Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the day:

“Although I am an advocate of military discipline, I am opposed to the Purssian type of discipline, which makes a man a machine rather than an individual. One reason the American soldier will always be superior to that kind of soldier is that he does not obey blindly, but with intelligent cooperation, interpreting his order by his own judgment.”

– Colonel Warren L. Mabry, US Army, 1921.

"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all."

– Oscar Wilde

"The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like the condemned man who is proud of his large cell."

– Simone Weil

1. How a plain-language pamphlet created America's revolutionary mindset

2. The First Three Weeks of the Year Will Reshape the World

3. China Trains AI-Controlled Weapons With Learning From Hawks, Coyotes

4. China’s Xi Places His Top General Under Investigation as Military Purges Heat Up

5. Opinion | A Serious Defense Budget, at Last

6. What Xi Jinping’s purge of China’s most senior general reveals

7. How Iran Crushed a Citizen Uprising With Lethal Force

8. Tory peers force UK to pause passage of Chagos Islands bill after US criticism

9. An Unlikely Source of Crypto Innovation: Afghanistan

10. AI-Powered Disinformation Swarms Are Coming for Democracy

11. The Future of War - When States No Longer Own The Means of War

12. Trilateral Shipbuilding: Build a Missile Corvette Fleet with Asian Allies

13. The fear of spheres (of influence)

14. Trump at Davos marked start of a new world era

15. Modern Warfare and Risk

16. Trump, Interventions, and Regimes to Topple

17. America Can’t Win the AI Race by Retreating

18. From hardware to intelligence: the operating system powering next-generation robotics

19. Book review: Tim Cook's The Good Allies

20. An Ambassador’s Journal By David Scheffer of Arizona State University

21.

1. How a plain-language pamphlet created America's revolutionary mindset

Summary:

Thomas Paine’s Common Sense was an early masterclass in information warfare. It bypassed elites and spoke directly to the population, using plain language to reframe authority, legitimacy, and identity. Paine did not argue policy. He reshaped cognition. By recasting monarchy as immoral and independence as a moral necessity, he aligned narrative, emotion, and reason into a shared mental model. The pamphlet spread horizontally through readings and conversation, creating narrative dominance before military victory was possible. The revolution began when perception shifted, when subjects became citizens, and when a population internalized a new story about who they were and what was required of them.

Comment: Something to reflect upon on a Sunday (especially timely for those of us remaining at home due to this snowstorm). Early American information warfare, cognitive warfare, and narrative intelligence. Emphasis on "plain language."

So let's think about "Common Sense" in the modern era. This is for all the PSYOP, Information Warfare, Public Affairs, and Public Diplomacy practitioners as well as all American patriots who love to study and remember our history.

If cognitive warfare succeeds by redefining legitimacy, how can modern states counter narratives that delegitimize authority without reinforcing them?

What contemporary equivalents to Common Sense exist today, and who controls their distribution in the global information environment? (I am inspired to think about whether such a "pamphlet" could be written by Koreans from or still in the north to inspire those in the north to create the conditions that would help the oppressed to free themselves, De Oppresso Liber)

How a plain-language pamphlet created America's revolutionary mindset

wearethemighty.com

Thomas Paine's 'Common Sense' gave the Colonists a common cause.

By Daniel Tobias Flint

Published Jan 24, 2026 8:00 AM PST

https://www.wearethemighty.com/history/how-a-plain-language-pamphlet-created-americas-revolutionary-mindset/

Get We Are The Mighty’s Weekly Newsletter

Military culture and entertainment direct to your inbox with zero chance of a ‘Reply All’ incident

The American Revolution did not begin with a musket shot. Long before armies marched and cannons thundered, the decisive struggle unfolded in the minds of the colonists themselves. The winter of 1776 marked a turning point not because of a single military victory, but because a fundamental transformation occurred in how Americans understood power, authority, and their place in the world. In January and February of that year, the revolution became not merely a resistance to British policy, but a moral and ideological struggle for independence.

At the center of this transformation stood a modest pamphlet with an extraordinary impact.

On January 10, 1776, Thomas Paine published “Common Sense,” a work that shattered lingering hopes of reconciliation with Britain and replaced them with a bold and accessible argument for independence. More than any battle or congressional debate, “Common Sense” ignited what can best be described as a psychological revolution, one that turned subjects into citizens and grievances into destiny.

The Limits of Resistance

The Colonists were in a fighting mood during the Revolutionary War. (U.S. Army/Nathan Winter)

By the beginning of 1776, the American colonies had already endured years of conflict with Great Britain.

Taxes imposed without representation, punitive measures following the Boston Tea Party, and armed clashes at Lexington and Concord had pushed relations to the brink. Yet despite bloodshed and rising tensions, many colonists still clung to the belief that reconciliation remained possible. The prevailing sentiment among colonial leaders was not independence, but redress, an effort to restore what they viewed as their rightful place within the British Empire.

Even after the outbreak of war in 1775, the Continental Congress sent the Olive Branch Petition to King George III, expressing loyalty to the Crown and seeking a peaceful resolution. When the king rejected the petition and declared the colonies in rebellion, disappointment spread quickly, but certainty did not. For many Americans, independence represented a frightening leap into the unknown. Britain was powerful, experienced, and global. The colonies were divided, militarily weak, and politically untested.

What was missing was not anger or courage, but clarity. Colonists needed a compelling answer to a simple but profound question. Why should they become independent at all?

The Power of Plain Language

Thomas Paine had a way of getting his point across. (National Portrait Gallery of London)

Paine provided that answer, not through elite political theory, but through language that ordinary people could understand. An English immigrant of modest means, Paine arrived in America only months before publishing “Common Sense.” He held no political office and possessed no inherited authority. What he possessed was a keen understanding of public sentiment and an exceptional ability to communicate complex ideas with force and clarity.

Unlike previous political writings that relied heavily on classical references and legal arguments, “Common Sense” was direct, emotional, and unapologetic. Paine did not merely criticize British policies. He attacked the very foundation of monarchy itself. He argued that hereditary rule was absurd, unnatural, and incompatible with liberty. Kings, he wrote, were not divinely appointed guardians of order, but flawed men elevated by tradition and force.

By framing monarchy as a corrupt system rather than a misguided institution, Paine shifted the debate entirely. The problem was no longer a particular king or an overreaching parliament. The problem was the system that allowed such concentrated power to exist at all.

A Moral Necessity

Liberty or tyranny? Was there really a choice? (U.S. Air Force/Sarah Post)

One of the most radical aspects of “Common Sense” was its insistence that independence was not only practical, but morally required. Paine portrayed the conflict between Britain and the colonies as a struggle between liberty and tyranny, virtue and corruption. Continued submission to the Crown, he argued, amounted to complicity in oppression.

This moral framing transformed independence from a risky political option into an ethical obligation. To remain tied to Britain was not cautious. It was cowardly. To delay independence was not prudent. It was dangerous. Paine warned that continued reliance on Britain would entangle the colonies in European wars and expose them to endless manipulation by imperial interests.

By recasting the choice in moral terms, Paine stripped away hesitation. Independence was no longer a matter of timing or convenience. It was the only path consistent with the principles colonists claimed to value.

A Pamphlet that Reached the People

Common Sense by Thomas Paine

The impact of “Common Sense” was immediate and remarkable.

Within months, more than 100,000 copies were sold in a population of only a few million. Copies were read aloud in taverns, discussed in churches, and debated in town squares. Even those unable to read encountered its arguments through public readings and everyday conversation.

What made “Common Sense” revolutionary was not only its message, but its audience. Paine spoke directly to farmers, laborers, artisans, and shopkeepers, the very people who would bear the costs of war. He argued that independence was not the concern of elites alone, but a collective cause rooted in shared values and shared destiny.

In doing so, Paine democratized political thought. He asserted that ordinary people were capable of understanding, judging, and shaping their own government. This idea, that legitimacy flows upward from the people rather than downward from authority, would become a defining feature of American political identity.

The Rise in Calls for Independence

If the Colonists needed any inspiration, Thomas Paine’s ‘Common Sense’ helped to provide it. (Defense Department)

Before January 1776, calls for independence were often cautious and private, voiced quietly among select circles. After “Common Sense,” independence became a public demand. The pamphlet unified diverse colonial grievances such as economic restrictions, political exclusion, and military occupation into a single and compelling conclusion. Separation was inevitable and necessary.

The shift in public opinion was unmistakable. Newspapers echoed Paine’s arguments. Town meetings passed resolutions supporting independence. Colonial assemblies reconsidered the instructions given to their delegates in Congress. What once seemed radical now appeared unavoidable.

This change placed significant pressure on colonial leaders. Many members of the Continental Congress hesitated not because they lacked conviction, but because they feared acting without popular support. “Common Sense” resolved that dilemma. The people were ready, and in many cases, they were leading the way.

Thinking Like a Nation

As the Revolutionary War went on, momentum was building behind the Colonists. (Wikimedia Commons)

By February 1776, the ideological shift began producing tangible consequences. Colonial leaders increasingly thought not as subjects seeking reform, but as statesmen preparing for sovereignty. Conversations turned toward foreign alliances, particularly with France and Spain, long-standing rivals of Britain.

The act of seeking alliances marked a profound transformation. It required acknowledging that the colonies were, in practice if not yet in name, an emerging nation. Diplomacy demanded unity, legitimacy, and a willingness to engage in international politics. It also required confidence that independence was not merely desired, but achievable.

These discussions reflected growing realism. Leaders understood that defeating Britain would likely require foreign support. Yet alliances could only be secured through a clear declaration of intent. No European power would risk war with Britain on behalf of colonies that still claimed loyalty to the Crown.

Ideological commitment and strategic necessity now moved together. Independence was no longer just a philosophical ideal. It had become a requirement for survival.

The Fear of the Unknown

Colonists had some concerns about independence. (Smithsonian American Art Museum)

Despite growing momentum, doubts persisted. Independence promised freedom, but it also carried uncertainty. How would the colonies govern themselves? Could they remain united? Would independence lead to chaos or internal conflict?

Paine addressed these fears directly. He argued that the colonies already functioned independently, managing their own affairs and defending their territory. Government, he insisted, was a human creation designed to serve the people, not an inherited structure that must be preserved regardless of its failures.

By acknowledging uncertainty while rejecting fear, Paine encouraged colonists to imagine a future beyond empire. Independence was not reckless. It was an opportunity to design a better system from the ground up.

A Revolution Before the Declaration

The signing of the Declaration of Independence. (Shutterstock)

The importance of January and February 1776 lies not in legislation or military action, but in transformation. By the time Congress formally debated independence months later, the revolution in the mind had already occurred. The Declaration of Independence would later articulate principles that many colonists already accepted as self-evident.

This ideological shift explains the rapid pace of events in the spring and summer of 1776. When colonial assemblies authorized independence, they were not imposing a radical vision. They were responding to one that had already taken hold among the people.

In this sense, “Common Sense” did not create the revolution, but it clarified and accelerated it. It gave language to frustration, coherence to resistance, and moral weight to action.

Ideas that Made a Nation

America has a reason to celebrate this year. (U.S. Army/Faith Santucci)

The American Revolution was not inevitable. It required bold, uncertain, irreversible choices. In January and February 1776, those choices became possible because colonists began to see themselves differently. They were no longer merely resisting British rule. They were imagining a nation founded on principles rather than tradition, consent rather than inheritance.

Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” did not win battles or sign treaties, but it accomplished something equally decisive. It transformed independence from a whispered possibility into a shared conviction. Before muskets secured liberty on the battlefield, ideas secured it in the hearts and minds of the people.

That intellectual and moral revolution was the true beginning of the United States.

Don’t Miss the Best of We Are The Mighty

Daniel Tobias Flint

Contributor

Daniel Flint resides in Jacksonville, Florida. He is a professional historian specializing in American history, an educator, and a dedicated community servant. Originally from Chatham, New York, He earned his Associate in Arts from Hudson Valley Community College and his Bachelor of Arts from Union College, both with a focus on American history. He furthered his education at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, obtaining his Class A teaching license.

Since 2009, Daniel has been a U.S. History educator for Duval County Public Schools, bringing history alive for his students. He has been honored as the 2022 Westside High School Teacher of the Year and the 2022 Gilder Lehrman US History Teacher of the Year for Florida. He is passionate about inspiring curiosity and a love for learning in his students.

Learn more about WeAreTheMighty.com Editorial Standards

wearethemighty.com

2. The First Three Weeks of the Year Will Reshape the World

Summary:

January 2026 cracks pillars of the post Cold War system for years. POTUS pressures Europe over Greenland, testing NATO cohesion and spiking market anxiety. Washington also asserts a resource centered Monroe Doctrine, weakening China’s Latin America position while treating Venezuela’s oil as the prize. Allies hedge: Canada eases China tariffs to diversify risk, prompting U.S. retaliation threats. A Taiwan chip deal advances U.S. semiconductor autonomy, potentially lowering U.S. stakes in Taiwan’s security. At home, POTUS confronts Fed independence through a Powell probe. Abroad, Japan’s debt politics and rising yields threaten global borrowing costs. Federalism strains amid immigration enforcement in Minnesota.

Comment: January has not been a quiet month. Where do we go from here?

So if deterrence depends on credibility, what happens when allies start treating U.S. commitments as negotiable transactions rather than shared obligations?
Does semiconductor autonomy reduce strategic vulnerability, or does it tempt Washington to accept higher coercion risk against Taiwan because dependence is lower?
If markets have anchored on Fed independence and Japanese savings, what is the contingency plan when both anchors weaken at the same time?
Is there a perfect storm brewing? Or is this the inflection point that is going to bring great change? What will historians write about this month?

The First Three Weeks of the Year Will Reshape the World

WSJ

From Davos to Minneapolis, the events of this month have the potential to profoundly change the political and economic landscape for years to come

Greg Ip

Jan. 24, 2026 4:52 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/the-first-three-weeks-of-the-year-will-reshape-the-world-e9487b2d?mod=hp_lead_pos9

President Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this past week. Laurent Gillieron/Press Pool

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” The quote, often attributed to Lenin, aptly describes the first weeks of 2026.

Over the last generation, several assumptions undergirded international relations and commerce. Shared values would always unite the U.S. with Western democracies, the global production of everything from semiconductors to oil made economic interdependence unavoidable, and an independent U.S. Federal Reserve and an infinite supply of Asian savings would keep world finance on track.

This month, a series of proverbial earthquakes have shaken all those assumptions with the potential to reshape the political and economic landscape for years to come. Though the fog of uncertainty still hangs, here’s my take on what happened and why it matters.

The U.S. uncouples from Europe

Years from now, we may look at President Trump’s declaration from Davos that the U.S. must acquire Greenland the way previous generations looked at the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Just as the wall’s collapse symbolized the triumph of the West, Trump’s Greenland grab may come to embody the end of the West as a collection of nations united by values.

In the days before Davos, Trump promised to wage trade war against Europe unless he got Greenland, a territory of Denmark, a fellow member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. His administration refused to rule out military force. By week’s end he had withdrawn the threats, without formally renouncing the goal.

A demonstration in Greenland earlier this month against President Trump's wish to take over the territory. Oscar Scott Carl for WSJ

A U.S. seizure of Greenland would effectively spell the end of NATO. That Trump was prepared to take that risk left international leaders looking at the United States in a new, more fearful light.

This is the culmination of a profound schism between the U.S. and Europe over what should unite them. For Europeans, it’s democracy, freedom and human rights. For Trump officials, it’s history and culture. Europeans see their biggest threat as Russia. Trump thinks it’s “civilizational erasure” brought on by mass immigration and low birthrates, as his National Security Strategy puts it.

For now, NATO remains intact and trade peace is holding. But the turmoil in markets last Tuesday, when stocks fell and bond yields and gold rose, hint at the anxiety that awaits as the political and economic institutions that bind the West slowly unravel.

A new Monroe Doctrine built on resources

In 1823, President James Monroe declared the Western Hemisphere off limits to European colonization. China is, arguably, this era’s equivalent to European colonizers. In search of markets and resources, it has extended its influence throughout Latin America. By removing Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, Trump has exercised his own corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, depriving China of a key foothold.

Numerous U.S. presidents have meddled in the region. But whereas they prioritized the installation of a friendly government and, in Venezuela’s case, democracy, Trump prioritized control of Venezuela’s oil while leaving its leadership largely intact.

China comes in from the cold

Even Trump’s fiercest critics credit him for opening their eyes to China. Western leaders no longer see it as a benign partner, but an adversary whose ambitions and values are fundamentally at odds with their own. This brought hopes of a new global bargain in which the U.S. and other free-market democracies deepened links while decoupling from China. In 2024, Canada got on board, hiking its tariff on Chinese electric vehicles to 100% to match the U.S.

But when Trump returned to office he showed little interest in such a bargain. He hit Canada with tariffs and talked of annexation. Two weeks ago, Canada recalibrated. Prime Minister Mark Carney struck a deal with China to slash the EV tariff while China reduced duties on Canadian canola.

Canada Prime Minister Mark Carney Gian Ehrenzeller/EPA/Shutterstock

Though small in the scheme of things, the deal showed how third countries must swallow their misgivings about China if they want to hedge their dependence on the U.S. As Carney noted in Davos, “not every partner will share all of our values.”

Canada should not kid itself. America on its worst day is more democratic and law-abiding than China on its best. Geography dictates that the U.S. is its natural economic partner, and changing that will be costly. Trump has set out to demonstrate just that, threatening 100% tariffs if Canada proceeds with the China deal.

American technological autonomy advances

Semiconductors are often called the new oil. If so, then Trump’s deal this month with Taiwan ranks up there with the development of shale two decades ago. The Commerce Department said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, as part of $250 billion in new Taiwanese investment, will add to several chip factories in Arizona. In exchange, the U.S. would cut tariffs on Taiwan and exempt companies like TSMC that invest in the U.S. altogether.

These aren’t just any factories. They will make the advanced chips essential to the artificial intelligence, communications and mobile applications designed by Nvidia, Qualcomm and Apple. Production of such chips has long been concentrated in Taiwan and South Korea, and the U.S. lack of such capabilities is a key vulnerability.

The deal shows that that manufacturing can be reshored under the right conditions.

Taiwan will remain the dominant supplier of these chips for the foreseeable future. But just as shale made the U.S. energy-independent, and thus less invested in keeping the Middle East stable, having some degree of chip autonomy makes it less invested in keeping Taiwan free.

War between the president and the Fed

Many presidents have sought to pressure the Fed on interest rates, but none as much as Trump. After months of his attacks, his Justice Department took the most drastic step yet, initiating a criminal investigation of Fed Chair Jerome Powell, ostensibly over his testimony on building renovations.

Powell, who had previously declined to respond to the attacks, came out swinging, calling the investigation a pretext to neuter the central bank’s independence.

The outcome of this battle matters immensely to investors around the world who have long assumed the Fed would act in the long-term interests of the U.S. economy and global stability. Trump wants a Fed chair who puts his agenda first—i.e., lower rates, faster growth, and a higher stock market.

Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

There are still institutional guardrails. The Supreme Court signaled this past week it is not inclined to let Trump fire a Fed governor, Lisa Cook, over alleged mortgage misrepresentations. Such a removal without due process, judicial review or remedy “would weaken, if not shatter, the independence of the Federal Reserve,” Justice Brett Kavanagh said.

Even if the guardrails hold, the Fed won’t be the same. Its next chair, to take office in just four months, risks the same treatment if he defies the president.

Japan and the end of easy money

While Trump’s Greenland grab roiled markets, events half a world away fed the turmoil as Japanese bond yields shot up and the yen fell.

For decades, the Bank of Japan used both zero interest rates and government bond buying to combat inflation that was too close to zero. Inflation is now comfortably above zero. As the bank has slowly raised rates, bond yields have marched steadily higher.

WSJ’s Aaron Back breaks down the sharp selloff in Japanese government bonds this week, and why investors shouldn’t be concerned for now. Photo Illustration: Jason Boone

Then this past week, when Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi called a snap election with a promise to cut taxes, she crystallized fears that Japan’s already massive debt will become unsustainable.

The world has a stake in this because Japan is one of the world’s largest, if not the largest, creditors. Its government and investors hold $1.2 trillion worth of U.S. Treasury debt. Japan increasingly needs those investors to buy its own debt. Adjusted for exchange rates, markets think Japan will be paying much more to borrow than the U.S., Germany or Switzerland in a decade’s time, calculates Marcel Kasumovich, senior adviser to Evenflow Macro, a research firm. The market is telling the Bank of Japan “to hike rates a lot.”

As Japanese rates rise, debtor nations will feel pressure to offer higher rates to keep Japanese investors buying their bonds. The U.S., whose government is the world’s largest borrower, is especially vulnerable.

This list isn’t exhaustive. Federalism is under strain from aggressive immigration enforcement in Minnesota and counterprotests. Trump has already suspended some funds to the state and threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to send in active-duty troops.

Any of these events alone would be a game changer. In combination, they will reshape global economic and political patterns with consequences we don’t yet fully understand. And it’s only January.

Write to Greg Ip at greg.ip@wsj.com

WSJ

3. China Trains AI-Controlled Weapons With Learning From Hawks, Coyotes

Summary:

China’s PLA is accelerating AI enabled autonomous swarms, drawing on animal behavior models and a stream of patents, tenders, and university research. Experiments like hawk versus dove simulations train defenders to target nodes and attackers to evade, seeking real time swarm combat. China’s factories can produce drones at scale, enabling decoys, reconnaissance, strikes, and counter swarm defenses. Centralized command culture makes machine control attractive, and Taiwan is a likely proving ground for loitering swarms that hunt air defenses. The U.S. produces fewer, pricier drones and leans more on human teamed autonomy. Risks include jamming, perception gaps, and opaque lethal decisions.

Comment: Nature is still superior to technology. We have a lot to learn from nature.

Given these emerging capabilities, what breaks first in a Taiwan fight: comms links, sensors, or human command cycles?

How should deterrence adapt when mass, autonomy, and speed matter more than exquisite platforms?

Does the Stalin adage still apply: "quantity has a quality all its own." (attributed to Stalin and others as well)

China Trains AI-Controlled Weapons With Learning From Hawks, Coyotes

WSJ

Beijing’s military focuses on swarming drones that can pick off prey or robots that can chase down enemies

By Josh Chin

Jan. 24, 2026 9:00 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/world/china/china-ai-weapons-hawks-wolves-2fcb58bb?mod=hp_lead_pos8

Engineers studying drone combat at one of China’s top military-linked universities needed a way to simulate clashes between drone swarms in real time. They turned to nature for inspiration.

Observing how hawks select prey, they trained defensive drones to single out and destroy the most vulnerable enemy aircraft. On the other side, the attacking drones were taught how to dodge the hawk-trained defenders based on the behavior of doves. In a five-on-five test, the hawks destroyed all the doves in 5.3 seconds.

That research earned the engineers a patent in April 2024—one of hundreds granted in recent years to Chinese defense companies and universities affiliated with the military for advances in swarm intelligence.

In the artificial intelligence Cold War emerging between the U.S. and China, military use of the technology has quickly become one of the hottest areas of competition. It’s also one of the most hazardous, with the desire to gain an edge putting pressure on commanders to turn over more and more warfighting power to machines.

Patent filings, government procurement tenders and research papers reviewed by The Wall Street Journal reveal that China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army, is intensely focused on harnessing AI to deploy swarms of drones, robot dogs and other autonomous systems. The idea is that they could overwhelm enemies or erect impenetrable defenses against threats with minimal human input.

The AI era will usher in a new style of warfighting “driven by algorithms, with unmanned systems as the main fighting force and swarm operations as the primary mode of combat,” a group of Chinese military theorists wrote in October 2024. They likened AI’s potential to transform the military to gunpowder, a technology invented in China but more effectively weaponized, many in China believe, by others.

Drones, for their part, have emerged as key weapons on the battlefields of Ukraine, where strategies and technology for their use have developed quickly under the pressure of real fighting.

Drone swarms can be used as decoys that can force an enemy to burn through munitions, as spies and as devastating weapons that can take out enemy soldiers and tanks in suicide missions.

Marrying AI with robots allows China to exploit its advantage in hardware, with Chinese factories already capable of pumping out a million or more cheap, capable drones every year—something the U.S. hasn’t been able to do. With its weaker tech supply chain, the U.S. produces drones in the tens of thousands, and at prices many times higher.

Flaunting that advantage, China’s state broadcaster in 2024 released footage of Swarm 1, a truck-mounted system capable of launching as many as 48 fixed-wing drones at a time. It said multiple trucks could be used to launch swarms of up to 200 drones capable of splitting up to carry out coordinated tasks, including reconnaissance, strikes and deception.

China says its Swarm 1 drone system is capable of coordination. A propaganda video claims to show the system operating and a control panel. CCTV

The Jiutian, a hulking mother ship drone designed to release swarms of smaller drones, completed its maiden flight in December, according to state media. That came after the PLA displayed a pack of “robot wolves”—bulked up, weaponized versions of robot dogs—in a military parade in September. In an interview with state media, their maker, state-owned China South Industries Group, said the company is working on ways to link wolf packs with aerial swarms to create “a new model of efficient collaborative combat.”

Swarm intelligence also offers an enticing solution to a long-running concern for the PLA over the competence of rank-and-file soldiers and their commanders, who haven’t fought a war since the late 1970s.

“At a tactical level, for concrete missions, there’s a growing consensus [in Chinese military writings] that autonomous systems have the potential to perform better than humans,” said Sunny Cheung, an open-source intelligence expert at the Washington think tank Jamestown Foundation.

China’s Ministry of Defense didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The approach comes with risks for China. PLA engineers could fail to get the technology to work in a real wartime scenario, making China’s robot squadrons easy for enemies to pick off or disable. Or the AI could work too well, and make deadly decisions outside the understanding or control of human commanders. In fact, lessons from Ukraine, where signal jamming makes it increasingly difficult for human soldiers to control drones remotely, have reinforced for the PLA the value of drones that carry out orders on their own, Cheung and other military analysts say.

Robot armies

Militaries around the world are intrigued by the potential of advanced self-teaching forms of AI, like those that underpin ChatGPT, to improve everything from logistics to battlefield analysis and combat. Actual use of the technology by militaries is still in its infancy and is shrouded in secrecy.

Research papers, patent filings and military bid tenders—which Chinese government agencies make public so companies can bid to supply them—offer a glimpse into how the PLA is seeking to deploy AI.

One bid tender posted to a PLA-managed procurement platform in 2024, among many acquired by Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, outlined a mobile cognitive warfare system with the ability to create AI-driven deepfake videos and broadcast them via laser onto buildings or other public landmarks.

The tender also requested robot dogs and drones for reconnaissance, along with a “consciousness intervention system” mounted on an unmanned ground vehicle to blast targets with directed sound at decibel levels nearly high enough to rupture ear drums.

Robot dogs being used in simulated urban warfare, shown a still from a CCTV video. CCTV

The tender for the mobile cognitive warfare unit reads like a “fever dream” of Chinese military AI ambitions, said Sam Bresnick, a research fellow at CSET. “The idea is, ‘Can some company deliver this kind of thing and then can we produce it at scale?’”

A tender being posted doesn’t necessarily mean the PLA has acquired or will ever get the system described, but it does show what sort of technologies Beijing is interested in, Bresnick added.

Competition between the American and Chinese militaries over drone swarms dates back at least a decade. In 2015, a single pilot successfully controlled 50 drones at one time in a test at the Naval Postgraduate School in California, setting a world record. A state-run Chinese defense company broke the record the next year. The pattern repeated in 2017.

Those early demonstrations were rudimentary, with the drones able to fly together at a set distance and little else. For a time, the most exciting development in the field was the advent of light shows in which hundreds of preprogrammed drones created animations or formed corporate logos in the skies above major events.

Coordinated drones can create light shows. Here, in Fuqing City on China’s National Day holiday on Oct. 1. Cfoto/Zuma Press

Today, drones used on the battlefield in Ukraine and Gaza are faster, more maneuverable and more robust, enabling their operators to zip through a war zone as if in a videogame. They are also developing the ability to track and destroy targets on their own.

As drones have become cheaper and more capable, sci-fi visions of AI-powered robot armies clashing on the battlefield have inched closer to reality. A recent surge of research into drone intelligence is producing a stream of new or updated algorithms, many of them modeled on the behavior of animal groups, that theoretically give large numbers of drones rules for how to act and react in concert to carry out a mission.

The trick is getting those algorithms to work on actual drones in realistic battlefield scenarios, according to Justin Bradley, an expert in aerospace engineering at North Carolina State University who specializes in autonomous systems.

“We don’t have good-enough perception on these vehicles for them to know where each other are,” Bradley said. Instead, current systems are forced to rely almost entirely on radio communication between drones that is easily disrupted by electronic warfare.

Advanced AI can mitigate that vulnerability by enabling drones to automatically track each other, as well as identify targets and spot obstacles to avoid. But finding enough data to train reliable models is difficult. So is combining a self-learning AI model with the human-designed systems that control other parts of a drone.

“You can’t just add in your own stuff and hope for it to be holistically robust,” Bradley said.

A Ukrainian serviceman launched a kamikaze First-Person View drone during a battle in 2023. Inna Varenytsia/REUTERS

Studying animal behavior

China is pushing ahead anyway. The hawk vs. dove simulation—run by researchers at Beihang University, one of the PLA-linked schools in China known as the “Seven Sons of Defense”—reflects what American drone experts say are the strengths and weaknesses of China’s pursuit of swarm intelligence.

The research, detailed in an academic paper and a patent application, included more sophisticated modeling that reflects how drones actually fly, compared with other animal-inspired models that assume simpler styles of movement. As with a lot of Chinese work on swarm intelligence, it was a relatively minor advance that’s unlikely to turn heads in the U.S., according to Bradley, but the simulation reflects the country’s practical focus on making swarm combat actually work.

“What you can say is, ‘Hey, look, China is thinking very seriously about developing the algorithms that it can use in a tactical environment to win at a specific game,’” he said. “In this game, we’re talking about some kind of resource and aggressively defending or attacking it.”

Beihang University didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Other work by Chinese researchers takes a similar approach, tweaking algorithms based on the behavior of ants, sheep, coyotes and whales to eke out theoretical improvements in the ability of unmanned systems to collaborate.

Speaking at a drone conference in Beijing in July, the Beihang professor who led the university’s hawk-dove swarm simulation, Duan Haibin, said Chinese researchers were also trying to simulate the eyes of eagles and fruit flies in search of a solution to drones’ perception problems.

Since the start of 2022, Chinese defense contractors, military institutes and military-linked universities have published at least 930 patent filings related to swarm intelligence. There have been only around 60 such patents published in the U.S. over the same period, and at least 10 of those were filed by Chinese entities.

The discrepancy partly stems from the much heavier emphasis Chinese university science departments put on patent filings in judging academic performance. But it also reflects differences in approach, according to Stacie Pettyjohn, a senior fellow and director of the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security.

For China, which is home to factories that pump out more than 80% of the world’s small drones, it makes more sense to pursue swarms, according to Pettyjohn. “China is very focused on figuring out ways to be able to deliver and employ a lot of smart, small drones just because that is something that is widely available to them,” she said.

China’s dominance of the drone supply chain makes it difficult for the U.S. to build its own arsenal of cheap unmanned systems, since reliance on affordable Chinese parts would make American drones vulnerable to hacking or supply disruptions.

The Pentagon is nevertheless striving to close the gap with China. It recently deployed a new long-range kamikaze drone that costs $35,000, a price point drone experts say is surprisingly affordable.

Western drone makers are also experimenting with swarms. Auterion, a startup with offices in Virginia and Munich, demonstrated its swarm technology on quadcopter drones during U.S. Army training exercises in Hawaii in November. At one point, the company launched seven drones simultaneously, with two peeling off in a simulated suicide strike using a technology known as pixel-lock to home in automatically on their targets.

California-based Anduril Industries says its autonomy software, Lattice, enables swarm coordination, though Navy tests of that system in May ended in failure.

Attack drones at a base in the U.S. Central Command operating area on Nov. 23. CENTCOM

Despite those efforts, Pettyjohn said, the U.S. is more heavily focused on improving the autonomy of individual drones that can work in a team with human soldiers and pilots, which plays to strengths of the American military’s decentralized combat units.

Control from the top

Developing the ability to deploy platoons of robots that can carry out orders without hesitating also speaks to skepticism in Beijing about the reliability of PLA mission commanders.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has for a decade lamented what he calls the “five incapables,” a reference to commanders who can’t assess a situation, can’t make operational decisions, can’t grasp superiors’ intentions, can’t deploy troops effectively and can’t handle unexpected situations.

Some military analysts attribute that lack of trust to China’s rigidly top-down military command structure, which diverges sharply from the U.S. approach of training combat units and individual soldiers to make decisions on their own when necessary. The Communist Party’s preference for centralized control makes AI all the more appealing as a way to engineer military operations from Beijing, they say.

The expectation of Chinese military theorists is that drone swarms will help the PLA overcome its lack of experience in combat by overwhelming even the most competent human commanders of an opponent.

Procurement documents posted to PLA-controlled platforms show an interest in bringing AI-driven drone swarms out of the lab. One bid tender posted in April 2024 sought to rent a drone equipped with radar-based mapping sensors to collect real-world training data for AI models that swarms can use to identify targets.

Assuming the PLA figures out the technology, one scenario in which Chinese drone swarms are most likely to be deployed is in a conflict over Taiwan, the self-ruled island democracy China claims as its territory.

After an initial rocket attack, the PLA could send swarms from 50 miles away to loiter in the airspace over the island and search for any remaining Taiwanese jet fighters or air defenses, according to Pettyjohn. They could then attack targets directly, or mark them for long-range missile attacks.

“You could very easily have this dense amount of firepower up there just constantly scanning and searching and making it very hard for Taiwan to conduct defensive operations,” she said.

Chinese research papers, patent applications and procurement documents also demonstrate a strong interest in counter-swarm technology—an indication Beijing is thinking about defense in addition to offense.

Taiwan's Patriot air defense system during a drill in July. Annabelle Chih/Getty Images

For militaries, the most fundamental concerns about AI stem from its mysterious decision-making processes and propensity to hallucinate.

Not only might autonomous systems make deadly mistakes, but the opacity of their calculations could provide cover for bad human decisions, Zhu Qichao, a technology strategist at China’s National Defense University, wrote last year in an essay for the state-run magazine People’s Tribune.

“Once an artificial intelligence weapon system produces safety hazards, the ‘algorithm black box’ may become a rationalized excuse for the relevant responsible parties to shirk responsibility,” he wrote.

Governments, tech watchdogs and some of the people who build AI systems have called for global rules restraining use of the technology in warfare to avoid the various nightmare scenarios associated with automated killing machines.

Zhou Bo, a retired senior colonel in the PLA, said both China and the U.S. will want to know what AI can actually do on the battlefield before agreeing to any limits. “AI’s military applications are burgeoning, so its consequences have yet to be fully discovered,” he said.

Write to Josh Chin at Josh.Chin@wsj.com

WSJ

4. China’s Xi Places His Top General Under Investigation as Military Purges Heat Up

Summary:

Xi has placed Gen. Zhang Youxia, the PLA’s most senior active officer and a longtime ally, under investigation for alleged severe party discipline and legal violations; Gen. Liu Zhenli, head of the Joint Staff Department, faces a parallel probe. The move escalates an anticorruption and loyalty campaign that has removed or investigated more than 50 senior officers and defense executives in roughly two and a half years, thinning the Central Military Commission’s active membership and raising doubts about near term operational cohesion. Beijing frames the purge as essential to party control and modernization, yet rapid turnover can disrupt readiness, procurement, and Taiwan focused planning.

Comment: Does this purge improve combat credibility, or does it reveal fear of divided loyalty inside the force?

In a Taiwan contingency, is the larger risk corrupted procurement, or paralyzed initiative from commanders who now feel watched?

Like north Korea, does China value and prioritize "control and command" rather than "command and control" with the art of command (intent, initiative, leadership, and trust) subordinated to (or eliminated from) the science of control to ensure rigid adherence to both ideology and orders?

China’s Xi Places His Top General Under Investigation as Military Purges Heat Up

WSJ

Gen. Zhang Youxia is most senior active member of military hierarchy to face dismissal since Tiananmen Square fallout

By Chun Han Wong

Follow and Lingling Wei

Updated Jan. 24, 2026 12:06 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/world/china/chinas-xi-places-his-top-general-under-investigation-as-military-purges-heat-up-d07f9c7d?mod=hp_lead_pos5

Gen. Zhang Youxia has been a close ally of China's leader. Luong Thai Linh/Shutterstock

Chinese leader Xi Jinping placed his most senior general under investigation, defenestrating a longtime ally and escalating a crackdown on military corruption and disloyalty into Beijing’s biggest shake-up of its armed forces in decades.

Gen. Zhang Youxia, the senior of two vice chairmen on the Communist Party’s top military decision-making body and China’s No. 1 general, is being probed for allegedly committing severe violations of party discipline and state laws, a spokesman for China’s Defense Ministry said Saturday.

Another high-ranking officer, Gen. Liu Zhenli, chief of the Chinese military’s Joint Staff Department that handles combat planning and operations, is also under investigation over similar allegations, the spokesman said.

The probes into Zhang and Liu, who have been leading figures in efforts to modernize the armed forces and among the few Chinese generals with combat experience, show the extent of Xi’s push to clear out officers deemed corrupt and politically unreliable. Dozens of high-ranking officers and defense-industry executives have been toppled in recent years, raising questions about China’s quest to forge a fighting force capable of taking on Western militaries.

Gen. Liu Zhenli climbed the ranks during a previous overhaul by Xi. Florence Lo/Reuters

Zhang, who is also a member of the party’s elite Politburo, has been a close ally of Xi. Both men are “princelings,” as the descendants of revolutionary elders and high-ranking party officials are known.

Zhang is the son of a Communist revolutionary who fought alongside Xi’s father during the Chinese civil war, which culminated in Mao Zedong’s forces seizing power in 1949. Zhang’s father later became a three-star general, while Xi’s father went on to hold senior roles in the party, government and legislature.

The Chinese military’s flagship newspaper denounced Zhang and Liu in an editorial, saying they had undermined Xi’s authority, abetted political and corruption problems that impaired the party’s leadership over the armed forces, and damaged efforts to develop combat effectiveness.

Their misconduct had caused “an extremely negative impact on the party, the nation and the military,” the People’s Liberation Army Daily said.

Zhang, 75 years old, and Liu, 61, couldn’t be reached for comment. China’s Ministry of National Defense didn’t reply to a faxed request for comment sent on Friday about the fates of Zhang and Liu.

Their downfall comes after the party said in October it expelled nine senior military commanders on corruption charges, including China’s No. 2 general at the time, He Weidong, who was also a vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, the Xi-chaired body that commands the armed forces, and a Politburo member.

Analysts say the speed and scale of the turnover in China’s military leadership is unmatched in the post-Mao era. The impact is particularly visible on the Central Military Commission, or CMC, which comprised seven men when its current term started in 2022. Saturday’s announcement means the commission now has just two active members—Xi as chairman and a general serving as vice chairman.

If the party dismisses Zhang, he would become the most senior active-duty military officer whom Xi has ousted, and the highest-ranking official in China’s military command structure to be purged since the fallout from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

It would also be the first time since 1989 that the party has unseated two Politburo members during the same term of office. That year, the party removed Zhao Ziyang—who was general secretary and the first-ranked CMC vice chairman—and one of his colleagues from the Politburo and its standing committee over their perceived softness in handling the Beijing demonstrations, which were suppressed with military force.

He Weidong, seen in uniform with Zhang, in October became the most senior active-duty officer to be expelled during the purge. Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images

Since taking power in 2012, Xi has used anticorruption purges to consolidate control and advance plans to modernize a military that hasn’t fought a full-scale war since 1979, when China battled Vietnam. The goal is to create a more nimble, 21st-century force that can integrate air, sea and land operations, project power and win wars in the digital age. Success would help China compete more closely with the U.S. for strategic dominance and potentially seize Taiwan, the democratic self-ruled island that Beijing claims as its territory.

For China to become a first-rate military power, Xi has said, the Communist Party must ensure loyalty and curb corruption in the armed forces. His purges, however, come with trade-offs, according to a recent Pentagon assessment, which said the antigraft probes “very likely risk short-term disruptions in the [military’s] operational effectiveness” while potentially setting the stage for long-term improvements.

Newsletter Sign-up

WSJ China

Exclusive insights on the contest between the U.S. and China, brought to you by the WSJ’s top China correspondent.

In the early years after becoming China’s leader, Xi axed dozens of generals and replaced them with officers whom he considered to be more professional and politically reliable. Xi purged two retired CMC vice chairmen whom the party denounced as corrupt influences, and he also overhauled the military’s command structure to put himself more firmly in control.

Zhang was elevated during this process, an ascent some analysts credited to his record as a combat veteran and his elite background. Liu, who once distinguished himself in border skirmishes with Vietnam in the 1980s, also climbed the ranks.

Xi ramped up defense purges again in the summer of 2023, starting with officers commanding China’s nuclear arsenal, reaching into the military’s highest echelons and defense contractors that produce stealth fighters and other advanced armaments. More than 50 senior military officers and defense-industry executives have been placed under investigation or removed from office in the past 2½ years, according to official disclosures reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Among those unseated were top officers in China’s army, air force, navy, strategic-missile force and paramilitary police, as well as major theater commands—including the one focused on Taiwan. Some of those ousted were seen as associates of Zhang, having worked with him in arms procurement, a field long seen as susceptible to corruption.

The Chinese military's top brass is undergoing a period of turnover that is unmatched in recent times. Florence Lo/Reuters

Xi has also been ramping up disciplinary crackdowns beyond the military. Party authorities punished some 983,000 people last year, a 10.6% increase from 2024 and the highest annual total since the party started releasing such data about two decades ago.

Zhang enlisted in China’s military in 1968 and joined the Communist Party the following year. A career soldier in the Chinese army, he distinguished himself in combat during the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War and a major border skirmish between the two countries in 1984, according to official accounts.

Zhang served in a range of senior command roles and was promoted to full general in 2011, which meant he and his father became the second father-son pair to both reach three-star rank in the Chinese military.

In 2012, Zhang was appointed head of the military’s General Armaments Department, which was responsible for procuring and developing military hardware. Weeks later, when Xi took office as party chief and CMC chairman, Zhang joined the military commission as an ordinary member.

Zhang took charge of the General Armaments Department’s successor agency, the CMC’s Equipment Development Department, after Xi restructured the armed forces in 2015.

When Xi started his second term in 2017, he brought Zhang into the Politburo and appointed him the junior vice chairman of the CMC, making him China’s No. 2 general.

Zhang stepped up as the senior CMC vice chairman in 2022 as Xi secured his third term as party chief. By then Zhang was 72, and his new term in the top leadership marked a departure from prevailing retirement norms.

His most recent publicly disclosed engagements came in late December, when he attended gatherings of the Politburo, which comprises the party’s top 20-plus officials, and a government advisory body, according to state television footage. In an unusual absence, Zhang and Liu didn’t appear at the opening ceremony of a study session for senior officials held in Beijing on Tuesday—both men had attended similar sessions in the past.

Write to Chun Han Wong at chunhan.wong@wsj.com and Lingling Wei at Lingling.Wei@wsj.com

WSJ

5. Opinion | A Serious Defense Budget, at Last

Summary:

The WSJ editorial argues POTUS is right to propose a $1.5 trillion FY2027 defense budget because deterrence is cheaper than war, especially against China. It claims threats are proliferating across hypersonics, space, cyber, drones, nuclear forces, and soon AI, while China’s buildup and Russia’s alignment sharpen risk. After sequestration-era tradeoffs, the services are too small and readiness too thin to deter a peer and manage a second crisis, with Taiwan potentially opening windows for Russia or north Korea. The piece concedes waste exists, but says reform and new entrants help, and defense remains a modest share of federal spending.

Comment: What is the minimum force, munitions depth, and industrial surge capacity required to deter China while also denying opportunistic aggression elsewhere? The answer to this question is the same that it takes to defeat China and our adversaries in a war. If we do not have sufficient capacity to fight and win then we do not have deterrence. Investing in sufficient capabilities to fight and win is the best demonstration of national will and therefore establishes the foundation for deterrence. Yes deterrence is cheaper than war but only if we don't fight the war. We have to pay the bill for fighting upfront if we expect to have credible deterrence. Deterrence does not mean investing in warfighting on the cheap or only developing the minimum capabilities - which must include the logistics necessary to fight and win. "Do not assume your enemy will not attack. Make yourself invincible." – Sun Tzu. Said another way, "Do not hope that your enemy will be deterred with minimum force, otherwise you set yourself up for both attack and defeat."

Opinion | A Serious Defense Budget, at Last

WSJ · A Serious Defense Budget, at Last

A $1.5 trillion military will cost much less than a war with China.

By The Editorial Board

Jan. 23, 2026 5:11 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/donald-trump-defense-budget-1-5-trillion-military-pentagon-3e2070a3?mod=hp_opin_pos_1

American Soldiers from the 2nd Infantry Division participate in a river crossing exercise as part of the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise on August 27, 2025 in Yeoju-gun, South Korea. Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images

President Trump likes to take credit for persuading NATO to spend 5% of GDP on defense, but in 2025 he didn’t ask Congress to meet that target. That changed this month as he said he’ll propose a military budget of $1.5 trillion. It’s the right decision for a world of proliferating threats.

Opinion: Potomac Watch

Jack Smith's Testimony, Tim Walz's Subpoena, and Bill Clinton's Contempt Vote

Former special counsel Jack Smith says he has no real regrets about how he handled his indictments of Donald Trump. Really? Plus, the Justice Department gives a subpoena to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, as a House committee calls to hold Bill and Hillary Clinton in contempt for refusing to testify on Jeffrey Epstein.Read Transcript

For “the Good of our Country, especially in these very troubled and dangerous times,” he wrote on Truth Social, “our Military Budget for the year 2027 should not be $1 Trillion Dollars, but rather $1.5 Trillion Dollars.”

***

Yes, the U.S. already spends more on defense in dollars than other major powers. But the world is more dangerous than any time since Hitler and Tojo were marching through Europe and Asia. China and Russia are working together against the U.S. wherever they can. They’re helping anti-American regimes in North Korea, Iran and Latin America.

Most ominous, new technologies are proliferating in ways that threaten the U.S homeland. These include hypersonic missiles, space and cyber weapons, drones, and as ever nuclear weapons. All of this is before AI is weaponized in multiple ways.

China is embarking on the largest military buildup since Germany in the 1930s. Its navy ship count is larger than America’s, with an expanding network of bases around the world. It is building nuclear weapons fast, with the delivery systems to threaten American cities. A 2024 report by a blue-ribbon panel of defense experts makes for harrowing reading about our vulnerability in the next war.

Deterring these threats—and defeating them if war comes—requires more money than we are now spending. The U.S. is devoting about 3% of GDP to defense. That's roughly the same as during the height of Bill Clinton’s peace dividend in 2000, and half what it was at the height of Ronald Reagan’s defense buildup. An additional $500 billion would get close to 5% of GDP and the NATO target.

But hasn’t the U.S. military shown, in Iran and Venezuela, that it is unmatched? Yes, and brilliantly so, against small powers when we can dominate space and the skies, and use our experience in combined arms operations. Going up against China, or a multiple front conflict, is far less certain.

Since Barack Obama’s budget sequestration in 2013, the Pentagon has had to make ugly trade-offs with declining real resources. This was only briefly interrupted by one-time budget increases in President Trump’s first term. The services raid force size and readiness to fund new equipment, which too often is then pared back or canceled to save more money. Replacing an aging nuclear triad is a generational expense, and forget about a “Golden Dome” missile defense on current spending plans.

The U.S. military is too small to prevail decisively in a war with a peer, let alone deter another at the same time. A two-war standard has fallen out of fashion in both parties, but it’s the realist position. A Taiwan crisis that ensnared the U.S. would be an opportunity for Vladimir Putin to snatch the Baltic states or North Korea to move on the South.

The active-duty Army is now roughly the size that Mr. Obama wanted for his come-home-America worldview (450,000). The U.S. Navy battle force is stuck at about 300 ships, despite the urgent need to grow. Tails in the Air Force fighter fleet? About half the Cold War inventory.

One can argue that the U.S. can compensate with technology, but Ukraine has exposed that wish. The billions of private capital flowing into defense tech will help, but the U.S. still isn’t buying and operating unmanned platforms at scale.

Download the U.S. Navy’s reports on accidents during a recent carrier strike group deployment to the Red Sea. The damage included shooting down one of our own fighter jets and a carrier fender bender with a civilian ship. The investigations reveal undermanned departments and under-trained sailors, who appear to have grown accustomed to operating that way.

Even the Caracas raid carries a warning. Those jets that suppressed enemy air defenses? The Biden Administration tried to retire a chunk of the Growler fleet, until Congress blocked that self-defeating penny pinching.

***

The opponents of spending more on defense make two main points: The Pentagon wastes too much of what it now spends, and the U.S. can’t afford it. On the first point, we’re all for making hard choices, and the Pentagon is making progress in reforming weapons production and purchasing. New contractors like Anduril will make a difference, especially if Congress prods the Pentagon to shape up.

As for affording it, defense is now less than 13% of the federal budget, though it is the most fundamental duty of government. A cradle-to-grave entitlement state won’t look so comfortable if America has to fight another war, never mind loses one. The real choice today is between guns and runaway entitlements.

A $1.5 trillion budget request will be a heavy political lift, and to sell it Mr. Trump will have to level with the public that the U.S. military isn’t as dominant as he has claimed. He’ll have allies on Capitol Hill if he makes the case. The best way to go down as a peacemaker is by building a military no one wants to fight.

Unruly Republic: A vast, monied network of activist groups keeps the public inflamed on issues including social justice, immigrant rights, Palestinian statehood, LGBTQ rights, and—as ever—climate sustainability. Photo: Richard Tsong-Taatarii/Minnesota Star Tribune/ZUMA Press

Appeared in the January 24, 2026, print edition as 'A Serious Defense Budget, at Last'.

WSJ · A Serious Defense Budget, at Last

6. What Xi Jinping’s purge of China’s most senior general reveals

Summary:

Xi’s move against Gen. Zhang Youxia, once viewed as untouchable, signals that loyalty, pedigree, and combat credentials no longer protect PLA elites. By placing Zhang and Gen. Liu Zhenli under investigation, Xi has effectively hollowed out the Central Military Commission, leaving a thin, discipline-led core while broader modernization remains incomplete. The Economist frames the purge as evidence of persistent corruption, factional rivalry, and Xi’s frustration ahead of his Taiwan readiness deadline. The shake-up may disrupt planning, procurement, and command confidence in the near term, yet Xi likely wagers that fear and control will produce a cleaner, more obedient force over time.

Comment: Again, the same question about control and command: Does this level of turnover make the PLA more dangerous through tighter political control, or less dangerous through reduced initiative and degraded operational competence?

What Xi Jinping’s purge of China’s most senior general reveals

The Economist · Jan 24th 2026

The president has swept away military leaders on a scale unseen since Mao—raising doubts about the country’s war readiness

https://www.economist.com/china/2026/01/24/what-xi-jinpings-purge-of-chinas-most-senior-general-reveals

AMONG CHINA’S generals, one had long seemed immune to the sweeping purges of the high command in the past two years. Zhang Youxia, its most senior uniformed officer (pictured below), was not just a personal friend of Xi Jinping, China’s leader. He was one of the few military commanders with combat experience, having fought with distinction in a war with Vietnam in 1979. That bolstered his authority as the senior of the two vice chairmen of the Central Military Commission (CMC), which commands the armed forces (and is headed by Mr Xi). Some analysts viewed General Zhang as the mastermind of some of the recent purges. Now even he has been toppled, in the most dramatic blow yet.

On January 24th the defence ministry announced that General Zhang, 75, and another member of the CMC, General Liu Zhenli, had been placed under investigation for “suspected serious discipline and law violations”. It gave no further details. General Liu, who is 61, heads the joint staff department, which oversees operations, intelligence and training. Perhaps more pertinently, he is thought to have close personal ties to General Zhang as another veteran of the border war with Vietnam.

The investigations mean that Mr Xi has now, in effect, hollowed out his entire military leadership in a purge unmatched since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. Although Generals Zhang and Liu have yet to be officially removed from the CMC, investigations such as this normally entail detention and are routinely followed by formal dismissal. Four of the CMC’s other uniformed officers have already been formally dismissed from party and military posts. As a result, the body that oversees the roughly 2m-strong People’s Liberation Army, or PLA, now just has two active members—Mr Xi as its chairman and the PLA’s disciplinary chief, General Zhang Shengmin, who became vice-chairman in October.

The latest probes are the most striking evidence yet of the scale of the problems that Mr Xi still faces in trying to transform the PLA into a fully modern fighting force. Soon after taking power, he began tackling pervasive corruption and a lack of focus on real combat by axing dozens of generals and launching a big overhaul of the structure of the PLA. A new wave of purges started around 2023 with the Rocket Force, which handles China’s nuclear arsenal, and later spread to other services as well as the PLA’s equipment-development and political departments. Yet corruption endures and Mr Xi’s structural reforms are incomplete. He may now be showing his frustration with General Zhang’s failure to deliver better results ahead of next year’s deadline, set by Mr Xi, for the PLA to be capable of taking Taiwan.

Another possibility is that General Zhang or his family members were involved in corruption in the past, perhaps when he headed the graft-prone department responsible for weapons development and procurement between 2012 and 2017. Old allegations could have resurfaced or new ones emerged as Mr Xi’s investigators expanded their efforts or were fed information by General Zhang’s rivals. Some of the officers targeted earlier on were considered his protégés.

Photograph: Getty Images

But these latest purges could also have been prompted, in part, by Mr Xi’s concerns about General Zhang’s expanding powers. “This is the most stunning development in Chinese politics since the early days of Xi’s rise to power,” says Dennis Wilder of Georgetown University in Washington, who is a former China analyst at the CIA. He believes that many of the recent purges were due to rivalry between a faction led by General Zhang and another group who mainly built their careers serving in eastern China, some of them when Mr Xi was an official there. General Zhang’s faction, which included several sons of prominent revolutionaries, prevailed. That left him with unprecedented authority. But it also made him a potential threat to Mr Xi. “He is a tough, profane old goat and, while he had allied with Xi, he was never his subordinate,” Mr Wilder says of General Zhang.

General Zhang’s family connection to Mr Xi goes back to when their fathers fought together in the country’s civil war. General Zhang’s father later became a three-star general; Mr Xi’s became a civilian leader. Mr Xi demonstrated his trust in General Zhang in 2017 by overseeing his appointment to the Politburo, which includes the Communist Party’s top 20 or so leaders, and as the junior vice-chairman of the CMC, making him China’s second-ranking general. Then in 2022, when Mr Xi secured a third term as party chief, General Zhang became the senior vice-chairman of the commission despite being 72, which would have disqualified him under previous retirement norms.

If General Zhang is now formally dismissed, he would be the highest ranking active-duty military officer ousted by Mr Xi. And if he also loses his Politburo seat, it would be the first time that two of its members have been purged in the same five-year term since the PLA crushed the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. That would send a powerful message to other members of the armed forces and civilian elite, especially those from prominent revolutionary families: ties to Mr Xi are no guarantee of protection. But it also presents Mr Xi with a problem: who should he choose to replace all the generals he has purged?

Since taking power in 2012, Mr Xi has tried to promote generals who are both politically loyal and qualified to lead the PLA’s transformation into a more nimble force that can combine air, land, sea, cyber and space-based operations. He started by replacing generals appointed by previous leaders. More recently he has targeted many of his own appointees. And many of the remaining generals are either too inexperienced or are tainted by their association with one or more of the disgraced military commanders. The upheaval is also starting to affect the PLA’s ability to fight, according to some Western assessments.

The Pentagon’s most recent annual report on China’s armed forces, published in December, noted that the removal of senior PLA officers had “caused uncertainty over organisational priorities” and “reverberated throughout the ranks of the PLA”. It said corruption in defence procurement had led to “observed” capability shortfalls such as malfunctioning lids on missile silos. “These investigations very likely risk short-term disruptions in the operational effectiveness of the PLA,” it said. “Alternatively, the PLA could emerge as a more proficient fighting force in the future if it uses the current campaign to eliminate systemic issues enabling corruption.” On that point, at least, Mr Xi will be hoping the Pentagon is right. ■

The Economist · Jan 24th 2026

7. How Iran Crushed a Citizen Uprising With Lethal Force

Summary:

Iran’s January uprising began with economic despair and a bazaar strike, then spread nationwide. Security forces answered with live fire, snipers, Basij motorbike teams, tear gas, and pellet weapons, as the regime cut internet and phone access. After POTUS voiced support and floated intervention, Ayatollah Khamenei reportedly ordered the Supreme National Security Council to crush protests by any means, triggering shoot to kill rules and a surge in deaths. The Times verified firing across Iran through videos, hospital accounts, and morgue evidence. Death toll estimates diverge: 3,117 officially versus 3,400 to 5,200 by rights groups, with children among the dead.

Comment: Videos at the link. For analysis by analysts:

What is the regime’s real center of gravity: coercive capacity, elite cohesion, or information control when networks go dark?

Did POTUS rhetoric help the uprising endure, or give Tehran the pretext it needed to justify mass killing?

If funerals became the next mobilization node, what would an opposition strategy look like that survives both surveillance and live fire?

As Clausewitz said: "In countries subject to domestic strife, the center of gravity is generally the capital. In small countries that rely on large ones, it is usually the army of their protector. Among alliances, it lies in the community of interest, and in popular uprisings it lies in the persons of the principal leaders and in public opinion. The blow must be directed against these things."

(BOOK 8 • CHAPTER 4 - Ends in War More Precisely Defined - Overthrow of the Enemy)

There is some much wisdom packed into this excerpt that applies across our entire geostrategic environment.

How Iran Crushed a Citizen Uprising With Lethal Force

NY Times · Parin Behrooz · January 25, 2026

By Farnaz Fassihi Sanjana Varghese Malachy Browne and Parin Behrooz

The journalists interviewed dozens of witnesses and family members in Iran, verified over 160 videos and photos, and spoke with Iranian officials, rights groups and medical workers for this story.

Jan. 25, 2026

Updated 5:34 a.m. ET

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/25/world/middleeast/iran-how-crackdown-was-done.html

In Tehran, the capital of Iran, security forces opened fire at protesters from the roof of a police station. In Karaj, they fired live rounds into a march, shooting one person in the head. In Isfahan, young men barricaded themselves in an alley as gunfire and explosions rang out.

Scattered protests had percolated since late December, starting with a strike in Tehran’s bazaar and fueled by a plunging economy. But by early January, Iranians had revolted en masse, and the security forces began to crack down with deadly force.

Security forces cracked down on demonstrators across Iran in the first weeks of January.

It was not just the protests unnerving the regime. President Trump encouraged the demonstrators and threatened military intervention. In many places, riots flared in parallel with peaceful protests; government buildings, commercial properties, mosques and police stations were set on fire.

On Friday, Jan. 9, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ordered the Supreme National Security Council, the body tasked with safeguarding the country, to crush the protests by any means necessary, according to two Iranian officials briefed on the ayatollah’s directive. Security forces were deployed with orders to shoot to kill and to show no mercy, the officials said. The death toll surged.

Despite Iran shutting down the internet and disrupting phone service, some Iranians managed to evade restrictions to share witness accounts and hundreds of videos, many of which The New York Times was able to collect and authenticate.

The Times has verified videos of security forces opening fire on protesters in at least 19 different cities and in at least six different neighborhoods in Tehran in early January.

Where verified videos show security forces firing on protesters

Sources: Verified footage; Institute for the Study of War and American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project (all protests)

The New York Times

These videos show the breadth and ferocity of the regime’s crackdown. So do the testimonies of doctors and a nurse working in hospitals in Iran, and photographs shared by a witness and authenticated by The Times of hundreds of victims brought to a Tehran morgue.

The Times also interviewed two dozen Iranians in Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, Rasht and Ahvaz who had attended protests, as well as relatives of people killed. Protesters, residents and medical staff interviewed for this article all asked that their names or full names not be published for fear of retribution.

By Monday, Jan. 12, the protests had largely been crushed.

As more information emerges from Iran, the death toll has hit at least 5,200 people, including 56 children, according to the Washington-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. Iran Human Rights, a Norway-based group that also monitors the situation in Iran, has confirmed at least 3,400 killed. Both organizations say that the numbers could prove two or three times larger as verification continues.

Iran’s National Security Council said in a statement that 3,117 people had been killed, among them 427 of its security forces. Officials, including Mr. Khamenei, have blamed terrorist cells tied to Israel and the United States for the uprising and killings.

“This is not merely a violent protest crackdown. It is a state-orchestrated massacre,” said Raha Bahreini, a lawyer and an Iran researcher at Amnesty International.

Crackdown

An armed security officer sitting atop a vehicle in the Sadeghiyeh neighborhood of Tehran during demonstrations in early January when protesters were reportedly killed by live fire.Credit...@Vahid, via X

On Jan. 8, Nasim Pouraghayee, 45, a mother of two, and her husband, Ali, marched with large crowds in the Sadeghiyeh neighborhood in Tehran. She called her mother to say the atmosphere was boisterous and the turnout huge.

Abruptly, things turned deadly.

Her husband was walking behind her, hands wrapped around her shoulders to protect her, according to a cousin of Ms. Pouraghayee’s who, in an interview, recounted the events of the night as described by Ali. A bullet hit Ms. Pouraghayee in the neck; she fell to the ground and began vomiting blood, the cousin said.

Nasim Pouraghayee, in a photograph provided by her family.

“Nasim, Nasim, Nasim,” her husband screamed, holding her face. But she was unresponsive. “Help, help,” he pleaded to other protesters fleeing the chaos, but nobody came forward. He felt his wife’s body getting cold as he picked her up, the cousin said, and walked for an hour and a half to reach their car. When they reached the hospital, she was pronounced dead.

A video verified by The Times captured the sound of live fire being directed at protesters in Sadeghiyeh. The protesters turn, flee and scream as gunshots are heard.

Videos showing protesters running from security forces in Tehran on Jan. 8. The uploader of the original footage blurred the faces of two individuals.

About 40 verified videos show gunmen and security forces cracking down on demonstrations. Across the footage, they are seen riding in pairs on motorbikes and using a variety of weapons, including firearms, batons and tear gas. In a video filmed in Haft Howz Square in Tehran, men and women flee amid the sound of gunfire. Some protesters clearly have leg wounds, and leave trails of blood along a sidewalk as they limp away, a video verified by The Times showed. On the street, some can also be seen carrying people unable to walk.

Protesters running down a street in Tehran on Jan. 10. Blurring to an injured protester was applied by The Times.

Mohammad, 40, a shop owner, said he and his younger brother were among the demonstrators in Tehran Pars, a middle-class neighborhood in eastern Tehran, on Friday, Jan. 9, when they heard the rat-tat-tat of gunfire. “I saw two young men who were running away collapse; they were shot from the back,” Mohammad said.

Security forces fired on protesters from the rooftop of a police station in Tehran Pars for more than six minutes, one video shows. The video shows the muzzle blasts of several rifles and picks up the sound of hundreds of gunshots and what appears to be automatic fire. A group of protesters run away along an adjacent street. Minutes later, a person is dragged inside the courtyard of the police station.

Security forces firing at protesters on Jan. 8 or Jan. 9 in Tehran Pars, a middle-class neighborhood in eastern Tehran, where protesters were reportedly killed.

Another video filmed farther along the same street — and in the direction the security forces were firing — shows protesters sheltering from incoming gunfire. “Put your phone down, they’ll shoot your hand off,” one person says. “There’s a sniper among them.”

The sound of bullets striking nearby can be heard amid chants of “Death to Khamenei.”

Gunfire can be heard in the background as protesters hid in Tehran Pars. The uploader of the original footage blurred the video.

A video that The Times confirmed was filmed at the nearby Tehran Pars Hospital showed several body bags lined up on the ground outside an emergency room entrance as people could be heard wailing.

Body bags placed on the ground outside Tehran Pars Hospital. The uploader of the original footage blurred the video.Credit...Vahid Online, via X

A husband and wife had a violent encounter with members of the Basij militia, a plainclothes security force, on motorcycles in Karim Khan in central Tehran. The wife, 50, who is a designer, said in an interview that the men shot indiscriminately into the air and at people, and screamed, “Get back inside.”

The husband was shot in his lower back with a pellet bullet. The wife said a member of the Basij found her hiding behind an electric pole, stood near her and pointed a gun to her forehead, several millimeters away from her eye. He threatened to kill her, but had run out bullets, she said.

A series of videos verified by The Times from Jan. 8 in Fardis, a suburb of Karaj, showed hundreds of people marching, then fleeing when a tear-gas canister is fired in their direction. Gunshots ring out. Another video, filmed near a police station in Fardis, shows a protester who appears to have been shot in the head. More than two dozen gunshots are heard as screaming protesters take cover. In the last video, the lifeless bodies of seven people sprawl on the ground.

Protesters took to the streets of Fardis, where security forces repelled them, on Jan. 8. Blurring to wounded protesters was applied by The Times.

In Mashhad, a conservative city in the northeast, huge crowds gathered on Jan. 8 chanting slogans against the government, a video verified by The Times showed. Later that night, a group of protesters were walking down a road about a mile away from where the crowds had been when security forces on motorcycles rode up to them. Some of the officers dismounted and beat demonstrators with batons, while others fanned out, pointing firearms down the street as gunshots rang out nearby.

Security forces on motorcycles confronting a group of protesters on the sidewalk in Mashhad on Jan. 8.

In another video filmed at a protest in Mashhad and verified by The Times, a person is seen lying on the ground as others run to help.

“Look, they shot a girl,” the person recording the video said. “They are using weapons of war.”

Hospitals

Across the country, hospitals swamped by thousands of injured protesters were unprepared for the scale of the gunshot wounds they were seeing, according to interviews and text messages with eight doctors and one nurse in Iran.

Gun violence is rare in Iran, and private citizens are not allowed to own weapons. The doctors and the nurse sharing their experiences in Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan and Zanjan described scenes of chaos: medical staff frantically trying to save lives, white uniforms drenched in blood. They said patients lay on benches and chairs, and even on bare floors, in the overcrowded emergency rooms.

They said hospitals were short of blood and searching for trauma and vascular surgeons. The internet shutdown prevented medical staff from checking patients’ names and medical history, they said.

A nurse at Nikan Hospital in Tehran said in an interview that the hospital resembled a war zone. A doctor at Shohada Tajrish Hospital in north Tehran, a sprawling government medical facility, said that, on average, medical staff saw about 70 protesters with gunshot wounds per hour on the two days of peak violence, Jan. 9 and 10. Many patients were dead on arrival or shortly afterward, he said.

In an audio message shared with The Times, a physician in Mashhad called the situation at his hospital “terrifying.” In addition to a staggering number of injured protesters, he said, security forces showed up demanding access to patients to arrest them. He said a team of physicians had set up an ad hoc triage unit at a villa outside of the city, where they treated patients too afraid to go to hospitals.

An anesthesiologist at a hospital in the Sattar Khan neighborhood of Tehran said in a text message shared with The Times that in just one night, his hospital had seen 300 injured protesters. A text message from a doctor at a university hospital in Zanjan shared with The Times said most victims were shot in the upper torso, head and neck, and that the hospital had recorded about 200 killed.

The Times received photos and videos from inside hospitals that are too gruesome to show. Other very graphic images were posted online by an account with a record of publishing images later found to be authentic. They showed bloody, lifeless bodies inside hospitals said to be in Tehran. Some victims appeared to have been shot in the head. The Times was unable to independently authenticate the images from inside hospitals.

Farabi Eye Hospital in Tehran, a national hub for ophthalmology, registered about 500 cases of eye injury from pellet bullets on Jan. 8 and several hundred eye injuries with live bullets on the following two nights, a surgeon said in a text message. He was in the operating room for three nights straight and said he wished for death when he had to empty both eye sockets of a 13-year-old.

A doctor in Isfahan said in a text message that they had seen “young people whose brains were smashed with live bullets, and a mom who was shot in the neck, her two small children were crying in the car, a child whose bladder, hip and rectum was crushed with a bullet.”

“What I witnessed will forever haunt me,” the doctor added. “I feel guilty that I’m alive.”

Photos, videos and text conversations shared with The Times by Dr. Kayvan Mirhadi, an Iranian American doctor in Rochester, N.Y., who has been in regular contact with medical teams and hospitals in Iran, showed dozens of apparent gunshot and pellet wounds to the torso, limbs, head and eyes.

“They are essentially executing people on the streets,” Dr. Mirhadi said. “Starting Thursday, the reports of injuries I was receiving changed significantly. It went from brute force, fractures and tear gas to skull fractures and gunshot wounds.”

Some images shared by Dr. Mirhadi were sent by people asking how to treat their own wounds or those of relatives. One person asked about a bullet wound in his brother’s leg. Another sent a photo of an eye, with blood pouring out of a gash just above it.

Photographs of apparent birdshot or buckshot wounds shared with an Iranian doctor in the United States by protesters who said they were fired upon by security forces in Iran. Blurring to graphic wound was applied by The Times.Credit...Kayvan Mirhadi

The Times sent a representative sample of 17 images to experts from the Independent Forensic Expert Group coordinated by the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, who determined that the injuries appeared to be caused by buckshot or birdshot fired at close range.

HRANA, the rights agency in Washington, documented a significant number of injuries from pellet gunfire during recent protests, including shots into the eyeball. It said 7,402 people had serious injuries.

A video obtained by the London-based Persian-language news channel Iran International and verified by The Times shows bodies in the courtyard of Alghadir Hospital, less than a mile from where protesters were fired upon and injured in Haft Howz Square. Some of the bodies are covered and tied in plastic bags; others are wrapped in blankets.

A woman crouches over the body of a man wrapped in a blanket whose eyes remain closed. She weeps and speaks to him.

People gathering around body bags on a hospital floor in the east of Tehran on Jan. 8.

The Morgue

Bodies shrouded in black plastic bags covered every space and surface. Stacked in refrigerators. Placed on the floor inside. Scattered, row after row, on the ground in the parking lot and courtyard.

Tehran’s main morgue, Kahrizak Forensic Center, was overflowing in the immediate aftermath of the killing spree.

The number of bodies overwhelmed the capacity of the morgue, a government official admitted on state television, blaming the killings on terrorist cells.

But the handling and processing of bodies was also disorderly, according to videos and a person who visited the morgue. Families searching for loved ones were taken to a hall where a television screen flashed the faces of the dead, each with a number assigned to it. There were several photos of some victims because the severity of their injuries required multiple angles to identify them, according to the visitor to the morgue.

Sometimes families would ask the morgue staff to pause, rewind and zoom in, the visitor said. Others would immediately recognize a loved one and collapse. People screamed, wailed and hit their faces and bodies in shock and grief.

Multiple images and videos verified by The Times showed hundreds of bodies laid out at the Kahrizak morgue within days of the protests erupting on Jan. 8. Outside the center, men unzipped black body bags as they searched for missing relatives. Others tearfully embraced as they discovered bodies. Inside a large hall where dozens more were laid out, women wailed.

One 16-minute video filmed outside the center showed close to 300 victims laid out on sidewalks and asphalt.

“It’s a line. A line of people, so they can pick up their deceased,” the person filming said. “The young people. Their apple of their eyes.”

Staff in white lab coats unzipped body bags and examined victims’ wounds. One staff member identified a wound at the back of one victim’s head, blood trailing from it, and jotted details in a notebook. Another documented apparent bullet wounds on the torso of a bloodied victim.

Families and mourners gathered in Kahrizak, where hundreds of body bags were laid out on the ground at Tehran’s largest morgue. Blurring to injured bodies and body bags was applied by The Times.

As the camera moved through the crowd, people could be seen going from body to body searching for a loved one. Men embraced tearfully over the dead body of someone they identified.

In one heartbreaking video, a father sobbed as he searched inside the center for his son, Sepehr Shokri, 19, a boxer. “Sepehr, my son, where are you?” he cried. “Damn Khamenei, this is his crime. Sepehr, Baba, where are you?”

A man searching for his son in Kahrizak, in a video published on Jan. 23. Blurring to injured bodies and body bags was applied by The Times.

The Times obtained photographs of over 300 bodies brought to Kahrizak. The photographs showed the faces of the dead, the top of their black body bags unzipped, with white identity cards on their chests.

Dozens were marked as “unknown man,” “unknown woman,” “unknown child.” Over 190 were marked only by numbers. The Times identified 29 legible names, among them Mohammad Erfan Faraji, 18, who an Iranian rights organization reported was shot during protests in Shahr Rey, a suburb of Tehran about 10 miles from the morgue where his body was photographed.

The Times could not make a conclusive assessment of injuries based on the images. But a majority of the bodies showed severe head trauma, large gashes and collapsed eye sockets. Some were severely disfigured. Several still had tubes in their mouths and EKG pads on their chests, indicating the bodies had been transported from a hospital.

Dr. Nizam Peerwani, a forensic adviser for Physicians for Human Rights who analyzed the images for The Times, said the evidence suggested multiple victims had been “brutally bludgeoned or beaten up at the scene or in detention.”

When one woman recognized her husband on the screen and dropped to the floor, another woman approached her, said the person who was at the morgue. She told her, “Get up, get up my dear, you have work to do.”

Funerals

Across Iran, funerals are taking place. Parents are burying children. Children are burying parents. Siblings, friends, neighbors, colleagues, classmates and teammates are attending burial processions.

As the faces and stories of the victims surface, recounted by relatives or friends and posted on social media, so does the story of the uprising. The protesters killed represent a broad swath of Iran, ethnically, economically and socially.

Many were very young. Teenagers and people in their early twenties took to the streets with dreams of a better life, of a prosperous future and of freedom, their families say.

A 21-year-old basketball star who played for a national team; a 17-year-old Kurdish soccer player with a national youth club; a 15-year-old swimming champion; a 19-year-old college student majoring in Italian; a 26-year-old English teacher.

Families gathering outside a mortuary in Behesht-e Zahra on Jan. 10. The song was added by the original uploader of the video.

The death on Jan. 8 of Sina Ashkbousi, 17, was described by his aunt in an audio message posted on the Instagram page of lawyers in Iran who represent human rights cases. “Sina was killed with a direct bullet in his heart in Tehran Pars,” she said. “He was very smart, a dreamer. He was after freedom and was very kind.”

Funerals have turned into protests, with thousands of attendees holding pictures of victims and chanting “Death to Khamenei,” videos verified by The Times show.

Footage showed huge crowds at a funeral for three people killed in Malekshahi, a rural area in the province of Ilam, on Jan. 4. A week later, videos circulating on social media appeared to show huge crowds not far away, in Abdanan, another city in Ilam, for the funeral of Alireza Saidi, 16, who was said to have been killed in Tehran during protests that week.

Demonstrators gathering at a funeral in Ilam for Alireza Saidi on Jan. 11.

At these funerals and that of Ahmad Khosravani, the basketball star, the crowd departed from the traditional mourning rituals of crying and reciting the Quran.

Instead they clapped, cheered and chanted in unison, saying, “This fallen flower is a gift to the nation.”

___________

Methodology

Despite a communications blackout, Iranians managed to use virtual private networks, or VPNs, and forbidden Starlink satellite internet systems to share witness accounts and videos, many of which The New York Times was able to collect and authenticate.

Some videos were shared directly with Times journalists. Others with Iranian human rights groups, BBC Persian and the Iranian blog Vahid Online, all of whom circulated the videos on Telegram, X and Instagram.

The Times collected over 300 videos and independently verified over 160 of them by matching details seen in the videos — like business names, street fronts, signs and trees — with archival images, satellite imagery and Google Street View. Iranian reporters with The Times watched and listened to the videos for accents or other details indicating their authenticity. Sometimes we referred to verification carried out by GeoConfirmed, a research collective that specializes in geolocating where videos are filmed.

The Times independently confirmed all the videos reported on for this story. Two weeks on from the worst of the violence, footage is still emerging. Confirming the date those videos were filmed is not always possible. But by checking that the videos are new and not posted during previous crackdowns in Iran, and by mapping out when and where protests and crackdowns happened in January, we corroborated the date they were most likely taken.

Reporting was contributed by Haley Willis. Videos produced by Jon Hazell. Additional video production by Natalie Reneau, Jeffrey Bernier and Josh Holder. Map by Samuel Granados.

Farnaz Fassihi is the United Nations bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of the organization. She also covers Iran and has written about conflict in the Middle East for 15 years.

Sanjana Varghese is a reporter on The Times’s Visual Investigations team, specializing in the use of advanced digital techniques to analyze visual evidence.

Malachy Browne is enterprise director of the Visual Investigations team at The Times. He was a member of teams awarded the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 2020 and 2023.

See more on: Ali Khamenei

New: Family subscriptions are here.

Add three people to your subscription.

One account. Four individual logins. Savings for all.

Switch to All Access Family

Cancel anytime.

NY Times · Parin Behrooz · January 25, 2026

8. Tory peers force UK to pause passage of Chagos Islands bill after US criticism

Summary:

Conservative peers have forced the UK government to pause House of Lords consideration of legislation to ratify the UK–Mauritius Chagos Islands treaty after U.S. criticism. The treaty would transfer sovereignty of the Chagos archipelago to Mauritius while leasing back Diego Garcia, the joint US–UK base, for 99 years at significant cost. After calling the deal “stupidity” and “weakness,” POTUS created fresh political and alliance risk, and the Conservatives tabled a delaying motion tied to unresolved issues with an older UK–US treaty framework. Labour says the pause is temporary and argues the deal is essential to secure the base.

Comment: Someone posed the question to me: Is Diego Garcia equally important key terrain for the US as Greenland is? If why have we not seemed as concerned about the change there as we are in seeking control of Greenland? (Apparently until POTUS raised the issue just now). The key question for the UK: How can London preserve the operational certainty of Diego Garcia while avoiding a precedent that turns base access and sovereignty questions into transactional leverage across alliances? The key question for the US: What happens if we lose access to Diego Garcia?

Tory peers force UK to pause passage of Chagos Islands bill after US criticism

Financial Times · Lucy Fisher

Lucy Fisher and Anna Gross in London

PublishedJan 23 2026

https://www.ft.com/content/d226cb01-3af5-41ea-9ede-1a6678ba1b48

Conservative peers have forced Sir Keir Starmer to pause legislation to ratify the UK-Mauritius treaty on the Chagos Islands, following Donald Trump’s claim this week that the deal is an “act of great stupidity” and “weakness” by Britain.

Labour ministers on Friday postponed plans for the bill to return to the House of Lords on Monday in the wake of the Conservatives’ parliamentary move, igniting a heated dispute between the two parties. The Tories, who heavily oppose the treaty, tabled a last-minute motion to the bill, forcing the government’s hand.

Enactment of the agreement would hand sovereignty of the Chagos archipelago — officially known as the British Indian Ocean Territory — to Mauritius. Britain would lease back the island of Diego Garcia that houses a crucial joint US-UK military base for 99 years for a multibillion-pound sum.

UK officials say Tory leader Kemi Badenoch’s vocal criticism of the treaty this week helped draw it to Trump’s attention. The US president had previously endorsed the agreement but blindsided Downing Street by attacking the deal on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday.

Starmer told MPs on Wednesday that Trump had censured the Chagos deal “for the express purpose of putting pressure on me and Britain in relation to my values and principles on the future of Greenland”.

The UK prime minister vowed he would “not yield” on Greenland despite an earlier threat of sanctions if the UK did not support Trump’s plans for the Arctic island.

Dame Priti Patel, shadow foreign secretary, said the legislation’s pause was “a major victory for everyone standing against Keir Starmer’s disgraceful Chagos surrender” and served notice that her party would continue to fight it.

The legislation’s pause is only temporary, UK officials insisted on Friday, dismissing the Conservatives’ claim that the UK-Mauritius deal is incompatible with international law.

The Tories’ parliamentary motion demanded a delay to the ratification of the treaty until the conclusion of talks between London and Washington about the Chagos deal’s impact on a separate older UK-US treaty relating to the islands.

Rushing the deal before these talks have completed could break international law, the Conservatives claimed.

Lord Martin Callanan, shadow Tory foreign office spokesperson in the Lords, said in December “the government admitted they need to amend the 1966 treaty with the US . . . but still haven’t concluded that work”.

Callanan claimed the UK-Mauritius agreement, which would cost about £35bn over its 99-year lifespan, would threaten Britain’s national security.

A government spokesperson said Britain remains “fully committed to the deal to secure the joint UK-US base on Diego Garcia [the largest island in the Chagos archipelago], which is vital for our national security”.

The spokesperson added: “This is irresponsible and reckless behaviour by peers whose role is to check legislation, not interfere with our national security priorities.”

A Labour Lords official said postponing the bill’s return was “simply a response to Tory peers having flexed their much greater numbers in the House by tabling a wrecking amendment to a government bill just hours before the end of business ahead of a scheduled debate on the next sitting day”.

Financial Times · Lucy Fisher

9. An Unlikely Source of Crypto Innovation: Afghanistan

Summary:

HesabPay, an Afghan start-up, is using blockchain rails to move humanitarian cash in places where banks, sanctions, and insecurity block normal transfers. The New York Times describes aid recipients in Syria receiving funds via a card tied to a digital wallet, letting NGOs bypass scarce cash, high remittance fees, and reluctant international banks while creating an auditable trail. UNHCR has used the system at scale in Afghanistan, and partners such as Mercy Corps are extending it to other conflict zones. The model pairs speed and traceability with compliance screening, but it still faces risk from outages, political interference, and the limits of real-world drone and jamming-style disruption to networks.

Comment: Who would have thought? Certainly not me. Is this a modern adapted form of Hawala (or hewala)? (The informal, traditional Islamic method of transferring money). Does blockchain-based aid shift the center of gravity from physical distribution networks to data integrity and compliance control, and who owns that leverage in a crisis?

How should donors balance traceability with beneficiary safety when digital trails can expose people to coercion in authoritarian environments?

An Unlikely Source of Crypto Innovation: Afghanistan

NY Times · Aryn Baker · January 24, 2026

The repressive Taliban government is suspicious of the internet. But a start-up in the country is building blockchain-based tools to transform humanitarian aid.

By Aryn BakerPhotographs by Emile Ducke

Jan. 24, 2026

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/world/asia/crypto-innovation-afghanistan.html

People in Halfaya, Syria, waiting to receive humanitarian aid. The funds were being distributed through HesabPay, a blockchain-based system developed in Afghanistan.

The repressive Taliban government is suspicious of the internet. But a start-up in the country is building blockchain-based tools to transform humanitarian aid.

People in Halfaya, Syria, waiting to receive humanitarian aid. The funds were being distributed through HesabPay, a blockchain-based system developed in Afghanistan.Credit...

At a bustling money changer in northwestern Syria, a 46-year-old farmer gripped a plastic card like a lifeline. She had never heard of cryptocurrency, but the card held $500 of it to help restart her farm after nearly 14 years of civil war.

As a teller confirmed the total and cashed out the account, the farmer, Hala Mahmoud Almahmoud, smiled with relief and paused to give thanks. Where had such technology come from, she asked.

The answer surprised her: Afghanistan.

Blockchain-based cash transfers are not the kind of innovation that many people would expect from a country better known for its repressive Taliban leadership, which views the internet with suspicion. But in a nation that has largely turned its back on the world, an Afghan start-up is building tools that it hopes will transform how humanitarian aid is delivered in countries shattered by conflict.

“We’ve lived through these challenges ourselves, so we know how to develop an approach that works,” said Zakia Hussaini, 26, a programmer at the start-up, HesabPay, which designed the technology driving Ms. Almahmoud’s card.

Hala Mahmoud Almahmoud outside her family’s house near Ltamenah, Syria. She received $500 in cryptocurrency to help restart her farm.

An early proponent of the platform was the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The agency uses it to support more than 86,000 families in Afghanistan in one of the biggest public blockchain aid initiatives in the world. Mercy Corps, which donated the funds to Ms. Almahmoud, worked with HesabPay to expand its reach to include Syria, and programs for Sudan and Haiti are in development.

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

In Syria, getting money from abroad can be complicated. Cash is scarce, international banks steer clear of the country and remittance firms like Western Union can charge as much as 10 percent in transfer fees. HesabPay allows organizations like Mercy Corps to sidestep those roadblocks.

Sanzar Kakar, the Afghan American entrepreneur behind HesabPay, used to run Afghanistan’s leading payroll processor. But the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 and the Taliban’s return set off a financial collapse. Sanctions put a halt to international transfers, and the central bank unraveled.

To address the country’s increasing financial insecurity, Mr. Kakar turned to blockchain. He built HesabPay, named after the local word for “account,” as a phone-based app that enabled instant transfers from one digital wallet to another, bypassing banks and the Taliban government. The Afghan government has since granted his business a license to operate officially as a financial institution, he said.

Mercy Corps, the aid group that donated the funds, worked with HesabPay to expand the platform’s reach to Syria.

Today, the platform has more than 650,000 wallets in Afghanistan, of which about 50,000 are in regular use, moving approximately $60 million a month in stablecoins backed by the afghani, Afghanistan’s currency.

Since February 2025, the U.N. has used HesabPay to deliver nearly $25 million via 80,000 digital wallets to vulnerable Afghans returning home, said Carmen Hett, the corporate treasurer of the U.N. refugee agency. “This helps reduce transaction fees, waiting periods and enhance traceability, real-time monitoring and accountability of transactions,” she said.

It is not surprising that organizations like Mercy Corps and the United Nations are turning to blockchain-based money transfers to deliver aid, said Ric Shreves, an expert in decentralized finance solutions and the president of the Decentralized Cooperation Foundation. For such organizations, he said, “it’s almost all upsides, compared to the way aid has traditionally been delivered.”

But there are still risks, he said, especially when the payment systems are based on local-currency stablecoins, as they are in Afghanistan. (In Syria, the cryptocurrency in HesabPay wallets is backed by the U.S. dollar, a more stable option.) Just as wallets can be shut down for interacting with sanctioned individuals, they can also theoretically be shut down by a country’s central bank for political reasons.

Using blockchain made it easier for Mercy Corps to send funds to Syria, where cash is scarce and international banks generally do not do business.

“When we provide people with a nonphysical means of doing transactions, that also means there’s a possibility that those transactions could be blocked through technological means,” Mr. Shreves said. Digital currencies are demonstrably safer than cash, he added, but they still cannot be stashed under a mattress.

In recent years, aid groups have increasingly turned to cash as a fast and dignified form of assistance. But cash has a flaw: It is hard to track. Donors want proof that their money reaches the right hands. Since President Trump slashed U.S. foreign assistance early last year, groups like Mercy Corps have come under even more pressure to demonstrate their impact and integrity.

That is where blockchain comes in, creating a digital trail that records exactly how much was sent, to whom, and where it was spent. That mix of speed and accountability could be “a way to win back trust from those who have come to doubt the usefulness of aid,” said Scott Onder, Mercy Corps’s chief investment officer.

HesabPay comes with additional safeguards, like a real-time dashboard that tracks wallet activity and cross-checks it against international compliance databases. The company says the system is designed to detect illicit activity like terrorist financing, money laundering and online scams, and to raise an alert the moment suspicious transactions appear. For aid donors, it offers a level of oversight rarely possible in fragile states.

Abdul Moti Hammoud, a Halfaya resident, lost his leg after driving his tractor over a land mine. He is a beneficiary of the Mercy Corps program.

During a recent online demonstration, Nigel Pont, the company’s senior adviser for humanitarian affairs, clicked on a purple dot representing a HesabPay agent in Afghanistan. Dozens of pale blue beneficiary wallets fanned out, showing recent transfers. Another click revealed where the money went next. Then one wallet pulsed red with a potential scam alert — an awkward moment in a live demo, but exactly the kind of risk the system is built to expose.

“From an aid donor perspective, that’s immensely valuable,” said Mr. Pont, who previously served as chief strategy officer at Mercy Corps. “A system that can automatically flag a fraud risk means you can check it out immediately instead of waiting six months for a report that somebody stole 20 grand.” No system is entirely corruption-proof, he conceded, but then again, a bag of cash is not, either.

Abdul Halim Hasan, 22, who was waiting in the same line as Ms. Almahmoud for his turn at the money changer in Syria, said he imagined that one day he could use HesabPay as a regular bank account, receiving funds, making payments and saving money safely. But for the moment, it was enough that his HesabPay card allowed him to gain access to money he needed to restart his life after war.

“I certainly want to see this method spread in Syria,” he said.

Ms. Almahmoud, second from left, and members of her family with Mercy Corps workers in Halfaya.

Leen Rihawi contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on Jan. 25, 2026, Section A, Page 7 of the New York edition with the headline: An Unlikely Source of Crypto Innovation: Afghanistan

See more on: Taliban, United Nations High Commission for Refugees

Add the Sunday Times in print to your subscription. 50% off the first year. Learn more.

NY Times · Aryn Baker · January 24, 2026

10. AI-Powered Disinformation Swarms Are Coming for Democracy

Summary:

A new Science paper warns that AI agents can replace troll farms with coordinated disinformation swarms. One operator could direct thousands of persistent personas that write humanlike posts, learn from engagement, and adapt in real time, running rapid micro tests to find messages that shift beliefs and voting behavior. Detection still lags because platforms restrict researcher access and current tools target old style bots. The authors fear swarms could erode trust in online discourse and weaken democratic legitimacy before 2028. They propose an AI Influence Observatory to standardize evidence and speed collective response, despite weak incentives for platforms and governments.

Comment: This contributes to the justification for our focus on cognitive warfare and narrative intelligence.

If persuasion becomes scalable at machine speed, what becomes the new unit of defense: content, accounts, networks, or behavior?

Who should hold authority to label and disrupt influence swarms without creating a censorship instrument that undermines democracy itself? (recognize, understand, EXPOSE, and attack with superior information). How did the GEC work out for us?

If platforms profit from engagement, what forces them to accept friction, identity checks, and transparency that likely will reduce revenue?

AI-Powered Disinformation Swarms Are Coming for Democracy

Wired · David Gilbert · January 22, 2026

Advances in artificial intelligence are creating a perfect storm for those seeking to spread disinformation at unprecedented speed and scale. And it’s virtually impossible to detect.

https://www.wired.com/story/ai-powered-disinformation-swarms-are-coming-for-democracy/

In 2016, hundreds of Russians filed into a modern office building on 55 Savushkina Street in St. Petersburg every day; they were part of the now-infamous troll farm known as the Internet Research Agency. Day and night, seven days a week, these employees would manually comment on news articles, post on Facebook and Twitter, and generally seek to rile up Americans about the then-upcoming presidential election.

When the scheme was finally uncovered, there was widespread media coverage and Senate hearings, and social media platforms made changes in the way they verified users. But in reality, for all the money and resources poured into the IRA, the impact was minimal—certainly compared to that of another Russia-linked campaign that saw Hilary Clinton’s emails leaked just before the election.

A decade on, while the IRA is no more, disinformation campaigns have continued to evolve, including the use of AI technology to create fake websites and deepfake videos. A new paper, published in Science on Thursday, predicts an imminent step-change in how disinformation campaigns will be conducted. Instead of hundreds of employees sitting at desks in St. Petersburg, the paper posits, one person with access to the latest AI tools will be able to command “swarms” of thousands of social media accounts, capable not only of crafting unique posts indistinguishable from human content, but of evolving independently and in real time—all without constant human oversight.

These AI swarms, the researchers believe, could deliver society-wide shifts in viewpoint that not only sway elections but ultimately bring about the end of democracy—unless steps are taken now to prevent it.

“Advances in artificial intelligence offer the prospect of manipulating beliefs and behaviors on a population-wide level,” the report says. “By adaptively mimicking human social dynamics, they threaten democracy.”

The paper was authored by 22 experts from across the globe, drawn from fields including computer science, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity, as well as psychology, computational social science, journalism, and government policy.

The pessimistic outlook on how AI technology will change the information environment is shared by other experts in the field who have reviewed the paper.

“To target chosen individuals or communities is going to be much easier and powerful,” says Lukasz Olejnik, a visiting senior research fellow at King’s College London’s Department of War Studies and the author of Propaganda: From Disinformation and Influence to Operations and Information Warfare. “This is an extremely challenging environment for a democratic society. We're in big trouble.”

Even those who are optimistic about AI’s potential to help humans believe the paper highlights a threat that needs to be taken seriously.

“AI-enabled influence campaigns are certainly within the current state of advancement of the technology, and as the paper sets out, this also poses significant complexity for governance measures and defense response,” says Barry O’Sullivan, a professor at the School of Computer Science and IT at University College Cork.

In recent months, as AI companies seek to prove they are worth the hundreds of billions of dollars that has been poured into them, many have pointed to the most recent crop of AI agents as evidence that the technology will finally live up to the hype. But the very same technology could soon be deployed, the authors argue, to disseminate disinformation and propaganda at a scale never before seen.

The swarms the authors describe would consist of AI-controlled agents capable of maintaining persistent identities and, crucially, memory, allowing for the simulation of believable online identities. The agents would coordinate in order to achieve shared objectives, while at the same time creating individual personas and output to avoid detection. These systems would also be able to adapt in real time to respond to signals shared by the social media platforms and in conversation with real humans.

“We are moving into a new phase of informational warfare on social media platforms where technological advancements have made the classic bot approach outdated,” says Jonas Kunst, a professor of communication at BI Norwegian Business School and one of the co-authors of the report.

For experts who have spent years tracking and combating disinformation campaigns, the paper presents a terrifying future.

"What if AI wasn't just hallucinating information, but thousands of AI chatbots were working together to give the guise of grassroots support where there was none? That's the future this paper imagines—Russian troll farms on steroids,” says Nina Jankowicz, the former Biden administration disinformation czar who is now CEO of the American Sunlight Project.

The researchers say it’s unclear whether this tactic is already being used because the current systems in place to track and identify coordinated inauthentic behaviour are not capable of detecting them.

“Because of their elusive features to mimic humans, it's very hard to actually detect them and to assess to what extent they are present,” says Kunst. “We lack access to most [social media] platforms because platforms have become increasingly restrictive, so it's difficult to get an insight there. Technically, it's definitely possible. We are pretty sure that it's being tested.”

Kunst added that these systems are likely to still have some human oversight as they are being developed, and predicts that while they may not have a massive impact on the 2026 US midterms in November, they will very likely be deployed to disrupt the 2028 presidential election.

Accounts indistinguishable from humans on social media platforms are only one issue. The ability to map social networks at scale will, the researchers say, allow those coordinating disinformation campaigns to target agents at specific communities, ensuring the biggest impact.

“Equipped with such capabilities, swarms can position for maximum impact and tailor messages to the beliefs and cultural cues of each community, enabling more precise targeting than that with previous botnets,” they write.

Such systems could be essentially self-improving, using the responses to their posts as feedback to improve reasoning in order to better deliver a message. “With sufficient signals, they may run millions of microA/B tests, propagate the winning variants at machine speed, and iterate far faster than humans,” the researchers write.

In order to combat the threat posed by AI swarms, the researchers suggest the establishment of an “AI Influence Observatory,” which would consist of people from academic groups and nongovernmental organizations working to “standardize evidence, improve situational awareness, and enable faster collective response rather than impose top-down reputational penalties.”

One group not included is executives from the social media platforms themselves, primarily because the researchers believe that their companies incentivize engagement over everything else, and therefore have little incentive to identify these swarms.

“Let's say AI swarms become so frequent that you can't trust anybody and people leave the platform,” says Kunst. “Of course, then it threatens the model. If they just increase engagement, for a platform it's better to not reveal this, because it seems like there's more engagement, more ads being seen, that would be positive for the valuation of a certain company.”

As well as a lack of action from the platforms, experts believe that there is little incentive for governments to get involved. “The current geopolitical landscape might not be friendly for 'Observatories' essentially monitoring online discussions,” Olejnik says, something that Jankowicz agrees with: “What's scariest about this future is that there's very little political will to address the harms AI creates, meaning [AI swarms] may soon be reality."

Wired · David Gilbert · January 22, 2026

11. The Future of War - When States No Longer Own The Means of War

Summary:

Modern conflict is drifting from state owned war toward a market of force. Dagnall argues that violence, authority, and accountability now fragment across states, proxies, private security, tech firms, and algorithms, so wars persist rather than end. Ukraine, Venezuela, and the Middle East illustrate outcomes shaped by factions, resources, and networked escalation. As societies enter “liquid modernity,” shared truth erodes and state cohesion weakens. When force becomes a service, incentives sustain low grade conflict. The key variable is oversight: states retain democratic control only if they set terms for private capability, not the reverse and rebuild legitimacy through internal cohesion.

Comment: A brave new world or the full realization of a form of the MICC - military industrial congressional complex? If private platforms and contractors control critical enablers, what concrete mechanisms let elected governments compel, audit, and, when required, deny those capabilities in crisis?

When conflict persists because it pays someone, what is the state’s strategy to change incentives, not just to win battles?

The Future of War - When States No Longer Own The Means of War

wavellroom.com · George Dagnall

‘Power, violence and legitimacy are fragmenting, and modern conflict is starting to behave accordingly’

https://wavellroom.com/2026/01/21/the-future-of-war-when-states-no-longer-own-the-means-of-war/

Introduction

It’s hard to shake the feeling that conflict no longer behaves the way we expect it to. Wars don’t end cleanly, responsibility is always blurred, and decisions with real consequences seem to be made everywhere and nowhere at once. We sense that something has changed, but rarely have the space to stop and ask why. This isn’t an attempt to predict the next war or sound the alarm. It’s an effort to make sense of why power, violence and accountability no longer behave the way we assume they do, and what that could mean for states and societies that still expect to manage them.

Modern conflict is no longer defined by the Western conception of war as a discrete event led by states, fought by armies, and concluded by treaties. It has become a fluid spectrum shaped by states, private actors, technologies, algorithms, and societies that no longer share a common centre of gravity. The result is a geopolitical environment where the means of violence are distributed, authority is conditional, and conflict increasingly persists rather than resolves. That shift is hard to miss for anyone paying even casual attention to current events.

Conflict Without Resolution

In Ukraine, the fallout from Andriy Yermak’s resignation in November 2025 was not just another political headline. It exposed a quieter competition over who shapes the end of the war, who decides the terms of security, and which interests gain access and influence when the war eventually winds down. It is a reminder that power has never been centralised in one place, and that competing interests are now shaping outcomes more openly than before. States still matter, but they no longer control the direction of conflict or the timing of peace alone. It shows how even in a major interstate war, control over outcomes is dispersed across political factions, private funders, foreign backers and societal forces.

Power Beyond the State

In Venezuela, tensions following the American strike has little to do with drugs, rhetoric or posturing alone. Politics matters, but so do the stakes beneath it: the largest proven oil reserves on earth, critical minerals and control of commercial advantage in a region where global competitors are increasingly active. This is the type of dispute where state power, private interests and informal networks blend into one another, and where none of these actors operate in isolation or according to national logic. It is a textbook case of a conflict shaped more by markets, resources and informal networks than by state intention.

In the Middle East, Israel’s simultaneous operations across Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank show how modern warfare behaves when too many actors hold the capacity to escalate. Fronts no longer open and close; they bleed into one another, influenced not only by governments but by proxies, foreign backers and interests that do not wear national uniforms. The result is not confusion, it is complexity. Together, these overlapping fronts reinforce a world in which the power to escalate is no longer held by states alone.

The Fracturing of Monopoly, Not the State

These conflicts should not be lumped together, but they reveal a structural reality that they now share: the state is still powerful, but it is no longer the only force that matters. Too many actors now possess the means to shape violence, stall peace or influence outcomes from outside the traditional architecture of a government. The modern battlefield has matured into something closer to a marketplace of capabilities, incentives and interests than a domain controlled solely by states.

Western strategic thinking has long struggled with this shift because its definitions of war remain narrow. Other traditions have always recognised a wider spectrum: the Russian military and strategic literature use the words borba (‘struggle’) to capture political, informational and societal contestation, and vaina (‘war’), which only refers to high-threshold armed conflict. Most modern crises sit in the space between the two. Understanding conflict as a gradient rather than an event is essential to understanding why so many disputes now stagnate instead of ending.

This Is Not New, Just Normalised

The observation that states no longer hold an exclusive monopoly over organised force is not new. Analysts, historians and practitioners have been tracking this trajectory for decades. What has changed and what demands attention now is not the existence of non-state coercive power, but the speed, scale and normalisation of its influence.

What used to be an exception operating in the shadows is becoming an organising principle of modern conflict, affecting not only battlefields but institutions, economies and the fabric of society. Most people assume governments have always controlled armies, borders and the right to use force. In reality, the era of state monopoly over violence is far younger than we typically think.

Before the State-Owned Force

For most of history, rulers did not own armies; they hired them. Security was not a national institution but a service. After the fall of Rome, when power fractured across multiple authorities, the most decisive fighting forces were not those bound by patriotism but those bound by contract. The world did not collapse into chaos, but it splintered into a marketplace of protection.

What we now label the ‘Dark Ages’ was less about barbarism and more about the distribution of power. No single authority could guarantee safety everywhere, so force followed wealth rather than citizenship, and loyalty moved with whoever could pay to secure it. None of this means today’s world is returning to the Dark Ages, but it does suggest that when states cannot guarantee security everywhere, the logic of private force re-emerges even if the tools are drones, cyber contractors and surveillance platforms rather than swords or bayonets.

Liquid Societies, Liquid Authority

This redistribution of coercive power is unfolding at the same time that many Western societies are entering what Zygmunt Bauman called ‘liquid modernity’, a condition in which individuals live in personalised informational worlds, fragmented realities and divergent interpretations of truth. When societies lose a shared understanding of events, states lose the mandate and cohesion required to manage conflict effectively. The challenge is not only external competition, but internal incoherence.

When Force Becomes a Service

That is what we are watching now. As demands on the state expand across supply chains, resources, infrastructure and personnel, non-state actors are becoming more prominent. Private security personnel now outnumber public police in many countries, and tens of millions of workers are employed in private security services worldwide. The same capabilities are being deployed in competitive environments by actors pursuing their own interests. In some cases, this support closes gaps that governments alone cannot fill; in others, it enables private advantage. The determining factor is not the category of the actor but the incentives under which they operate.

This process unfolds mostly quietly. Contractors appear where national militaries cannot go. Corporations assemble protection networks that extend across borders. Intelligence functions blend into private contracting. Militias stabilise governments that are unable to stabilise themselves. On the surface, the world still talks as if all conflict is directed by states. Underneath, coercive capability is becoming something that can be accessed, rented and leveraged once again.

Technology as Power Broker

The vacuum is not being filled solely by armed actors. Increasingly, it is being filled by companies that control the technologies on which modern conflict depends: satellite networks, AI targeting systems, battlefield decision software, cyber infrastructure and financial rails. Around 90 per cent of global cyber defence infrastructure is owned and operated by private companies rather than governments. In a world where the critical tools of war are privately owned, their owners become de facto geopolitical actors.

This technological shift has also accelerated a cultural one. Large segments of the tech elite increasingly view the nation-state as an outdated structure, an analogue institution in a digital world. The ‘Sovereign Individual’ thesis, once fringe, now shapes how many powerful actors imagine the future: individuals as micro-polities, able to defend their interests through wealth, mobility and hired capability rather than citizenship. Drones, robotics and algorithmic tools make this vision less theoretical than it once seemed.

They do not require troops or territory to shape outcomes, because their platforms already do. It forces us to reconsider what war looks like, because the shift is not from soldiers to contractors; it may be from soldiers to algorithms. If power now lies with whoever controls the algorithms that drive conflict, then engineers and CEOs become just as important as military generals. The question is no longer only who commands force, but who controls the systems that make force possible.

Transition, Not Collapse

This is not a collapse but a transition. Force is shifting from something states own to something states compete for, hire or work around. Once war becomes a service, it behaves in line with other services: it follows incentives. Conflicts that can be prolonged become sustainable. Crises that freeze become useful. In such an environment, peace ceases to be the assumed endpoint and becomes a possibility rather than a guarantee.

The consequence is a strategic paralysis across much of the Western political landscape. States face pressure from autocracies that challenge liberal norms externally, and from powerful domestic actors who no longer believe the nation-state should be the primary organising unit at all. Problems have grown larger, but state capacity has shrunk. Supranational bodies (the EU, UN, and NATO) are overstretched, and national governments struggle to translate their intent into action. The United States remains an exception primarily through scale, an advantage that may not be permanent.

The Cost of Drift

When the tools of war are transferred into private hands while societies weaken internally, the danger is not invasion, but drift: a slow loss of control over the direction of national power. The medieval analogy matters not because the past is returning, but because it demonstrates what happens when force is distributed rather than monopolised. Authority becomes conditional. Loyalty becomes transactional. What matters is not who has power on paper, but who can mobilise it fastest, flexibly and sometimes indirectly.

Wars do not need to be formally declared, and they do not need to end. They only need to continue serving someone’s interests.

Seen through this lens, Ukraine, Venezuela and Israel are not isolated crises but indicators of a wider shift. The greatest risk today is not a third world war in the conventional sense. It is the gradual normalisation of low-grade, overlapping conflicts that never fully resolve, conflicts that become a stable backdrop to international life rather than an interruption of it.

Authority Still Matters

None of this implies that private capability is inherently destabilising. Private firms have long been embedded in the defence and security ecosystem, and much of modern military power depends on them. The question that now matters is not whether private actors exist, but where authority sits.

If states continue to set the terms under which private capabilities are used, the system retains a democratic character. If private capability begins to influence the decisions of the state more than the state influences the decisions of private capability, then the constitutional logic of modern power shifts. The key variable is not the presence of private force, but the balance of oversight.

The Cost of a World Built on Privatised Force

A world built on privatised force may not look apocalyptic, but it will feel different. Less predictable. Less transparent. Harder to understand. The danger isn’t that we rush headlong into catastrophe, it’s that we arrive somewhere profoundly changed without noticing when the transition happened. If the state is no longer the sole guarantor of security, the question that follows is unavoidable: what happens to the idea of the state itself? Do we accept a future where power moves in ways we can’t see, decided by actors we can’t vote for and interests we can’t identify? Or do we decide that the assumptions that once held society together, accountability, legitimacy and shared security, still matter?

Nothing in this shift is inevitable. But ignoring it would allow it to become so. What comes next depends less on predicting the future than on deciding whether the principles that built the modern state are worth defending in the first place.

In November 2024, US Private Security Companies bid for contracts for the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (Photo courtesy of silentprofessionals.org)

Cohesion, Representation and the Loss of Centre

In my opinion, none of this should come as a surprise. Power evolves, and states have always adapted to new forms of competition. But moving too far, too fast in ways that large parts of society neither understand nor support is not a strategy; it is negligence. It carries costs not only in terms of national stability, but also in the trust and confidence that people place in one another and in the institutions that govern them. Strength is measured not just in military or economic capacity, but also in whether people still feel that the system they serve serves them as well.

If there is a lesson here, it is that stability begins long before the level of the state; it begins with a population that remains grounded, connected and bought into a shared purpose. Cohesion at home is not a luxury but a strategic asset.

Internal fragmentation has always existed and will continue to do so; disagreement is not a threat in itself. The danger arises when fragmentation becomes so commonplace that cohesion is perceived as automatic. That is when societies start to drift. A system does not lose its centre all at once; it loses it gradually, through fatigue and complacency, until people look around and ask when the sense of shared purpose disappeared. Stability is never self-sustaining; it has to be maintained deliberately, especially when external pressures encourage nations to look everywhere except inward.

From Cohesion to Drift

The rise of non-state capability is not happening in a vacuum. It is happening at the same time that many states are losing the equilibrium between projecting power abroad and maintaining cohesion at home. When the state was the undisputed centre of force, it had no choice but to preserve that balance as its strength depended on it. In a world where coercive capability can be outsourced, hired or leveraged through private actors, the temptation to neglect that balance becomes greater. But power built on external reach without internal alignment is never durable.

When people no longer feel represented by the system, they stop directing pressure upward and start directing frustration sideways. The result is not revolution, but internal division, cultural, political and economic, that erodes social cohesion from within. A state does not weaken because its people become hostile, but because they no longer feel connected to one another or to the project they are asked to support.

The Matter of Culture

There is also a cultural dimension to this. Western stability has never been sustained by power alone, but by a shared belief that individuals matter, that the system is not perfect but broadly fair, and that contributing to the whole is worthwhile. This is a form of morale. Armies do not endure because they are strong, but because they believe in the purpose of their strength.

Societies are no different. If people begin to feel that the values they were raised to uphold no longer shape the system they live within, the psychological foundations of collective confidence weaken long before the political ones do. And unlike societies built on obedience to the state, Western societies are built on the expectation of agency, which means they do not absorb the loss of representation quietly, and that is the point that today’s policymakers seem most in danger of forgetting.

The Question of Accountability

Ultimately, this is not an abstract shift occurring elsewhere. It emerges when conflicts never quite end, when responsibility is constantly blurred, and when decisions feel consequential but no one can clearly say who made them. It is felt in the quiet normalisation of insecurity, in the sense that outcomes are shaped by forces that are hard to name and harder to influence.

Over time, this alters how people relate to power itself. Decisions feel distant, outcomes seem pre-determined, and the idea that anyone is fully accountable begins to weaken. At the same time, fragmented media environments and personalised narratives make this drift harder to recognise, cushioning it behind noise, outrage and distraction rather than clarity. Conflict does not dominate daily life, but it quietly reshapes it, becoming something permanent, ambient and unresolved rather than exceptional or bounded.

The question is not whether this trend is real, but whether societies choose to tolerate it. Because once legitimacy erodes and force is no longer clearly governed, it is not easily recovered. What disappears first is not peace, but the expectation that someone is ultimately responsible for keeping it.

Preventing that future depends not on predicting the next war, but on rebuilding the cohesion without which no modern state can endure.

Main Image

Gerard ter Borch’s painting depicts the signing of the Treaty of Münster in 1648, one of the agreements that formed the Peace of Westphalia and helped establish the modern, state-centred system of war and diplomacy. It shows a moment when conflict was formally ended by states through negotiation, with clear authority and accountability.

About the authorRelated Posts

George Dagnall

George is a security and risk strategist advising organisations operating in high-risk environments on security, evacuation and insurance strategy. His background spans 16 years of military service and private-sector crisis work across the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe. His article focuses on how conflict is changing as force, technology and commercial interests move beyond the control of states, drawing on both modern geopolitics and historical patterns of decentralised power.

This author does not have any more posts.

Footnotes

Bauman, Zygmunt. Liquid Modernity. Polity Press, 2000, pp. 1–2

wavellroom.com · George Dagnall

12. Trilateral Shipbuilding: Build a Missile Corvette Fleet with Asian Allies

Summary:

The author argues the U.S. cannot match China’s naval mass with today’s weakened shipbuilding base, so it should build mass with allies. He proposes a trilateral U.S.–Japan–South Korea program to co-design and mass-produce a low-cost missile corvette, VLS-capable, optimized for the high-end fight and day-to-day maritime security. Japan and South Korea bring scale, mature yards, and export experience, while the U.S. contributes systems, standards, and demand. The concept also aims to arm ASEAN partners and complicate PLAN operations through distributed fires and uncertain loadouts. Execution requires U.S. legal reform, FDI, and faster procurement.

Comment: A JAROKUS shipping building consortium. (Japan, ROK, US). What mission set should drive the corvette design first: distributed lethality, ASW screen, or maritime domain awareness with strike as a surge role?

Which U.S. constraints are the true pacing items: industrial labor and dry docks, or statutory barriers like Buy American, Jones Act, and Byrnes-Tollefson? Can a JAROKUS shipbuilding consortium (and Congress) overcome these constraints?

Trilateral Shipbuilding: Build a Missile Corvette Fleet with Asian Allies | Center for International Maritime Security

cimsec.org · Guest Author

By CDR Chase E. Harding, USN

https://cimsec.org/trilateral-shipbuilding-build-a-missile-corvette-fleet-with-asian-allies/

Introduction

The balance of power in the Indo-Pacific is shifting rapidly as China’s shipbuilding hegemony endures. With the U.S. shipbuilding base in decline, the United States must take bold action to remain a credible maritime power and uphold the rules-based order that has underpinned peace and prosperity in Asia for decades. This order could be strengthened by a trilateral collaboration that unites the United States, Japan, and South Korea in co-developing and mass-producing a new class of fast-attack missile corvettes. From the outset, these vessels would be designed with a clear value proposition for the high-end fight, while also being tailored for maritime domain awareness and maritime security. They would bolster allied naval capacity and serve as an exportable platform to support ASEAN partners on the frontlines of illicit activity, maritime coercion, grey zone warfare, and great power competition.

To realize this initiative, the United States must reform outdated laws, attract foreign direct investment into dormant shipyards, and fully leverage the industrial strength of its allies. Congressional action, including targeted exemptions from the Jones Act, Buy American Act, and the Byrnes-Tollefson amendment, will be essential to unlock collaboration at speed and scale. This bold strategy will counter the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s quantitative edge with a qualitatively superior, coalition-driven maritime force, restoring American sea power while promoting Indo-Pacific stability.

The Collapse of American Maritime Power

Since the conclusion of World War II, the United States has embarked on a mission to protect global supply lines, project power abroad, and strengthen a rules-based order that would drive massive growth in the global economy —a feat not seen in human history.1 This dominance was mainly at sea through the efforts of the U.S. Navy, which ensured freedom of the seas and adherence to this newfound order. Eight decades later, this dominance is being challenged as the Navy sails listlessly, if not rudderless, due to shrinking budgets, failed platforms, and floundering shipyards. During World War II, the Navy had almost 1,300 ships in service; by 2003, it had less than 300.2

As fleet numbers dwindled due to the peace dividend, so did America’s shipyards. Since the late 1950s, U.S. shipbuilding output has declined by more than 85%, and the number of shipyards capable of producing large commercial vessels has decreased by over 80%.3 The U.S. has gone from building almost 5% of the world’s ocean-going ships in the 1970s to just 0.1% today. For comparison, the People’s Republic of China, Japan, and South Korea make up almost 90% of global shipbuilding, with the PRC building the majority.4

The end of the Cold War marked the beginning of a sustained decline in America’s defense shipbuilding capacity. During the Cold War, the United States operated 11 shipyards dedicated to building naval combatants, but by 2005, seven shipyards were closed, and a once proud 70,000-strong workforce reduced to less than 30,000 workers (2012 estimate).5 U.S. shipyards continued to decline well into the 1990s and early 2000s as subsidies ceased, the labor market shrunk, geopolitical priorities shifted, and there was a significant lack of infrastructure investment.6 Currently, investment is so poor that there are not enough drydocks in the U.S. to support naval expansion. For example, one of the last publicly owned shipyards, Norfolk Naval Shipyard’s drydock number one, has been in use since before the Civil War. The newest publicly owned dry dock for the Navy was completed in 1962.7 When examining shipbuilding through a monetary investment lens, the US is woefully behind most nations, especially its primary strategic competitor. From 2010 to 2018, the PRC invested $132 billion in its shipbuilding capability, whereas the U.S. invested less than $80 million.8

Shipbuilding, shipyard infrastructure, and overall investment are not the only explanations for the Navy’s decline since the Cold War. The fault also lies with naval design and a failure of leadership to determine what the future Navy should look like. Programs like the Zumwalt class-guided missile destroyer and the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program proved to be a heavy burden to the Navy and some would say were simply the wrong ships for the wrong time.9 Both programs were a product of the post-Cold War shift toward power projection immediately faced significant challenges.

The Zumwalt, initially envisioned to replace the Ticonderoga-class cruiser, had cost overruns that ballooned exponentially to $8 billion per ship as the program was truncated to only three ships (for reference, a Ford-class carrier costs $13.3 billion).10 Additionally, the Zumwalt weapons systems, notably the 155mm Advanced Gun System (AGS) projectiles, cost $800,000 per round.11 The LCS program was designed to be a “multi-mission jack of all trades” platform at a relatively affordable price. This affordability was more than $28 billion for 35 ships, with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimating that the cost of operating and maintaining the fleet throughout its lifespan would be upwards of $60 billion. Like the Zumwalt weapon system, the LCS’s combat effectiveness was inadequate. The Anti-Submarine Warfare package was canceled, and the Mine Hunting mission package was declared operational in 2023, 15 years after its development and a $700 million investment.12 Many high-profile incidents at sea have plagued the LCS program as a whole, leading to many being decommissioned early; a notable example is USS SIOUX CITY (LCS 11), which was transferred to Foreign Military Sales (FMS) after just five years in service.13

In 2017, naval leaders shifted their focus back to building traditional guided missile frigates (FFGs) to keep pace with rising threats, notably from the PRC. The Navy opted to use the FREMM frigate design currently employed by the Italian and French Navies. With almost 85 percent similarities, the FREMM offered the U.S. Navy a reliable platform with established supply chains and interoperability with European partners. Unfortunately, shaping the FREMM design to meet Navy survivability and growth margin requirements required extensive modification. The result was a design that accounts for barely 15 percent of the original.14 The former Assistant Secretary for Research, Development, and Acquisition Nickolas Guertin remarked, “Sometimes, you are just better off designing a new ship. It turns out modifying someone else’s design is a lot harder than it seems.”15 Workforce shortages at U.S. shipyards and a lack of design maturity have compounded the Constellation class frigate’s challenges. The lead ship was not expected to enter naval service until 2029, almost three years late, and at a cost of $1.4 billion.16 Meanwhile, America’s strategic competitor continues to grow the world’s largest Navy.

The Rise of PRC Shipbuilding Hegemony

The PRC’s ascent as a shipbuilding hegemon is a testament to its meteoric rise as an economic powerhouse. China’s defense industrial base, notably shipyards, has undergone an unprecedented transformation, making China the world’s premier shipbuilder. With dual-use (civilian-military) shipyards, the PRC has 230 times the shipbuilding capacity of the United States, meaning it could produce 23 million tons of vessels compared to less than 100,000 tons in the U.S.17 The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has been one of the greatest beneficiaries of this transformation. Since the end of the Cold War, the PLAN has rapidly evolved from a mere coastal defense force to the world’s largest blue water Navy.

Since 2010, the PLAN has undergone significant modernization, with over 70 percent of its fleet comprising newly commissioned vessels, including corvettes, frigates, destroyers, cruisers, submarines, and aircraft carriers. This rapid pace is evident in the larger shipbuilding apparatus, with China launching more ships than any other country in recent memory.18 While the PLAN’s aircraft carrier program has garnered significant attention, the more critical observation is its rapid production of multiple surface combatants with advanced anti-ship missile capabilities. The Type 055 Renhai-class cruisers, Type 052D Luyang III Destroyers, the Type 054B Jiangkai III-class frigates, and the Type 056 Jiangdao Corvette represent formidable additions to China’s naval arsenal. The Renhai-class, in particular, is equipped with 112 vertical launch system (VLS) cells capable of firing a variety of missies, including long-range anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles such as the YJ-18 and YJ-21.19

The type 054B represents a significant upgrade from the PLAN’s Jiangkai series workhorse FFGs, each having a VLS of 32 cells and eight dedicated launchers for anti-ship cruise missiles such as the YJ-83.20 The smaller Jiangdao corvette, meanwhile, tailored for Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) operations is capable of disrupting U.S. undersea dominance in addition to “punching above its weight” when equipped with YJ-83 anti-ship cruise missiles is cause for concern.

PLA Navy Type 056A corvette Huangshi (Hull 655) during a maritime training exercise in May 2025. (Photo via eng.chinamil.com.cn/by Wang Guangjie)

While it is clear that American shipbuilding capacity is at a numerical disadvantaged, a common argument persists that the U.S. has far superior quality in terms of overall ship size (measured in tonnage) and can employ far more missiles than the PLAN.21 While the aggregate displacement of PLAN ships is a little more than a third of the U.S. Navy, and with approximately 9,900 vertical launch system (VLS) cells compared to China’s 4,200, the U.S. holds a slight “advantage.” However, this gap is narrowing at an alarming rate.22 Beyond a VLS numbers game, the PLAN has already surpassed the U.S. fleet size, boasting over 370 ships as of 2024 compared to America’s 296 ships as of 2025, and is projected to reach 475 battleforce ships by 2035.23 This quantitative advantage cannot be dismissed, as history has shown that numerical superiority often proves decisive in combat. In an analysis of naval engagements ranging from the Peloponnesian Wars to the Cold War, only three out of a possible 28 engagements have seen a lesser force with superior technology overcome a fleet with superior numbers.24

The notion that quality will inevitably triumph over quantity is both naïve and dangerous. In some critical areas, such as anti-ship missiles, the United States is already behind: the U.S. surface fleet largely relies on the SM-6 with a range of 150 nautical miles, while the PLAN fields the YJ-18 (300 nm) and the YJ-21 hypersonic missile (est. 540-810 nm), not to mention Chinas large arsenal of anti-ship ballistic missiles.25 As the PRC continues to expand the worlds largest fleet while narrowing or surpassing the U.S. in key technologies, the United States must reassess its naval strategy. This begins with partnering with allies Japan and South Korea and leveraging the full weight of the trilateral alliance to co-develop and field fast-attack missile corvettes.

A Collaborative Approach

The challenges facing the United States and the shifting balance of power in the Indo-Pacific demand a fundamental reassessment of current maritime strategy. The U.S. can continue claiming it is the dominant maritime force only if it speaks historically. With declining shipbuilding capacity, failed platforms, and the PLAN’s continuing naval growth, a bold new maritime strategy fostering collaboration and innovation is needed. Continuing on the current course risks ceding further power and influence to the PRC, undermining regional stability and American interests. This collaborative approach must leverage the strength and quality of our premier Asian allies, Japan and South Korea. These nations possess innate shipbuilding expertise and share a vested interest in countering the PRC’s coercive and aggressive behavior.

Undeniably, the PRC has established itself as the global leader in merchant shipbuilding. In 2022, the PRC produced 1,794 ships.26 By 2024, it had 61.4 percent of the worldwide market, including 55 percent of backlog orders, equating to approximately 2,539 ships, positioning itself well for future shipbuilding initiatives.28 While Japan currently accounts for only 15 percent of the global market, it was still able to secure and fulfill orders for 587 large commercial vessels at the end of 2022.28 The Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) was able to procure multiple naval surface and subsurface combatants through the combined efforts of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI), and Japan Marine United Corporation (JMU).29 South Korea meanwhile accounts for 28 percent of the global market and produced 734 large commercial ships by the end of 2022.30 The combined efforts of both Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) and Hanwha Ocean enabled the South Korean Navy to procure upwards of ten naval surface vessels per year, in addition to providing a corvette/frigate export variant to the Philippines on budget and five months ahead of schedule.31 Meanwhile, Japan has taken a similar export approach with the inking of a deal to provide 11 Mogami class frigates to the Australian Navy. The first three will be built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Japan, while the remaining eight will be homegrown by Austal in Western Australia with the first frigate expected in 2029.32

The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force Mogami-class frigate JS Yahagi. (Photo by Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force)

Combined with U.S. production at just 0.1 percent, the tri-lateral accounts for 43.1 percent of the worldwide market.33 With Japanese and South Korean FDI and a renewed U.S. commitment to shipbuilding through Congressional action, the tri-lateral global market share could reach as high as 53 percent.34 Collaboration between industry-leading Japanese and South Korean shipyards, such as MHI and HDHI, with renewed investment in declining American shipyards, offers a rare opportunity to disrupt Chinese shipbuilding hegemony and global influence.

The Tri-Lateral Solution: A Corvette for Asia

Collaboration in shipbuilding is no easy venture for any country, let alone three. It demands a compelling vision of what future conflict will entail, what type of naval combatant is required to prevail in said conflict, and the necessary resources to build at speed and scale. The United States, in particular, is running up against the clock, resource-constrained, and recovering from programs such as the LCS, Zumwalt, and the cancelled Constellation-class frigate.

Collaborative shipbuilding presents a strategic opportunity to act as we move increasingly closer to the “Davidson window” in which the U.S., Japan, and South Korea can accelerate naval production before the PLAN consolidates its quantitative and qualitative edge. Tri-lateral collaborative shipbuilding presents a common sense approach regarding ship design, procurement, and deployment. The idea of collaborative shipbuilding utilizing the tri-lateral alliance is not unique across the literature. Varying journal articles have advocated for a “JROKUS” architecture, in which Japan and South Korea assist the United States in building ships, notably a vessel based on the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer.35 The U.S. provided Japan and South Korea with the fundamental design for the U.S. workhorse, the Arleigh Burke, which both countries adapted and built to meet their respective requirements. For instance, the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force has fielded the Maya class DDG. In contrast, the ROK Navy has developed the Sejong the Great class, which utilizes both the Aegis Combat System and an American Mk 41 Vertical Launch System (VLS) design.

The ROK Navy Sejong the Great-class guided-missile destroyer ROKS Jeongjo the Great at Jeju Naval Base. (ROK Navy photo)

While building a class of vessels with a standard blueprint is valid, it negates cost, time, classified technology, and other special considerations. If the U.S. Navy aims to “put more players on the field,” smaller, cost-effective corvettes built at scale are viable.36 When built in the United States, the average cost of an Arleigh Burke destroyer is upwards of $3 billion. Even if Japan or South Korea could halve those costs to $1.5 billion or less and get the ship off the assembly line more quickly, the pace of production may still be eclipsed by China’s and not make a meaningful difference in the regional naval balance.

One possible design consideration is to use the Russian Steregushchiy III class as a template for a hybrid corvette design between the U.S., Japan, and South Korea. The Steregushchiy balances firepower, maneuverability, survivability, and a shallow draft within a small displacement, employing a 12-cell Redut VLS for medium-range surface-to-air missiles, anti-ship missile launchers, and layered defensive systems. Japan and South Korea could blend elements of the Steregushchiy with Japan’s Mogami-class and South Korea’s FFX Batch III program, integrated with the Mk 41 Vertical Launching System (VLS). The Mogami-class contributes stealth and advanced sensor capabilities, while the FFX Batch III provides survivability and flexibility to accommodate evolving mission requirements, such as maritime domain awareness systems and unmanned aerial or surface vehicles. Integration of a 24-32 cell Mk 41 VLS would provide multiple options to employ long-range surface-to-air, anti-ship, and anti-submarine missiles carried by destroyers without sacrificing the cost. Furthermore, a VLS-equipped corvette introduces a capability the PLAN does not possess at this weight class.

The Russian Federation Navy corvette Steregushchiy on Navy Day 2009 in the Neva River in St. Petersburg. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)

Mass-producing such corvettes would not only distribute significant naval fires across the first island chain but would also directly expand the U.S. and allied VLS inventory at scale. Finally, each new corvette’s ability to mask loadouts introduces operational uncertainty further complicating PLAN operations throughout Asia.

Pursuing a new collaborative ship design based on the input of Japan, South Korea, and regional partners does not have to be an arduous process. The European Union, specifically Italy, France, Spain, Greece, and Norway, have all agreed on a design for a European Patrol Corvette or “EPC” in which each country will utilize its supply chains, shipbuilding technologies, and common procurement strategies to build and outfit the vessel in multiple European shipyards.37 The seriousness of building a ship based on a new design is critical, especially given the challenges of the Constellation class, in which significant costs were incurred in design modifications.

In estimating the cost, size, and production timeline of a trilateral VLS-capable corvette, the European Patrol Corvette (EPC) provides a useful benchmark. EU member states anticipate a prototype by 2026–2027 after the critical design review was completed in 2025, with operational units expected to enter service around 2030. Projected costs, based on 2021 figures, range from €250–300 million per vessel.38 If the United States, Japan, and South Korea pursued a joint program leveraging Japan’s Mogami-class design and South Korea’s FFX Batch III program, the path from design maturity to fleet operations could reasonably fall within a 5–10 year window, depending on the agreed production scale. A target of 10–12 hulls is realistic, given Japan’s current ability to deliver two Mogami-class ships annually and Hyundai Heavy Industries’ steady pace of delivery for both the ROK Navy and export customers.39 Assuming a 10-year horizon and costs in the range of $275–325 million per ship, the trilateral initiative could field 10–12 corvettes by year twelve, with the potential for even greater output if dormant U.S. shipyards were reactivated. The projected timeline would include 0–4 years for collaboration and design, with lead ships arriving in years 4–6 (consistent with EPC estimates), followed by serial production ramping up from year six onward.40

The tri-lateral alliance is strategically positioned to provide corvettes to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), leveraging Asia-based shipbuilding to optimize procurement efficiency, supply chain management, and a “built-in Asia for Asia” mindset. This approach could reduce delivery times and promote collaboration amongst ASEAN nations in the corvette design process. Japan and South Korea, meanwhile, stand to gain significant strategic influence within ASEAN and the broader Indo-Pacific through this initiative. Simultaneously, U.S. participation in the tri-lateral Corvette design offers its Asian allies greater strategic flexibility while reaffirming America’s commitment to ASEAN and the broader Indo-Pacific region.

Congressional and Legal Hurdles

Multiple bills have been introduced regarding the use of foreign shipyards and foreign investment, notably the bipartisan SHIPS Act sponsored by Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Arizona), Todd Young (R-Indiana), and Reps. John Garamendi (D-California) and Trent Kelly (R-Mississippi).41 The second bill introduced by Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Senator John Curtis (R-Utah) seeks to implement the “Ensuring Naval Readiness Act.”42 Both sets of bills introduced in 2024 and 2025 have substantial merit in providing ships for the United States. The SHIPS Act seeks to rejuvenate America’s declining shipyard infrastructure amidst the rise of the PRC’s posture. Specifically, the bill calls for a Strategic Commercial Fleet of 250 US-flagged commercial ships to support international commerce and supply U.S. and allied forces during times of war.43 During this buildup, the SHIPS Act allows for interim foreign-built vessels within this strategic fleet until US-built vessels can relieve them.

Additionally, the act will expand the U.S. shipyard industrial base for civilian-military dual-use operations (perfected by the PRC) by establishing a 25 percent tax credit for shipyard investments and financial incentives to support innovative approaches to U.S. domestic shipbuilding capabilities.44 The Ensuring Naval Readiness Act is more specific to the construction of U.S. combatants abroad. The bill states that to achieve a 381-ship Navy, Congress must allow the option to construct vessels, components, or modules in shipyards of Indo-Pacific nations with which the U.S. has mutual defense agreements.45

While both bills have considerable merit, especially regarding the possibility of building a common fast-attack corvette among the Tri-Lateral partners, there are still significant hurdles that Congress must continue to overcome. Should the SHIPS Act and the Ensuring Naval Readiness Act be codified into law, other federal interlocking statutes remain in place that can quickly dampen any shipbuilding revolution. Notably, the Jones Act of 1920, the Buy American Act of 1933, the Defense Production Act of 1950, and the Berry Amendment. While the Ensuring Naval Readiness Act amends United States Code (USC) Title 10 section 8679 to “allow” for naval ships to be built abroad, it lacks significant substance concerning multiple federal laws. The Jones Act of 1920 requires that any ship sailing between U.S. ports be built in the United States and owned and operated by U.S. citizens or permanent residents, which complicates the goal of a strategic commercial fleet.

The Buy American Act (concerning naval combatants) requires that significant components and funds allocated to naval vessels can only be used for fabrication within the U.S. This act alone directly contradicts the Ensuring Naval Readiness Act, allowing the construction of naval combatants in foreign shipyards. Finally, the Defense Production Act of 1950 could hinder the building of ships overseas. While not explicitly limiting the construction of naval combatants abroad, it does focus significantly on strengthening the domestic industrial base, which could discourage overseas efforts in shipbuilding.46 Additionally, the Berry Amendment (preference given to domestically produced goods) and a 100% “Made in America” by 2033 clause within the NDAA have imposed restrictions on foreign-made components from allied nations, complicating a collaborative shipbuilding approach.47 Furthermore, the Byrnes-Tollefson Amendment prohibits foreign companies from constructing hulls or superstructures for navy ships, causing another detrimental hurdle to a U.S. shipbuilding revolution.48

Conclusion

The strategic imperatives facing the United States, Japan, and South Korea demand immediate, decisive action to secure enduring maritime security across the Indo-Pacific. Trilateral collaboration in naval shipbuilding is no longer optional, it is necessary. Together, the alliance has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to counter China’s expanding naval power, restore American shipbuilding strength, and ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific for decades to come. By pooling resources, expertise, and industrial capacity, the alliance can design and produce a fast-attack missile corvette tailored to the region’s urgent needs: maritime domain awareness, deterrence, and enhanced interoperability among allies and partners. A corvette fleet, built with Asian shipyards and American innovation, will empower ASEAN partners on the frontlines of maritime coercion, illegal activities, grey-zone conflict, and Great Power Competition.

Swift legislative action must accompany this vision. Congress must urgently amend outdated laws, including the Jones Act, the Buy American Act, and the Byrnes-Tollefson Amendment, to unlock foreign direct investment, reactivate dormant U.S. shipyards, and reestablish American leadership in global shipbuilding. Streamlining procurement processes and embracing trilateral trade rules can significantly reduce costs, expedite production timelines, and position the new fleet for phased deployment before China’s projected military advantage reaches its apex later this decade. This strategy offers more than ships. It redistributes burden-sharing among allies, strengthens alliance unity under the 2023 Camp David Accords, and demonstrates a clear commitment to defend freedom in the Indo-Pacific. It also signals that the United States and its allies have learned from past naval procurement failures — and are now prepared to innovate, adapt, and lead once again.

Restoring sea power through this trilateral initiative is both an opportunity and a strategic necessity. Success will reaffirm U.S., Japanese, and South Korean leadership in safeguarding the maritime commons, strengthening the global rules-based order, and securing American interests throughout the twenty-first century.

Chase Harding is a Strategic Planner at United States Forces Japan and a former Political-Military Master’s Scholar at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Navy, Department of War, or the U.S. Government.

References

[1] “The Decline of US Naval Power (and How It Can Make a Comeback),” accessed January 7, 2025, https://thediplomat.com/2024/09/the-decline-of-us-naval-power-and-how-it-can-make-a-comeback/.

[2] Congressional Research Service, Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plan: Background and Issues for Congress, Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 2024.

[3] “Shipbuilding in America: Charting a New Course | McKinsey,” accessed October 9, 2024, https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/aerospace-and-defense/our-insights/charting-a-new-course-the-untapped-potential-of-american-shipyards.

[4] Shipbuilding in America | McKinsey

[5] “The Saga of Naval Shipyards,” accessed January 3, 2025, https://www.saveourshipyard.org/web-content/saga.html.

[6] Alexander Wooley, “Float, Move, and Fight,” Foreign Policy, February 18, 2025, https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/10/10/us-navy-shipbuilding-sea-power-failure-decline-competition-china/.

[7] “The US Navy Can’t Build Ships,” accessed October 9, 2024, https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/05/17/us-navy-ships-shipbuilding-fleet-china-naval-race-pacific/.

[8] Jude Blanchette et al., “Hidden Harbors: China’s State-Backed Shipping Industry,” July 8, 2020, https://www.csis.org/analysis/hidden-harbors-chinas-state-backed-shipping-industry.

[9] Suciu, Peter, “The U.S. Navy’s Failed Littoral Combat Ship Nightmare Is Almost ‘Over,’” The National Interest, August 7, 2024, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/us-navys-failed-littoral-combat-ship-nightmare-almost-over-212224/.

[10] “In Red Sea, US Navy Paying the Price of Shipbuilding Failures | Responsible Statecraft,” accessed March 30, 2025, https://responsiblestatecraft.org/red-sea-houthi-navy/.

[11] Congressional Research Service 2024

[12] Joaquin Sapien, “The Inside Story of How the Navy Spent Billions on the ‘Little Crappy Ship,’” ProPublica, September 7, 2023, https://www.propublica.org/article/how-navy-spent-billions-littoral-combat-ship.

[13] U.S. Navy Paying the Price of Shipbuilding Failures | Responsible Statecraft

[14] Mallory Shelbourne and Sam LaGrone, “Navy: Constellation Frigate Design Will Be Ready in May, Second Yard Could Come in FY 2027,” USNI News, December 13, 2024, https://news.usni.org/2024/12/13/navy-constellation-frigate-design-will-be-ready-in-may-second-yard-could-come-in-fy-2027.

[15] John Grady, “Navy’s Plan for Frigate Parent Design Caused Delays, Former Acquisition Chief Says,” USNI News, February 19, 2025, https://news.usni.org/2025/02/19/navys-plan-for-frigate-parent-design-casued-delays-former-aquisition-chief-says.

[16] “An Analysis of the Navy’s 2025 Shipbuilding Plan | Congressional Budget Office,” January 6, 2025, https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61155.

[17] Jones, Seth G., and Alexander Palmer. “Rebuilding the Arsenal of Democracy.” Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), 2024. Accessed February 6, 2025.

[18] “Chinese Naval Capability,” accessed March 4, 2025, https://www.oni.navy.mil/ONI-Reports/Foreign-Naval-Capabilities/China/.

[19] “Type 055 Renhai-Class Cruiser: China’s Premier Surface Combatant,” U.S. Naval Institute, March 1, 2023, https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2023/march/type-055-renhai-class-cruiser-chinas-premier-surface-combatant.

[20] “China’s New Type 054B Frigate Exposes US Naval Inertia – Naval Technology,” accessed February 15, 2025, https://www.naval-technology.com/news/chinas-new-type-054b-frigate-exposes-us-naval-inertia/.

[21] Rebuilding the Arsenal of Democracy | CSIS

[22] Alexander Palmer, Henry H. Carroll, and Nicholas Velazquez, “Unpacking China’s Naval Buildup,” June 5, 2024, https://www.csis.org/analysis/unpacking-chinas-naval-buildup.

[23] Congressional Research Service 2024

[24] “Bigger Fleets Win,” U.S. Naval Institute, January 1, 2023, https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2023/january/bigger-fleets-win.

[25]China – Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance. (n.d.). Retrieved September 7, 2025, from https://missiledefenseadvocacy.org/missile-threat-and-proliferation/todays-missile-threat/china/

[26] Congressional Research Service, U.S. Shipbuilding in a Global Context: Background and Issues for Congress, Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 2023.

[27] Matthew P. Funaiole, “The Threat of China’s Shipbuilding Empire,” May 10, 2024, https://www.csis.org/analysis/threat-chinas-shipbuilding-empire.

[28] Herh, Michael. “China Dominated Large Shipbuilding Market while Korea Took 2nd Place in 2022.” Businesskorea, November 20, 2023. https://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=206025.

[29] Tanaka, Moyuru. “Navigating the Competitive Seas,” August 13, 2024. https://www.csis.org/analysis/navigating-competitive-seas.

[30] Congressional Research Service 2023

[31] Vavasseur, Xavier. “Philippine Navy Corvette ‘BRP Diego Silang’ Launched in South Korea.” Naval News, March 29, 2025. https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2025/03/philippine-navy-corvette-brp-diego-silang-launched-in-south-korea/.

[32] Mogami-class frigate selected for the Navy’s new general purpose frigates. (2025, August 5). Defence Ministers. https://www.minister.defence.gov.au/media-releases/2025-08-05/mogami-class-frigate-selected-navys-new-general-purpose-frigates

[33] Congressional Research Service 2023

[34] Shipbuilding and the Future of U.S. Sea Power: The Role of South Korea and Japan in the Rejuvenation of the American Fleet – Center for Maritime Strategy. (2025, April 17). https://centerformaritimestrategy.org/publications/shipbuilding-and-the-future-of-u-s-sea-power-the-role-of-south-korea-and-japan-in-the-rejuvenation-of-the-american-fleet/

[35] Lee, Peter K. PhD. “An Indo-Pacific Allied Shipbuilding Enterprise.” The Asan Institute for Policy Studies, 2009. Accessed January 20, 2025.

[36] “CNO Navigation Plan 2024,” accessed March 2, 2025, https://www.navy.mil/leadership/chief-of-naval-operations/cno-navplan-2024/.

[37] “European Patrol Corvette (EPC), Europe,” Naval Technology, accessed March 22, 2025, https://www.naval-technology.com/projects/european-patrol-corvette-epc-europe/.

[38] European Defence Agency. “EDA to Support ‘European Patrol Corvette’ PESCO Project.” European Defence Agency, January 4, 2021. https://eda.europa.eu/news-and-events/news/2021/01/04/eda-to-support-european-patrol-corvette-pesco-project

[39] Suciu, Peter. 2024. “Not Yamato, But Japan’s Mogami-Class Guided-Missile Frigates Are Powerful Warships.” The National Interest, July 8.

[40] Naval News. 2022. “European Patrol Corvette Could Start Construction in Four Years.” Naval News, March 17, 2022.

[41] Brett Davis, “Lawmakers Introduce SHIPS Act to Revitalize Shipbuilding, Commercial Maritime Industries,” Seapower, December 19, 2024, https://seapowermagazine.org/lawmakers-introduce-ships-act-to-revitalize-shipbuilding-commercial-maritime-industries/.

[42] “Utah’s Senators Introduce Bills for Navy and Coast Guard Readiness,” Mike Lee US Senator for Utah, February 5, 2025, https://www.lee.senate.gov/2025/2/utah-s-senators-introduce-bills-for-navy-and-coast-guard-readiness.

[43] Lake Dodson, “The SHIPS Act: Domestic Shipbuilding With a Foreign Ally,” The National Interest, February 11, 2025, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/korea-watch/the-ships-act-domestic-shipbuilding-with-a-foreign-ally/.

[44] Lawmakers Introduce SHIPS Act to Revitalize Shipbuilding, Seapower

[45] “US Senators Introduce Bill on Leveraging Trusted Allies’ Shipyards to Build Naval Vessels,” The Korea Herald, February 12, 2025, https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10417877.

[46] “The Defense Production Act of 1950: History, Authorities, and Considerations for Congress | Congress.Gov | Library of Congress,” accessed March 22, 2025, https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R43767.

[47] “Senate NDAA Bans Allied Manufacturing Base From U.S. Navy Shipbuilding,” The Maritime Executive, accessed March 22, 2025, https://maritime-executive.com/article/senate-ndaa-bans-allied-manufacturing-base-from-u-s-navy-shipbuilding.

[48] Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress | Congress.Gov | Library of Congress, n.d.)

Featured Image: Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Chancellorsville (CG 62) along with Japan Maritime Self Defense Force (JMSDF) guided-missile destroyer JS Chokai (DDG 176) and Republic of Korea Navy guided-missile destroyer ROKS Sejong The Great (DDG 991) conduct a trilateral Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) exercise in the Sea of Japan. (U.S. Navy photo)

Discover more from Center for International Maritime Security

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

cimsec.org · Guest Author

13. The fear of spheres (of influence)

Summary:

Porter argues that “spheres of influence” is being used lazily to explain POTUS, and it obscures what is actually happening. He draws a sharp line between three things: the fact that great powers seek regional advantages, the act of asserting one’s own sphere, and the far rarer move of striking a mutual spheres bargain that concedes others a free hand. He claims recent U.S. behavior does not fit a carve-up model. The administration pressures India over Russian energy, backs actions that constrain Russia, rejects any sphere for Iran, and still contests primacy in the Asia-Indo-Pacific while demanding Europe carry more of its defense burden.

Excerpt:

This is not to deny that an American president, now or tomorrow, might try to reorganise policy around a global carve-up. Rather, it is to suggest that the abandonment of a deep commitment to heavy-lifting primacy in all key theatres, with the U.S. shouldering most of the burden everywhere, does not mean a lurch into isolation or sphere-pacts. It is one more area of debate where the primacists of the old school rig the rhetoric, to pose a false binary choice between “global leadership” on their terms, and isolation. As Trump graphically shows, dominance can take many forms.

Comment: Okay. Let's not be intellectually lazy. If the U.S. is shifting burdens but not conceding spheres, what is the durable theory of control that replaces primacy without drifting into incoherent, case-by-case dominance?

The fear of spheres | Patrick Porter | The Critic Magazine

thecritic.co.uk ·

Analysis of Donald Trump and American world power still suffers from conceptual confusion

Artillery Row

Patrick Porter

24 January, 2026

https://thecritic.co.uk/the-fear-of-spheres/

Periods of international tumult, like the present, need careful analysis. Solutions are no good, obviously, if one wrongly defines the problem. And in turn, careful analysis demands precision with one’s terminology. President Donald Trump’s tumultuous second term has not universally received such care. This is partly attributable to the wildness of the man himself and his volatile behaviour. It is also due to a conceptual confusion, born of a want of care amongst the commentariat. One widespread concept, thrown around like confetti, requires an intervention. This is the term “spheres of influence.”

As they do with the word “isolationist”, observers of Trump’s behaviour wield the term “spheres of influence” with little preparation, blithely summarising his statecraft as one large effort to carve up the world between Washington, Beijing and Moscow. Such a suggestion ought to be a serious one, based upon dispassionate scrutiny of mounting evidence. However, too often those applying the label do so as though it were axiomatically true. It is not.

In fact, the evidence of Trump’s first year back in the White House suggests the contrary. The United States under his aegis is not yet pursuing such an approach to the world. And there is counter-evidence — from Trump’s deeds and the declaratory words of his National Security Strategy — that this very different regime still craves dominance in key theatres, only on its low-commitment, at times extortionate, at times contradictory terms.

Firstly, any suggestion of a spheres arrangement in the Middle East is not even wrong. The largest local state with its historical ambitions to primacy is Iran. Trump is simply not entertaining any suggestion that anyone concedes a sphere to Tehran. So that’s one theatre where the concept collapses at first contact.

In the rest of Eurasia, one of the most significant moves of the new administration has been to level punitive economic sanctions against India, and secondary sanctions likewise on other states, expressly to coerce it for its consumption of Russian oil, gas and raw materials. This programme of economic warfare is part of Trump’s effort to broker a settlement in Ukraine, partly by pressuring Russia to bargain more flexibly. And again, on Trump’s watch and with his permission, the CIA has helped Ukraine launch damaging and precise attacks on Russia’s oil facilities on its own soil. This policy of checking Vladimir Putin’s expansionism can be lauded or criticised and described in various ways. It is emphatically not a sign that the U.S. is offering Russia a free hand in its “near abroad.”

That Trump’s government also wants Europe to take the lead in its own defence, and says so explicitly, is momentous. A major, accelerated burden shift to allies that the MAGA movement despises is one of the most significant shifts in U.S. policy in our time. But it does not amount to the policy mix that “spheres of influence” implies. Russia needs some containment. It is also, in the “America First” view, a secondary theatre, and relatively wealthy allies should take most of the load in doing the containing. That is not the same thing as turning over Eastern Europe to Russia and leaving the region to the gods.

Hold the following three separate concepts together. Firstly, there often are objectively and functionally geographical and political spheres in the world, whether we like it or not. It is not pleasing to those who want the world to be a liberal, lawful, egalitarian community of sovereign states freely choosing their own associations or alliances, but the fact of life is, and always has been, that the strongest states usually demand prerogatives and privileges in their own regions, and are jealous of interlopers and competitors.

The United States has a rich history of simultaneously denouncing the old world Realpolitik of spheres, while asserting its own

Even in the era of intercontinental missiles or cyber hacking, physical proximity still confers advantages and it still impresses, and scares, the powerful. And great powers, who are mostly rational but not always reasonable, will demand their own sphere even while encroaching on others’. China projects power far and wide in Asia, often coercively, but rails against the coming of meddling America. It invaded Korea in 1950 precisely to drive away Douglas MacArthur’s approaching army and to push back a potential predator from its throat. The map is clarifying.

For its part, the United States has a rich history of simultaneously denouncing the old world Realpolitik of spheres, while asserting its own. Donald Trump’s strike on Caracas effectively revived not the Monroe Doctrine, which was and is a zone of exclusion in America’s western hemisphere, but the Roosevelt Corollary, claiming licence to intervene at will. Trump acts out brazenly and in particularly gangsterish style the principle that earlier presidencies never relinquished, only more politely. Asked about the hypothetical scenario of Russia stationing forces in Cuba or Venezuela, President Joe Biden’s very non-Trumpian National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan replied that the U.S. would move decisively to block it. Constraining smaller states from their sovereign decision to host foreign forces 000 or in 1962, missiles — is understandable, but most certainly a spherical act. Regional hegemony for me, but not for thee. Such is life.

Secondly, there is a difference between asserting one’s own sphere and offering other great powers the same privilege in a mutual toleration agreement, as some propose. There can be bargains to that effect, to varying degrees of flexibility and domination. The Concert of Europe laid down from 1815 rested partly on recognised “zones” of influence, though the players did not always honour that principle. The Yalta agreement of 1945 also conceded Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union a zone, even as President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill tried in vain to get Moscow to ensure free elections. And spheres can be predatory agreements towards third, weaker parties: China still bitterly recalls the explicit carve-up agreement inflicted on itself by colonising European powers, while the Berlin West Africa conference of 1884-5 put a whole continent on the menu. This is an ancient tendency. In the secret Pact of the Kings of 203/202 BC, the Seleucid and Macedonian rulers organised to devour the territories of imploding Ptolemaic Egypt.

Furthermore, there is again a difference between arranging to carve up the world by spheres, and reluctantly deciding not to try to roll back another’s sphere directly. When President Dwight Eisenhower in 1956 elected not to intervene directly in Budapest as the Soviet satellite regime crushed an uprising, it was effectively allowing for a Soviet regional veto. Yet in contrast to sphere-pacts, it never made an agreement that the Soviet Union should have a free hand in Eastern Europe as its domain. It always strived to undermine the Soviet sphere by more indirect and less risky means: economic and military competition, rhetorical offensives, and sponsoring dissidents.

Bringing it back to Trump, there is little sign a spheres pact is now underway or even on the table, including the region where it competes with a large, wealthy peer competitor. The latest National Security Strategy may have toned down its hostility to China in contrast with the declaratory offerings of the first Trump term. Still, it asserted its commitment to the status quo over Taiwan, the centrepiece of China’s attempt to achieve primacy in Asia, and of the effort to counter it. And Trump matches this baseline decision with deepened defence engagement, via increased bilateral and multilateral military exercises in the wider region. Congress has just passed the U.S. National Defense Authorization Act for 2026, fortifying various military commitments to Asia, and Trump did not veto it. It provides funding for shipbuilding, aircraft, munitions, and nuclear modernization. It restricts U.S. investments in tech-sensitive Chinese sectors, extends funding and support to Taiwan and the Philippines, mandates a minimum U.S. presence in South Korea, and hardens supply chains. These exertions are not geared primarily towards anti-piracy. And this information is available on open sources. That being so, the “spheres of influence” claim is just plain lazy.

This is not to deny that an American president, now or tomorrow, might try to reorganise policy around a global carve-up. Rather, it is to suggest that the abandonment of a deep commitment to heavy-lifting primacy in all key theatres, with the U.S. shouldering most of the burden everywhere, does not mean a lurch into isolation or sphere-pacts. It is one more area of debate where the primacists of the old school rig the rhetoric, to pose a false binary choice between “global leadership” on their terms, and isolation. As Trump graphically shows, dominance can take many forms.

thecritic.co.uk · Sebastian Milbank ·

14. Trump at Davos marked start of a new world era

Summary:

Robert Dover argues POTUS’s Greenland focus is strategically rational but politically reckless. Greenland’s Pituffik space base strengthens early warning and surveillance against Russia and China, while melting ice exposes rare earth deposits, energy prospects, and new Arctic shipping routes. Dover says POTUS’s “ownership” framing turns a security discussion into a raw power contest that could rupture NATO and damage transatlantic economic ties. Europe’s choices narrow to four paths: wait him out, appease, apply economic coercion, or resist. Dover warns Europe is so entwined with the United States that resistance carries heavy costs.

Comment: If Denmark can expand US basing and welcome investment without transfer of sovereignty, what problem does “ownership” solve that alliance agreements cannot?

Trump at Davos marked start of a new world era - Asia Times

asiatimes.com · Robert Dover

It’s becoming clearer US is Europe’s adversary, not ally, and that Greenland annexation is just the beginning of Trump’s plan

by Robert Dover

January 24, 2026

Donald Trump’s concern about the strategic positioning of Greenland is rational. But the way the US president has approached the issue is not – and could still rupture NATO and cause enduring harm to North Atlantic political and economic relations.

The question for those attending the World Economic Forum in Davos all week has been how to respond to Trump’s ambition for the US to own Greenland by hook or by crook.

His speech on January 21 – which appeared to concede that the US will not take Greenland by force – and his subsequent claim of having negotiated what he referred to as a “framework agreement” with the Nato secretary-general, Mark Rutte, have at least given the assembled heads of state something to work with.

But America’s allies are faced with a series of options. They could try to wait out the 1,093 days left in Trump’s term in the hope that nothing drastic happens. They could appease Trump by conceding to some of his demands.

Or alternatively they could activate the economic “bazooka” threatened by the French president Emmanuel Macron – although this is now less likely due to Trump’s decision to row back back on his threat to impose additional sanctions on countries that opposed his Greenland plans.

Finally, they could try to actively resist US aggression towards Greenland. Although, thankfully, Trump appears to have backtracked – for now – on his threat to use force.

A key strategic location

The US president’s Davos speech pitched his interest in Greenland in strategic terms. The Pituffik space base (formerly Thule air base) is a prime location to monitor Russian and Chinese aerospace and maritime activities as well as being an early warning base for missile protection. This is increasingly important, given Russian military activity and stated claims to the polar region and China’s reference to the Arctic in its “Polar Silk Road” strategy.

In economic terms, Greenland’s melting ice has revealed the world’s eighth-largest deposits of rare earth elements and an estimated 31 billion barrels of oil. These are important to the US, which is seeking to reduce its dependency on China and to exert its own mineral and energy dominance. In the Davos speech, Trump emphasised US energy requirements while claiming not to covet Greenland’s mineral wealth.

Melting ice has similarly opened up Arctic shipping routes. This has made Greenland a strategic location both for influencing global trade and for projecting military power.

Trump has framed his desire to acquire Greenland in terms of his ambition to provide security for the West as a whole. Owning Greenland, he told the WEF, would allow him to build the “greatest Golden Dome ever built” – a missile defense shield which he claims would provide security for the whole world.

His speech revealingly framed his intentions towards Greenland in existential terms which also had echoes of his real estate origins. He said: “And all we’re asking for is to get Greenland, including right, title and ownership, because you need the ownership to defend it. You can’t defend it on a lease.”

This, of course, is wrong. Denmark has made it clear that the US is welcome to grow its military presence on the island, pointing out that during the cold war it had tens of thousands of troops stationed there.

Equally the US would be welcome to invest in mineral exploration and investment with Denmark’s blessing. And the fact is that Denmark cannot sell Greenland without the consent of the 57,000 Greenlandic people.

But in turning the whole thing into a raw power struggle, the situation has become akin to the 19th-century “Great Game” played out by the colonial powers.

Stephen Miller, a senior Trump advisor throughout his time in office, said recently that the world has always been ruled by “strength” and “power”, not the “niceties of international law.”

Trump has gone further, telling the New York Times in a two-hour interview published on January 11, “I don’t need international law”, and that he is only constrained by: “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me, and that’s very good.”

An American world?

If it comes down to it, Europe will find it very hard to resist America. Europe is almost inextricably intertwined – economically and militarily – with the US.

A separation would have severe consequences, with military and intelligence capabilities compromised and access to modern computing and finance seriously curtailed. For the UK outside of the EU, since Brexit, the position is – if anything – even worse.

There is a dawning realization that the US might be Europe’s adversary, not ally. The Belgian prime minister, Bart De Wever, commented in a panel discussion at Davos that a “number of red lines are being crossed” by Trump and Europe now appeared to be facing the loss of its self-respect: “Being a happy vassal is one thing, being a miserable slave is something else. If you back down now you’re going to lose your dignity.”

Much is being made of the contrast between the US president’s speech on January 21 and the speech delivered by the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, the day before. Carney’s speech was hailed by many as being epoch-defining, in the words of one journalist on a par with Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech.

Carney talked of “a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality.” The rules-based order, Carney said, was “fading” and that the multilateral institutions on which the world depended were under serious threat from great power dominance. It was now up to the rest of the world to stop pretending and face up to the new harsh reality.

It is in this context that America’s NATO partners need to decide whether Trump should be appeased or resisted. Once we know more about his mooted “framework” for the future of Greenland, that choice should become clearer.

Robert Dover is professor of intelligence and national security & dean of faculty, University of Hull

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

asiatimes.com · Robert Dover

15. Modern Warfare and Risk

Summary:

Van der Graaff argues the Army’s GWOT-era controls bred risk aversion that will fail in large-scale combat operations. Persistent ISR, blue-force tracking, and higher headquarters visibility encouraged micro-management and punished initiative. In LSCO, communications will be degraded, medevac and “Golden Hour” assumptions will collapse, and SOF will operate deeper with less support, so commanders must accept prudent risk and empower subordinates. He ties the remedy to mission command: clear intent, mutual trust, permissive ROE, disciplined initiative, and a culture that treats failure in training as tuition, not career death, under fire.

Comment: What concrete authorities will senior commanders pre-delegate so SOF can act fast when comms fail?

News | Jan. 22, 2026

Modern Warfare and Risk

By Chief Warrant Officer 2 Matthew van der Graaff Special Warfare Journal

swcs.mil

https://www.swcs.mil/Special-Warfare-Journal/Article/4384904/modern-warfare-and-risk/

Introduction

To maintain its decisive edge, the Army must shift its culture from a constraint-based mindset to one that strategically embraces prudent risk in decision-making. This recalibration is especially true for Special Forces commanders at lower echelons, who often operate with limited support and high autonomy. The Global War on Terror (GWOT) created a risk-averse culture and a lack of empowered leadership at lower echelons, which will limit the effectiveness of United States Special Operations Forces (SOF) support to conventional forces during future large-scale combat operations (LSCO). This article provides historical context for SOF risk tolerance, examines the challenges and benefits of high-risk operations, and identifies ways to develop risk-tolerant leaders.

Historical Context

During the GWOT era, technological advances allowed commanders at higher echelons to maintain continuous oversight, enabling them to scrutinize tactical operations. The nature of counterterrorism (CT) operations against an adversary that presented a myriad of asymmetric threats, such as improvised explosive devices and insider attacks, combined with the political pressure to minimize casualties, drove advancements in command-and-control systems and command oversight requirements. Constant blue force tracking and the standing requirement to utilize intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets during operations provided persistent situational awareness for higher echelons of command. This allowed commanders to micro-manage operations and led to the implementation of a series of controls to reduce risk to the force. Excessive control fostered a risk-averse culture in which constant operational oversight limited tactical commanders’ decision-making and, at times, led to decision paralysis due to fear of reprisal from higher.

As the shift towards LSCO becomes prevalent, tactical commanders must be empowered to make sound decisions based on their own risk analysis and knowledge of the operational environment. Commanders at higher echelons must become comfortable with less visibility of maneuver elements in a communications-denied environment against a near-peer adversary. As SOF seeks to support conventional forces in LSCO, this mindset shift must be embraced at all levels to empower subordinate commanders and ensure mission success.

Challenges and Benefits of High-Risk Operations

There are many challenges with high-risk operations conducted during LSCO, foremost among them a projected increase in casualties during combat operations. As SOF strives to provide value to conventional forces in LSCO, they will likely be tasked to provide effects on the periphery and in the deep space, contrary to the conduct of CT operations during GWOT. In an article posted on War on the Rocks, Spencer Reed discusses how future combat operations in denied areas will create dilemmas for commanders by writing, “The Golden Hour concept undoubtedly saved hundreds if not thousands of lives in Iraq and Afghanistan by decreasing the time between injury and medical care. However, the concept assumes the existence of resources and access that will not be present during a future fight with a strategic adversary.”01 Limited air superiority will degrade medical evacuation capabilities and reduce friendly force freedom of maneuver. This will force commanders to balance risk acceptance with mission success while facing critical resource limitations with potential strategic consequences. As the focus of SOF operations shifts toward LSCO, subordinate leaders face the additional challenge of convincing commanders at echelon to break the mold and adopt a culture that supports calculated risk to overcome future dilemmas.

There are significant benefits to commanders embracing calculated risk during LSCO. Calculated risk-taking provides opportunities for decisive action against strategic competitors, increasing overall lethality and effectiveness. A key to empowerment is the refinement of rules of engagement (ROE), which, during GWOT, were typically viewed as a constraint. Lieutenant General (retired) Milford Beagle Jr. writes, “Considering the scale, scope, and violence of LSCO—as envisioned by TRADOC02—the ROE will need to be permissive to effectively execute mission command with the appropriate level of control.”03 Fostering a culture that grooms tactical leaders to take calculated risks based on a comprehensive understanding of ROE, refined for LSCO, will encourage them to adapt and respond quickly to evolving threats in an ambiguous environment.

A modern-day example of the effectiveness of reducing risk-adversity is demonstrated by Ukrainian SOF tactical commanders in the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian conflict. Doug Livermore emphasizes this in an article in Small Wars Journal, “Ukrainian SOF have consistently shown their ability to quickly adopt new technologies and tactics based on battlefield feedback. Perhaps most importantly, they have implemented flexible command structures that enable decentralized decision-making at tactical levels, allowing for rapid response to emerging threats and opportunities.”04 A decentralized decision-making process encourages outside-the-box thinking and reinforces the development of ground-breaking solutions to address complex problems. Additionally, an unencumbered decision-making process allows leaders to gain experience in high-risk situations, which enhances their ability to make quick assessments that enable rapid decisions.

Reducing Risk-Adversity

There are several ways that the SOF enterprise can develop the next generation of effective tactical leaders, the first being training and education. As the force transitions from GWOT to LSCO, it is imperative that units focus on realistic, high-risk training that will force subordinate commanders to make decisions in an uncertain environment. The Army’s Combat Training Centers must ensure their scenarios offer realistic, complex dilemmas that force junior leaders to adapt and develop innovative solutions. With this in mind, it is essential that commanders at echelon promote a culture that encourages leaders to learn from their failures. Subordinate leaders must be allowed to make mistakes and learn from them without fear of reprisal. In today’s ever-changing environment, adaptability is the key to success. An example of this is training in communications denied environments that replicate projected conditions during LSCO. As SOF seeks to support LSCO by conducting operations in the deep fight, it is imperative that commanders are comfortable with minimal oversight and communication with tactical elements. Gone are the days of constant situation reports. Commanders must have full trust and confidence in their subordinate leaders' ability to make sound decisions in the face of adversity.

Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) 6-0 defines mission command as the Army’s approach to command and control that empowers subordinate decision making and decentralized execution appropriate to the situation.05 The principles of mission command (competence, mutual trust, shared understanding, commander’s intent, mission orders, disciplined initiative, and risk acceptance) and their implementation are critical to success during SOF operations in support of LSCO. Commanders must clearly define their intent and have trust in their subordinates to seize the initiative to successfully accomplish high-risk missions. It is critical to instill the tenets of mission command at all levels while encouraging tactical leaders to take risks that could have strategic implications.

Conclusion

The importance of creating a culture of calculated risk-acceptance at all echelons is critical to keeping pace with near-peer competitors during LSCO. While GWOT created a culture of risk-adversity, the focus must shift to empowering subordinate leaders. These leaders must be taught to be adaptable so they can make timely, well-informed decisions about actions which may have strategic implications. A shift in mindset, realistic training, and the instillation of the tenets of mission command from senior commanders will breed a new generation of capable leaders, flexible and confident in their decision-making. We must embrace change if we are to be successful in modern conflict.

Author’s Note: Chief Warrant Officer 2 Matthew van der Graaff is a Regular Army Special Forces Officer with more than 19 years of service. He wrote this as part of the Warrant Officer Advanced Course graduation requirements. The view, opinions, and analysis expressed do not represent the position of the U.S. Army or the Department of War.

References

01 Reed, S. (2023). Recalibrating special operations risk tolerance for the future fight. War on the Rocks. https://warontherocks.com/2023/01/recalibrating-special-operations-risk-tolerance-for-the-future-fight/

02 Editor’s Note: TRADOC merged with U.S. Army Futures Command to form a new command, U.S. Army Transformation and Training Command (T2COM) as of Oct. 1, 2025

03 Beagle Jr., Lt. Gen. M., Berger III, Lt. Gen. J., & Einhorn, Lt. Col. J. (n.d.). Lethal force, risk, and LSCO: Preparing for permissive rules of engagement in large-scale combat operations. Army University Press. https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/Online-Exclusive/2025-OLE/Lethal-Force-Risk-and-LSCO/

04 Livermore, D. (2025). Ukraine Special Operations Forces and the lessons learned for large-scale combat operations. Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University. https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/01/31/ukraine-special-operations-forces/

05 Headquarters, Department of the Army. Mission Command. Army Doctrine Publication 6-0. Fort Belvoir, VA: Army Publishing Directorate, 2019.

swcs.mil

16. Trump, Interventions, and Regimes to Topple

Summary:

Arkes argues that “regime change” is not a dirty word when the regime itself is the source of the danger. He contrasts Kennedy’s caution at the Bay of Pigs with POTUS’s willingness to use force, suggesting swagger may finish what earlier presidents left undone in Venezuela, Iran, and perhaps Cuba. He claims international law often avoids moral judgment, yet history shows wars and crises are settled only when vicious regimes are removed. He grounds intervention in a Lincolnian moral premise, then narrows it with prudence: capability can create responsibility when costs to Americans are limited.

Question: Hmmm....If the United States can topple or save a regime at low cost (which is a huge "if"), who decides when moral clarity outweighs the risks of precedent and blowback? Note that north Korea was not mentioned - it does not fit into the "low cost" category. But there is no more morally bankrupt and abhorrent regime anywhere in the world.

Trump, Interventions, and Regimes to Topple - First Things

First Things · Hadley Arkes

January 23, 2026

https://firstthings.com/when-power-meets-responsibility-in-foreign-policy/

It doesn’t take much imagination to see that if even a portion of the air support used in the military operation in Venezuela had been provided at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, the Cuban missile crisis—which nearly brought the world to the edge of nuclear war—might have been averted. And averted at the same time would have been the oppressive regime in Cuba, which destroyed a once vibrant economy and spread its malign influence through the hemisphere—and beyond. Could it really have fallen to Donald Trump, of all people, to complete the work that John F. Kennedy left undone, or bungled?

Henry Taylor, in his classic work The Statesman, observed that “it sometimes happens that he who would not hurt a fly will hurt a nation.” Kennedy, with all his study of international politics, was perhaps overly cautious in that first test of his power. Trump, serenely detached from reading serious books of any kind, has not had the slightest qualm or hesitation in flexing his power. His vice is that he wants it clear to all who can see that good things spring from his touch and his will alone. He produces wreckage wherever he goes, and yet his swashbuckling use of power may indeed rid us of the regimes in Iran and Venezuela—maybe even Cuba, as the last shoe to fall. Through his swagger and confidence, he may find himself ironically resolving unfinished business left by four or more of his predecessors.

In later years, Kennedy did not hesitate to use the well-timed cruelty that Machiavelli described as a tool of statecraft. He gave the green light for the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem, the leader of South Vietnam, in 1963. And with that move he unsettled the ruling structure of the country and escalated the war. But he was able to keep that hand of brute power hidden. Not so with the Bay of Pigs. It was clear that America was backing the Cuban brigade seeking to reclaim their country.

Both the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations wanted to conceal the American involvement in helping refugees from Cuba restore a non-communist regime. Kennedy was sensitive to the leaders of Latin America, who held to the high principle of not intervening in the affairs of other countries—a maxim that nicely fended off intervention against any of them. The same principle has been invoked today against the American intervention in Venezuela—and invoked with high moral posturing.

And yet it is the character of international law to avoid moral judgments on the various regimes in the world. Surely the sovereignty of the French government under Marshall Petain was violated when Allied armies landed in Normandy in 1944. And under a liberal reading of international law, the Second World War might have properly ended when Allied armies pushed Germany back to its prewar frontiers and stripped the Nazi regime of the fruits of its aggressions. But the understanding of the time was that the war sprang precisely from the nature of that Nazi regime—and nothing would be settled until that regime was removed and reconstructed from within.

Why all of this agonizing, then, over “regime change” in Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba? The most consequential data of political life have always involved the shift in regimes, from the Germany of Weimar to the Germany of Hitler, from the Cuba of Batista to the Cuba of Castro. In Natural Right and History, my late professor Leo Strauss remarked that “when the classics were chiefly concerned with the different regimes, and especially with the best regime, they implied that the paramount social phenomenon, or that social phenomenon than which only the natural phenomena are more fundamental, is the regime.” Regimes are fundamental social realities. If we’re not out to change the vicious regimes in Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba, why are we there at all?

Abraham Lincoln never doubted that the right of human beings to be ruled only with their own consent was a universal doctrine. In no place is it natural for men to rule other men in the way that humans rule over dogs and horses. If Lincoln held back from taking up arms to fight despotisms and establish free elections in all places, he was not holding back in principle, but in prudence, because the United States did not have the means of intervening in foreign countries without exposing the republican experiment at home to grave dangers. But over a century later, George H. W. Bush gauged no such dangers when he ordered F-4 fighter jets to provide air cover over Manila and threatened to act against any forces attempting to overthrow the elected government of Corazon Aquino. A president, with orders easily sent, could now act halfway around the world to protect a government of free elections from being overthrown.

What has curiously eluded many commentators over the years is that this willingness to intervene abroad has not always been motivated by a passion to act as “the world’s policemen.” Rather, it has emerged from a principle that has permeated our laws and the common sense of ordinary folk: Does the capacity to affect the outcome confer at times a certain responsibility to act—if one can? Without danger to American lives, Bush was able to preserve a democratic government in the Philippines with a simple show of force in a timely way.

Twenty years ago, the columnist Bret Stephens offered a riveting account of “Chinook Diplomacy”: Col. Angel Lugo’s 212th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital moved from Angola to the northwest frontier of Pakistan after an earthquake killed 16,000 people. Lugo’s American force provided the only fully functional hospital in Azad Kashmir. American doctors performed 330 major surgeries, wrote 14,000 prescriptions, and gave almost 10,000 preventive vaccinations.

But why did it fall to us to do it? The driving reason: It was within our power and ability to deliver medical aid to distant places across the toughest terrain. And so we must ask, whenever we have the power to make a real difference: What serious cost to the lives of our own people do we risk when we rise to what is in our power to do?

17. America Can’t Win the AI Race by Retreating

Summary:

MG Dees argues the AI race is won by ecosystem dominance, not by trying to seal China off from American technology. Blanket export bans, he says, often backfire by driving rivals to build substitutes, shrinking US market share, revenue, and the R&D base that funds next generation advances. He frames POTUS’s decision to allow NVIDIA to export less advanced H200 chips to approved Chinese customers as a calibrated course correction: keep tight controls on leading edge chips while staying present in global markets so AI developers keep building on US platforms and standards. Retreat, he warns, accelerates a parallel China led stack.

Excerpt:

President Trump deserves credit for recognizing this reality and for taking a first step toward a more nuanced strategy in the AI race. The choice ahead is clear. The United States can pursue a calibrated export framework that keeps global AI development anchored to American technology—or it can retreat behind sweeping bans while China builds a parallel ecosystem beyond our reach. The H200 decision points toward the former. Now in 2026, Washington must follow through with a strategy that allows American innovation to compete—and win—globally.

America Can’t Win the AI Race by Retreating

By Bob Dees

January 21, 2026

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2026/01/21/america_cant_win_the_ai_race_by_retreating_1159952.html

The U.S.–China AI race in 2026 is clearly a contest over whose technology will underpin the global economy and set the digital standards other nations will follow for years to come. In that contest, leadership will not be secured by trying to wall the rest of the world from American technology but by ensuring that the world’s AI ecosystem continues to run on it.

Yet while Washington has too often treated technological dominance as something that can be maintained simply by restricting exports, history suggests otherwise. When competitors are cut off from U.S. platforms, they do not stop innovating; they redirect investment, accelerate domestic alternatives, and erode the very supply-chain leverage that once gave the United States a strategic edge.

That reality helps explain why President Trump’s recent decision to allow NVIDIA to export its less-advanced H200 AI chips to “approved customers” in China matters.

Some critics, including a recent Wall Street Journal editorial, have argued that allowing any AI chip sales to China amounts to surrendering U.S. technological supremacy, but that reflects a misunderstanding of the current dynamic. The move was not an act of concession, but a pragmatic course correction from Biden-era blanket export bans of AI chips that have proven more effective at accelerating China’s AI sector than preserving America’s advantage.

Semiconductor leadership depends on scale, revenue, and sustained investment in research and development. But restricting the countries that American companies can sell to could cost domestic chipmakers billions of dollars in revenue and R&D investment, limiting their ability to fund next-generation innovation. Conversely, by maintaining controls on exports of the most technologically advanced chips but allowing American companies to sell late-generation chips abroad, the Trump administration is protecting national security without pushing U.S. companies out of international markets. That approach also keeps foreign developers building on American platforms and standards—an advantage that matters far more in the long run than blocking any single chip.

The last several years of export restrictions have pushed Beijing to invest aggressively in domestic alternatives, leaving the United States at a critical inflection point in the race for AI dominance. U.S. companies have seen their market share shrink, while Chinese competitors have quickly gained ground. Huawei alone now spends annually on research and development and plans to double production of its Ascend line of AI chips in 2026. According to some Wall Street analysts, in fact, Huawei isn’t just catching up, “it’s redefining how AI infrastructure works.”

The same is happening with Chinese AI software where developers have demonstrated an ability to train competitive AI models at a fraction of the cost once assumed necessary, narrowing what many in Washington believed was a durable U.S. advantage. Across parts of Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, Chinese firms are already offering AI solutions that American companies struggle to match on price, speed, or integration.

Continuing to wall ourselves off from the rest of the world would only widen these gaps.

This is not the first time export controls have backfired on the United States. When the Department of Commerce restricted 5G-related exports to Huawei several years ago, the goal was to cripple a strategic competitor. Instead, Huawei adapted, developed advanced chips under pressure, relaunched its smartphone business, and continued exporting the telecommunications infrastructure that is now used across much of the developing world. The lesson was not that export controls never work, but that broad, indiscriminate bans often make competitors stronger rather than weaker.

This risk is magnified with artificial intelligence. AI leadership will not be determined by a single breakthrough but by ecosystems—chips, software, data, and standards that evolve together. The country whose technology is most widely adopted shapes how systems are built and how norms develop. When American companies are present in global markets, they influence architecture, interoperability, and security practices. When they are excluded, that influence shifts elsewhere.

President Trump deserves credit for recognizing this reality and for taking a first step toward a more nuanced strategy in the AI race. The choice ahead is clear. The United States can pursue a calibrated export framework that keeps global AI development anchored to American technology—or it can retreat behind sweeping bans while China builds a parallel ecosystem beyond our reach. The H200 decision points toward the former. Now in 2026, Washington must follow through with a strategy that allows American innovation to compete—and win—globally.

Major General Bob Dees (U.S. Army, ret.) has a breadth of national security expertise, including development of high technology weapons and communications systems. He also served as a consultant to the President’s Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection.

18. From hardware to intelligence: the operating system powering next-generation robotics

Summary:

XTEND positions itself as a software company whose XOS lets one operator, assisted by AI, control swarms and execute “marsupial” concepts where a mother platform deploys smaller drones. The article frames XTEND as a Project Replicator fit because it supports low cost mass systems, US based production, and operation in GPS denied, jammed environments using computer vision and onboard autonomy. The Lockheed Martin Skunk Works tie matters because XOS is being integrated into Lockheed’s multi domain command and control architecture, aiming to reduce operator load and unify disparate unmanned fleets under one controller across domains.

Comment: Software is key. Does a single unified controller create an operational advantage, or a catastrophic single point of failure?

How should the Pentagon test and certify human in the loop autonomy so scale does not outpace accountability, ROE, and mission command?

From hardware to intelligence: the operating system powering next-generation robotics

ynetnews.com · Tal Shahaf

After selling their previous company to Intel, founders Aviv and Matteo Shapira joined forces with Rubi Liani, and Adir Tubi, to build XTEND around a simple idea: software, not hardware, defines modern robotic operations; with a human in the loop approach and a collaboration with Lockheed Martin, XTEND is emerging as a core enabler of complex missions within the US defense ecosystem

Tal Shahaf|Updated:Yesterday | 11:59

https://www.ynetnews.com/tech-and-digital/article/bjkpkuf8we

Rishon LeZion, early 1990s, the Shapira family home. The older brother, Matteo, takes over the family computer with video games and the usual teenage obsessions. The younger brother, Aviv, finds a different passion. At age 10, he builds his first model airplane. Fast forward to 2026. At 42, Aviv Shapira has already sold tens of thousands of drones to multiple armies, led by Israel and the United States, and signed a deal with Lockheed Martin that places him firmly among the global defense industry’s top tier.

You may already be familiar with XTEND, the Israeli drone company that gained international attention after footage surfaced allegedly showing one of its drones killing Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. The incident was never officially confirmed, but it brought global exposure to the company. Still, it represents only a fraction of XTEND current capabilities. In short, XTEND is likely to become part of the future combat architecture of the US Army under Project Replicator, the Pentagon initiative that every military technology and aerospace company in the world is now targeting.

Clicking with the US Army

Here is a 60-second overview of Project Replicator, the Pentagon’s plan to reshape how the United States prepares for a future military confrontation with China. That conflict is expected to rely heavily on autonomous technological weapons on both sides. China’s advantage lies in mass production of inexpensive robots. Replicator’s response is to deploy large numbers of low-cost, expendable systems instead of a limited fleet of high-value aircraft and ships. Artificial intelligence sits at the core of this new military doctrine, in some cases operating without direct human involvement. The battlefield will include swarms of small drones, unmanned surface vessels, autonomous submarines and wheeled ground robots. The concept is simple. Flood the battlefield with vast numbers of systems at once, overwhelm Chinese defenses and force them to expend expensive missiles on cheap targets.

MAKE ynetGlobal MY TRUSTED SOURCE

Procurement is already underway, and this is precisely where XTEND fits in. Its loitering attack drones are relatively inexpensive, fast and designed for mass production. The company’s crown jewel is its operating system, XOS, which allows a single operator, assisted by AI, to control a swarm of drones performing multiple missions. XTEND has also opened a drone manufacturing facility in Florida, not far from President Trump’s residence, meeting another Replicator requirement: US-based production.

Over the past year, the company joined the Pentagon’s exclusive list of approved suppliers and even beat several American manufacturers in competitive tenders. Now comes a far more significant step: a strategic partnership with Lockheed Martin. Under the agreement, XTEND’s XOS operating system will be integrated into Lockheed Martin’s command-and-control architecture, designed to manage the entire US military simultaneously. The project is being led by Lockheed’s elite Skunk Works unit, which values not only XTEND’s technology but also its real-world battlefield experience in Gaza, Lebanon and defensive operations in Ukraine.

Skunk Works, known in Hebrew as ‘The Skunk Workshop’, is perhaps the most famous classified defense development unit in the world. It developed the P-80, America’s first operational jet fighter, in just 143 days during World War II, the U-2 spy plane, the SR-71 Blackbird, the F-117 stealth fighter and fifth-generation aircraft including the F-22 and the F-35, which Israel operates. Its mission is to solve seemingly impossible technological problems under extreme time pressure and secrecy. Most of its projects remain classified.

7 View gallery

XTEND drones

(Photo: courtesy of XTEND)

Skunk Works also has a long history of cooperation with Israel, including work with Rafael on the Iron Beam laser system and multiple classified drone projects with Israel’s Defense Ministry research directorate. About a month ago, Lockheed Martin issued an unusually explicit press release announcing a collaboration between Skunk Works and XTEND. The companies revealed that in November 2025 they demonstrated a so-called ‘marsupial’ mission. A large mother drone deploys multiple small drones at the target, all controlled by a single operator rather than multiple handoffs between operators. This approach represents the cutting edge of drone warfare and could become a dominant concept in future US combat plans. Without XTEND’s technology, it likely would not be feasible.

Brothers behind the exits

XTEND was founded in 2018 by four entrepreneurs: brothers Aviv Shapira, 45, and Matteo Shapira, 46, Robbie Liani, 39, and Adir Tubi. Aviv, the company’s CEO, studied aeronautical and space engineering with a specialization in rocket propulsion. He is a serial entrepreneur with four startups behind him. Matteo, who leads AI innovation at XTEND, comes from a computer graphics background and co-founded JVP’s Animation Lab. Liani, the CTO, is a former naval technology unit software engineer and a robotics enthusiast who also co-founded Israel’s drone racing league. The brothers grew up in Rishon LeZion and later relocated to St. Louis, Missouri, following their father, an Amdocs employee. Their first joint venture dates back to 2010, when they founded Replay. “The idea for Replay was born in a bar in England,” Aviv recalls. “We were watching a game and I said, ‘I wish I could broadcast it from the player’s eyes.’ Four years later, I won an Emmy.”

7 View gallery

From right: Rubi Liani, Co-Founder and CTO; Chen Haim, GM XTEND Israel; and Matteo Shapira, Co-Founder and CXO

(Photo: Oz Mualem)

Replay developed a real-time 360-degree sports broadcasting system using dozens of high-resolution cameras placed around stadiums. In 2016, the company was sold to Intel for $175 million. Intel shut the operation down in 2021. Out of Replay’s virtual reality technology emerged the core concept behind XTEND: experiencing and acting in remote environments through robots. The company initially developed high-speed gaming drones paired with VR headsets, flying at speeds of up to 150 kilometers per hour. Reality intervened in 2019, during the incendiary balloon attacks from Gaza. Israel’s Defense Ministry saw immediate military applications. After a successful demonstration, XTEND secured its first defense contract.

From there, the company received extensive support from the Defense Ministry’s research directorate, including tens of millions of shekels in funding and hands-on operational testing with elite combat engineering units. That experience accelerated XTEND’s growth dramatically. Today, its software enables drones to operate in GPS-denied, communication-jammed environments using computer vision and onboard AI.

7 View gallery

From right: Rubi Liani Co-Founder & CTO XTEND, Chen Haim GM XTEND Israel and Matteo Shapira Co-Founder & CXO XTEND

(Photo: Oz Mualem)

What is it like to start with gaming technology and sports drones and end up with military technology? Matteo: “It is a very, very great honor to be able to influence classical military thinking and contribute. We took concepts from computer games and managed to integrate them into Mafat so that they became part of the core. At the same time, we essentially built a computer game about how to defeat the bad guys without putting ourselves at risk.”

Did you ever imagine you would reach the forefront of military technology worldwide? Liani: “Not at all. What has happened over the past three years is simply a hysterical acceleration in the company’s maturity. And it is crazy that this happened while our teams were fully mobilized. We were all serving in the reserves. When you look back, you say this is an impossible mission, what is happening.”

At the same time, XTEND is not giving up on the civilian market. Its long-term plan includes developing drone and robot control systems for policing and rescue forces. One of its current customers is the robotics company Boston Dynamics. Few people know this, but XTEND’s operating system is installed in the robotic dog Spot.

Toward massive contracts

George Hellestren, a senior fellow at Lockheed Martin for autonomy and AI missions, is the man behind the development and implementation of MDCX, the strategic platform through which Lockheed aims to become a central player in managing the US military. Hellestren specializes in human-machine teaming while reducing the number of human operators and lowering their workload through AI. He is also one of the leading proponents of the marsupial warfare concept.

7 View gallery

Operation of an XTEND drone in the field

(Photo: courtesy of XTEND)

Hellestren saw significant value in XTEND’s technology and is responsible for integrating it into the most important platform for Lockheed Martin’s plans in the coming years. Like a marsupial, XTEND is receiving a powerful boost from Lockheed as it heads toward major contracts with the US defense establishment and, subsequently, with government customers around the world.

When did your cooperation with the Israeli company XTEND begin? Hellestren: “I met Aviv in 2019, and since then we have been working together, talking about how to leverage the strengths of both our companies. We were very impressed by the work Aviv’s team managed to do and how it became a force multiplier for the IDF and also for Ukraine. We are very interested in seeing how we can take what we recently demonstrated to the next stage and move forward to try to change the world of warfare.”

Where does XTEND’s technology fit into your system? “We are connecting our multi-domain command-and-control system to XTEND’s first-person-view flight technology. We are building the system so that it receives mission targets, and the aerial platforms arrive with autonomous routing and execute the mission autonomously. Aviv brings this capability in the final 100 meters that allow the mission to be completed. “We are also examining whether a single ground control station could control ground vehicles as well, vehicles that could breach doors and enter buildings.”

Shapira adds: “One of the biggest problems of modern warfare is the number of unmanned systems you have to deal with. There may be 50 suppliers, each controlled by a different controller. What Lockheed Martin decided to do was create one control system that would manage all of them. “In practice, this is an enormous problem, and Lockheed selected us to provide the software that would enable control of a group of drones and robots.”

Aviv Shapira: 'Our message is that we are not a drone company but a software company. We are not in the business of building the best drone. We are in the business of keeping human operators out of danger'

Are there already orders from the US defense establishment for this system? Will it be integrated into Project Replicator? Hellestren: “At the moment, this is research and development with internal investment. We worked with Aviv to try to build a capability that would suit many customers among US special operations forces, such as the Marines and other elite units. The goal is to build a product they will want to order.”

In today’s combat environment there are problems of communications jamming and GPS disruption, as well as cognitive overload on operators. How are you addressing that? “The GPS denial issue is one of the reasons we chose XTEND, because they proved they can operate in environments where GPS is repeatedly denied, in Gaza, in Lebanon and in Ukraine. They operated in areas where GPS was completely shut down. We were very impressed by their capabilities there. “Cognitive workload is extremely important to us. We are trying to reduce human workload in tedious missions and allow autonomy to perform those tasks without requiring a person to operate a joystick. That is another thing we saw at XTEND. They truly built a system that is very easy for people to learn. With short training, they become experts.”

7 View gallery

XTEND’s robotic operating system for drones

(Photo: courtesy of XTEND)

Shapira adds: “The GPS challenge is behind us, but when you operate in dense environments with heavy jamming, we activate what we call AI pilots. The secret lies in how you tell the drone what to do, and that is what we specialize in. Ultimately, drones are changing the picture of warfare. Everything needs to be autonomous, combined with human guidance.”

Are you entering an exclusive partnership with Lockheed Martin, like Anduril with its closed Lattice system? Are you becoming a sub-system within MDCX? “At this stage, we do not have exclusivity with anyone. We can work with any system, including, of course, Israel’s three major defense industries. Lockheed Martin’s objective is different from others. We are trying to develop a unified controller, and that is a major difference. “We handle the final 100 meters, as George said, and that is where technological cooperation between the companies is most critical.”

When do you think we will see the system in use in the US military or elsewhere? Hellestren: “I think we took an important step with what we published. We created a prototype integrating Aviv’s XOS with our MDCX and proved that it can be done from a single workstation, where one person can control large drones and deploy small drones as marsupials.”

7 View gallery

George Hellestren, senior fellow at Lockheed Martin for autonomy and AI missions

(Photo: courtesy of Lockheed Martin)

Shapira adds: “When you look at drones from other companies, they still require dedicated operators for each one. That is not how you solve problems. You solve problems by positioning human operators remotely. “That is what XTEND and Lockheed Martin are doing. Creating a control station from which you can manage everything anywhere in the world. That is the future from our perspective, and it is the only way to scale in this market. Otherwise, you will be forced to send soldiers into combat and have them die.”

What impact has this partnership had on you as a company? “The boost comes from working with large companies like Lockheed. Our message is that we are not a drone company but a software company. Robots and drones change all the time. They grow or shrink, carry payloads or lasers. We are not competing to build the best drone. We are competing to move operators out of danger.”

Peak wartime activity

Customers at Israel’s Defense Ministry, the IDF and across much of the world, including Serbia, India and Greece, are often surprised to discover that the person standing opposite them is Chen Haim, CEO of XTEND Israel. It is still rare to see a woman in a field overwhelmingly dominated by men, but Haim brings a proven track record. She joined the company in 2021 after 12 years at Israel Aerospace Industries. In her last role there, she headed an administrative division with 60 employees and global clients. She now manages a large team that includes both sales and support personnel.

Support teams are key to training soldiers to operate such sophisticated drone systems, aren’t they? “It is nice to supply drones to the IDF, but if there is no training and implementation, the drone will likely sit in a warehouse. We provide very simple and very fast training. One day of simulator work and understanding how the system works. On the second day, the soldier is already in the field and knows how to operate a drone, enter through a window, under a table or through a door. “I have an entire team of integrators moving between units, providing training for both regular soldiers and reservists.”

What can you say about what the company did during the wars in Gaza and Lebanon? “We did enormous things during the war. We had dozens of systems that were supposed to be shipped to the American customer, and very quickly, with the customer’s approval, we diverted them to the maneuver in the south. We knew how to respond very fast. “There were many operational uses and many collaborations. We worked very closely with special units and with Golani and Paratroopers battalions.”

She notes that this also translated into major deals. “We carried out very large projects, for example a procurement project of nearly 40 million shekels for hundreds of systems for the Ground Forces. We then continued procurement and won a tender for 5,000 attack drones for all units. I am currently at the peak of deliveries, and discussions are underway about exercising the option to supply another 10,000 drones and upgrades that will make them more intelligent.”

Until recently, Israel was XTEND’s primary customer and testing laboratory. The tender to supply 5,000 drones was valued at nearly 20 million shekels, with additional payments for maintenance, training and software updates.

XTEND’s US subsidiary, XTEND Reality, won a Pentagon tender worth $8.8 million for the development and supply of loitering munitions for urban combat. It also won tenders to supply hundreds of Wolverine drones for special units in the US Army, Marine Corps and Navy, as well as additional tenders totaling tens of millions of dollars. The company reports it has sold more than 10,000 drones to over 32 countries, including the United Kingdom, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea and European states.

There is also a significant market for XTEND’s products in Ukraine, although the company usually keeps it low-profile. In the past, Shapira told Yedioth Ahronoth and Ynet that Israel does not allow the sale of drones to Ukraine, and that XTEND sells software only, installed on drones made by other companies.

What missions do those drones perform in Ukraine? “Mainly reconnaissance missions, for example in areas with blocked communications. You cannot fly if there is no communication, so you have to fly with AI. These are scouting drones that go out, search for something and then return and report.” Is there experience you gained there that is different from Gaza or Lebanon? “Mainly operating in constrained environments. Places without GPS, without communications, with jamming and electronic warfare.”

Shapira may be modest, but the experience XTEND accumulated in Ukraine is a central reason for the growing interest in the company. While other drones crash under jamming, XTEND’s computer-vision-based software allows drones to complete missions without radio communication or GPS navigation. As the world moves toward warfare dominated by swarms of cheap, simple drones, XTEND’s technology could prove a decisive advantage. Against the backdrop of ongoing wars and global military procurement of attack drone systems, XTEND’s business is thriving. From a manufacturer of low-cost drones, it has become a significant defense-tech player, with its software enabling recurring annual revenue from licenses and updates. The company employs about 150 people in Israel and in subsidiaries in the United States, Singapore, the United Kingdom and Europe. It is expanding into an additional floor at its Tel Aviv offices and plans to reach 250 employees by the end of the year.

$100 million in revenue

XTEND’s factory in Florida has so far proven to be a successful move. Its drones are included on the Blue UAS list of systems approved for use across all branches of the US government. Future plans include manufacturing ground robots and maritime robots for Project Replicator.

The company reported 113 percent revenue growth last year. Its order backlog stands at $50 million, and Shapira says XTEND will surpass $100 million in annual revenue this year. Against the backdrop of the Lockheed Martin partnership, forecasts may be even more optimistic, not because of payments from Lockheed itself, estimated at hundreds of thousands of dollars, but because of the contracts that could follow if the system wins US government tenders.

7 View gallery

Aviv Shapira, Co-Founder and CEO of the robotics company XTEND

(Photo: Oz Mualem)

In July 2025, XTEND completed a $30 million funding round, in addition to a previous $40 million round, at a valuation estimated at $200 million to $300 million. To date, the company has raised more than $106 million from investors including Chartered Group, Aliya Capital Partners, Protego Ventures, Union Tech Ventures, NFX and others.

The Lockheed partnership could enable XTENDto raise additional capital at a higher valuation. If it becomes a preferred supplier in major Pentagon programs, it could expect deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars and a valuation of $600 million or more. According to particularly optimistic estimates, XTEND could surpass a $1 billion valuation and become Israel’s first defense-tech unicorn, a stage at which the company plans to go public.

George Hellestren: 'The issue of GPS denial is one of the reasons we chose XTEND, because they proved they can operate in environments where GPS is repeatedly blocked, in Gaza, in Lebanon and in Ukraine. We were very impressed by their capabilities'

That optimism is driven by the performance of US defense-tech companies such as Palantir and Anduril, the leading defense-tech unicorn, valued at about $30 billion with roughly $2 billion in annual revenue last year. “If XTEND leads Lockheed Martin to a business victory over Anduril, its valuation could jump into the billions,” Shapira says. “I think Anduril and other companies, with all due respect, are still training somewhere in the deserts of the United States, and I hope for their sake they never see war, compared with what we have seen on several fronts in Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon,” he adds.

Lockheed Martin’s advantage, thanks to XTEND’s technology, is its ability to operate with systems from all companies. If XTEND reaches just 10 percent of Anduril’s valuation, it would be worth $3 billion, delivering enormous returns for investors. Still, there are risks accompanying XTEND’s success. Despite its focus on software, a significant share of revenue still comes from drone sales. As Shapira notes, drones are becoming consumer products, prices are falling and competition from China is fierce. XTEND will need to shift further toward software-driven revenue.

There is also uncertainty over how long the defense-tech boom will last. A return to global stability could lead governments to cut defense budgets, hurting XTEND’s revenue. Changes in US procurement policy, such as a preference for companies with American founders, could also pose challenges. On the other hand, a major software licensing deal could generate renewed optimism about the company’s future.

ynetnews.com · Tal Shahaf

19. Book review: Tim Cook's The Good Allies

Summary:

Russ Glenn judges Tim Cook’s The Good Allies a strong, detailed study of US Canada relations in World War II that also illuminates current alliance frictions. He highlights Canada’s persistent fear of US dominance, Mackenzie King’s political tightrope between English and French Canada, and repeated treatment of Canada as a “third wheel” by London and Washington, even on D-Day. He stresses Canada’s decisive wartime surge in shipbuilding, munitions, and naval power, plus North American defense integration and economic interdependence. He notes minor weaknesses in chronology and statistical context, but concludes Cook captures Canada’s enduring balance between Britain and the United States.

Excerpts:

Antebellum apprehensions remained despite the respect the United States and Canada had come to develop for each other by war’s end. King argued Canada should provide postwar financial support to Great Britain, believing the UK’s value as a foil against US annexation remained essential, a foil that would evaporate were Great Britain’s economy to fail. That support was consistent with Cook’s summary of Canada’s World War II conundrum as articulated in The Good Allies final pages:

"Strategic actions throughout the war were predicated on assisting Britain in the fight against the Axis powers and on pursuing its own national interests as a junior if important ally in the Anglo-American coalition. At the same time, this delicate balancing act could not be achieved without a close alliance with the United States. Canada sought to position itself between its closest allies, anxious to support where possible, while also struggling to stand on its own."

Comment: Another book for the "to read pile."

Book review: Tim Cook's The Good Allies

Russ Glenn

Innovative Defense Research, LLC

January 25, 2026

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/book-review-tim-cooks-good-allies-russ-glenn-z2hxe/?trackingId=WLg%2Fy5GwQOi1AbMgn1cCJg%3D%3D

Review of Tim Cook’s The Good Allies: How Canada and the United States Fought Together to Defeat Fascism During the Second World War (Toronto: Allen Lane, 2024), 568 pp. Reviewed by Dr. Russell W. Glenn

I have had the good fortune to read a couple of good books lately and thought I'd pass on insights so that others might partake. I review one here for those who might have an interest. Will post a second, The Big Fix by Dr. Albert Palazzo, before too long. It is first under consideration for appearance in Australia.

Now, to The Good Allies, which offers insights into today's US-Canada relations in addition to telling readers much about those circa World War II:

This is a good book. Tim Cook, Canadian military historian who passed away in late 2025, took on the task of providing a detailed analysis of US-Canadian relations during and, to a far lesser extent, immediately after World War II. Readers will quickly realize the subtitle is perhaps too restrictive, for Canada did much to support the mother country of the United Kingdom, thereby delimiting the extent of its partnership benevolence. This was despite both Great Britain and the United States more often than not treating Canada as a third wheel throughout the conflict. The status was never evident more clearly than on June 6, 1944 when the Canadian prime minister’s aides rushed to his bedroom, awakening their country’s leader to inform him the D-Day landings had begun in Normandy. Canadian forces significant participation in the operation’s ground, sea, air, and airborne forces was not enough to ensure their leader was informed of the momentous event until after its initiation.

The primary sometimes antagonistic protagonists were American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), Canada’s Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. King was an interesting mix of pragmatic and unusual—odd is arguably not overstating it in the latter case—who despite successfully navigating notably difficult political waters sought advice from mediums, asked for interpretation of his dreams, and otherwise partook of the mystic arts. He was a man ever-concerned that his country’s powerful southern neighbor sought to annex Canada. It was a fear permeating the third of his three nonconsecutive terms while leading Canada…and, very likely, those before. He considered consistent wartime support of Great Britain essential to the UK’s being able to rein in American ambitions in that regard and his continuing in office. (Reasonable Americans today might scoff at such fears, but the United States had a Plan Red for the invasion of Canada, one Cook notes remained active until 1937. It involved seizing key geographic locations, Halifax and Vancouver among them, before moving on Ottawa to complete US control.) Was walking this tightrope insufficient a challenge, King had to do so while also assuring support of, or at a minimum not too greatly alienating, French Canadians comprising one-third of the country’s population. This last was a constant backdrop to any decision made (or, often, decisions not made in the interest of King’s retaining political noncommitment on sensitive issues). “English Canada” was firmly behind buttressing those who shared their language across the Atlantic. French Canada was far less enthused. The differences went beyond language and views regarding Europe, sometimes starkly so. Conscription was one of those issues around which King frequently danced. Little wonder as, Cook tells us, 75 precent of English Canadian voters favored its introduction while French Canadians were 72 percent opposed.

Canada’s commitment of military manpower during WWII was significant, even vital, to Commonwealth undertakings. Their participation on D-Day and thereafter speaks for itself. It was Canadian soldiers who by far made up the largest contingent landing at Dieppe during the 1942 disaster. Though Churchill and Mountbatten (the latter the leader responsible for planning and leading the operation) would later claim the lessons learned were essential to D-Day’s success, historians find little justification for the assertion. Cook here takes the opportunity to give his measure of Mountbatten as military leader as he frankly does so elsewhere with others, Canadian General Harry Crerar suffering Cook’s wrath on more than one occasion. So too does British General Christopher Maltby for his dismal performance during the failed defense of Hong Kong. The fall of Hong Kong came but weeks after Canada supported London’s calls for assistance by dispatching two infantry battalions to bolster the colony’s defenses only to have them suffer death, wounds, and internment. Little wonder the Canadian cabinet chose to significantly reduce their country’s participation in the Pacific once the war in Europe wound down. As for Mountbatten, Cook later returns to highlight the man’s “fanciful approach to warfare, [one including] his bizarre suggestion that the [US-Canadian First Special Service] Force float around the ocean in a hollowed-out glacier from which it would ‘emerge periodically and attack selected objectives.’” (page 362)

Cook intimates King was better served on the civilian side than military. His choice of American-born Clarence Decatur Howe—businessman, member of Parliament, former Minister of Transport, and (during the war) Minister of Munitions and Supply—had responsibilities so broadly ranging he was commonly referred to as the “Minister of Everything.” Competent, hard-working, but wise in knowing how and to whom to delegate authority, Howe oversaw an expansion of Canadian war production no less dramatic than took place in the United States. Both common sense and reality advised the two nations to avoid manufacturing redundancies when feasible. They agreed the US would manufacture more complex weapons, allowing Canada to focus on small arms munitions and artillery systems. The division of labor made sense given both North American countries’ industrial starting point. In 1940, London asked the Canadians to provide over “300 tanks, 72,000 vehicles, 3,450 artillery pieces, 100,000 rifles, and 42,600 Bren light machine guns.” Six months before, Canada “possessed no capacity to make any of these weapons or military vehicles.” (83) Agreements to divide who did what notwithstanding, Canada’s production ranged well beyond small arms and indirect fire systems alone. Such was evident in Cook’s observation that though “no Canadian units were involved in the ground war [in North Africa], every second vehicle in Monty’s Eighth Army had come from [Canada’s] production lines.” (346)

Contracts for war material and supplies provide further measure of the transformation, going from $11.6M in April 1940 to $148M the following October. Production skills and tools were among the original shortfalls that had to be overcome. The contrast between the boldness of fast-incoming requests and potential consequences of such limitations were even more striking in light of Canada’s broader lack of readiness for war. The Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) had but ten warships and 3,000 sailors in 1939, the year Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Akin to its southern neighbor, Canada would see phenomenal growth not only in industrial capacity but military might as well. Considering the RCN alone, by war’s end the country had expanded naval manpower thirty fold in a sea force that was then the fourth largest in the world.

Canada was not alone in meeting British calls for assistance, of course. Both King and Howe recognized working with the United States helped both North American countries in addition to those benefiting from their output, Great Britain foremost among them in the war’s earlier years but later Russia and other allies. The earliest were years when the US, its president in particular, struggled to find its feet in the quagmire of internal politics and popular opinion split in their views on entry into another war. Diplomatic and legal dancing necessitated by the country’s Neutrality Act further complicated efforts to support opposition to Germany and its allies. The result was a steeplechase rife with hurdles, traps, quicksand, and myriad other obstacles. The hurdles often proved more unscalable walls than mere vaults. Prohibitions such as barring weapons sales to belligerent nations necessitated circumventing rather than directly overcoming such obstacles. A cautious FDR began preparing the domestic political terrain well before US entry into the conflict. Removing two isolationists from his cabinet in June 1940 helped in navigating the way ahead. The president replaced both with internationalists. Henry Stimson became Secretary of War, Frank Knox Secretary of the Navy. The two were Republicans in a Democratic administration, a move calculated to cultivate confederates supportive of bringing others in the opposing party on board. Neutral the United States might officially be, but in September 1940 FDR met Churchill’s request for ships by sending fifty World War I-period destroyers. Here the dance around neutrality constraints succeeded by avoiding formal sales. The US instead received 99-year, rent-free leases on bases in various British Commonwealth locations: islands in the Caribbean, Bermuda, and—notably and most troublingly to Canada—Newfoundland. (The last could only enflame fears regarding future US incursions into Canada, but Churchill was not impinging on the country’s sovereignty as Newfoundland was a British self-governing dominion until it became a part of Canada in 1949. By the 1950s, most of the agreement’s resulting bases and leases were given up by the US.) Whether ships, weapons, food, or other wartime necessities, Great Britain compensated its American provider, disappointing a Churchill hopeful the fellow democracy would support its cross-ocean cousin gratis. Lend Lease provided another way to circumvent political, legal, and diplomatic hazards. Not all forms of aid could be rapped with a knuckle or fed to readying troops. The US agreeing to assist in protecting convoys in the western Atlantic and confirming its willingness to take on responsibilities to guard North America against German incursions meant Canada could commit ships elsewhere and send men to England that would otherwise have to stay to defend the homeland. (Such “soft” or indirect aid has something of a parallel in Europe today. Several European countries have restrictions on how long refugees can remain before their having to move on or return to their country of origin. Ukraine doesn’t need the additional burden millions of returnees would impose were even a portion of its over five million refugees forced to return during its ongoing war. That many countries extended the time limit means Kyiv’s leaders can instead commit additional resources to supporting internally displaced citizens, defending against continued Russian aggression, or national recovery, the latter already being addressed even as war continues.)

Unbeknownst to Canada at the time, in July 1940 the US Army’s Chief of Staff General George Marshall suggested the US should ready to “rescue” Canada with up to 30,000 soldiers should Germans seek to land in its maritime provinces. The Canadians had not been involved in the discussions. Washington wisely let the idea wither. Though it might seem fantastical in the 21st century (at least until a year or so ago), such maneuverings ensured Canadian fears regarding American domination never completely dissipated even as the two country’s respect and support for each other grew. Canada immediately demonstrated its backing for the United States in the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor, declaring war against Japan even before the United States. Citizens from both countries served in the military of the other. Some 2,000 Americans had returned to the US by August 1942 after enlisting in Canada’s army. Yet 14,000 (approximately the strength of a US Army infantry division) stayed despite the pay being lower north of the border. Another 9,000 served in the Royal Canadian Air Force; at least 797 of them died (as did 107 in the Canadian Army). Some moved in the other direction. Charles A. MacGillivary was among Canadians enlisting in the US military after Pearl Harbor. Later accepting US citizenship, he earned the Medal of Honor during his service with the US Army. Such exchanges had counterparts in the economic arena. The United States took advantage of Canada’s natural wealth and growing manufacturing prowess as conflict progressed, coming to purchase approximately $300M of Canadian goods annually. In 1945 the Dominion had, for the first time, a favorable balance of trade with the US. Resources obtained from Canada included aluminum crucial in aircraft and other weapons production. Only Congo and Canada among countries in the Allied sphere of influence produced uranium. It was the Canada’s that made possible the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Cook reminds readers that the US proved World War II’s dominant munitions producer among Western nations, the country’s output being 61 percent of the whole. Great Britain was a distant second with 33 percent. Canada was third at 5 percent. That might pale in comparison with the first two, but Canada’s munitions production exceeded all other minor Allied powers’ combined, including Australia, India, New Zealand, and South Africa, no small measure of Canada’s importance to the war effort.

Canada and the United States cooperated in other domains as well. Concerns regarding German incursions reached beyond Canadian or US shores. Both were concerned Germany would attempt to use Greenland, Iceland, or France’s islands off Newfoundland as bases of some sort given it had occupied Denmark and France. (The French possession, the Saint Pierre and Miquelon archipelago, consists of eight islands that had aligned with Vichy France. Free French forces bloodlessly took control on December 24, 1941. The islands continue as French possessions today, having a population of just over 5,000.). Both countries sent forces to Greenland and Iceland. There they sometimes found themselves confronting German presence such as weather stations on the former.

Even the best of books will have the occasional shortfall. Those in Cook’s The Good Allies are few. He tends to cite months in placing events’ chronological locations, sometimes leaving any mention of a year so distant as to make broader placement difficult. Statistics would have occasionally benefited from greater context, his noting, RCN “warships…provided 48 percent of the convoy escorts in the North Atlantic, compared to 50 percent by the British and a paltry 2 percent by the Americans, as the US was focused on the Pacific campaign” does not specify whether this was for the entire war, only after the US joined the conflict, or otherwise. A government of Canada website in contrast states “roughly 35 percent of convoy traffic” was Canadian escorted, apparently referring to operations only in late 1942. [344 and Marc Milner, “The Battle of the Atlantic, 1939 to 1945,” Government of Canada, from The Naval Service of Canada 1910-2010: The Centennial Story, “Chapter 5: Fighting the U-Boats, 1939-45,” (March 24, 2018), https://www.canada.ca/en/navy/services/history/naval-service-1910-2010/battle-atlantic-1939-1945.html] Such trivial observations are, well, just that when considering so well done a work.

Churchill and FDR both eventually came around in overtly recognizing the value of Canada’s participation during World War II. Washington offered Canada the opportunity to participate in the Marshall Plan. It did not, but European recipients provided a significant bump to the Canadian economy when the United States permitted those countries to spend Marshall Plan funds on Canadian goods. (Brilliantly designed, the Marshall Plan benefited both those receiving funds and countries such as the US and Canada to whose industries the monies went.) Though far from as supportive of Canada as he could have been, Churchill too revealed his appreciation later in the war. After failing to block Charles De Gaulle’s participation at the Yalta Conference, he wrote, “It is not French blood that is being shed to any extent in any quarter of the globe…. Canada has more right to be considered the ‘Fourth Power.’” (472)

Antebellum apprehensions remained despite the respect the United States and Canada had come to develop for each other by war’s end. King argued Canada should provide postwar financial support to Great Britain, believing the UK’s value as a foil against US annexation remained essential, a foil that would evaporate were Great Britain’s economy to fail. That support was consistent with Cook’s summary of Canada’s World War II conundrum as articulated in The Good Allies final pages:

"Strategic actions throughout the war were predicated on assisting Britain in the fight against the Axis powers and on pursuing its own national interests as a junior if important ally in the Anglo-American coalition. At the same time, this delicate balancing act could not be achieved without a close alliance with the United States. Canada sought to position itself between its closest allies, anxious to support where possible, while also struggling to stand on its own." (491)

20. An Ambassador’s Journal By David Scheffer of Arizona State University

Summary:

An Ambassador’s Journal introduces David Scheffer’s bi-weekly Substack as a practitioner's guide to atrocity, law, and responsibility. Writing from experience as the first US Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues, Scheffer grounds international justice in lived history rather than abstraction. His opening essay uses Nuremberg as a lens to examine how evil manifests, how law evolves under pressure, and why accountability matters even when norms are unfinished. The journal blends legal history, diplomacy, and moral inquiry, linking the Holocaust, modern tribunals, and today’s debates over prevention. It is not advocacy dressed as scholarship, but memory sharpened into warning.

An Ambassador’s Journal By David Scheffer of Arizona State University

by SWJ Staff

01.25.2026 at 04:32am

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2026/01/25/an-ambassadors-journal-by-david-scheffer-of-arizona-state-university/

David J. Scheffer Opening Statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the Creation of an International Criminal Court Following the Rome Conference.

An Ambassador’s Journal is a new bi-weekly publication on Substack from Arizona State University’s David Scheffer. By subscribing to his substack, you will get to know Professor Scheffer and dive deep into historical topics in world affairs. In his first essay he states, “Given my personal history with international justice, I aim to share my experiences, insights, and stories about the individuals who masterminded atrocity crimes (genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, aggression) that some of you may not know much if anything about, but they occurred in our time and on our watch.”

Professor Scheffer was the first U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues (1997-2001). He negotiated the creation of five war crimes tribunals and chaired the Atrocities Prevention Inter-Agency Working Group (1998-2001). He served on the Deputies Committee of the National Security Council and as Senior Adviser and Counsel to Dr. Madeleine Albright, the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, from 1993-1996. His books include “All the Missing Souls: A Personal History of the War Crimes Tribunals” (Princeton 2012), “The Sit Room: In the Theater of War and Peace” (Oxford 2019), and “The UN Charter: Five Pillars for Humankind” (Springer 2025, co-author Mark S. Ellis).

Below is Ambassador Scheffer’s first substack essay titled, “What if we could dissect evil?” (Dr. Douglas Kelley, Chief Psychiatrist portrayed in the film, Nuremberg).

Subscribe to his impactful substack!

Welcome to An Ambassador’s Journal, my new Substack essay appearing bi-weekly. This is an ambassador’s journal because I was the first U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues, serving from 1997 to 2001, and I am going to write about mostly historical topics in world affairs. Given my personal history with international justice, I aim to share my experiences, insights, and stories about the individuals who masterminded atrocity crimes (genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, aggression) that some of you may not know much if anything about, but they occurred in our time and on our watch. The trials that brought them to justice in the modern war crimes tribunals are powerful testaments to historical memory, what we owe the victims, and the significance of what I call “forever law,” namely international legal principles that are expressions of everlasting values in our lives. My book, All the Missing Souls: A Personal History of the War Crimes Tribunals (Princeton, 2012), tells my own story of the building of the modern war crimes tribunals during the 1990’s while I served in the Clinton Administration and where these trials have been held during the last several decades.

I embark on this journey inspired, in part, by the enormous amount of interest, not only in America but globally, about “true crime” stories that populate the print media, podcasts, and film. Those of you captivated by such stories of crime and punishment will be introduced to the mass atrocities that scar vast swaths of the world’s surface and leave millions of victims in their wake. To put it bluntly, atrocity crimes are typically egregious assaults on people who are defenseless. Occasionally I intend to step into other domains that might intrigue you.

You may have viewed or plan to view the superbly-acted new movie, Nuremberg (Sony Pictures Classic), starring Russell Crowe and Rami Malek and directed by James Vanderbilt. The movie is streaming on Prime Video now and eventually on Netflix. Because the film frames atrocities in the context of the Nuremberg Trials and has attracted much attention these days, I focus this first essay on the historical context of the movie and introduce you briefly to some other films about prosecuting the Holocaust. Later essays advance forward to the trials of the modern war crimes tribunals.

Nuremberg—released on the 80th anniversary of the start of the trials before the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany, in November 1945—focuses on the individual whose name takes center stage in the most famous Nuremberg judgment: Hermann Göring, Supreme Commander of the Luftwaffe and Adolf Hitler’s close collaborator and designated successor during World War II. I don’t want to spoil the granular plot line for those who have not yet seen the film, but bear in mind the following about what transpired at Nuremberg:

The major objective of the American lead prosecutor, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson (portrayed by Michael Shannon), was to prosecute the crime of planning, preparing, initiating or waging a war of aggression, or participating in a common plan or conspiracy to do so, which the movie depicts in Jackson’s opening statement. Given the state of international law at the time, it would be no easy task to criminalize Hitler’s invasion of other countries. Just prior to his departure to Europe to negotiate the London Charter that would govern the Nuremberg Tribunal, Jackson wrote President Harry S. Truman that they would have to create new international law in the process. Jackson knew that the historical case for the criminality of a war of aggression would have to be sold to the judges and the public as an evolving customary rule that nations have adopted over the years in both practice and diplomacy. The Nuremberg Tribunal’s final judgment accepted that proposition.

During the trial in Courtroom 600 of the Nuremberg Palace of Justice, which remains an active courtroom to this day and the site of many events of the International Nuremberg Principles Academy, the public’s attention and indeed the final exchange with Göring on the witness stand shifted from a war of aggression to the crimes against humanity committed against civilian populations. The British prosecutor knew how to bring that powerful point home in the courtroom and the movie depicts this. Although the very new term “genocide” was known to the prosecution team, it was not yet a precisely defined international crime and did not appear in the London Charter. So, no defendant at Nuremberg was convicted of the mega-crime of genocide per se, namely acting with the specific intent to destroy an entire or sizable part of a group of people simply because of their national, ethnical, racial or religious identity. The intentional mass murder of millions of Jews—the Holocaust—was starkly portrayed in the courtroom but those deaths and the grievous horrors of the concentration camps were prosecuted as more selective crimes against humanity, meaning murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against civilians, as well as various acts of persecution on political, racial or religious grounds.

Nuremberg centers its plot on Crowe, portraying Göring, and Malik as Dr. Douglas Kelley, the chief psychiatrist selected to interview Göring and the other Nazi defendants to determine whether they had the mental capacity, or competency, to stand trial. Dr. Kelley found only one of the Nazi defendants, Robert Ley, to be insane. Ley committed suicide before the trial even began, which the movie depicts. However, Dr. Kelley’s book, 22 Cells in Nuremberg. A Psychiatrist Examines the Nazi Criminals (1947), which explains his findings about the psyche of each defendant, failed to attract many readers. How, after all, does evil manifest itself in the minds of war criminals? In the film, Dr. Kelley asks “What sets these men apart from all others? What enabled them to commit the crimes that they did?” If we understood that phenomenon better, we could confront such mass murderers before they commit more slaughters so as to strategize prevention tactics. But such psychological insights are rarely provided. Dr. Kelley’s post-war career came crashing down with his suicide in 1958 the same way Göring ended life, with a potassium cyanide pill.

In a subsequent trial before a U.S. military tribunal sitting in Courtroom 600, the word “genocide” was invoked occasionally by the young American prosecutor, Ben Ferencz, during the Einsatzgruppen case. (The International Military Tribunal only prosecuted the major Nazi war criminals in the famous trial that included Göring. The U.S. military tribunals were American-administered courts that held 12 additional trials of lower-level German officials.) Ferencz, who during his lifetime became a highly effective champion of international criminal justice, brought 24 Nazi SS officers to justice for the mass killing of more than one million civilians, mostly Jews, on the East European Front and the Soviet Union. Again, however, the convictions centered on crimes against humanity and war crimes. Following the Einsatzgruppen case of early 1948, the Genocide Convention was adopted at the United Nations General Assembly in December 1948 and thereafter the crime of genocide, well defined and codified in the treaty, became the basis for criminal trials against individuals who “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.”

If you want to read my book chapter that provides more insight into the Nuremberg Trial, see file:///Users/dscheff1/Downloads/1st IHL Dialogs (2007).pdf (pp. 155-182). The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is soon posting my report illuminating key principles found in judgments about the crime of genocide in international and national courts.

There are some free and easily accessible recent films that bring the Nuremberg legacy, and what followed, to light. An interview of me appears in Prosecuting Evil: The Extraordinary World of Ben Ferencz (available on YouTube). I knew Ferencz as a colleague in law for several decades. I am interviewed in Nazi VR about the breakthrough in German courts of prosecuting those who aided and abetted the Holocaust, a topic also addressed in an excellent documentary on Amazon Prime, The Accountant of Auschwitz.

I’ve led an eclectic life in the world of international law and diplomacy. While my standard bio recites raw data, you will get to know me better as you read this bi-weekly journal.

What I am reading: Judgment at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia, by Gary J. Bass (Knopf, 2023). The story of prosecuting the major Japanese war criminals of World War II has never shared equal attention with the Nuremberg Trials. But it is just as compelling and infused with the remarkably complex personalities of the defendants, judges, prosecutors, defense counsel, and U.S. Army General Douglas MacArthur, who oversaw the occupation of Japan. I was interviewed in the 1990’s by the author, Gary Bass, when he was a reporter for The Economist. He has since become an award-winning author and distinguished professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University.

Tags: Arizona State University, crimes against humanity, David Scheffer, Genocide, Genocide Prosecution, Nazis, Nuremberg, Substack, SWJ Videos, War Crimes

About The Author

SWJ Staff
SWJ Staff searches the internet daily for articles and posts that we think are of great interests to our readers.

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

https://apstrategy.org/

Executive Director, Korea Regional Review

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

Editor-at-large, Small Wars Journal

https://smallwarsjournal.com/

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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

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

Access NSS HERE

Company Name | Website