. Col. Tulsi Gabbard to be director of national intelligence. The military warned both Collins and Gabbard not to wear their uniforms in political campaign materials.

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taskandpurpose.com · by Jeff Schogol

8. Deep cuts in Army, EUCOM downsizing among plans pushed by 2 Trump defense strategists

Are we going to be a one trick pony and focus only on China, China, China?

 Yes a competent strategist must prioritize resources and set priorities. But a competent strategist must be able to balance requirements and do more than one thing at a time in support of national objectives (emphasis on the plural for objective).

Deep cuts in Army, EUCOM downsizing among plans pushed by 2 Trump defense strategists

Stars and Stripes · by John Vandiver · January 22, 2025

The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson sails in formation with the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Sterett alongside the Philippine navy while transiting the South China Sea on Jan. 17, 2025. Two top-level officials who joined the Defense Department this week are known for their hawkish views on China and have pushed for a major U.S. military realignment toward the Indo-Pacific. (Brianna Walker/U.S. Navy)

President Donald Trump’s team of defense advisers is taking shape, this week adding two high-level officials who have called for slashing the American armed presence in Europe and broadly restructuring the military to deal with China.

Austin Dahmer and Alexander Velez-Green, known for their hawkish views on China, will serve in senior posts focused on developing military strategy, the Defense Department said Tuesday.

Both have close ties to Elbridge Colby, the nominee for undersecretary of defense for policy. If he’s confirmed, Colby and company will be the Pentagon’s primary strategists with a big say on how U.S. troops are deployed around the world.

Elbridge Colby is President Donald Trump's pick for undersecretary of defense for policy. A 2021 book by Colby lent its title to the U.S. military strategy outlined by Austin Dahmer, who joined the Defense Department this week in a key strategist role. (Monica King/Department of Defense)

And a 2023 research report by Dahmer for the Marathon Initiative, a Washington think tank co-founded by Colby, gives granular insight into what is dubbed a “strategy of denial” in the Pacific, after the title of a 2021 book by Colby.

The approach aims to deter adversaries from acting aggressively by convincing them “that they would fail to realize their objectives if they attempted such behavior,” according to the report.

Meeting such requirements in the Pacific entails accepting more risks in other regions in lieu of major defense spending increases, wrote Dahmer, now the Pentagon’s deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy.

In the report, Dahmer does not take a position on how big the DOD budget should be. But without a big boost in expenditures, he wrote, the Pentagon would need to search for savings or “bill payers” to surge capabilities required to deter potential Chinese aggression against Taiwan, Okinawa or the Philippines.

“One of the largest bill payers in resourcing the strategy of denial should be the Army,” the report said.

The strategy targets both the Army’s active-duty cohort and the National Guard and calls for deactivation of four Stryker brigades, six infantry brigades and two aviation brigades.

Also headed to the chopping block would be a number of Army ground vehicle and aviation modernization and procurement programs, and all the Air Force’s A-10C aircraft would be retired, according to the report’s recommendations.

Drastic reductions would also be made in the DOD civilian workforce under Dahmer’s prescriptions. For the Army to avoid big cuts while still meeting Pentagon objectives in the Pacific, DOD would need a roughly 10% annual budget increase, the report said.

A U.S. Army M1A2 Abrams tank simulates firing at Bemowo Piskie Training Area, Poland, on Nov. 13, 2024. In a 2023 report, a newly installed top Defense Department official called for a major realignment of Army personnel and a cut of $70 billion from the service's budget. (Trevor Wilson/U.S. Army)

Overall, Dahmer’s report recommends about $70 billion less annually for the Army, which along with other cuts would give about $40 billion more apiece to the Navy and Air Force.

The realignment he calls for in the report would also exact a heavy toll on the security structures that Europe has been relying on for over a decade. For one thing, the U.S. European Command mission would be slashed.

The European Deterrence Initiative, a multibillion-dollar annual effort aimed at deterring Russian aggression, would be dramatically scaled back if not eliminated outright, according to the report.

That would mean the end of Army tank brigade rotations to Europe that have been a staple of the EUCOM mission since Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and that have grown since Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

Dahmer’s report says savings from cuts to the Army, EUCOM mission and DOD civilian workforce would enable a faster buildup of production on a wide range of munitions needed in East Asia.

In-demand assets in the Pacific will involve most of the military’s major systems, ranging from the Army artillery units and Patriot batteries to Navy warships, submarines and long-range Air Force bombers, the report said.

Velez-Green, who now serves as the senior adviser to the undersecretary of defense for policy, told Stars and Stripes last year that requirements in the Pacific mean European allies will need to shoulder a much larger share of the security burden on the Continent.

“These (EUCOM troops) are the forces that cannot be in two places at once. They’ll have to be backfilled by our NATO allies,” Velez-Green said in May.

He and Colby argued that the Pentagon has stretched itself too thin and that stakes in the Pacific are too high to overinvest elsewhere.

Velez-Green formerly worked as a senior policy adviser at the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind the controversial Project 2025 set of initiatives.

Stars and Stripes · by John Vandiver · January 22, 2025

9. U.S. Special Operations Command Cut the Size of One of Its Most Controversial Programs

​Excerpts:

Sky Wardens will allow special operators to monitor the enemy while the airplane loiters over enemy positions. SOF can then call in airstrikes from a dedicated platform to punish the enemy. Sky Wardens will be utilized in irregular warfare to engage terrorists and insurgents.

This has been the mission for the last 20-plus years during the Global War on Terror. But threats are evolving, and special operators are returning to their original missions. The Army Special Forces will be in the business of training and advising indigenous forces instead of direct-action attacks on terrorists and insurgents.

Meanwhile, Navy SEALS will focus more on maritime operations than land warfare.

While SOF has been deployed to Iraq and Syria to combat ISIS, they must also prepare for conventional conflict with great powers such as China and Russia. There are special operators deployed to Taiwan preparing for a possible attack from Xi Jinping’s forces that places the island in jeopardy.

Changing Threats and Different Missions

This change in mission sets, the evolving global threat environment, and geopolitical developments make for different budget priorities. Thus, Sky Wardens are being reduced. They are still important pieces of military hardware. Still, since the counter-terror and counter-insurgency mission in Iraq and Afghanistan is not needed as much as it was during the Global War on Terror, some SOF budgets will undergo a re-evaluation and shift toward tightened funding.

With the Sky Warden program cuts, SOCOM must come to terms with budget constraints. 

U.S. Special Operations Command Cut the Size of One of Its Most Controversial Programs

19fortyfive.com · by Brent M. Eastwood · January 22, 2025

Key Points and Summary: The U.S. Armed Overwatch Program’s OA-1K Sky Warden, designed for ISR and ground strike missions, faces significant budget cuts. Originally planned for 75 units, SOCOM will now purchase fewer Sky Wardens, reducing the program’s budget by $300 million.

-The Sky Warden provides loitering capability for U.S. Special Forces, ensuring overwatch and strike capabilities in irregular warfare. However, evolving global threats and shifting missions toward great power competition with China and Russia have reprioritized funding.

-Despite reductions, SOCOM will adapt, leveraging limited Sky Warden platforms for counterterrorism and preparing for larger-scale conflicts. Full operational capability is slated for 2029.

U.S. Special Operations ‘Overwatch’ Loitering Airplane Facing Budget Cuts

U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) do not conduct missions without some type of aircraft providing overwatch functions.

Usually, these unmanned and manned aircraft collect intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) data to ensure the bad guys are not planning ambushes or other nefarious activity.

After 9/11, U.S. special operators had almost unlimited budgets for their activities, and Congress spared no expense in giving these commandos everything they needed and more.

Cutting the Armed Overwatch Program

But these days, SOF is not immune from budget cuts or austerity. That is what is happening to the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) “Armed Overwatch Program.”

This airplane can conduct ISR missions and deliver ground strikes to better support special operators in combat.

What Is the Sky Warden?

The Armed Overwatch Program uses manned Air Force Special Operations Command airplanes that can take off and fly in lightly contested environments.

The current overwatch airplane is the OA-1K Sky Warden.

This single-engine, twin-seater can protect forces and blast the enemy.

The Sky Warden replaces the U-28 Draco. The OA-1K platform was originally designed for counter-narcotics, fighting fires, and dealing with natural disasters.

SOCOM thought its six-hour loitering capability would be perfect for overwatch and ground strikes with the ability to toggle missions from ISR collection to blowing up enemy positions.

Reducing the Procurement Plan Levels

The Air Force Special Operations Command had planned to spend $2.2 billion on 75 Sky Wardens. So far, SOCOM and the Air Force have procured 16 Sky Wardens as of 2024.

They plan to acquire 12 more in 2025 instead of 15. In 2026, Sky Wardens will be cut from 17 to 11 airplanes and in 2027, there will be only 11 airplanes instead of 15 purchased.

“SOCOM will save nearly $300 million by buying 13 fewer aircraft—from $1.1 billion to $810.5 million. The average cost per airframe is now set at around $15.4 million, not counting non-recurring costs like initial spares and support equipment. By comparison, the Air Force says a U-28 Draco, one of the aircraft the OA-1K is supposed to replace, costs $16.5 million each,” according to Air and Space Forces.

Full-rate production on the Sky Warden will not happen this year and is being pushed to FY 2026. Full operational capability is scheduled for the end of FY 2029.

The Air Force special operations brass hopes the Sky Wardens have minimal maintenance and can operate in difficult weather. The Sky Warden needs to solve logistics problems before they deploy.

This Airplane Is Valuable in Combat

Sky Wardens will allow special operators to monitor the enemy while the airplane loiters over enemy positions. SOF can then call in airstrikes from a dedicated platform to punish the enemy. Sky Wardens will be utilized in irregular warfare to engage terrorists and insurgents.

This has been the mission for the last 20-plus years during the Global War on Terror. But threats are evolving, and special operators are returning to their original missions. The Army Special Forces will be in the business of training and advising indigenous forces instead of direct-action attacks on terrorists and insurgents.

Meanwhile, Navy SEALS will focus more on maritime operations than land warfare.

While SOF has been deployed to Iraq and Syria to combat ISIS, they must also prepare for conventional conflict with great powers such as China and Russia. There are special operators deployed to Taiwan preparing for a possible attack from Xi Jinping’s forces that places the island in jeopardy.

Changing Threats and Different Missions

This change in mission sets, the evolving global threat environment, and geopolitical developments make for different budget priorities. Thus, Sky Wardens are being reduced. They are still important pieces of military hardware. Still, since the counter-terror and counter-insurgency mission in Iraq and Afghanistan is not needed as much as it was during the Global War on Terror, some SOF budgets will undergo a re-evaluation and shift toward tightened funding.

With the Sky Warden program cuts, SOCOM must come to terms with budget constraints.

Unlimited spending is over, and special operators must do more with less. They will still have Sky Wardens, just not as many as planned.

This will still allow SOCOM to be highly relevant in the coming years, they may not be fighting small irregular wars in the Middle East and South Asia and must prepare to dominate a large, conventional force.

About the Author: Dr. Brent M. Eastwood

Brent M. Eastwood, PhD, is the author of Don’t Turn Your Back On the World: a Conservative Foreign Policy and Humans, Machines, and Data: Future Trends in Warfare, plus two other books. Brent was the founder and CEO of a tech firm that predicted world events using artificial intelligence. He served as a legislative fellow for U.S. Senator Tim Scott and advised the senator on defense and foreign policy issues. He has taught at American University, George Washington University, and George Mason University. Brent is a former U.S. Army Infantry officer. He can be followed on X @BMEastwood.

19fortyfive.com · by Brent M. Eastwood · January 22, 2025

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

​Excerpts:

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.

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.

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

11. Report: To Fix Deterrence, Rethink Goldwater-Nichols, Boost Budget

The 26 page report can be downloaded here: https://mitchellaerospacepower.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/GNA_Reform_Policy_Paper_57-FINAL.pdf

There is a 60 minute Youtube video at the link that explains the report with the authors.: https://www.airandspaceforces.com/new-report-deterrence-goldwater-nichols-budget/

I have to say this recommendation is code for "do not conduct irrelevant irregular warfare"

Excerpt:

Shift counterinsurgency investments to high-end warfare capabilities.

This is quite an interpretation of history.

When the Soviet Union ultimately began to disintegrate, the United States confronted two challenging decisions regarding its military. The first was whether to continue to maintain the substantial burden of supporting a first-class force. The second, which came to the fore in the 2000s, was whether to maintain a force oriented toward the traditional role of deterring regional hegemons or one aimed more at counterinsurgency and promoting democracy abroad.

...

"The focus on counterinsurgency in the 2000s similarly increased the Army’s budget at the expense of Air Force recapitalization and modernization investments. In fact, the Army received over $1.3 trillion more than the Air Force between 2002 and 2021, an average of $66 billion more per year than the Air Force.41 Yet, such a decision today would require hard choices that Undersecretary Flournoy and many others have described as impossible, given the DOD’s consensus culture. Instead, the service shares of the defense budget remain static, and DOD’s leadership continues to approve Army investments in duplicative capabilities—for example, the Army’s $60–70 million-a-shot long-range surface-to-surface missiles for long- range strikes, which the Air Force could conduct with far more cost-effective capabilities 42"

​It pains me to read this type of analysis and to read everything not associated with conventional or nuclear war as COIN.

But to some COIN is truly a for letter word and a boogeyman to be attacked by the services for stealing resources.

Report: To Fix Deterrence, Rethink Goldwater-Nichols, Boost Budget

airandspaceforces.com · by John Tirpak · January 22, 2025

Jan. 21, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

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“Unintended consequences” from the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act and lagging defense spending have weakened America’s ability to deter its adversaries and need to be addressed, researchers with AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies argue in a new paper.

“U.S. deterrence is wavering,” Mitchell Institute Dean retired Lt. Gen. David Deptula warned in a Jan. 21 event rolling out the paper.

China’s military growth, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, North Korea’s and Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and Iran’s support of terrorism “reflect critical gaps in America’s military to deter assaults on U.S. vital interests,” Deptula added.

Retired Gen. T. Michael Moseley, former Air Force chief of staff; retired Maj. Gen. Larry Stutzreim, Mitchell’s director of research; and Richard B. Andres, a non-resident senior fellow at Mitchell, co-authored the new report, which recommends significant growth in defense spending better matched to the threat, and reforms to restore “competition” between the services and in industry, the authors said.

The paper also calls for a “new NSC-68″—a reference to the then-secret policy paper drawn up by Paul Nitze in 1950, which called for sharply increased defense spending, development of new nuclear weapons, containment of the Soviet Union and preparations for economic and strategic conflict.

“Today, we need an NSC-68 level of reform that guides whole-of-government action to avert a third World War, [and] to present the flight plan necessary for effective defense reform,” Deptula argued.

Goldwater-Nichols was designed to streamline the chain of command, removing the service chiefs and the chairman of the joint chiefs and focusing instead on the regional combatant commanders, with the intention of curbing inter-service rivalry and ensuring unified command of disparate forces. The chairman now has an advisory function, and the COCOMs focus on short-term operations, not long-range readiness. The law was prompted by a lack of service cooperation leading to failure in the 1980 Iran hostage mission and a poorly coordinated invasion of Grenada in 1983.

Yet, based on the written works and testimony of various national security leaders over the last two decades, the Mitchell analysts concluded that Goldwater-Nichols has had “unintended consequences” that are “at the heart of the challenges we face today.”

At the time, Andres said, it was “a necessary and even overdue reform,” because it tackled the problems of “inter-service rivalry and strengthened joint operations.”

But a lack of competition between services for who can best accomplish a mission has led to slow capability development, as has consolidation of the defense industry from a hundred large suppliers to just five, he said. And by removing the service chiefs from the chain of command, “no one … had both the authority and the incentive to focus on long-term defense planning: the kind you need to deter Russia and China.”

The combatant commanders couldn’t perform this role usefully, he said, because they cycle through their jobs in just two years. Moreover, the COCOMs tend to focus on their own theater problems and not on integrated approaches to global deterrence, the authors said.

Worse, while the 2018 National Defense Strategy assumed the military needed to be able to fight just one major war—and that adversaries would not collaborate—the opponents have “exploit” this flawed thinking, Andres said.

This “isn’t just our assessment,” Andres said. “This is what the bipartisan Congressional Commission on the National Defense Strategy found last year.” War with China is “a real possibility” if “our military no longer possesses the capability or the capacity to uphold our security commitments, and if deterrence collapses.”

Budget

Moseley said the baseline share of gross domestic product for defense is now about three percent, factoring in inflation, but ought to have a floor of five to six percent.

“The beauty of a floor also gets you around the notion of supplementals, [and] of contingency funding, because all that has historically come out of the cuts that each of the services gets,” he said. A level of six percent is needed because “you’ve got to make up for that lost time.”

In the 2000s, the Navy and the Air Force budgets took hits as the Pentagon focused its resources on Afghanistan and Iraq. Because of that, the Air Force was “forced to eat our own seed corn as far as the investment accounts,” Moseley said.

Critical programs like air refueling and the F-22 were gutted, he noted, forcing the Air Force to do things like keep flying the Eisenhower-era KC-135.

Further delay will mean the only solution to replacing obsolete gear is “to buy your way out of it. It’s going to be more expensive. I would suggest that we’re probably there right now in the Air Force,” Moseley said.

The issue is only growing more acute—Moseley noted that while Air Force leaders are still undecided on the future of the Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter, China has flown several new experimental models in recent weeks.

Reforms

Extra money won’t help, though, without new structure and rules to govern its use, Moseley said, likening it to filing a bucket with holes in the bottom; the “holes” being “bureaucracy and the organizational failures. You need to fix the structure, acquisition, contracting, planning, long range planning, etc., and then address the money. Otherwise you’re just going to waste money.”

The needed change would replicate NSC-68 by approaching U.S. national security with a ‘whole of government’ approach, one that includes the Department of Defense, but also “Commerce, Treasury, Homeland Security, Justice, etc.,” said Moseley. “And then you back that up with a change of the bureaucracy and get at this massive amount of waste and drag.”

Moseley said he is not worried about changes to Goldwater-Nichols resulting in a return of service infighting. The military, he said, has had 40 years of a “joint” culture and professional military training reinforcing it.

Asked what steps the reforms should take, Andres said “you’ve got to get the President to ask Congress to take action,” and for Congress to do that “quickly, because we don’t have a long clock on this.”

The paper, he said, “does not go into the specifics of this, but we need reform … or something completely different. But the first action is going to be the President calling on Congress, and it needs to be bipartisan. This is a bipartisan issue. We’ve seen a lot of the same things coming out of both sides of the political spectrum now in terms of what we need to do.”

Andres said the “window is closing” on America’s deterrence credibility.

“Without action, the U.S. faces ether strategic defeat or a catastrophic war. Reform is not optional; it is essential for national security and global stability.”

The paper recommends:

1. An NSC-68-style review which realigns defense strategy with modern threats, taking into account an “all-of-government” approach.
2. Reform or replace Goldwater-Nichols, restoring the service Chiefs to the chain of command and reducing bureaucratic inefficiencies.
3. Raise the defense budget to between five and six percent of GDP to rapidly fund modernization—both capability and capacity—and restore a force-sizing construct that the U.S. military be able to handle two major theater wars. Space and cyber forces also need strengthening.
4. Invest according to “cost effective warfighting capabilities,” using the “cost per effect” methodology. Conduct a roles and missions review to “determine the most cost-effective service investments.” Shift counterinsurgency investments to high-end warfare capabilities.

Budget

National Security

airandspaceforces.com · by John Tirpak · January 22, 2025

12. Trump must rally international support against the Chinese Communist Party

As an aside, there is strategic competition between the PRC and the US ​over the soul fo democracy in Seoul.

Excerpts:

The United States, despite its historical shortcomings, promotes ideals of freedom, democracy and human rights. In contrast, China’s record is a litany of systemic oppression, from the abuse of Uyghur Muslims to the suppression of free speech and the imposition of authoritarian control over its citizens. Remaining neutral in this ideological struggle is morally indefensible, suggesting indifference to the fundamental values that undergird free societies.

All in all, the world must abandon the illusion of neutrality. As we move forward, the United States, under President Trump’s leadership, must galvanize global support against the Chinese Communist Party, ensuring that we stand with the forces of democracy, liberty and human rights. It’s time to board the Trump train and reject the false promises of alignment with a regime that embodies the very antithesis of those values. Only by doing so can we preserve the democratic legacy passed down by our Founding Fathers and expanded by the likes of Andrew Jackson.

Trump must rally international support against the Chinese Communist Party

washingtontimes.com · by Miles Yu

By - Tuesday, January 21, 2025

A version of this story appeared in the daily Threat Status newsletter from The Washington Times. Click here to receive Threat Status delivered directly to your inbox each weekday.

OPINION:

As the Biden interregnum concluded, the Trump train roared into Washington this week with the vigor and triumphant vindication unseen since 1829, when Andrew Jackson stormed into the White House after a similarly decisive electoral victory over what he believed to be a stolen election of 1824 by John Quincy Adams.

Mr. Jackson, our seventh president, became a transformative national leader, ushering in the Golden Age of American democracy — aptly known as Jacksonian Democracy — an era that Alexis de Tocqueville, the immortal French observer, admired for its democratic ideals.

Similarly, Donald Trump, our 45th and 47th president, has proved himself a transformative and consequential leader. However, whether his second term will consolidate or undermine his prior legacy depends largely on whether he can defeat the single greatest existential threat to American democracy: the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This democracy, inherited from the Founding Fathers and expanded by Andrew Jackson, is under siege, and Mr. Trump’s resolve to confront this threat is a critical challenge ahead.

A crucial aspect of this victory plan over the CCP is ending the world’s misguided illusion of neutrality — particularly the notion that nations can remain impartial between the United States and China. Fortunately, we have already witnessed President Trump’s determination to challenge geopolitical opportunism, as evidenced by his bold demands for Panama to return control of the Panama Canal (now under Chinese interests) and his desire to acquire Greenland, a strategic chokepoint coveted by Beijing. The rationale behind ending global neutrality between the U.S. and China is profound, vital and indispensable for free nations’ future.

First, neutrality is, in essence, a form of complicity. The claim that a nation can remain “neutral” overlooks the fundamental reality that neutrality inherently aligns with one of the competing sides — often the wrong one. In this context, failing to stand with the United States — a nation that, despite its flaws, represents liberal democratic values — only strengthens China’s authoritarian ambitions.

Beijing thrives on ambiguity, exploiting divisions among smaller states to exert influence, particularly in regions like Southeast Asia and Africa. A neutral stance effectively emboldens China, signaling tacit approval for its actions, including human rights abuses, military expansion in the South China Sea and efforts to undermine international norms.

Second, neutrality is often disguised as pragmatism. Advocates argue that nonalignment allows countries to extract benefits from both sides of a geopolitical divide. However, this argument neglects the dangers of overdependence on China. Many countries that once embraced neutrality have now realigned themselves with the United States for their self-interest. Far from remaining indifferent, these nations have recognized the long-term risks of kowtowing to Chinese demands.

Third, neutrality proponents often cite the irresistible allure of Chinese markets for foreign goods and investment. This is a dangerous myth. While China’s market has long been portrayed as an untapped gold mine of opportunity, the reality is far more sobering. The Chinese market is heavily regulated and rife with barriers to entry, such as stringent licensing requirements, forced technology transfers, and opaque legal systems that disadvantage foreign companies.

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Consumer spending in China has significantly decreased, and when Chinese consumers do make purchases, they increasingly favor domestic products, especially technology and consumer goods, thus eroding the competitive edge of foreign firms. Moreover, government policies often favor domestic industries through subsidies and protectionist measures, undermining the profitability of foreign investments. Intellectual property theft continues unabated, further undermining the long-term viability of foreign enterprises. These factors paint a grim picture of China’s market as far less accommodating and profitable than its promoters have claimed.

In stark contrast, the United States economy has experienced a robust rebound, largely because of such institutional strengths as private entrepreneurship, property rights and free market competition. While China grapples with economic setbacks such as colossal real estate collapses, plummeting stock markets and diminishing foreign trade, the U.S. economy has continued to prosper. The U.S. has overtaken China as the top trade partner of several key global players, including Japan, Germany, South Korea, the ASEAN nations and Taiwan, a trend that continues to grow. Blind optimism about China’s future is misguided and ultimately suicidal.

Fourth, neutrality endangers national security and sovereignty. China’s aggressive behavior, including its incursions into the South China Sea and coercive tactics toward Taiwan, highlights its blatant disregard for the sovereignty of other nations. Neutral countries, especially those close to China, such as Southeast Asian ones, risk becoming pawns in Beijing’s expansionist agenda. These nations inadvertently signal vulnerability by failing to choose a side, potentially inviting further aggression or even territorial encroachment.

Finally, there is a moral imperative to choosing sides beyond strategic and economic considerations.

The United States, despite its historical shortcomings, promotes ideals of freedom, democracy and human rights. In contrast, China’s record is a litany of systemic oppression, from the abuse of Uyghur Muslims to the suppression of free speech and the imposition of authoritarian control over its citizens. Remaining neutral in this ideological struggle is morally indefensible, suggesting indifference to the fundamental values that undergird free societies.

All in all, the world must abandon the illusion of neutrality. As we move forward, the United States, under President Trump’s leadership, must galvanize global support against the Chinese Communist Party, ensuring that we stand with the forces of democracy, liberty and human rights. It’s time to board the Trump train and reject the false promises of alignment with a regime that embodies the very antithesis of those values. Only by doing so can we preserve the democratic legacy passed down by our Founding Fathers and expanded by the likes of Andrew Jackson.

• Miles Yu is the director of the China Center at the Hudson Institute and a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Copyright © 2025 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.

washingtontimes.com · by Miles Yu

13. White House sidelines 160 National Security Council staffers, aligning the team with Trump's agenda

​2 related articles below.

White House sidelines 160 National Security Council staffers, aligning the team with Trump's agenda

AP · by ZEKE MILLER · January 22, 2025

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s national security adviser has sidelined about 160 National Security Council staffers, telling them to work from home while the administration reviews staffing and tries to align it with Trump’s agenda, administration officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The career government employees, commonly referred to as detailees, were summoned on Wednesday to an all-staff call in which they were told that they’ll be expected to be available to the NSC’s senior directors but would not need to report to the White House. The NSC, a White House arm, provides national security and foreign policy advice to the president.

Trump, a Republican, is sidelining these nonpolitical subject matter experts on topics that range from counterterrorism to global climate policy at a time when the U.S. is grappling with a disparate set of complicated foreign policy matters, including conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. Such structuring could make new policy experts brought in to the NSC less likely to speak up about policy differences and concerns.

Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, had signaled before Inauguration Day that he would look to move holdover civil servants who worked in the NSC during President Joe Biden’s administration back to their home agencies. That’s meant to ensure the council is staffed by those who support Trump’s agenda.

By the end of the review, Waltz will look to have a “more efficient, flatter” NSC, one official said. The officials declined to comment on the ultimate number of personnel — nonpolitical detailees as well as political appointees — that Trump and Waltz would like to see as part of the NSC once the review is completed.

Officials said that they have already begun bringing detailees from agencies with expertise that the new administration values, including some who had served during the first Trump administration.

Some directors have already made decisions to inform detailees they will be sent back to the federal agencies they were on loan from. For example, multiple holdover detailees assigned to counterterrorism directorate were told on Tuesday that their assignment was being cut short and that they will be sent back to their home agencies, according to two people familiar with the move who were not not authorized to comment publicly.

At least some holdover detailees sent home Wednesday had their White House emails turned off soon after the all-staff call ended, but they were told to remain reachable on their personal cellphones.

“National Security Advisor Mike Waltz promised and authorized a full review of NSC personnel,” White House National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes said in a statement. “It is entirely appropriate for Mr. Waltz to ensure NSC personnel are committed to implementing President Trump’s America First agenda to protect our national security and wisely use the tax dollars of America’s working men and women. Since 12:01 pm on Monday personnel reviews and decisions based on the evaluations are being made.”

The dozens of NSC staff members affected by the decision are largely subject matter experts who had been loaned to the White House by federal agencies such as the State Department, the FBI and the CIA for temporary duty that typically lasts one to two years.

Incoming senior Trump administration officials this month also had questioned some career civil servants about who they voted for in the 2024 election, their political contributions and whether they have made social media posts that could be considered incriminating by Trump’s team, a person familiar with the matter told the AP. That person spoke on the condition of the anonymity to discuss the sensitive personnel matter.

Waltz in a recent interview with Breitbart News said that he wanted the NSC to be staffed by personnel who are “100 percent aligned with the president’s agenda.”

The NSC was launched as an arm of the White House during the Truman administration, tasked with advising and assisting the president on national security and foreign policy and coordinating among various government agencies. It is common for experts detailed to the NSC to carry over from one administration to the next, even when the White House changes parties.

Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, made a robust case for the incoming Trump administration to hold over career government employees assigned to the NSC at least through the early going of the new administration. He called the career appointees “patriots” who have served “without fear or favor for both Democratic and Republican administrations.”

Trump, during his first term, was scarred when two career military officers detailed to the NSC became whistleblowers, raising their concerns about Trump’s 2019 call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in which the president sought an investigation of Biden and his son Hunter. That episode led to Trump’s first impeachment.

Alexander Vindman was listening to the call in his role as an NSC official when he became alarmed at what he heard. He approached his twin brother, Eugene, who at the time was serving as an ethics lawyer at the NSC. Both Vindmans reported their concerns to superiors.

AP · by ZEKE MILLER · January 22, 2025Trump team is questioning civil servants at National Security Council about commitment to his agenda

AP · by AAMER MADHANI · January 13, 2025

WASHINGTON (AP) — Incoming senior Trump administration officials have begun questioning career civil servants who work on the White House National Security Council about who they voted for in the 2024 election, their political contributions and whether they have made social media posts that could be considered incriminating by President-elect Donald Trump’s team, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter.

At least some of these nonpolitical employees have begun packing up their belongings since being asked about their loyalty to Trump — after they had earlier been given indications that they would be asked to stay on at the NSC in the new administration, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive personnel matters.

Trump’s pick for national security adviser, Florida Rep. Mike Waltz, in recent days publicly signaled his intention to get rid of all nonpolitical appointees and career intelligence officials serving on the NSC by Inauguration Day to ensure the council is staffed with those who support Trump’s agenda.

A wholesale removal of foreign policy and national security experts from the NSC on Day 1 of the new administration could deprive Trump’s team of considerable expertise and institutional knowledge at a time when the U.S. is grappling with difficult policy challenges in Ukraine, the Mideast and beyond. Such questioning could also make new policy experts brought in to the NSC less likely to speak up about policy differences and concerns.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Monday that he has not been told by Waltz or Trump transition team officials that the incoming team has conducted or planned on conducting such vetting.

But Sullivan in recent days has made a robust case for the incoming Trump administration to hold over career government employees assigned to the NSC at least through the early going of the new administration. He called the career appointees “patriots” who have served “without fear or favor for both Democratic and Republican administrations. ”

“And many of them have raised their hands to say, ‘I’m ready to stay and keep serving,’” Sullivan told reporters.

The NSC staff members being questioned about their loyalty are largely subject matter experts who have been loaned to the White House by federal agencies — the State Department, FBI and CIA, for example — for temporary duty that typically lasts one to two years. If removed from the NSC, they would be returned to their home agencies.

Vetting of the civil servants began in the last week, the official said. Some of them have been questioned about their politics by Trump appointees who will serve as directors on the NSC and who had weeks earlier asked them to stick around. There are dozens of civil servants at the directorate level at the NSC who had anticipated remaining at the White House in the new administration.

A second U.S. official told the AP that he was informed weeks ago by incoming Trump administration officials that they planned on raising questions with career appointees that work at the White House, including those at the NSC, about their political leanings. The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly, however, had not yet been formally vetted.

Waltz told Breitbart News last week that “everybody is going to resign at 12:01 on January 20.” He added that he wanted the NSC to be staffed by personnel who are “100 percent aligned with the president’s agenda.”

“We’re working through our process to get everybody their clearances and through the transition process now,” Waltz said. “Our folks know who we want out in the agencies, we’re putting those requests in, and in terms of the detailees they’re all going to go back.”

A Trump transition official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters, said the incoming administration felt it was “entirely appropriate” to seek officials who share the incoming president’s vision and would be focused on common goals.

The NSC was launched as an arm of the White House during the Truman administration, tasked with advising and assisting the president on national security and foreign policy and coordinating among various government agencies. It is common for experts detailed to the NSC to carry over from one administration to the next, even when the White House changes parties.

Sullivan has also said it was “up to the next national security adviser to decide how they want to play things. All I can say is how we did it and what I thought worked.”

“When they are selected to come over, they’re not selected based on their political affiliation or their policy opinions, they’re selected based on their experience and capacity and so we have a real diversity of people in terms of their views, their politics, their backgrounds,” Sullivan said of those assigned to the NSC, during a reporters roundtable hosted by the White House on Friday. “The common element of all of it is we get the best of the best here” from agencies including the State Department, the intelligence community, the Pentagon and the Homeland Security and Treasury departments.

Sullivan noted when Biden took office in 2021, he inherited most of his NSC staff from the outgoing Trump administration.

“Those folks were awesome,” Sullivan said. “They were really good.”

Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said such vetting “threatens our national security and our ability to respond quickly and effectively to the ongoing and very real global threats in a dangerous world.”

Trump, during his first term, was scarred when two career military officers detailed to the NSC became whistleblowers, raising their concerns about Trump’s 2019 call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in which the president sought an investigation of Biden and his son Hunter. That episode led to Trump’s first impeachment.

Alexander Vindman was listening to the call in his role as an NSC official when he became alarmed at what he heard. He approached his twin brother, Eugene, who at the time was serving as an ethics lawyer at the NSC. Both Vindmans reported their concerns to superiors.

Alexander Vindman said in a statement Friday that the Trump team’s approach to staffing the NSC “will have a chilling effect on senior policy staff across the government.”

He added, “Talented professionals, wary of being dismissed for principled stances or offering objective advice, will either self-censor or forgo service altogether.”

The two men were heralded by Democrats as patriots for speaking out and derided by Trump as insubordinate. Eugene Vindman in November was elected as a Democrat to represent Virginia’s 7th Congressional District.

AP · by AAMER MADHANI · January 13, 2025

14. The Quad foreign ministers joint statement: short and sweet

​The short and sweet joint statement is here: https://www.foreignminister.gov.au/minister/penny-wong/media-release/joint-statement-quad-foreign-ministers

Excerpts:

The fact that the Quad foreign ministers meeting was virtually Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s first official activity will be read as a sign of President Trump’s willingness to back the quartet, which after all was revived in 2017 during his first term in office. This will come as a relief to Australia, India and Japan. And it underlines the Quad’s strategic utility not simply as a counterbalance to China but also as a means to anchor the US security role in the Indo-Pacific via a broad-based partnership with three of its most important regional partners, including its closest regional ally, Australia, and its most important one, Japan. India, which offers the heft as the world’s most populous country and democracy, will host the next summit of Quad leaders this year. Trump’s attendance in Delhi will be essential to maintaining the momentum.

This is a promising turn in the Quad’s fluctuating fortunes. It is tempting to inversely correlate the impact of joint statements with their length. The commendable brevity of this two-paragraph statement packs policy punches that were patently missing from some of the Quad’s recent, prolix pronouncements. When it comes to drafting joint statements, concision should be best practice: less means more.

The Quad foreign ministers joint statement: short and sweet | The Strategist

aspistrategist.org.au · by Euan Graham · January 22, 2025

The Quad foreign ministers joint statement: short and sweet

22 Jan 2025|Euan Graham

Today’s joint statement from the Quad foreign ministers’ meeting in Washington is short and sweet, particularly for those who have been arguing that the grouping should overtly embrace security cooperation.

The statement’s emphasis on ‘security in all domains’ is a noteworthy and welcome shift from the previous, awkward position that the Quad was not a security partnership, despite working together in health security, cybersecurity and maritime security.

This inherent contradiction was unnecessarily self-limiting and confusing but persisted because Quad members, including Australia, saw this self-constraint as necessary to assuage Southeast Asian sensitivities about counterbalancing or containing China.

The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade should update its official description of the Quad, which is currently a ‘a diplomatic, not security, partnership’.

Also absent from the statement is any reference to ‘ASEAN centrality’. This is notable because past Quad statements have all dutifully replicated this diplomatic deference to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. This ellipsis is an early indication that the Trump administration does not intend to pursue cooperation through the Quad only at a pace that is comfortable for Southeast Asian countries. In fact, ASEAN doesn’t appear to register at all as a policy concern among some members of Trump’s cabinet line-up.

While China is not named either, a joint commitment to ‘oppose any unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion’ leaves little doubt that Beijing is the Quad’s common challenge. A subsequent reference to ‘strengthening regional maritime, economic and technology security in the face of increasing threats’ should remove any remaining doubt. Beijing will inevitably react to such bluntness. But the Quad’s belated embrace of security cooperation is welcome. After all, security is a public good just like other elements of the Quad’s agenda, and something which the four countries should openly aspire to strengthen, without fear of offending others in the region.

Defence cooperation is not mentioned directly in the joint statement as part of the Quad’s security agenda. But it is strongly hinted in the commitment that ‘rule of law, democratic values, sovereignty, and territorial integrity’ should be ‘upheld and defended’ in the Indo-Pacific. (Note ‘defended’.) The Quad navies already exercise together in the annual Malabar drills. It is likely that a military dimension to four-way cooperation will now develop within the Quad, not only in unwarlike activities as disaster relief but also focused on deterrence. This should not dilute the Quad’s collaborative agenda in other policy fields, such as supply chain resilience and maritime domain awareness, but rather complement it.

The fact that the Quad foreign ministers meeting was virtually Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s first official activity will be read as a sign of President Trump’s willingness to back the quartet, which after all was revived in 2017 during his first term in office. This will come as a relief to Australia, India and Japan. And it underlines the Quad’s strategic utility not simply as a counterbalance to China but also as a means to anchor the US security role in the Indo-Pacific via a broad-based partnership with three of its most important regional partners, including its closest regional ally, Australia, and its most important one, Japan. India, which offers the heft as the world’s most populous country and democracy, will host the next summit of Quad leaders this year. Trump’s attendance in Delhi will be essential to maintaining the momentum.

This is a promising turn in the Quad’s fluctuating fortunes. It is tempting to inversely correlate the impact of joint statements with their length. The commendable brevity of this two-paragraph statement packs policy punches that were patently missing from some of the Quad’s recent, prolix pronouncements. When it comes to drafting joint statements, concision should be best practice: less means more.

Author

Euan Graham is acting director for Defence Strategy and National Security at ASPI.

Image of (L-R) Takeshi Iwaya, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Marco Rubio and Penny Wong: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images.

aspistrategist.org.au · by Euan Graham · January 22, 2025

15. A Returning President Trump Takes on The World

One of the many negative assessments.

Excerpts:

The US has strong and legitimate strategic interests in vast, barely populated Greenland, but why anger the Greenlanders, Denmark, and Canada with imperialist talk when the US already has a base there and presumably could have more?

It is notable that the only relatively warm receptions Trump’s inauguration has received have been from China and Russia and the right-wing foreign leaders who attended his inauguration including Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Argentine President Javier Milei, the first time foreign leaders have been present at an inauguration. That’s unsurprising given his eagerness to threaten allies and to probably care more about Tik-Tok than substantive issues. Without being aware of it, he is being played for a fool by China, which has made a big bargaining chip out of a peripheral question.

US influence in general has taken a huge knock as others like the EU look to be more self-reliant in defense. Indonesia expects to become a full member of BRICS, a group too unwieldy to do positive things, but already a reflection of irritation with US use of dollar power. It will now gain new issues which will surely do the opposite of MAGA.

Asia Sentinel

Politics

A Returning President Trump Takes on The World

The limits of US power suddenly come into view

https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/returning-president-donald-trump-takes-world?utm

Jan 22, 2025

By: Philip Bowring

The world will not sit back and wait in the face of Trump’s declaration of economic war against much of it. Retaliation does not in itself increase the dangers of global trade war although Washington, in its new incarnation, cannot expect its intended targets to sit back and do nothing. Indeed, retaliation may have the effect of moderating other tensions, notably those between China and Europe. The simplest form for many would be to dump a hunk of US Treasuries and other dollar paper that others have been acquiring, and that has sustained the US economy and enabled the US stock market to reach a valuation level seldom seen before.

The long run of US growth has also created the very jobs for which immigrants are needed and which Americans refuse to do – but are now to be expelled by an incoming administration with astonishingly few non-white faces and with a cheerleader giving Nazi salutes – and pretending it was a Roman gesture when the Roman empire never had such a salute.

A big outflow of US dollar bonds would force up US rates. Under normal circumstances that would attract more money into the dollar, but used as a deliberate policy by central banks and other state holders of US assets it could crash the dollar while keeping interest rates high, pushing up inflation and driving the US economy into the recession which it deserves, That would help accomplish Trump’s goal of reducing the external deficit.

Another tactic would be to take aim at Trump’s billionaire friends at X, Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, etc., whose quasi-monopolies in most of the world have been sustained by pressure from Washington, for example in opposing EU attempts to rein in their monopolistic thuggery and their evasion of taxes through patently dishonest measures defended by legions of lawyers and tax avoidance experts posing as accountants.

Of course, some of Trump’s threats may yet be rhetorical, and others scaled down and sooner or later reversed. But what will never be forgotten, at least by countries that have been allies for decades, is the priority he appears to have given to punishing Canada and Mexico, both supposedly US partners in the NAFTA and one a close ally in NATO. Coupled with recent remarks about taking over Greenland and the Panama Canal, these indicate a desire for a specific hegemony over the western hemisphere. He announced he would rename the Gulf of Mexico, calling it the Gulf of America, and that he would change the name of Denali in Alaska, the tallest peak in North America, back to the name it held between 1917 and 2015 – Mt. McKinley, in honor of the nation’s 25th president William McKinley, who presided over victory in the Spanish–American War, gained control of Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam – and the Philippines, in a disgraceful colonization that led to the deaths of at least 200,000 Filipino citizens between 1898 and the onset of World War II. This interest seems now to take precedence over erstwhile allies in East Asia – Japan and Korea officially and several others unofficially.

Whatever Trump now has in store for China, it is clearly not seen as the major priority even though its exports, its technology, its military, and its diplomacy are obviously America’s biggest challenge in maintaining global influence – including in South America, where China has been making deep investment inroads. The US, which in effect colonized vast territories in Central America, the Caribbean coast of Colombia, and the West Indies through such entities as the United Fruit Company and Dole Foods and organized coups and rebellions on their behalf, has long lingered under the illusion that South America has been in its sphere of influence even since the 1823 declaration of the so-called Monroe Doctrine, aimed at keeping European power out of America.

Although the Europeans were kept out, especially of Central America, that didn’t mean that the US had much economic influence over what happened in Brazil, Argentina, etc. Indeed, those countries’ closest economic links were with Europe if only for reasons of geography, Brazil today, with a population two-thirds that of the US, does far more trade with China than with the US, and no more than the EU which recently reached a trade agreement with Mercosur (Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay).

The US has strong and legitimate strategic interests in vast, barely populated Greenland, but why anger the Greenlanders, Denmark, and Canada with imperialist talk when the US already has a base there and presumably could have more?

It is notable that the only relatively warm receptions Trump’s inauguration has received have been from China and Russia and the right-wing foreign leaders who attended his inauguration including Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Argentine President Javier Milei, the first time foreign leaders have been present at an inauguration. That’s unsurprising given his eagerness to threaten allies and to probably care more about Tik-Tok than substantive issues. Without being aware of it, he is being played for a fool by China, which has made a big bargaining chip out of a peripheral question.

US influence in general has taken a huge knock as others like the EU look to be more self-reliant in defense. Indonesia expects to become a full member of BRICS, a group too unwieldy to do positive things, but already a reflection of irritation with US use of dollar power. It will now gain new issues which will surely do the opposite of MAGA.

16. Start Making Sense: Strategy and Grand Strategy in the Trump Administration

​Excerpts:

This is a problem, given the anxious state of international politics. The Trump administration enters office in the midst of renewed fears of terrorism, a looming conflict with Iran, and an intense geopolitical contest with China. Its approach to these problems may have lasting implications for national security. How it deals with terrorism will have immediate impacts on the military services and the intelligence community, because the more they focus on non-state actors, the less they can respond to state adversaries. How the administration thinks about Iran will say much about its approach to diplomacy and nonproliferation in the Middle East. How it deals with China is most important of all, and the answer may have lasting implications for the global economy and international security. Getting China right will enable prosperity and stability, even during a period of great power rivalry. Getting it wrong risks catastrophe.

...

Strategy is a theory of victory. It is a logical story about using military violence to achieve political goals. A decent strategy requires calibrating the amount of force with the value of the object at stake. It also requires answering difficult questions about where to target military strikes and for what purpose. Because war is an exercise in political coercion, strategists need to imagine how the use of force will influence their enemies, for better or worse. Finally, a coherent strategy needs to consider the problem of ending wars. Convincing enemies to put down their arms is particularly difficult, given that war breeds intense hatred and mistrust.

Grand strategy, by contrast, is a theory of security. It is the logical story about how states make themselves safe in an unsafe world. A decent grand strategy begins with a broad idea about international politics, which produces a set of assumptions about the causes of stability and instability, and about the sources of strength and weakness. It then aligns the theory with peacetime diplomacy, economic statecraft, and military activity. For example, post-Cold War American grand strategy reflected a liberal theory of world politics. The spread of democracy, expansion of trade, and growth of institutions all encouraged international stability. The United States would reap the benefits, becoming more secure as the world became more peaceful. Making this possible required actively promoting democracy, trade, and institutions. It also required maintaining the ability to project conventional military power around the world — and the willingness to use it in service of liberal ideals.

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One problem with a transactional approach in peacetime, however, is that it can have serious consequences in the event of war. Ambiguous grand strategies can lead to strategic frustration.

Start Making Sense: Strategy and Grand Strategy in the Trump Administration - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Joshua Rovner · January 23, 2025

As he has told us many times, Donald Trump knows a lot about winning. But for all we know about the man and his methods, we still don’t know how he thinks about winning wars. Trump bellows and blusters, but we don’t know how he would lead America in a war if someone calls the bluff.

This is a problem, given the anxious state of international politics. The Trump administration enters office in the midst of renewed fears of terrorism, a looming conflict with Iran, and an intense geopolitical contest with China. Its approach to these problems may have lasting implications for national security. How it deals with terrorism will have immediate impacts on the military services and the intelligence community, because the more they focus on non-state actors, the less they can respond to state adversaries. How the administration thinks about Iran will say much about its approach to diplomacy and nonproliferation in the Middle East. How it deals with China is most important of all, and the answer may have lasting implications for the global economy and international security. Getting China right will enable prosperity and stability, even during a period of great power rivalry. Getting it wrong risks catastrophe.

These questions also reveal strange puzzles about the president’s attitude towards national security and foreign affairs. Trump simultaneously revels in the details of counter-terrorism operations but has been sharply critical of the long wars of which they are a part. Trump enjoys swaggering with military forces but boasts about not starting wars. And while Trump has berated China for a host of activities, he derides U.S. partners and allies who share a common adversary in Beijing.

How do we make sense of these contradictions? What do they say about the next four years of U.S. national security policy?

Trump is a thoroughly modern creature — a politician who has proven adept at tapping into popular trends and exploiting social media. He has also proven to be enthusiastic —sometimes positively giddy —about demolishing traditional notions of diplomacy and statecraft. At a glance, it might seem that we need new conceptual frameworks to make sense of Trump’s approach to national security. Yet there is reason to believe the opposite. Indeed, we can learn a lot about Trump’s approach by returning to a couple of very old concepts that I explore in a new book: Strategy and Grand Strategy.

Two Theories

Strategy is a theory of victory. It is a logical story about using military violence to achieve political goals. A decent strategy requires calibrating the amount of force with the value of the object at stake. It also requires answering difficult questions about where to target military strikes and for what purpose. Because war is an exercise in political coercion, strategists need to imagine how the use of force will influence their enemies, for better or worse. Finally, a coherent strategy needs to consider the problem of ending wars. Convincing enemies to put down their arms is particularly difficult, given that war breeds intense hatred and mistrust.

Grand strategy, by contrast, is a theory of security. It is the logical story about how states make themselves safe in an unsafe world. A decent grand strategy begins with a broad idea about international politics, which produces a set of assumptions about the causes of stability and instability, and about the sources of strength and weakness. It then aligns the theory with peacetime diplomacy, economic statecraft, and military activity. For example, post-Cold War American grand strategy reflected a liberal theory of world politics. The spread of democracy, expansion of trade, and growth of institutions all encouraged international stability. The United States would reap the benefits, becoming more secure as the world became more peaceful. Making this possible required actively promoting democracy, trade, and institutions. It also required maintaining the ability to project conventional military power around the world — and the willingness to use it in service of liberal ideals.

In the ideal, as I explain in a new book, strategy and grand strategy should be mutually reinforcing concepts. Grand strategy informs decisions about force structure and force posture. Such decisions set practical limits on military action. It also informs pre-war considerations about the wartime usefulness of allies, institutions, and firms. Perhaps most importantly, grand strategy determines the value of the object in any given war. Effective wartime strategy is impossible without such a determination. Likewise, good strategic judgement should bolster post-war security. All things being equal, we should expect that victory should make the state safer than it was before the war.

But this is not always the case. States that triumph in war do not always benefit from a post-war peace, and in some cases, the demands of strategy actually work against grand strategy. The clearest examples are those in which the costs of fighting leave the state cash-strapped and vulnerable in the aftermath of fighting.

Consider, for example, the French experience in the American War of Independence. French strategy was exceptional. French military leaders worked well with their American counterparts, choreographing a highly effective joint effort against their common British enemy. French diplomats also cobbled together a coalition of European supporters, an impressive achievement given the Europeans’ skepticism about the war. Yet the quality of strategy proved to be counterproductive for French grand strategy, because the costs of fighting put enormous strain on French finances at a time in which it lacked a coherent tax system and the financial tools to accommodate a growing debt. French reformers were unable to pursue a much-needed fiscal and industrial reform, putting the state on very precarious ground.

The British experience was opposite. Political and military leaders failed to agree on a unified approach to the war, and their internecine squabbles led to repeated errors. Rival army commanders did not coordinate their actors, and the Royal Navy failed to provide reliable support for expeditionary forces on land. But while these strategic blunders led to its shocking defeat, British grand strategy benefited. Unburdened of its troublesome colonies and spared from the expense of garrisoning a vast territory across the Atlantic, British leaders were free to focus on modernizing the fleet and, more importantly, building the extraordinary infrastructure needed for naval imperialism. The question was not simply increasing the number and quality of warships, but developing a durable system for shipbuilding, maintenance, supplies, and labor. This effort was a major part of the ongoing administrative revolution, which laid the foundation for a century of global expansion. Britain’s strategic failure made possible this grand strategic success. History was written by the losers.

Strategy and grand strategy do not always work at cross-purposes, of course, and some states are better than others at keeping them aligned. But the British and French cases serve as a useful reminder that winning in war is not the same as winning the peace, and that efforts to achieve one can undermine the other.

The Trouble with Transactionalism

What can strategy and grand strategy tell us about the new administration? This is a difficult question for several reasons. Trump’s strategic preferences — his basic attitudes about warfighting — are unclear. While he enjoys the spectacle of military parades and seems to believe that military swaggering generates diplomatic leverage, he is not particularly hawkish. He had opportunities to go to war in his first term, as in Iran, but did not take them. He also had opportunities to escalate military action, as in Afghanistan, which he declined. If Trump is temperamentally averse to war, then it is unsurprising that we know little about his beliefs about the best way to fight.

Trump’s rhetorical swings can also obscure his ideas about grand strategy. Sometimes he berates adversaries, sometimes he embraces them. Trump’s bombast, moreover, does not always reflect actual policies. In his previous term, Trump did not reduce America’s military presence abroad, nor did he withdraw the United States from long-standing alliances, despite fears at home that his election meant a new era of isolationism. Trying to define Trump’s grand strategy has become a cottage industry.

The lack of consensus partly reflects the shock that accompanied his first election. Global politics watchers were not clear on what to make of a politician who treated the shibboleths of U.S. foreign policy with contempt. For a long time, debates over grand strategy had settled into a predictable rhythm, with mainstream champions of liberal internationalism pit against critics who advocated restraint. Those critics sometimes seemed resigned to defeat, given the entrenched bipartisan consensus for a large forward U.S. presence abroad, investments in international institutions, and taking on military obligations in support of liberal ideals. Trump’s anti-internationalist rhetoric seemed utterly opposite. His surprising victory caused scholars to wonder if his victory heralded the decline of the post-war order, or whether institutional inertia would enable the order to outlast the new president. There was little consensus on this question.

Perhaps the most important reason that Trump’s grand strategy is murky is his preference for transactionalism. Trump’s view of politics is akin to his view of business: an ongoing and unending cycle of deal making and deal breaking. This requires maximum policy freedom of action, and Trump bridles at the notion that the United States is better served by binding itself to post-war institutions that reflect post-war liberal values. International institutions, from his perspective, constrain the United States from entering into profitable partnerships and leaving them when the time comes.

An effective transactional approach also requires cultivating a reputation for risk. Bargaining power comes from a belief that leaders are willing to do whatever is required to get their way — even if that means a willingness to accept significant costs. Trump’s bellicose language suggests a kind of deliberate recklessness. But it also suggests a kind of deliberate inconsistency, which makes it difficult to identify a coherent and predictable approach to grand strategy.

For advocates of transactionalism, this is precisely the point. Foreign states — allies and adversaries alike — should always be a little uncertain about American grand strategy. They should never be too confident about what the United States will do next. They should always remain off-balance, so that they tread carefully in their dealings with Washington. Allies will think twice about free-riding on American aid and military support if they understand that aid and protection are not guaranteed. Adversaries will think twice about challenging the United States over economic or military disputes if they believe that U.S. leaders are willing to take extraordinary risks to defend U.S. interests.

One problem with a transactional approach in peacetime, however, is that it can have serious consequences in the event of war. Ambiguous grand strategies can lead to strategic frustration.

The U.S. experience in the Vietnam War is a good example. The major period of escalation in Vietnam occurred between the Cuban Missile Crisis and détente with the Soviet Union. This was a time in which U.S. leaders were still committed to containment — Cold War fears of falling dominoes were still present. Yet they were also desperate to avoid another existential crisis. Defining “victory” was difficult during this strange interregnum, and the Lyndon Johnson administration was unable to agree on the value of the war itself. Unsurprisingly, there was precious little unity of purpose. Rather than set a clear strategic path, the administration tried a hodgepodge of approaches to the war, including escalating air and ground operations and various counter-insurgency and covert action campaigns. The results pleased no one. Frustration with the war mounted because strategy was incoherent. This was a direct result of grand strategic uncertainty.

Much Ado About Nothing?

Trump’s instinctive military caution might make this problem irrelevant. Unclear grand strategies can produce unsuccessful strategies, but this will not matter if Trump stays out of war. The next four years are likely to be contentious at home, but they may be relatively uneventful for U.S. forces abroad. In that case, questions about U.S. strategy will remain hypothetical. It is noteworthy that the recent election was the first in a quarter-century in which U.S. strategy in an ongoing war was not central to the campaign. Questions about U.S. support for allies and partners played a role in presidential debates, of course, but questions about U.S. military action did not.

Trump’s first term was marked by more bluster than action. In 2017, he threatened North Korea with “fire and fury like the world has never seen” if it put U.S. interests at risk. Yet he ended up travelling to meet with North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong Un the following summer and released a joint statement on U.S.-North Korean relations. In 2019, Trump engaged in a war of words with Iran after shooting down a U.S. drone, but he later called off a series of retaliatory airstrikes. The president remained enthusiastic about counter-terrorism operations, to be sure, but he was decidedly averse to conventional wars. As Lawrence Freedman summarized, “despite his presumed belligerence, he held back from new large-scale military operations.”

If this trend continues in the Trump administration, then the relationship between strategy and grand strategy will be a moot point. But the United States has a history of entering wars despite the pacifist promises of its leaders. “He kept us out of war” was Woodrow Wilson’s slogan during his re-election campaign in 1916, but the next year he led the United States into Europe. “I hate war,” Franklin Roosevelt declared in 1936, before deliberately nudging the United States towards intervention in World War II. Lyndon Johnson wanted to focus on domestic policy after taking office, but deteriorating events caused him to escalate in Vietnam. And George W. Bush, who ran for president on a platform of conservative realism, became a model hawk after the Sept. 11 attacks.

It is not hard to imagine a similar scenario playing out in the near future. Suppose, for example, that China decides to act against Taiwan. This is a case in which Trump’s military caution is at odds with his anti-China rhetoric. It may be that he is unwilling to stay out of a conflict, given his nationalist inclinations and suspicions about Beijing. If so, then questions about strategy will become urgent. How will U.S. grand strategy under Trump guide its military response? How will its theory of security inform its theory of victory in a war with a nuclear-armed great power? How will the United States think about fundamental questions about the use of force? How far will it go in war? What will it demand in a settlement? Who will rule the peace?

The same questions will apply in the event of a conflict with Iran. The Iranian regime has recently seen its own grand strategy fall to pieces, given devastating losses to its protégés Hamas and Hizballah, along with the fall of its longtime ally in Syria. Backed into a corner, Iran may lash out in many ways: launching cyber operations against its enemies, accelerating its nuclear weapons program, or sponsoring terrorist attacks. Transnational groups like the self-proclaimed Islamic State may also seek a return to spectacular acts of terrorism, mimicking the Sept. 11 attacks but also drawing on their own history of gruesome violence.

Trump may feel compelled to respond in such an event. If so, he will have to confront the enduring strategic questions described above, which are inherently difficult. It will be much harder to find answers in the absence of a clear and coherent grand strategy.

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Joshua Rovner is an associate professor of international relations at American University, and the author of Strategy and Grand Strategy.

Image: Tia Dufour via The Trump White House

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Joshua Rovner · January 23, 2025

17. Spy vs. Spy in Taiwan

​In 2017 I participated in an Asymmetric Warfare conference in Taiwan. The Chief of Staff of the Taiwan Army asked us for a counterintelligence plan to combat the PLA recruiting of retired senior Taiwanese officers. Perhaps it helped but of course that may have created other consequences.

Excerpts:

Russell Hsiao, the executive director of the Global Taiwan Institute, pointed out that the recently convicted spies involved relatively younger military personnel, as opposed to prior cases, which have often targeted older retirees from the military for espionage recruitment. The motivations of these recruited agents also stand in contrast with the older service members implicated in espionage cases, in which the recruited agents were more driven by a mix of ideology reinforced by financial gains or other compromising enticements.

“In contrast, the primary inducement or motivation of these recent cases appears to be money,” Hsiao wrote.

Nevertheless, another observer said that although Chinese infiltration of Taiwan’s society poses a serious threat to the country’s security and stability, China’s reliance on these methods shows the low appeal of unification.

“The CCP’s efforts to win over the people of Taiwan with incentives and positive messages have utterly failed, leaving the CCP increasingly dependent on underhanded methods to subvert and coerce the people of Taiwan,” said Timothy R. Heath, Senior International Defense Researcher at RAND Corporation. “Although such tactics foment division, they also anger the people of Taiwan and weaken further the already negligible levels of popular support for unification with the PRC.”

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy, for its part, in November in a social media post warned its own young officers and personnel that they could get ensnared by online dating scams and virtual gambling if they let down their guard, exposing themselves to security risks and undermining the military. The navy also cautioned against virtual gambling, likening gambling addiction to being “possessed by a demon” and warning against schemes that could lead to a “fall into an endless abyss” of debt.

Defense/Security

Spy vs. Spy in Taiwan

Underground casinos may soon turn Taiwan’s unmanned weapons into China’s unmanned ones (and vice versa)

https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/spy-vs-spy-taiwan?utm

Jan 23, 2025

∙ Paid

By: Jens Kastner

Taiwan’s National Security Bureau, the country's primary security agency, has recently released a disquieting report claiming that mainland espionage agents in Taiwan are luring retired Taiwanese service members into establishing shell companies, underground banks, and casinos to entice active service members into providing sensitive intelligence, raising risks especially for Taiwan’s ongoing build-up of unmanned weapons, which are typically capable of carrying out autonomous coordinated strikes, target recognition, and collaborative teaming with a single operator.

In June 2024 the U.S. approved for sale to Taiwan US$360 million worth of so-called “loitering munitions,” or unmanned aerial vehicles designed to attack targets by hovering over them and then striking. They are also known as "suicide" or "kamikaze" drones. Taiwan’s self-developed Chien Hsiang suicide drone is also planned to enter service this year. The government plans to procure six types of domestically-produced military drones before 2028, as well as two types of missile-type attack drones before 2026.

“Creating gambling dens is just one kind of a campaign of traps to ensnare Taiwanese who can compromise their military units, betray their local police or provide data on their neighbor's crimes against the CCP to justify their arrest,” Rick Fisher, a Senior Fellow, International Assessment and Strategy Center, told Asia Sentinel. “This is the cheapest way to win wars, as a compromised corporal who operates unmanned weapons platforms can be given a flashdrive that instantly turns Taiwan's unmanned weapons into the PLA's unmanned weapons,” he added.

The report by Taiwan’s security bureau, titled “Analysis on the Infiltration Tactics Concerning China’s Espionage Cases,” identifies Chinese tactics that involve leveraging retired service members to recruit active personnel, establishing online networks, offering financial incentives, and coercing individuals by exploiting their indebtedness. Chinese intelligence operatives are also accessing popular online communities and gaming platforms to make contact and lure soldiers, the report notes. Some Chinese operatives are posting loans to attract soldiers who need money. Infiltration is also made easy also through the use of prostitutes. Wendell Minnick, the Taipei-based editor of China in Arms, recently wrote that many mainland Chinese women work in brothels near Army Headquarters and the Aviation and Special Forces Command (ASFC) in Taoyuan and near every major military base on the island. According to Minnick, the Taiwanese Coast Guard has captured some of these women on Chinese fishing boats on their way to Taiwan near the frontline Kinmen Island, but China has refused repatriation.

The Chinese cloak-and-dagger methods aim to penetrate Taiwan’s military units and government agencies to access sensitive national defense information and influence local democratic processes. Additionally, the new report alleges that gangsters have been used to recruit retired service members to organize “sniper teams” for planned attacks against Taiwan’s military and foreign embassies.

The government prosecuted 15 retired and 28 active Taiwanese service members related to Chinese espionage in 2024. Indeed, news of Taiwanese military personnel being caught for espionage activities has been breaking in ever shorter intervals. On January 8, Taichung prosecutors announced the indictment of seven retired military officers for allegedly receiving money to photograph and pass along the GPS coordinates of Taiwanese military installations to contacts in China. In September, an ex-air force instructor was sentenced to 17 years in prison for "aiding the enemy" and delivering military secrets to China. In August, eight people, including some active-duty officers, were handed prison sentences ranging from 18 months to 13 years for gathering information for China in return for money.

Russell Hsiao, the executive director of the Global Taiwan Institute, pointed out that the recently convicted spies involved relatively younger military personnel, as opposed to prior cases, which have often targeted older retirees from the military for espionage recruitment. The motivations of these recruited agents also stand in contrast with the older service members implicated in espionage cases, in which the recruited agents were more driven by a mix of ideology reinforced by financial gains or other compromising enticements.

“In contrast, the primary inducement or motivation of these recent cases appears to be money,” Hsiao wrote.

Nevertheless, another observer said that although Chinese infiltration of Taiwan’s society poses a serious threat to the country’s security and stability, China’s reliance on these methods shows the low appeal of unification.

“The CCP’s efforts to win over the people of Taiwan with incentives and positive messages have utterly failed, leaving the CCP increasingly dependent on underhanded methods to subvert and coerce the people of Taiwan,” said Timothy R. Heath, Senior International Defense Researcher at RAND Corporation. “Although such tactics foment division, they also anger the people of Taiwan and weaken further the already negligible levels of popular support for unification with the PRC.”

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy, for its part, in November in a social media post warned its own young officers and personnel that they could get ensnared by online dating scams and virtual gambling if they let down their guard, exposing themselves to security risks and undermining the military. The navy also cautioned against virtual gambling, likening gambling addiction to being “possessed by a demon” and warning against schemes that could lead to a “fall into an endless abyss” of debt.

18. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, January 22, 2025

E​xcertps:

North Korea will reportedly deploy new military personnel to Russia by mid-March 2025, likely to maintain the current pace and intensity of attritional, infantry-led assaults in Kursk Oblast.

These fresh North Korean forces are unlikely to decisively improve Russian operations and will likely face the same high casualty rates and complications operating with Russian forces as the current North Korean contingent, provided the Russian command continues to use North Korean forces the same way as it has thus far.

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, January 22, 2025

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-22-2025

The Kremlin has launched an information operation that seeks to create the false impression that the Russian economy is performing well despite numerous continued indicators of macroeconomic distress. Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed during a meeting on economic issues on January 22 that 2024 was a "strong year" for the Russian economy. Putin claimed that Russia has a manageable budget deficit of 1.7 percent and achieved a 26 percent increase in non-oil-and-gas revenue to 25.6 trillion rubles (approximately $257.9 billion) in 2024 and announced a retroactive 9.5 percent increase in insurance and military pensions to address rising Russian inflation. Bloomberg reported on January 21 that the Russian Finance Ministry released a report projecting economic strength and suggesting that Russian budget revenue in December 2024 reached a record high of over 4 trillion rubles (about $40 billion) — a 28 percent increase compared to December 2023 and the highest level recorded since 2011. The data fails to account for Russia's unsustainable levels of defense spending, rampant inflation, a growing deficit and the erosion of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, however. ISW continues to observe macroeconomic data that directly contradict the Kremlin's claims that the Russian economy is performing well. The Kremlin has recently adopted policies aimed at increasing defense spending all while Russian society faces labor shortages, broader demographic issues, declining savings, and increasing reliance on bailouts as the Russian economy faces rising interest rates, inflated salaries, and deteriorating production capacity. These economic realities suggest that the Kremlin's efforts to posture economic strength are largely an information operation aimed at reassuring domestic audiences and posturing Russian strength abroad while masking the true challenges Russia's economy is facing, particularly heightened due to its war against Ukraine.

North Korea will reportedly deploy new military personnel to Russia by mid-March 2025, likely to maintain the current pace and intensity of attritional, infantry-led assaults in Kursk Oblast. The New York Times (NYT) reported on January 22 that a US senior defense official stated that additional North Korean forces will arrive in Russia "within the next two months," (roughly mid-March 2025). The NYT did not specify the number of troops or whether North Korea is rotating forces or increasing the size of its total force grouping in Russia, however. The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff reported on December 23 that North Korea may be preparing to deploy an unspecified number of additional forces to Ukraine and military equipment to Russia, either as a rotation or additional deployment of forces. Western officials told the BBC on January 22 that North Korean forces have suffered roughly 1,000 killed in action and 3,000 missing or wounded in action as of mid-January 2025, roughly 33 to 40 percent of the 11,000 to 12,000 total North Korean personnel already in Russia] ISW recently assessed that the entirety of the North Korean contingent in Russia may be killed or wounded in action by about mid-April 2025 at their current casualty rate, and a new North Korean deployment — whether intended to increase the current grouping or rotate out existing forces — is likely intended to sustain Russia’s tempo of operations despite heavy losses of about 30,000 - 45,000 causalities (combined killed and wounded) per month. North Korean forces reportedly spent at least a month training in eastern Russia before deploying to Kursk Oblast for further training in near rear areas in November 2024 and joining combat operations at least as of early December 2024. This timeline roughly coheres with the possibility that a fresh contingent of North Korean forces could undergo training and replace the shrinking North Korean group in Kursk Oblast by mid-April 2025, assuming the reported next batch of North Korean troops will train for the same duration as their predecessors, and deploy to Russia imminently in late January or early February 2025.

These fresh North Korean forces are unlikely to decisively improve Russian operations and will likely face the same high casualty rates and complications operating with Russian forces as the current North Korean contingent, provided the Russian command continues to use North Korean forces the same way as it has thus far. US officials and Ukrainian soldiers told the NYT that North Korean and Russian forces continue to struggle with communications and cohesion and that Russian and North Korean forces have "clashed" at least twice due to troop identification errors. A Ukrainian commander told the NYT that North Korean assault groups now include a translator who speaks Russian but that these groups are still not very effective. Ukrainian soldiers reported that North Korean forces continue conducting mass infantry assaults and that North Korean soldiers do not retreat even if injured. Ukraine's Special Operations Forces (SSO) published footage on January 22 of North Korean forces massing for an infantry assault and reported that Ukrainian forces killed 21 and wounded 40 North Korean soldiers during the eight-hour long combat engagement. Ukrainian soldiers told the NYT that Russian forces are still attempting to conceal the presence of North Koreans on the battlefield by conducting drone strikes against wounded North Korean troops as Ukrainian forces attempt to take them prisoner. ISW continues to assess that North Korea's high casualty rate and interoperability difficulties with Russian forces will affect the lessons that the North Korean military command will learn from fighting in Russia's war.

Key Takeaways:

• The Kremlin has launched an information operation that seeks to create the false impression that the Russian economy is performing well despite numerous continued indicators of macroeconomic distress.

• Russia continues long-term efforts to build out its manpower reserve with All-Russian Cossack Society organizations and create a willing and well-trained prioritized pool designed to buffer the Kremlin from potential blowback in the event of a possible future partial call up of Russian reservists.

• North Korea will reportedly deploy new military personnel to Russia by mid-March 2025, likely to maintain the current pace and intensity of attritional, infantry-led assaults in Kursk Oblast.

• These fresh North Korean forces are unlikely to decisively improve Russian operations and will likely face the same high casualty rates and complications operating with Russian forces as the current North Korean contingent, provided the Russian command continues to use North Korean forces the same way as it has thus far.

• Russian milbloggers complained and expressed concern over recent claims that the Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS)-led interim government in Syria suspended Russian investment and financial involvement in the port of Tartus as Russia's long-term military presence in Syria remains unclear.

• A Russian state media outlet reported that Russia may resume direct gas deliveries to Transnistria despite recent discussions about sourcing non-Russian gas to the region.

• Ukrainian forces recently recaptured lost positions near Toretsk.

• Russian forces recently advanced near Chasiv Yar, Toretsk, Pokrovsk, Kurakhove, and Velyka Novosilka.

• Russia and Uzbekistan are deepening military cooperation. 

19. Iran Update, January 22, 2025

Iran Update, January 22, 2025

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-january-22-2025

Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) announced the formation of joint operations rooms in the West Bank on January 22 with Hamas and al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades’ fighters. The PIJ statement claimed the joint operations rooms would coordinate and develop ”field work” and ”joint action.” The joint operations rooms will be comprised of fighters from PIJ’s al Quds Brigades, Hamas’ al Qassem Brigades, and al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades’ ”Youth of Revenge and Liberation” branch. The ”Youth of Revenge and Liberation” branch, which is one of the al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades many branches based in various locations throughout the West Bank, was active in Tulkarm in summer 2024. It is unclear at this time where the joint operations rooms will be based, or which subgroup or groups of the ”Youth of Revenge and Liberation” branch will be involved. Hamas, the al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, and PIJ previously established a combined operations room known as ”the Hornets’ Nest” that was based in Jenin and active from 2022-2024. The Hornets’ Nest also included the military wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, among others. PIJ, Hamas, and the “Youth of Revenge and Liberation” claimed to fire small arms and detonate improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in a combined operation targeting the IDF in Jenin on January 22.

Key Takeaways:

• Gaza Strip: CTP-ISW did not record verifiable reports of kinetic activity in the Gaza Strip or reports of attacks from the Gaza Strip into Israel since the last data cut off on January 21.

• West Bank: Palestinian Islamic Jihad announced the formation of joint operations rooms in the West Bank on January 22 with Hamas and al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades’ fighters.

• Iraq: Iraq may attempt to integrate Iranian-backed Iraqi militias into the Iraqi army after the withdrawal of US forces, which would not satisfy US demands to dissolve the militias. The integration of the militias would instead increase their influence within the army, which is deeply problematic given the backgrounds and loyalties of many of these groups.

• Iran: Unspecified Western officials told The Financial Times on January 22 that two Iranian cargo vessels carrying a large amount of chemical precursor for solid missile propellant will travel from China to Iran over the next few weeks. Israeli damage estimates from the IDF strikes on Iran in October 2024 suggest that Iran’s missile production capabilities likely remain limited, however. 

20. The Cold War Putin Wants

​A view from Finland that we should arguably pay attention to. Few know Russians as well as the Finns.

Excerpts:

The Kremlin’s task for 2025, then, is to maintain a placid population. This will be necessary regardless of whether Putin continues the war of attrition amid stagflation and a shortage of workers, or whether he allows a peace agreement to take hold—without the full capitulation of the enemy—and seeks new ways to consolidate the majority around him. Even though it would be as costly for Putin to end the special operation as to keep it going, there is a way out: he can continue permanent war against the West—by cold means rather than hot. The main thing is to avoid any sense of even partial defeat. The problem is that, sooner or later, an unending war can give the impression, if not of defeat, then of stagnation. The same could happen to the militarized economy. In 2025, cease-fire or not, the sense that Putin faces a fork in the road cannot be avoided. He may be able to stall for awhile, but how much time does he have, even in a society frozen in its indifference?

By banking everything on war, Putin has made Russians increasingly tired of it.

Over the past three years, Russia has embarked on the final act of the collapse of an empire that, in earlier centuries, not only extended its domain across much of Europe and Asia but also subjugated its own population. It was a kind of self-colonization. Now that process is underway again because Putin’s current battle has two fronts—external and internal. An older idea of Russia that has not yet been destroyed is taking revenge on new, innocent generations who are sacrificing their lives in pursuit of unrecoverable greatness. Even as the imaginary empire is expanding and “returning and strengthening” lands in the minds of Putin and his team, Russia is finally ceasing to be an imperial body.

All the same, a peace agreement will satisfy Putin only if he can decide that the old Russia has been restored and the world has once again been divided between the superpowers: a mixture of Munich and Yalta, a deal to buy peace and formalize the new Cold War. But this reestablished Russian Empire would be an empire only in Putin’s head. It would be repudiated everywhere else. Any deal to end the Ukrainian conflict is still a long way off, given that the two sides have very different understandings of the concessions that would be required. But if it does take place, it will not be enough for Putin to redivide Europe with Trump, keep Russia in close alliance with China, and continue playing his games with the “global majority.” To complete his “just” picture of the world, Putin needs Ukraine, not the Baltic nations, Finland, or Poland: for that kind of expansion he doesn’t have the material and demographic resources, or the reserves of patience of the Russian population.

Even now, Putin has already begun to make his own division—he doesn’t see western Ukraine so much as “his” territory, because, unlike Crimea and the eastern part of the country, it is culturally and historically Western and in this sense alien to him. If there is a new Cold War, then the West may also be entering a new era of containment. But it is a far more complex situation than in the old days. Rather than to two mostly rational superpowers, the world is now hostage to three unpredictable and dangerous leaders: Putin, Trump, and Xi.

The Cold War Putin Wants

Foreign Affairs · by More by Andrei Kolesnikov · January 23, 2025

Why Russia Seeks to Change, Not End, the Conflict in Ukraine

Andrei Kolesnikov

January 23, 2025

Russian President Vladimir Putin at a rally in Moscow, March 2024 Maxim Shemetov / Reuters

Andrei Kolesnikov is a member of the Scientific Advisory Council of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.

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Three years after launching his “special military operation” in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin faces a looming choice. In public, he exudes optimism. He has pulled his country back from the abyss and, with military means, defended its sovereignty, or rather what he calls sovereignty. Had he not done so, he asserts, Russia would have ceased to exist. Meanwhile, Russia’s GDP is growing—it increased by around four percent in 2024, according to official figures— and wages are not only rising but also apparently keeping up with prices despite an annual inflation rate now running at more than nine percent. Behind this façade, the military budget has doubled in three years and growth is overwhelmingly being driven by the military economy; the consumer sector, where inflation is even higher, is stagnant.

Yet so far it all seems tolerable to ordinary Russians. The Kremlin has gained further control over society, even as it allows several aspects of private life to continue undisturbed. And the war, though its costs keep going up, is apparently going Russia’s way: by Putin’s telling, Russian forces “liberated” at least 189 settlements in Ukraine in 2024, and Western air defenses have no chance against Russia’s newest missile. The population shows signs of war fatigue, but in general all the happy reports of military successes are taken for granted: according to survey data from the independent Levada Center, performative or genuine support for the special operation has plateaued at around 75 percent of the population, including 45 percent who say they are definitely in favor of military action and 30 percent somewhat in favor. (Although more than a third of Russians also say that the return to the White House of Donald Trump, who has vowed to quickly end the war, might be good for Russia, even more think it will make no difference.)

But in reality, all is not well as Russia enters the new year. In using hard power, Putin has lost soft power. By trying to rebuild the Russian empire, he is losing Russian influence over its former territories. In seeking to increase the distance between Russia’s borders and NATO, he has brought about the opposite: the transatlantic alliance is now, as the Kremlin darkly warns, “at the gates.” The home front is equally unsettled. The economy is structured more and more in a war- and state-skewed way, with the central bank’s punishingly high benchmark interest rate of 21 percent—necessary to control inflation—driving some businesses to the brink of bankruptcy. By prioritizing security, the Kremlin has made Russians less safe: for many, daily life now consists of either waiting for an enemy drone to arrive or, for those who are against the war, for a decisive knock on the door by the authorities. Social mores have been corroded by the banalization of violence, and patriotism is now seen as the willingness to sell oneself to the trenches for an ever-higher price, in the form of lavish enlistment bonuses and salaries. The censorship that destroyed Russia’s independent news media has gradually spread into education, theater, film, book publishing, and even museum politics. Entire social groups are being stigmatized and persecuted, from migrants and civic activists to scholars and intellectuals, who are now often designated as “foreign agents.” Comparisons with his Soviet predecessors do not redound in Putin’s favor: the post–Stalinist Soviet Union was proud of Sputnik; Putin’s Russia is proud of Oreshnik, its latest hypersonic missile.

A still larger problem is the future. Having brought the country this far, it is unclear that Putin and his team can go back. Demilitarizing the economy and demobilizing the public would risk undermining the system that sustains his rule. Even as the costs keep going up, Putin needs a permanent war to preserve what pro-government sociologists call “the Donbas consensus”—the majority of Russians who support military action and the Kremlin’s increasingly personalist approach to power. Here, then, is the dilemma that Putin faces in 2025: ending the war would be just as dangerous as waging it.

LESSER ROME

In the years leading up to the special operation, Putin and his supporters resurrected the archaic Russian concept of a Third Rome, the conceit that an idealized Russian state could exert a decisive influence on a vast “Russian world.” The new empire was supposedly so powerful that it could control developments far outside this regional sphere as well. That vision has faltered.

Consider the rapid collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s Syria in December. For years, Russia’s intervention in Syria had been presented as a success story showing how the Putin regime could, like its Soviet predecessors, decide the fate of countries thousands of miles from the Kremlin. Syria had long been used to justify Russia’s messianic expansionism, and the fight against anti-Assad factions provided a template for Russian propaganda about Ukraine. Now that narrative has collapsed, although it has not for the moment shaken Putin’s high approval ratings.

Nor are Putin’s losses limited to Syria. Armenia, once Russia’s “strategic partner” in the Caucasus—a country that was under Moscow’s protection and strongly dependent on Russia in several economic sectors—has been forsaken in the ashes of its recent war with Azerbaijan: in the fall of 2023, Russia could do little more than stand out of the way, as well-armed Azerbaijani forces seized the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh and, seemingly overnight, expelled more than 100,000 Armenian Karabakhis. Now Armenia is concluding a Charter of Strategic Partnership with the United States and seeking to join the European Union. Putin is said to have “chemistry” with President Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s long-serving leader, but after Russian air defenses allegedly shot down an Azerbaijani airliner over Grozny in late December, the autocrats’ supposed friendship has come into serious question. Not to mention that Aliyev is now far more aligned with another regional strongman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Indeed, Turkey is another problem. Since the West imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia in 2022, the Kremlin has depended on cordial relations with Ankara for processing financial transactions and securing many imports necessary for daily life. But Turkey is not behaving: Erdogan has called for the return of Crimea to Ukraine, and in Syria, he supported the rebels who brought down Putin’s ally, Assad, and who now control the country. Even as Erdogan plays friends with Putin, he has outplayed him in Damascus. According to one Turkish expert, Turkey’s task is now to contain Russia even as it benefits from pragmatic cooperation with it.

By prioritizing security, the Kremlin has made Russians less safe.

Then there is Israel. For many years, Putin met regularly with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he considered a fellow strongman. At the same time, Ukraine’s historical anti-Semitism and the legacy of the Holocaust in that country allowed Putin, at least until February 2022, to occupy the moral high ground in the eyes of many Israelis. There are not many Jews in Russia, and their numbers have fallen further since the war in Ukraine began: many Jewish intellectuals have left, and many who remain have acquired an Israeli passport in case they need to flee the country.

Historically, resurgent Russian nationalism has gone hand in hand with anti-Semitism, although the main enemy today, according to Kremlin propaganda, are not Jews and Zionists but NATO and the “Anglo-Saxon” bloc it allegedly serves. Nevertheless, public attitudes in Russia toward Jews and especially toward Israel have deteriorated. Russians are not typically concerned about the fate of the Palestinians, but in what appears to be some kind of reflexive response, those who strongly support Russia’s war in Ukraine also tend to favor Hamas and Hezbollah against Israel. (In a joint survey by Levada and the Chicago Council in October 2024, 38 percent of Russians said that the United States and NATO countries were most responsible for the continued bloodshed and instability in the Middle East, and nearly three times as many Russians said that Israel bore responsibility for the ongoing conflict than those who blamed Hamas and the Palestinians.)

Even longtime Russian satellites have become a headache for Putin. Take the small but spectacular case of Abkhazia, the breakaway region of Georgia: in November, faced with a plan that would have given Russia even greater influence over their economy, Abkhazians stormed their parliament and brought down their government. All the Kremlin could do in response was to ban the import of Abkhazian tangerines and advise Russian tourists not to visit the region.

Meanwhile, the various multilateral organizations that Russia has helped launch over the past two decades have stumbled. The BRICS, the organization of non-Western powers that Russia founded with Brazil, China, and India in 2009, has added more members but failed to produce much in the way of tangible results. The problem is that Putin claims to be building an alternative world order, but the world order either exists or does not exist. It cannot be alternative, and it is impossible without the West. Moreover, the fellow members of the BRICS and of other organizations that are supposed to keep former Soviet countries in Putin’s orbit have multivector interests of their own and are as keen to cooperate with China, Europe, and the United States as with the former imperial metropolis. No country other than Russia itself has sworn allegiance to a Third Rome, even one that bristles with new hypersonic missiles. In short, the expansion of the imaginary empire has weakened rather than strengthened the autocrat’s retrograde state.

SOLDIERS, NOT TEACHERS

After a quarter century in power, Putin appears increasingly out of touch with reality. He is, as one insider has noted, “in space.” He seems to regard many of Russia’s multiplying structural defects as accomplishments rather than signs of economic ill health. Economists have estimated that the labor force is now short by some 4.8 million workers; alongside a long-term decline in the working-age population, hundreds of thousands of “relocants”—people who have left Russia since 2022—and those who have gone to the trenches, have further drained the pool. There are no reliable statistics on the extent of the losses, but they will affect the country’s demography and labor market for decades to come. Russian schools alone, according to some estimates, may lack close to half a million teachers. Similar if less drastic staffing problems plague the medical and other sectors.

The civilian economy is faltering. The construction industry is a prime example: due to lower demand and skyrocketing costs—the price of construction materials have risen by 64 percent between 2021 and 2024—the rate of new housing starts has slowed down dramatically. Other struggling industries include freight transportation, exacerbated by a slowdown in the railroad network; road transportation, with rising fuel costs and a shortage of drivers; mineral extraction; and agriculture, which had been the pride of Putin’s rule. On the whole, exports are no longer a source of growth. Domestic consumption continues, but the outlook is clouded by ever higher prices. Officially, inflation in Russia in 2024 amounted to 9.52 percent. Clearly, to make it psychologically easier for the population, the government did not want the annual figure to become double-digit. Yet prices for fruit and vegetable products increased by 22.1 percent and butter by an even higher 36.2 percent. Among nonfood products, prices for services rose up 11.5 percent; gasoline, 11.1 percent; and medicines, by 10.6 percent. It is impossible to maintain that the population does not feel the effects.

Regardless, the war economy goes full tilt. Statistics attest to a ramping-up of industrial production in sectors supplying intermediate goods and components to the defense industry: metallurgy, machine building, vehicles, electrical equipment, computers, and electronics. The government continues to flood the military-industrial sector with money, promising improved professional prospects and ever better salaries for anyone who joins. It is important for Putin to show the young that the path to a successful career lies in war. But continuing to man the army has come at a staggering cost, with the government now spending, according to estimates, as much as $23 billion a year to lure new recruits alone. Since the start of 2025, some regions have begun to increase payments to people who are under military contract, revealing the extent to which this “work” is unpopular. The state also encourages young people to enroll in its secondary vocational education system, which provides training for specialties that are in demand in the paramilitary economy. To fill the demand for engineers in the military-industrial complex, the Kremlin has heavily promoted technical specialties in higher education as well.

All of this has raised doubts about how long Russia’s budgetary reserves can sustain the war. Will the resources start to run out in 2025? There is also the risk of manmade disasters as the government neglects the country’s creaking civilian infrastructure. Train derailments, heating system breaks and other utility accidents, and domestic aircraft breakdowns have become alarmingly frequent. In December 2024, two aging Russian tankers loaded with fuel oil were heavily damaged by a storm in the Kerch Strait, which separates Russia from Crimea, spewing thousands of tons of oil into the sea and causing a huge environmental disaster. One of the tankers ran aground, and the other simply broke in two; both had been in operation for around 50 years. In the Russian border regions of Belgorod and Kursk and in inner regions like Tatarstan, Ukrainian drone attacks are meanwhile becoming routine. For ordinary Russians, none of this adds up to a feeling of security.

MAKING THE COLD WAR GREAT AGAIN

By banking everything on war, Putin has made Russians increasingly tired of it. Throughout the population, there are signs of exhaustion: surveys by the Levada Center now show a clear majority in favor of peace talks, with the figure reaching 57 percent in November, close to its highest level since the war started. (The figure dipped slightly to 54 percent in December, but the proportion of Russians who say they oppose peace has remained unchanged for several months, at 37 percent.) For the majority of peace supporters, two conditions remain important: Russia should retain the “new territories” it has acquired since 2022, and Ukraine should not join NATO. If such conditions are met, the polling shows, ending the war would satisfy a substantial part of the Russian population, who would consider it a “victory.” Hopes for peace talks have risen with the election of Trump, although both the general population and elites express skepticism of any immediate results. In October 2024, 37 percent of Levada Center respondents agreed with the idea that Trump’s election would be good for Russia, and nearly as many—33 percent—thought that relations between Russia and the United States could improve under him; but an even higher number, 46 percent, said the outcome of the U.S. election didn’t matter.

Signs of public malaise with a relentlessly militarized society and with economic challenges do not mean that Russians are turning against Putin. But they do make clear that the broad mass of people who generally support the war are at the same time impatient for it to end. In this sense, public opinion in Putin’s Russia must be understood not as an unmoving monolith but rather like slow-moving lava that might change direction as external factors change. Perhaps this is what worries the Kremlin. In November 2024, Kremlin spin doctors were discussing how it might be possible to make the “calm majority” perceive peace as a victory and ensure that those who would be returning from the trenches would be treated well. Among those veterans would be many of yesterday’s prisoners, the physically disabled, and those with post-traumatic stress disorder. According to Putin’s idea, those who have been through combat should be offered a fast track to management careers through a special program. Civilian officials are hardly thrilled at the prospect of such competition.

The Kremlin’s task for 2025, then, is to maintain a placid population. This will be necessary regardless of whether Putin continues the war of attrition amid stagflation and a shortage of workers, or whether he allows a peace agreement to take hold—without the full capitulation of the enemy—and seeks new ways to consolidate the majority around him. Even though it would be as costly for Putin to end the special operation as to keep it going, there is a way out: he can continue permanent war against the West—by cold means rather than hot. The main thing is to avoid any sense of even partial defeat. The problem is that, sooner or later, an unending war can give the impression, if not of defeat, then of stagnation. The same could happen to the militarized economy. In 2025, cease-fire or not, the sense that Putin faces a fork in the road cannot be avoided. He may be able to stall for awhile, but how much time does he have, even in a society frozen in its indifference?

By banking everything on war, Putin has made Russians increasingly tired of it.

Over the past three years, Russia has embarked on the final act of the collapse of an empire that, in earlier centuries, not only extended its domain across much of Europe and Asia but also subjugated its own population. It was a kind of self-colonization. Now that process is underway again because Putin’s current battle has two fronts—external and internal. An older idea of Russia that has not yet been destroyed is taking revenge on new, innocent generations who are sacrificing their lives in pursuit of unrecoverable greatness. Even as the imaginary empire is expanding and “returning and strengthening” lands in the minds of Putin and his team, Russia is finally ceasing to be an imperial body.

All the same, a peace agreement will satisfy Putin only if he can decide that the old Russia has been restored and the world has once again been divided between the superpowers: a mixture of Munich and Yalta, a deal to buy peace and formalize the new Cold War. But this reestablished Russian Empire would be an empire only in Putin’s head. It would be repudiated everywhere else. Any deal to end the Ukrainian conflict is still a long way off, given that the two sides have very different understandings of the concessions that would be required. But if it does take place, it will not be enough for Putin to redivide Europe with Trump, keep Russia in close alliance with China, and continue playing his games with the “global majority.” To complete his “just” picture of the world, Putin needs Ukraine, not the Baltic nations, Finland, or Poland: for that kind of expansion he doesn’t have the material and demographic resources, or the reserves of patience of the Russian population.

Even now, Putin has already begun to make his own division—he doesn’t see western Ukraine so much as “his” territory, because, unlike Crimea and the eastern part of the country, it is culturally and historically Western and in this sense alien to him. If there is a new Cold War, then the West may also be entering a new era of containment. But it is a far more complex situation than in the old days. Rather than to two mostly rational superpowers, the world is now hostage to three unpredictable and dangerous leaders: Putin, Trump, and Xi.

Andrei Kolesnikov is a member of the Scientific Advisory Council of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.

• More by Andrei Kolesnikov 

Foreign Affairs · by More by Andrei Kolesnikov · January 23, 2025

21. Exclusive: US deploys Typhon missile launchers to new location in Philippines

​Excerpts:

The Typhon system is part of a U.S. drive to amass a variety of anti-ship weapons in Asia.

Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), which oversees U.S. forces in the region, told Reuters the Typhons have been "relocated within the Philippines". Both INDOPACOM and the Philippine government declined to give the specific location to which the batteries were moved.

"The U.S. government has coordinated closely with the Philippine government on every aspect of the MRC deployment, including the location," said Commander Matthew Comer of INDOPACOM, referring to the Typhon by the initials of its formal name, Mid Range Capability.

He added that the relocation was not an indication that the batteries would be permanently in the Philippines.

The weapon drew sharp criticism from China when it was first deployed in April 2024 during a training exercise. In September, when the United States said it had no immediate plans to pull the Typhons out of the Philippines, China and Russia condemned the deployment as fuelling an arms race.

China's foreign ministry accused the Philippines on Thursday of creating tension and confrontation in the region, and urged it to "correct its wrong practices".

Exclusive: US deploys Typhon missile launchers to new location in Philippines

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/us-deploys-typhon-missile-launchers-new-location-philippines-2025-01-23/

By Gerry Doyle and Karen Lema

January 23, 20253:13 AM ESTUpdated 5 hours ago

A view of the Typhon missile system at Laoag International Airport, in Laoag, Philippines, September 13, 2024, in this satellite image. 2024 Planet Labs Inc./Handout via REUTERS/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

SummaryCompanies

• Launchers can send missiles as far away as China and RussiaBatteries moved to undisclosed location elsewhere on Luzon island, source saysRelocation does not indicate that batteries would permanently be in Philippines, US says

Jan 23 (Reuters) - The U.S. military has moved its Typhon launchers - which can fire multipurpose missiles up to thousands of kilometres - from Laoag airfield in the Philippines to another location on the island of Luzon, a senior Philippine government source said.

The Tomahawk cruise missiles in the launchers can hit targets in both China and Russia from the Philippines; the SM-6 missiles it also carries can strike air or sea targets more than 200 km (165 miles) away.

The senior Philippine government source said the redeployment would help determine where and how fast the missile battery could be moved to a new firing position. That mobility is seen as a way to make them more survivable during a conflict.

Satellite images showed the batteries and their associated gear being loaded onto C-17 transport aircraft at Laoag International Airport in recent weeks, said Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. The white rain canopies that had covered the Typhon equipment were also removed, according to the images, seen by Reuters and not previously reported.

Satellite images show the relocation of U.S. Typhon launchers from Laoag International Airport in the Philippines.

The Typhon system is part of a U.S. drive to amass a variety of anti-ship weapons in Asia.

Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), which oversees U.S. forces in the region, told Reuters the Typhons have been "relocated within the Philippines". Both INDOPACOM and the Philippine government declined to give the specific location to which the batteries were moved.

"The U.S. government has coordinated closely with the Philippine government on every aspect of the MRC deployment, including the location," said Commander Matthew Comer of INDOPACOM, referring to the Typhon by the initials of its formal name, Mid Range Capability.

He added that the relocation was not an indication that the batteries would be permanently in the Philippines.

The weapon drew sharp criticism from China when it was first deployed in April 2024 during a training exercise. In September, when the United States said it had no immediate plans to pull the Typhons out of the Philippines, China and Russia condemned the deployment as fuelling an arms race.

China's foreign ministry accused the Philippines on Thursday of creating tension and confrontation in the region, and urged it to "correct its wrong practices".

"(The deployment) is also an extremely irresponsible choice for the people of the country and various Southeast Asian countries, and for regional security," ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a regular news briefing.

Typhons are relatively easy to produce - drawing on large stockpiles and designs that have been around for a decade or more - and could help the United States and its allies catch up quickly in an Indo-Pacific missile race in which China has a big lead.

Although the U.S. military has declined to say how many will be deployed in the Indo-Pacific region, more than 800 SM-6 missiles are due to be bought in the next five years, according to government documents outlining military purchases. Several thousand Tomahawks are already in U.S. inventories, the documents showed.

Both missiles are Raytheon (RTX.N), opens new tab products.

The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here.

Reporting by Gerry Doyle in Singapore and Karen Lema in Manila; Additional reporting by Colleen Howe in Beijing; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan

​22. Trump and the Perils of Ungoverning

​I am sure this will garner some strong responses. In my opinion one of our fundamental problems is that both extremes have adopted "resistance" as a core element of their strategy while out of power. It is this resistance that is making the US seeming nearly ungovernable. Both sides need to be committed to making our constitution work - it is built for friction and opposition (and thus inefficiencies - it is not a business) which is supposed to protect the individual from tyranny and force compromise in the making of laws.

Do we want to consider the members of the opposing political party the enemy and resist their every action? Or do we want to challenge their beliefs and fight for ours through the ballot box and our governing system, i.e., make our constitution work?

We should think critically about this essay and the intent of the authors. Is this resistance or is this a critique from the "loyal opposition?" Are the authors advocating resistance to the new Administration? I do think they have made an important point about the delegitimation of our governing institutions. Is that a fair assessment? Is it right to delegitimize our institutions?  

The bottomline: Is this essay helpful and will it contribute to improving our governance? Or will it only harden the oposing side and generate more resistnce from the radical extreme of the other side?

Excerpts:

There is a danger for Trump, and for the country, beyond the convulsions of arbitrariness, the dismissal of knowledge and process, and the specter of draconian measures. The president, his party, his followers, and friendly media spent close to a decade denouncing the conspiratorial “deep state” and threatening to bring it crashing down. The result has been a wholesale delegitimation of the institutions that underpin the government’s administrative capacity. Delegitimation goes beyond distrust, a measure of which is always warranted, as vigilance is a duty of citizens in a democracy. For Trump and many of his allies and supporters, the machinery of government has no legitimacy—and compliance with its strictures is unnecessary unless they happen to align with the leader’s will.

During Trump’s first term and throughout the Biden administration, rightwing resistance to Democratic officials and policies, sometimes in the form of violence and threats, was frighteningly commonplace. Targets included election officials, local school boards, health-care workers, and teachers. In October 2024, reports of armed individuals threatening Federal Emergency Management Agency personnel delivering aid to hurricane victims in North Carolina forced the agency to relocate assistance teams and pause some operations.

Citizens who lament Trump’s return to the presidency are not likely to respond with violence as some of Trump’s followers did on January 6, 2021. Organized civil society will look to the regular political arena and to the courts; it will abide by the norms of a peaceful democratic opposition. But Trump’s followers are another story. The blanket clemency Trump awarded on the first day of his presidency to all the January 6 insurgents, including the leaders of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers militia groups, signals that violence against Trump’s opponents is acceptable.

Even if political violence does not break out, the continuous disruptions of ungoverning create unpredictability and uncertainty and, for many Americans, insecurity and dread. The effects of ungoverning are institutional but also personal and individual. This matters because vulnerability is infantilizing, even paralyzing. It taxes both personal and collective agency and degrades the vital moral underpinnings of liberal democracy. Trump’s administration will come to an end, eventually, as will his “Make America Great Again” movement. Afterward, the American people will have to rebuild what he destroyed: a government able to administer the country in the interests of its people.

Trump and the Perils of Ungoverning

Foreign Affairs · by More by Russell Muirhead · January 23, 2025

Institutions Under Assault Will Not Deliver for Americans

Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum

January 23, 2025

Outside the White House on inauguration day, Washington, D.C., January 2025 Nathan Howard / Reuters

Russell Muirhead is the Robert Clements Professor of Democracy and Politics at Dartmouth College.

Nancy L. Rosenblum is the Senator Joseph Clark Professor of Ethics in Politics and Government Emerita at Harvard University.

They are the authors of Ungoverning: The Attack on the Administrative State and the Politics of Chaos.

• More by Nancy L. Rosenblum

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As U.S. President Donald Trump returns to the White House, it already seems clear that his second term will look little like his first. Many of Trump’s first-term appointments distanced themselves from his views and even denounced him. “I picked some people I shouldn’t have picked,” Trump lamented on Joe Rogan’s podcast last November. “Disloyal people.” This time, Trump is ready. The president and his allies are convinced that he was let down in his first term by those around him and by the bureaucracy of the federal government. They will not let that happen again.

On his first day in office, Trump restored Schedule F, an employment category that he had created in the closing months of his first term that strips civil servants of protections, allowing them to be fired at will. Trump has convinced many of his followers that a “deep state” thwarted his first term and robbed him of the 2020 election. Now, the putative deep state will be expunged, along with the expertise and procedures that make effective administration possible. Trump will judge both appointees and civil servants by one criterion: loyalty, defined not by commitment to a programmatic agenda but by unquestioning obedience to the president.

According to reporting by The New York Times, the administration’s transition team has been asking applicants for government posts in multiple agencies, including in the intelligence services and the Department of Defense, about their views on the events of the January 6 attacks on the U.S. Capitol. And they have asked applicants pointedly about the 2020 presidential election. Those who condemn the attack or believe that Biden won the race appear unlikely to receive posts.

Staffing the federal government with sycophants is not about ensuring loyalty to an agenda. It is about ensuring submission to the president. And it serves to amplify what we call “ungoverning”: the degradation of state capacity and the substitution of unchecked personal will for the difficult, necessary business of shaping, implementing, and assessing policy for the nation. The administration will sideline experts and circumvent regular processes of information gathering and consultation. In so doing, it will degrade state capacity; the premium Trump places on personal loyalty will result in confounding his ability to govern.

Ungoverning is radical and rare in the annals of political history. There are simply not that many examples of states that have been systematically degraded and dismantled by individual rulers or parties. In some cases, those in power manage to substitute kleptocracy and state violence for administration; for instance, in Venezuela where first Hugo Chávez and then Nicolás Maduro destroyed a prosperous and functioning state.

In the United States, ungoverning—which is distinct from conservative small government and from deregulation and privatization—is novel. Critics on both sides of the aisle have tried to cut through bureaucratic red tape in the past, but historically, officials of both parties and the general public have accepted the administrative state as indispensable to the fulfillment of public needs.

The question now is whether those around Trump will work to check his appetite for ungoverning. As subject-specific experts are replaced by flatterers, the government’s ability to achieve lasting, large-scale results shrinks. As process is shunted aside in favor of one person’s will, the state’s ability to gather accurate information and make effective judgments corrodes; its capacity to design, refine, and implement policy disappears. Ultimately, ungoverning makes the strongman weak.

LOYALTY OVER CAPABILITY

At the heart of democratic governance—and the office of the presidency—is the idea of administration. The institutions and scope of the current administrative state can be traced to the New Deal era of President Franklin Roosevelt. But the importance of building a state with administrative capacity goes back to the country’s founding. When opponents of the Constitution insisted that state governments would be closer to the people—and more loved by them—than any government operating on a national scale, Alexander Hamilton, the first secretary of the treasury, responded that the aim of the government was not to reflect the passions of local majorities but to practice good administration.

A state with administrative capacity pursues its goals by first systematically and accurately gathering information on current conditions—as Hamilton tried to do on the national economy in his 1791 “Report on Manufactures” and as the Bureau of Labor Statistics and every other agency does now. The next step is to envision a future that is more prosperous, freer, and more secure. And, finally, to design a plan for applying resources, on a large scale and over a long period, to bring that future into being. The administrative state shapes, implements, and enforces every law passed by Congress and every executive order made by the president. As Hamilton wrote in “Federalist No. 72” (of The Federalist Papers), “the administration of government, in the largest sense, comprehends all the operations of the body politic.”

The machinery of government that Trump now inherits comprises about 4,000 political appointees and three million public servants who respond to natural disasters and military emergencies, pursue long-term goals set by Congress and the president, and do much else. For Trump, the problem with expertise and process is that they limit the scope and constrain the exercise of his power. Specialized knowledge is a source of authority, as Trump knows, which is why he cannot bear to stand alongside a knowledgeable official, even one of his own appointees, without asserting his own superior expertise. At a press briefing during the COVID-19 pandemic, he suggested to Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, that irradiating COVID-19 patients’ bodies with ultraviolet light and injections of disinfectant might offer a cure. “I’m not a doctor,” the president said, pointing to his head. “But I’m a person that has a good you-know-what.”

Trump expects that selecting for loyalty will allow him to govern more effectively in the second term, to push through his agenda. But in truth, prioritizing loyalty over capability will undermine his administration. Unless he is able to yield to the expertise of his appointees and civil servants, his own policy aims will be frustrated. Trump’s problem is not that he requires loyalty to his agenda, on tariffs, on immigration, on foreign policy. It is that he demands personal loyalty—or what John Bolton, Trump’s longest-serving national security adviser in his first term, has called “fealty, a medieval concept implying not mere loyalty but submission.”

ADMINISTRATION DEGRADATION

To be sure, some of Trump’s cabinet picks are loyal primarily to his program. Take his new border czar, Tom Homan, a former border patrol agent who served as head of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation branch under President Barack Obama and acting director of the agency under Trump. “I’ve seen hundreds of policies come and go,” he told The Wall Street Journal earlier this month. “I know what policies worked and what policies don’t work.” He is devoted to Trump’s immigration policies, but he has also met with Republican members of Congress to moderate expectations about the practicality of mass deportation. For those who support Trump’s policies, this is the kind of appointment that promises to convert Trump’s rhetoric into reality. For those who oppose Trump’s policies, this is what makes Trump’s second term more foreboding than the first.

An effective president has to find and empower people in the mold of Homan—professionals with deep expertise capable of translating broad goals into workable policies and implementing them. This is what “administration” means. But Trump’s insistence on personal submission, and his distrust of the very administrative state he is charged with directing, is decidedly anti-administration. As Russell Vought, the prospective director of the Office of Management and Budget, has said: “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.” This is also the orientation of Kash Patel, Trump’s nominee to head the FBI who last September promised to close the agency’s Washington headquarters and convert it into a museum of the “deep state.”

Then there’s the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE—helmed by the political newcomer Elon Musk. The electric car and spaceship mogul originally promised to cut at least $2 trillion from a federal budget of nearly $7 trillion, to lay off two million federal employees, and to slash thousands of regulations. To shrink the budget, civil service, and regulatory scope of government on this scale is an enormous task, and DOGE has recruited leaders from Silicon Valley to develop the plan. Staffed mostly by individuals with little to no experience in governance, DOGE will be unlikely to realize the massive restriction in the scope of the federal government that its founders promise. To do so would require both intimate knowledge of the federal budget, the work of federal agencies, and buy-in from a working coalition of legislators, not to mention the backing of the American public that may not be ready to accept a government that does vastly less than people are accustomed to.

Ungoverning makes the strongman weak.

If Trump is to succeed in realizing the policies he espouses, his administration will need to make appointments on the basis of qualities more salient to effective governance than personal loyalty. Effective governance requires empowering public servants with experience and specialized knowledge. It means allowing for a process by which they can form and select from alternative policy options, detail plans for their implementation, and then act on those plans. It means staying true to clear goals so that appointees can advance the agenda without squandering time and talent kowtowing to the president.

Those who oppose Trump’s policies may welcome a chaotic anti-administration that cannot make good on the promise of mass deportation or across-the-board tariffs. But Trump will not oversee an administration that is simply ineffective. Rather he will orchestrate a comprehensive degradation of the administrative institutions of government—the processes of decision-making and the consultation of expertise that effective policy of any sort requires. Instead of a government capable of policymaking and implementation, the U.S. government will revolve around the personal will of the president.

Governing is not about domination and submission. As Hamilton observed, it is about undertaking “extensive and arduous enterprises for the public benefit, requiring considerable time to mature.” The Biden administration aspired to this, as exemplified by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the CHIPS and Science Act, both of which are massive, long-term projects that will take a generation to reveal their full effects. If Trump harbors similar or grander aspirations, his administration will likewise need to act like an administration.

REBUILDING STATE CAPACITY

There is a danger for Trump, and for the country, beyond the convulsions of arbitrariness, the dismissal of knowledge and process, and the specter of draconian measures. The president, his party, his followers, and friendly media spent close to a decade denouncing the conspiratorial “deep state” and threatening to bring it crashing down. The result has been a wholesale delegitimation of the institutions that underpin the government’s administrative capacity. Delegitimation goes beyond distrust, a measure of which is always warranted, as vigilance is a duty of citizens in a democracy. For Trump and many of his allies and supporters, the machinery of government has no legitimacy—and compliance with its strictures is unnecessary unless they happen to align with the leader’s will.

During Trump’s first term and throughout the Biden administration, rightwing resistance to Democratic officials and policies, sometimes in the form of violence and threats, was frighteningly commonplace. Targets included election officials, local school boards, health-care workers, and teachers. In October 2024, reports of armed individuals threatening Federal Emergency Management Agency personnel delivering aid to hurricane victims in North Carolina forced the agency to relocate assistance teams and pause some operations.

Citizens who lament Trump’s return to the presidency are not likely to respond with violence as some of Trump’s followers did on January 6, 2021. Organized civil society will look to the regular political arena and to the courts; it will abide by the norms of a peaceful democratic opposition. But Trump’s followers are another story. The blanket clemency Trump awarded on the first day of his presidency to all the January 6 insurgents, including the leaders of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers militia groups, signals that violence against Trump’s opponents is acceptable.

Even if political violence does not break out, the continuous disruptions of ungoverning create unpredictability and uncertainty and, for many Americans, insecurity and dread. The effects of ungoverning are institutional but also personal and individual. This matters because vulnerability is infantilizing, even paralyzing. It taxes both personal and collective agency and degrades the vital moral underpinnings of liberal democracy. Trump’s administration will come to an end, eventually, as will his “Make America Great Again” movement. Afterward, the American people will have to rebuild what he destroyed: a government able to administer the country in the interests of its people.

Russell Muirhead is the Robert Clements Professor of Democracy and Politics at Dartmouth College.

Nancy L. Rosenblum is the Senator Joseph Clark Professor of Ethics in Politics and Government Emerita at Harvard University.

They are the authors of Ungoverning: The Attack on the Administrative State and the Politics of Chaos.

Foreign Affairs · by More by Russell Muirhead · January 23, 2025

23. Crimson Moon Rising: A Defiant Spark Ignites in the Shadows (Fiction)

​Fiction is useful, valuable, and can be indispensable for influence.

Although Duc pays homage to "the 1930s and 1940s pulp classics popular in the U.S., such as Doc Savage and The Shadow," I am reminded of John Steinbeck and his The Moon is Down and its effects on motivating the resistance in World War Ii in occupied Europe. I have been trying to motivate members of the north Korean diaspora to develop a north Korean specific version of The Moon is Down.

​Below is the table of contents of the materials I put together for them. Note the link to the history and story of the OSS and John Steinbeck. Below Duc's essay I have provided two outlines for a north Korean "The Moon Is Down."

Table of Contents – written products – English and Korean

1. The history and story behind the OSS and John Steinbeck’s novel

English Page 7; Korean Page 13

https://chronicchronicler.wordpress.com/2014/05/07/the-moon-is-down-precision-propaganda-prose/

2. AI/ChatGPT outlines for a north Korean focused novel

                 English Page 16; Korean Page 21

3. 10 Point Promise to Counter the Ten Points of Monolithic Ideology

                 English Page 25; Korean Page 30

4. A possible north Korean Strategy overview (Korea Talking Points (as of April 2024))

                 English Page 35; Korean Page 39

5. Revitalizing America's North Korea Policy

                 English Page 42; Korean Page 49

6. Unifying Korea: A New Strategy for Dealing with Kim Jong Un

                 English Page 54; Korean Page 59

Electronic files:

1. All of the above.

2. PDF of John Steinbeck’s The Moon is Down (English only)

3. PDF of Gene Sharp’s From Dictatorship to Democracy (English and Korean)

4. OSS Simple Sabotage Manual (English Only)

Crimson Moon Rising

A Defiant Spark Ignites in the Shadows

https://www.strategycentral.io/post/crimson-moon-rising

A STRATEGY CENTRAL ORIGINAL

By Maurice "Duc" DuClos - January 22, 2025

Part 1 of 4: The Ambush

Diesel fumes hung thick in the night air as Kai crouched in the shadows of a rusting shipping container. His fingers traced the crimson scarf at his throat - a splash of defiant color in the darkness, a symbol that had come to haunt the occupation's nightmares. Beyond the dim glow of flickering streetlights, the convoy rumbled forward - three armored vehicles bristling with machine guns. To the untrained eye, it was an impenetrable fortress on wheels.

To Kai, it was an opportunity.

The convoy inched through a section of the city still bearing the scars of the initial invasion—collapsed buildings and rubble-strewn streets testify to the occupation's brutal arrival. But the area remained vital, its network of access roads feeding the industrial zone, where factories still churned out goods under enemy control. The invaders needed the city's manufacturing capacity intact—they hadn't come to rule over ruins.

From his position on the street's eastern side, Kai could see Liang's shadow waiting in a doorway across the way, while Mei's voice came from somewhere above - the abandoned telecom tower that gave her clear sight lines to both positions. The Crimson Moon could not allow this convoy to pass unchallenged. Rain-slick metal pressed cold against his back as he adjusted his position, the scarf's bold insignia hidden for now but ready to be revealed - let them see who struck this blow.. The weight of his trapo - a crude but effective impact weapon favored by the resistance for its simplicity - rested reassuringly in his jacket pocket. Just a padlock on a loop of cord, but in the right hands, it could shatter bone or kill.

"Ready," Mei said through his earpiece, the faint crackle barely audible over the convoy's approaching thunder. “Scrambling their frequencies... now."

Kai tapped his mic twice, signaling his move. They had to time this perfectly. Their intelligence suggested Colonel Zhan himself had arranged this shipment - the same Colonel Zhan who'd earned his reputation breaking resistance cells across three occupied territories. He never failed to root out dissent, which made tonight's message all the more vital.

Liang emerged from the shadows, moving like oil across water. His hands gripped the straps of a homemade explosive device carried like an oversized messenger bag. Inside, eight pounds of salvaged RDX waited - military-grade plastic explosive that could tear through armor like paper. Liang had a gift for this, turning the occupation's own unexploded ordnance into precisely shaped charges. Weeks of testing had gone into this one. He nodded to Kai, his eyes sharp with focus beneath the grime that streaked his face.

The timing was everything, and Liang never missed.

The first armored vehicle rolled past, its mounted turret swiveling with a hydraulic whine that set Kai's teeth on edge. Then came the second, its metal tracks crunching broken asphalt. Finally, the third--a command vehicle, reinforced and teeming with soldiers. This was the one they had to cripple.

Suddenly, a commotion erupted ahead of the convoy. An old vendor's food cart had lost a wheel, spilling steaming bowls across the street. The convoy ground to a halt, and soldiers shouted at the vendor to clear the road. They didn't know the cart's "accident" was as carefully planned as everything else tonight. Liang's eyes met Kai's--this was their window, but it wouldn't last long.

Liang darted forward, staying low, and attached the device to the vehicle's undercarriage. The magnetic clamps latched with a muffled click that echoed in Kai's ears even from across the street. His fingers tightened around the detonator as he counted down, checking each position. Three... Liang was clear of the kill zone. Two... the food cart vendor safely away. One... spotters all accounted for…. Now.

The explosion tore through the night, a flash of fire and screaming metal lighting up the narrow street like a false dawn. The command vehicle lurched sideways, its rear axle transformed into modern art. The convoy screeched to a halt as shouts erupted, the acrid stench of burning rubber and explosives filling the air. Spotlights swung wildly, carving through the smoke.

Through the chaos, Kai caught glimpses of Liang sprinting through the smoke. Three soldiers broke off from the convoy, giving chase with rifles raised. Gunfire erupted, the sharp crack of automatic weapons echoing off warehouse walls. Liang disappeared down a side street, the soldiers close behind. More shots rang out, followed by the crash of metal trash bins being overturned.

"Mei, you have eyes on Liang?" Kai whispered into his comm.

Static answered. Mei would have already gone dark, vanishing like a ghost into the city's shadows. Her cardinal rule--she never stayed in one place once the operation started. Some resistance members joked that she might not even exist--just a voice in the night that helped them survive.

"Incoming patrol!" Another voice cut through his thoughts - one of their street lookouts. He caught sight of two more soldiers breaking from cover, rifles raised, boots splashing through oily puddles. They moved quickly in his direction, but Kai was quicker. He bolted toward a nearby alley, the wet concrete streaming past beneath his feet.

Suddenly, strong hands seized him from behind. A soldier, moving faster than expected, had circled around. Kai felt the cold press of a rifle barrel against his back, the man's breath hot on his neck. For one terrible moment, death seemed certain.

But Kai had survived this long by using desperate moments to his advantage. Kai twisted hard, using the soldier's momentum against him, slamming him into the alley wall. The man grunted, his rifle falling with a metallic clatter. Kai's hand shot to his pocket, pulling free the trapo – and with a quick circular swing stuck out. The padlock cut through the night air, its steel body catching the soldier across the temple with a dull crack. Blood sprayed the bricks as the man staggered, his hands flailing for balance. Kai struck again, the padlock connecting with his jaw this time, teeth shattering with a sickening crunch. The soldier dropped, his body limp on the ground. Kai stepped over him and looked back to see where the remaining soldiers were now.

Bullets sparked off the bricks as the other soldiers opened fire, but Kai was already moving. He didn't stop to check if his attacker was dead or merely unconscious - hesitation meant death. His boots found the crumbling stairwell, and he took the steps two at a time, his movements practiced and precise. At the top, he reached a tripwire rigged to a cache of smoke grenades. He yanked the wire as he passed, and thick white smoke billowed into the alley below. The chemical haze muffled the soldiers' curses as Kai emerged onto the rooftop. The higher vantage point gave him a clear view of the chaos below, but he couldn't linger here for long.

Kai crouched low on the rooftop, his breath steadying as he scanned the chaos below. Smoke billowed in the alley, shrouding the soldiers as they regrouped. He had seconds—maybe less—before they moved again. The explosion had drawn a crowd--curious onlookers and terrified residents peeking from windows. The soldiers, still coughing from the smoke, were beginning to emerge. Through the haze, he could see them checking on their fallen comrade. The man was moving - wounded but alive. Good. Dead soldiers brought harder crackdowns.

For a moment, Kai considered dropping the crimson scarf. To be caught with it meant certain death. But its weight carried too much meaning—too many promises. Carefully, he stowed it in his backpack. A symbol of defiance, it had served its purpose during the mission, but now it was a liability in his escape. He turned his jacket inside out, flipping it from black to a lighter blue, a subtle but deliberate change, the black jacket common but identifiable by the soldiers. The black baseball cap followed the scarf into his bag, leaving no trace of his earlier persona.

His hands shook slightly as he separated the trapo's padlock and cord into different pockets, adrenaline still coursing through his veins. Kai forced himself to take deep breaths, steadying himself like he'd learned to do in countless similar moments. Later, these pieces would join his phone in various disposal sites across the city.

What emerged onto the street was someone else entirely - just another face in the crowd, a young man drawn by the commotion, shoulders slightly hunched with the same fear that marked all civilians under occupation. His steps were uncertain, his head down, his entire bearing a study in carefully crafted invisibility.

He moved through the growing crowd with practiced ease, his eyes never stopping to scan for threats. Soldiers barked orders at the edge of the blast site, trying to keep onlookers at bay. A flash of movement--a soldier scanning faces in the crowd. Kai shifted course without breaking stride, using a cluster of elderly women as cover, their nervous chatter about rising food prices a perfect shield.

He didn't stop moving. Stopping was dangerous. Stopping invited scrutiny.

The next hour was a careful dance through the city's arteries. He removed the battery from his burner phone and dumped it in a storm drain, the SIM card broken and scattered across multiple trash bins. The padlock wiped clean, went into a construction dumpster, and the cord dropped down a storm drain ten blocks away. As he zigzagged through the streets, he spotted a checkpoint ahead—soldiers already questioning civilians about tonight's ambush.

Kai slipped down a side street, using a route he'd memorized for exactly this scenario.

As Kai approached the checkpoint, he caught a glimpse of a man walking along the opposite side of the street. For a moment, he thought it might be another Crimson Moon member. The build, the stride—familiar enough to make his heart skip.

Kai’s hand twitched toward his side, the coded hand signal, a form of the resistance’s secret sign language, almost muscle memory. His instincts screamed to warn the man about the checkpoint ahead. But doubt crept in like a shadow. What if he wasn’t who Kai thought he was? A misplaced signal could draw the wrong kind of attention—suspicion that would ripple far beyond this moment.

And if he was Crimson Moon? Then he’d already know the risks, the unspoken rules that kept them alive. Kai’s fingers hovered, then relaxed. Doubt, he reminded himself, was both a weapon and a curse.

Head down, the man kept walking, his steps steady and unhurried, giving no indication of recognition. Kai did the same, his stride calm but measured, resisting the urge to glance back.

Twice more, he doubled back, slipping into the shadows of a crumbling archway to watch the street behind him. The faint hum of a drone’s engine passed overhead, its spotlight sweeping the ruined facades. Kai flattened himself against the cold stone, his pulse steady but his mind racing.

The man disappeared into the distance, swallowed by the night. No one followed. But even as he turned away, Kai couldn’t shake the gnawing doubt. Had he just let an ally walk into danger—or passed a stranger without consequence?

This part of the city was a maze of broken streets and abandoned buildings, a patchwork of decay and defiance. Tonight's safe house waited in a basement beneath an old storefront, one of many secrets hidden behind the occupation's blind spots.

Kai knocked three times, paused, then knocked twice more - a simple code that meant everything. He waited, letting the stillness of the alley press in around him, alert for any sound out of place.

A soft knock replied - one, then two, then one. "Who's there?" whispered a voice through the door.

If they had asked, "What do you want?" instead, Kai would have known there was trouble and vanished into the night.

"It's Wong," Kai said, his voice steady. "Here to pick up the food."

The second code, "Wong and food," signaled that he was alone and hadn't been followed. The silence stretched like a drawn wire before the voice replied, "One moment. Let me get the food."

Kai's shoulders relaxed fractionally. The phrase confirmed the room was safe. The door creaked open just enough for a pair of watchful eyes to appear, then wider to admit him into the resistance's embrace.

Inside, Mei and Liang were already waiting, both bearing the grime of the night's work. Liang sat drinking coffee while Mei hunched over her laptop, her fingers never still.

"You're late," Mei said without looking up.

"Had to take the scenic route," Kai replied, dropping his bag onto the floor. "One of them got behind me in the alley. Handled it."

Liang inspected his bruised hands, picking at soot caught beneath his nails. "The fuse was a bit off---didn't fire as clean as I wanted. And... I might've gone a little heavy on the RDX." He sounded more like a critic reviewing his work than someone who'd just blown apart an armored vehicle and escaped with his life. "That rear axle just... disappeared." Almost as an afterthought, he added, "Oh, and I lost those three assholes at the Old Gate Market through the fish seller's tunnel." He grimaced. "Those vendor tunnels are getting way too hot."

Mei's fingers stopped their relentless typing. "It's going to get hotter," she said, spinning the laptop to face them. On the screen, Colonel Zhan's face was sharp with cold fury as he delivered a statement to the press, while behind him, silent footage showed his security units dragging civilians from their homes.

"These terrorists hide behind their crimson symbols, thinking shadows will protect them,” Zhan was saying, his voice clipped and precise. “Make no mistake--the Crimson Moon will burn. And when it does, the people who protect it will burn with it.”

"He's mobilizing his special security units,” Mei continued, tapping another window. “The ones he used in the North. Remember how that ended?”

Kai remembered all too well--a flash of fire screams in the night and the faces of friends who had vanished into Zhan's detention centers. Many never emerged. The Northern Province had taught him the cost of failure.

“We’ve lost people before. It doesn’t stop us.” Kai was resolute, but he felt the hardness creeping in. This was a hard reality; they knew this kind of reaction was likely after the attack. "Mass arrests are incoming," Liang muttered, studying the screen. “He'll round up everyone he can—not just suspects—families, friends, anyone who might know something."

"Our auxiliary networks," Mei said quietly. "Street vendors, shopkeepers, the people who pass messages..."

"The food cart vendor tonight," Kai added. "The one who gave us our opening. How many more like him are already on Zhan's lists?"

"How many can withstand serious interrogation?" Liang asked. The question hung heavy in the air.

Kai had no answer. The resistance's strength lay in its web of ordinary people - each knowing only their small part, but together forming an invisible army. If Zhan's forces began systematically targeting them...

"We need to warn the other cells," he said finally.

“Already trying,” Mei replied, her fingers flying across the keyboard. "But Zhan's patrols are sealing off the market districts, checking IDs, building their database."

“He’s not just arresting people,” Mei said, indicating areas on a map that Zhan’s forces were moving into. “He’s mapping relationships—who buys from who, who talks to who, even family connections. If he finishes this, it won’t just be raids. He’ll dismantle us piece by piece.”

Kai's jaw tightened as he studied Zhan's image. The Crimson Moon had always been more than just a name or a scarf's bold color. To the occupation, it was a menace, a shadow force that defied their control. To the people, it was hope, a reminder that resistance was possible. But now it was also a target, and Colonel Zhan had built his career destroying such symbols of defiance.

"He won't stop with arrests," Kai said. "He'll use them to map our networks, trace our supply lines. Every person he breaks will lead him to three more."

"And for every person who breaks, three more will join us," Liang countered, but his voice lacked conviction.

"If they're alive to join," Mei whispered.

Outside, sirens began to wail. The real war was just beginning, and its first casualties might be the very people they'd sworn to protect. Kai touched the spot where his crimson scarf had been, feeling the weight of what it represented: hope to the people, defiance to the occupation. They’d struck a blow tonight, but Zhan’s retaliation would paint the streets a different kind of red.

And somewhere in the city's shadows, a clock began ticking.

The Crimson Moon Chronicles are purely a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, organizations, or operations is purely coincidental. The story follows a fictional resistance organization operating under occupation, showcasing various tactics and techniques inspired by current resistance, irregular, and unconventional warfare theories and concepts. Written in the style of short, serialized action fiction, it pays homage to the 1930s and 1940s pulp classics popular in the U.S., such as Doc Savage and The Shadow.

About the author

CW5 Maurice “Duc” DuClos currently serves as a Guest Lecturer at the Naval Post Graduate School (NPS) in Monterey, California. His professional background includes various positions at the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) Joint Special Operations University (JSOU), the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School (USAJFKSWCS), and 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne).

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the United States Special Operations Command, Joint Special Operations University, Naval Post Graduate School, or the Irregular Warfare Center.

The Moon is Down – north Korean outlines (English)

1. Title: "The Stars Behind the Curtain"

2. Title: The Darkness at Noon

From Chat GPT:

Title: "The Stars Behind the Curtain"

Chapter 1: Shadows of Freedom

In a small town nestled deep within the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the people live under the watchful eyes of an oppressive regime. The residents of Goyang live in fear, their voices silenced by a government that dictates their every move. But beneath the surface, a spark of resistance begins to flicker.

Chapter 2: Threads of Resistance

Kim Min-ji, a young woman with a fiery spirit, dreams of a life beyond the confines of her town. Inspired by stories of courage and freedom, she starts secretly gathering like-minded individuals who yearn for change. Together, they form a clandestine group, the "Stars of Goyang," dedicated to spreading hope and planting the seeds of self-determination.

Chapter 3: Whispers in the Dark

As the movement gains strength, the Stars of Goyang employ subtle tactics to motivate the people. They distribute leaflets, hiding them in plain sight, challenging the narrative of the regime and highlighting the beauty of freedom. Their words resonate with the oppressed, igniting a hidden desire for self-determination.

Chapter 4: A Tug-of-War for Hearts and Minds

The government, sensing the shift in public sentiment, responds with increased surveillance and propaganda. Kim Min-ji and her comrades face mounting danger as they continue their efforts to awaken their fellow citizens. They organize secret gatherings, where they discuss the history of other nations' struggles for liberation, planting the seeds of change in the minds of their listeners.

Chapter 5: Breaking Barriers

With every passing day, the Stars of Goyang become more adept at evading capture. They utilize technology and underground networks to disseminate information, sharing stories of individuals who have successfully fought for their freedom in other parts of the world. The government's grip on power begins to loosen as the spirit of self-determination spreads like wildfire.

Chapter 6: Unity and Sacrifice

As the movement gains momentum, divisions within the regime emerge. Some officials, disillusioned by the oppression they once served, secretly offer their support to the Stars of Goyang. With newfound allies on the inside, the group gains valuable intelligence, allowing them to strategically expose the regime's weaknesses and foster further dissent.

Chapter 7: The Dawn of a New Day

The journey towards self-determination is fraught with danger and sacrifice. Kim Min-ji and her comrades face imprisonment, torture, and loss, but their spirit remains unbroken. Through resilience and unwavering determination, they push the boundaries of what was once thought possible, ultimately inspiring a nation to rise up and claim their right to choose their own destiny.

"The Stars Behind the Curtain" is a tale of hope, courage, and the power of the human spirit. It shines a light on the desire for self-determination that lies within every individual and celebrates the indomitable nature of the hu

​24. Silk Web of Alliances: Trump’s Legacy and the Indo-Pacific’s Future

My recommendation to the new Administration. 

Silk Web of Alliances: Trump’s Legacy and the Indo-Pacific’s Future

19fortyfive.com · by David Maxwell · January 22, 2025

The importance of alliances in the Indo-Pacific region has been a consistent theme in US foreign policy, transcending administrations and political divides.

This continuity is evident in the through line from President Trump’s 2017 National Security Strategy (NSS) to President Biden’s Indo-Pacific security strategy. The incoming Trump administration must recognize and build upon this foundation as we look toward the future. An “America First” foreign policy will be most effective if it taps into the silk web of US relationships, and US allies will know and respect this.

It is also necessary to recognize the growing relationship of what has been described variously as the Axis of authoritarianism, dictators, chaos, tyranny, or the “Dark Quad.” This is a result of the recognition by China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea that the US silk web of relationships is immensely powerful.

These Axis players seek to counter and weaken this power while trying to harness their own. But this is a strategic competition that the US can, should, and must win. The US can do so easily when President Trump directs it to happen.

Trump’s 2017 NSS: Laying the Groundwork

The 2017 NSS, crafted during Trump’s first term, emphasized the critical role of US allies in responding to mutual threats and preserving shared interests in the Indo-Pacific region. This document highlighted key partnerships:

– South Korea: Recognizing the alliance’s strength forged through historical trials.

– Japan: Welcomes and supports its strong leadership role.

– Australia: Acknowledging its consistent support in conflicts and shared democratic values.

– New Zealand: Identifying it as a key regional peace and security partner.

– India: Welcoming its emergence as a leading global power and strategic partner.

The NSS also called for increased quadrilateral cooperation with Japan, Australia, and India, known as the Quad.

Biden’s Execution and Expansion

The Biden administration effectively executed and expanded upon the vision outlined in the 2017 NSS. This continuation of policy underscores the bipartisan recognition of the Indo-Pacific’s strategic importance. Biden’s approach has further strengthened the “silk web” of friends, partners, and allies aligned with the US around the concept of a free and open Indo-Pacific.

The Imperative for Trump’s Return

As Trump returns to office, it is crucial to recognize and build upon the progress rather than dismantle it. The incoming Trump administration should:

Acknowledge Continuity: Recognize that the current state of alliances directly results from the vision laid out in the 2017 NSS.

Take Credit and Build: Claim credit for initiating this strategic direction and commit to further strengthening these relationships.

Review and Adapt: Conduct a thorough review of the 2017 NSS, identifying areas where the Biden administration has made progress and where further work is needed.

Emphasize Shared Goals: Continue to stress the national security requirement for a free and open Indo-Pacific, a concept central to both the Trump and Biden administrations.

Leverage Existing Frameworks: Utilize and enhance structures like the Quad, which have grown from the seeds planted in the 2017 NSS.

Acknowledge Allies’ desire to cooperate with the Trump administration to support mutual interests.

Allies understand Trump and know working with the US is in their best interest. Recognize that alliance bashing is no longer necessary to gain US domestic political support. No friends of the US are afraid of “America First” because it is in their interests to support it. Allies embrace it. They fear an “America Only” concept where they are left out.

The Silk Web of Alliances: A Bipartisan Asset

The network of alliances forged by and reinforced by both Trump and Biden’s leadership represents a “silk web of U.S. friends, partners, and allies” in bilateral, multilateral, and multilateral relationships. This web is a gift for the next administration, offering a robust infrastructure for responding to security and economic challenges. Trump’s next term should embrace this bipartisan achievement, enhancing alliances rather than dismantling or reshaping them unnecessarily.

The Strategic Throughline: A Free and Open Indo-Pacific

A throughline from Trump’s NSS to Biden’s initiatives is the enduring emphasis on a free and open Indo-Pacific. Both administrations recognized the necessity of strategic coalitions to address common threats, from winning in strategic competition versus China and countering its threats to Taiwan and the Philippines and its aggression in the South China Sea to North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and its threats to the region and US homeland. Biden’s successes in deepening Quad cooperation and enhancing multilateralism complement Trump’s foundational NSS vision. While each administration had varied tactics and concepts, they have maintained a consistent strategic vision for the Indo-Pacific. Effective national security strategy can rarely be effective in one or even two presidential terms.

Former President of the United States Donald Trump speaking with attendees at the 2023 Turning Point Action Conference at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida.

The longer that there is a sustained, consistent strategy, the more effective it can be. President Trump now has an additional term to focus on implementing his original vision and developing a free and Open Indo-Pacific.

Conclusion

In reclaiming the presidency, Trump should acknowledge and capitalize on the strides made by the Biden administration in the Indo-Pacific that were a result of his vision. By building on the alliance framework and drawing a clear connection to the 2017 NSS, Trump can reinforce the bipartisan commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific. This approach not only strengthens US security but also ensures continuity in a region pivotal to global stability.

About the Author: David Maxwell

David Maxwell is a retired US Army Special Forces Colonel who has spent more than 30 years in the Asia Pacific region. He specializes in Northeast Asian Security Affairs and irregular, unconventional, and political warfare. He is Vice President of the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy and a Senior Fellow at the Global Peace Foundation. Following retirement, he was Associate Director of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. He is on the board of directors of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and the OSS Society and is a contributing editor to Small Wars Journal.

19fortyfive.com · by David Maxwell · 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