Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"I salute the man who is going through life always helpful, knowing no fear, and to whom aggressiveness and resentment are alien."

– Albert Einstein

"The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger - but recognize the opportunity."

– John F. Kennedy

"Retribution often means that we eventually do to ourselves what we have done unto others."

– Eric Hoffer

1. U.S. Special Operations helicopters, B-52s near Venezuela expand Caribbean mission

2. Top U.S. Admiral Overseeing Caribbean Deployments to Step Down

3. Venezuela Mobilizes Troops and Militias as U.S. Military Looms Offshore

4. Trump Says He Will Meet With Putin in Budapest to Discuss End to Ukraine War

5. Russia’s Wartime Adaptation Against Ukraine

6. Microsoft: Russia, China increasingly using AI to escalate cyberattacks on the US

7. Why the U.S. Is Losing the Cognitive Competition

8. Forgotten history of the Wilbur J Cohen Building - There is so much more to the story than being home to VOA since 1954

9. Allies United Against China on Rare Earths

10. The military’s big gamble on small nuclear reactors

11. The Second Front: PRC Micro-Occupation in the Philippines, Part 2

12. Democratized Intelligence: How Open-Source Intelligence is Reshaping Asymmetric Advantage

13. Irregular Solutions for Irregular Threats: Maritime Lessons from Dutch Counterpiracy Operations in Colonial Indonesia

14. Finally, Japan is standing up for itself

15. Developing | China expels He Weidong, Miao Hua and 7 other generals from party and military

16. An Internet Shutdown Cuts Off Iranians From One Another, and the World

17. Why U.S. Strikes Against Drug Boats Matter

18. Trump threatens US military force in Gaza amid fragile ceasefire

19. Infantry brigades shift to mobile brigades in Army transformation

20. US military’s Libya outreach adds rung as rival sides to join special operations exercise

21. Russia Is Arming Drones With North Korean Cluster Weapons, Report Says

22. How to Build an Economic and Security Order That Works for America

23. Asia’s Trump Problem: The Region Lacks Leaders Who Connect With the U.S. President

24. A C.I.A. Secret Kept for 35 Years Is Found in the Smithsonian’s Vault

25. Poems About The Pentagon

26. I resigned from the military because of Trump

1. U.S. Special Operations helicopters, B-52s near Venezuela expand Caribbean mission

B-52s and Little Birds. Quite a combination.

Are we telegraphing our punches? Or is "all warfare based on deception?"

Excerpts:

Visuals that circulated on social media in early October appeared to show MH-6 Little Bird attack helicopters and MH-60 Black Hawks over open water near oil and gas platforms. A visual analysis of the platforms and visible terrain indicates the helicopters were flying off Trinidad’s northeast coast, bringing them within 90 miles of several points along Venezuela’s coastline.

The aircraft are likely operated by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The unit flies missions for commandos like Navy SEALs, Green Berets and Delta Force, and has gained renown for undertaking complex and dangerous operations such as the raid to kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

The inclusion of Little Birds — small attack aircraft designed to insert operators onto the ground and provide close air support — suggests preparations for potential missions that could see U.S. boots on the ground, Cancian said.

The Black Hawks could be used in support, he added, carrying additional troops, combat search-and-rescue or other capabilities.

The helicopters were conducting training flights to keep proficient and provide options for Trump and the Pentagon in the ongoing missions in the region, a U.S. official said. The flights should not be taken as evidence of drills for a land assault into Venezuela, the official cautioned, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing operations.

The Pentagon did not address questions about the operations. “The Department will not respond to speculation about military operations based on analysis by ‘experts,’” Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said.

U.S. Special Operations helicopters, B-52s near Venezuela expand Caribbean mission

The elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment appears to have flown within 90 miles of Venezuela, according to a Post visual analysis. Trump has authorized CIA covert action inside the country.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/10/16/special-operations-helicopters-venezuela/

UpdatedOctober 16, 2025 at 4:38 p.m. EDTtoday at 4:38 p.m. EDT

5 min

Summary

1,012

An MH-6 Little Bird helicopter flies over Tampa Bay, Florida, during a capabilities demonstration in May 2024. (Luke Sharrett/Getty Images)

By Alex Horton and Samuel Oakford

The U.S. military’s elite Special Operations aviation unit appears to have flown in Caribbean waters less than 90 miles from the coast of Venezuela in recent days, according to a visual analysis by The Washington Post.

The helicopters were engaged in training exercises, according to a U.S. official, that could serve as preparation for expanded conflict against alleged drug traffickers, including potentially missions inside Venezuela.

The U.S. military has struck at least five boats allegedly carrying illegal narcotics in international waters, killing at least 27 people, according to U.S. officials, the last one occurring on Tuesday. President Donald Trump said Wednesday he had authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to conduct missions inside the country.

The U.S. has declared it is in “armed conflict” with drug traffickers, though lawmakers and legal experts have said the strikes are unlawful killings of people who are suspected criminals and not battlefield combatants.

Follow Trump’s second term

Visuals that circulated on social media in early October appeared to show MH-6 Little Bird attack helicopters and MH-60 Black Hawks over open water near oil and gas platforms. A visual analysis of the platforms and visible terrain indicates the helicopters were flying off Trinidad’s northeast coast, bringing them within 90 miles of several points along Venezuela’s coastline.

The aircraft are likely operated by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The unit flies missions for commandos like Navy SEALs, Green Berets and Delta Force, and has gained renown for undertaking complex and dangerous operations such as the raid to kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

The inclusion of Little Birds — small attack aircraft designed to insert operators onto the ground and provide close air support — suggests preparations for potential missions that could see U.S. boots on the ground, Cancian said.

The Black Hawks could be used in support, he added, carrying additional troops, combat search-and-rescue or other capabilities.

The helicopters were conducting training flights to keep proficient and provide options for Trump and the Pentagon in the ongoing missions in the region, a U.S. official said. The flights should not be taken as evidence of drills for a land assault into Venezuela, the official cautioned, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing operations.

The Pentagon did not address questions about the operations. “The Department will not respond to speculation about military operations based on analysis by ‘experts,’” Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said.

Trinidad and Tobago’s Minister of Homeland Security Roger Alexander did not respond to a request for comment.

A U.S. Navy SEAL jumps into Tampa Bay from an MH-60 Blackhawk helicopter during a capabilities demonstration in May 2024. (Luke Sharrett/Getty Images)

The MV Ocean Trader, a commercial vessel reconfigured into a stealthy floating Special Operations base, appears to have recently operated in the Caribbean and may have some relationship to the aircraft, experts said.

The ship can carry about 200 personnel, about 150 of whom are dedicated to special missions, said Bradley Martin, a senior policy researcher at the Rand Corporation and former Navy surface warfare captain. It can hold multiple aircraft, Martin said, including potentially the numerous helicopters shown in the video. It also can provide refueling and maintenance services, he said.

Satellite imagery from Sept. 25 showed a ship matching the length and visual composition of the MV Ocean Trader docked at St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. On Oct. 6, satellite imagery appeared to show the same ship operating in the Caribbean just over 40 miles east of Trinidad — within a few dozen miles from where the helicopters were filmed.

About a tenth of all deployed U.S. naval power is in the region, a “seismic” reordering of assets, analysts have said, including a submarine, a fleet of destroyers and F-35 fighters mobilized in Puerto Rico.

Three U.S. B-52 strategic bombers have also been flying in the area, an Air Force official said, adding to a hefty military presence in the area.

The U.S. also dispatched numerous C-17 Globemaster large transportation aircraft to St. Croix in recent weeks, according to flight records, including flights that landed while the Ocean Trader was in port there. Those flights showed departures from various U.S. bases, including Fort Campbell in Kentucky, where 160th is headquartered and keeps its Little Birds, according to the Army.

Venezuela has robust air-defense systems, which could pose a threat to U.S. aircraft.

Caracas uses Russian-made systems, including long-range S-300 missile launchers and other weapons that are difficult to track because they can be easily moved, Cancian said. Such systems do not pose much of a threat to U.S. helicopters when they are operating in the sea, he said. But short-range shoulder-launched weapons like the SA-24 — which can detect heat signatures from helicopter turbine engines — and the country’s fleet of antiaircraft guns are particularly vexing should the aircraft cross into Venezuelan overland territory.

“These are arguably the most dangerous because they are so hard to find and could ambush helicopters passing overhead,” Cancian said.

A bipartisan measure to block the Trump administration’s lethal strikes on alleged Venezuelan drug traffickers fell short in the Senate last week, a failure of lawmakers to assert their constitutional role in deciding if and how the U.S. enters a war.

Military officials in multiple classified briefings have not definitively identified the victims or explained why the military is using deadly force rather than the long-standing protocol of interdicting vessels at sea, Democratic lawmakers have said.

Samantha Schmidt in Bogotá, Javier Zarracina, Andrew Ba Tran and Tara Copp in Washington contributed to this report.

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Top U.S. Admiral Overseeing Caribbean Deployments to Step Down

Admiral Alvin Holsey’s retirement comes as the U.S. ramps up operations against alleged drug traffickers in Latin America

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/head-of-u-s-southern-command-to-step-down-at-years-end-2d3d66ed?mod=hp_lead_pos3

By Lara Seligman

Updated Oct. 16, 2025 4:59 pm ET

U.S. Navy Admiral Alvin Holsey martin cossarini/Reuters

The four-star U.S. Navy admiral overseeing the growing deployment of military assets in the Caribbean will step down, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday, as the Trump administration intensifies its campaign against alleged drug traffickers in Latin America.

Adm. Alvin Holsey is cutting a typically four-year term as the head of U.S. Southern Command short after just a year overseeing U.S. forces in South and Central America.

Holsey, who has spent 37 years in the military, said his retirement would be effective Dec. 12. “The SOUTHCOM team has made lasting contributions to the defense of our nation and will continue to do so,” he wrote on X. “I am confident that you will forge ahead, focused on your mission that strengthens our nation and ensures its longevity as a beacon of freedom around the globe.”

The administration has faced growing scrutiny over the legal basis for the strikes from inside the Pentagon and lawmakers on Capitol Hill. President Trump told Congress in a confidential notice that he has determined the U.S. is in a “noninternational armed conflict” with cartels, but lawmakers from both parties are pushing the Pentagon for more details on the legal justification for the campaign.

The announcement that Holsey is leaving his post comes just days after Trump said there had been a fifth lethal strike on an alleged drug-trafficking boat off the coast of Venezuela, bringing the total number of people killed in the strikes to 27. Trump said U.S. intelligence determined the vessel was trafficking drugs but didn’t publicly provide evidence.

Inside the Pentagon, military lawyers and other officials have raised concerns centering on the basis for the strikes themselves as well as the legal implications for U.S. military personnel involved in the operations. Some defense officials have provided written and verbal legal opinions to decision makers at the Pentagon, but think they are being deliberately sidelined, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

Venezuela Mobilizes Troops and Militias as U.S. Military Looms Offshore

Maduro says his country is ready for combat, though its military is underfunded, ill-trained and no match for American firepower

https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/venezuela-military-movement-militia-c59ca9ef

By Juan Forero

Follow, Kejal Vyas

Follow, José de Córdoba

Follow and Lara Seligman

Oct. 16, 2025 9:00 pm ET

Members of a Venezuelan militia group stand in formation during a training last week in Caracas. Gaby Oraa/Reuters

Venezuela is moving troops into position on the Caribbean coast and mobilizing what President Nicolás Maduro asserts is a millions-strong militia in a display of defiance against the biggest American military buildup in the Caribbean since the 1980s.

The strongman’s regime has cranked up its propaganda machine. On state television, radio and social media, announcers are telling Venezuelans that the U.S. is a rapacious Nazi-like state that wants to dig its claws into the country’s oil wealth but that the Venezuelan military, the National Bolivarian Armed Forces, are positioning to repel any invasion.

Footage has shown militia members—men and women; often elderly, slightly plump Venezuelans—running obstacle courses, crawling under barbed wire and firing rifles. The Venezuelan armed forces, which military experts say on paper number 125,000 soldiers, are shown marching in formation, with troops mounting armored vehicles and moving boxes of munitions around. The country’s Russian-made jet fighters are featured in footage shooting across the skies.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro Miguel Gutierrez/EPA/Shutterstock

“The people are ready for combat, ready for battle,” Maduro told a crowd of supporters earlier this week.

The regime’s aggressive posturing obscures the vulnerability of its armed forces against the world’s most powerful military. Experts say the U.S. buildup isn’t enough to support an invasion of Venezuela but would be sufficient to support sustained strikes on boats allegedly carrying drugs to the U.S. or the bombing of targets on Venezuela’s soil, as President Trump has warned.

The U.S. has moved advanced weaponry into the Caribbean and in the skies north of Venezuela, including eight Navy warships, an attack submarine, F-35B jet fighters, P-8 Poseidon spy planes and MQ-9 Reaper drones.

The Pentagon has deployed elite special operations forces, including the Army’s secretive 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, the “Night Stalkers,” a U.S. official said. The unit flies missions for commandos such as the Green Berets, The Navy SEALs and Delta Force and is famous for its involvement in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Large troop-carrying and attack helicopters are part of the mix, with some aircraft conducting training flights fewer than 90 miles from Venezuela, the official said.

A U.S. Navy warship docks in Panama City. The Pentagon has moved advanced weaponry into the Caribbean region, including eight Navy warships and an attack submarine. Martin Bernetti/AFP/Getty Images

The Pentagon also dispatched B-52 bombers on Wednesday near La Orchila, according to flight tracking data, a Venezuelan island where Maduro’s forces carried out drills last month featuring jets, warships and amphibious vehicles. The aircraft carry heavy payloads but also do surveillance.

So far, the U.S. has carried out at least five strikes on alleged drug boats, killing 27 in an unusual display of American force against narcotics trafficking. The bombings are controversial. Some American lawmakers say the killings are tantamount to extrajudicial executions. The Trump administration says the alleged drug traffickers are terrorists who pose an imminent threat.

The four-star U.S. Navy admiral overseeing the buildup of military assets in the Caribbean is stepping down early.

In response to the American military action, Maduro has surrounded himself with military men and sounded a call to arms.

Maduro ordered his military brass to expand efforts to recruit from the country’s indigenous communities to buttress the civilian militias he says would try to stop an American landing.

“Raise your hands if you want to be a slave to the gringos,” Maduro said. “If you want peace, get ready to earn peace.”

The government also counts on Colombian armed groups that have long been permitted to operate in Venezuela, including the battle-hardened ELN, which can be used to head off potential street protests in opposition to the regime and hold down key areas in the interior, said Alberto Romero, a former high-ranking Colombian intelligence officer.

Footage of Maduro’s top lieutenants—among them Diosdado Cabello, considered the country’s No. 2, and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López—shows them preparing defenses across the country.

Venezuelan National Guardsmen patrol at the country’s international border with Colombia. Schneyder Mendoza/AFP/Getty Images

In one, Cabello is in camouflaged fatigues as he drives himself along a highway en route to a militia deployment in the country’s west.

“It’s important the world knows that Venezuela is a country of peace,” he says, “but we are fierce beasts when we have to defend it.”

Venezuela is hardly ready for any American action. An economy that had been showing tiny signs of life not long ago is in a free fall, predicted to contract 3% in 2026 with inflation to hit 682%, said the International Monetary Fund.

Its military is in shambles, former high-ranking army officers and other experts say. Experienced officers were forced into exile or fired to ensure that only Maduro loyalists remained. Ordinary soldiers are poorly fed, and there is little in the way of logistics to provide the provisions for deployed units, said Edward Rodriguez, a former colonel now exiled in the U.S.

“They have been systematically worn down,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez said he thinks the government is simply trying to put up “a smoke screen to wait out or at least frighten American troops a little bit so they don’t come in. They know it’s a lost cause but they’re trying to buy time.”

Another former top officer now in the U.S. said the regime hasn’t been able to carry out any significant troop deployment since August. That was when soldiers were sent to the Colombian border as Maduro—in an effort to blunt Trump’s criticism—asserted his government was actively battling cocaine trafficking from the neighboring country.

Venezuelan militiamen take part in a training in La Guaira, outside Caracas, earlier this month. Juan Barreto/AFP/Getty Images

Those shown deploying in coastal areas, he said, were already stationed in garrisons nearby. Morale is poor and training is deficient, the officer said. “Since Maduro came to power, the military has been trained to repress protests inside the country, rather than defend Venezuela in a conventional conflict,” he said.

Some Venezuelans say they are determined to slow the U.S. military should it dare attack.

“We are clear about the threat and that we could give our lives for the fatherland, to defend all of the country because thanks to Nicolás we have social benefits we can’t lose,” said Blanca Soto, 55 years old, a community leader in a working-class district of Caracas.

Trump Says He Will Meet With Putin in Budapest to Discuss End to Ukraine War

Two leaders speak before Zelensky’s visit to Washington as Trump considers new weapons for Kyiv

https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/trump-and-putin-to-speak-ahead-of-zelensky-meeting-a1846a93

By Lara Seligman

Follow, Meridith McGraw

Follow and Thomas Grove

Updated Oct. 16, 2025 7:01 pm ET

Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Trump at a news conference in Alaska in August. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Quick Summary

President Trump announced a coming meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest to discuss ending the war in Ukraine.View more

WASHINGTON—President Trump said Thursday he plans to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin for talks on ending the war with Ukraine, while signaling the U.S. was putting off any decision on sending Tomahawk missiles to Kyiv.

The agreement to hold the meeting in Budapest, at a date yet to be announced, came during a phone call between the two leaders a day before Trump is set to meet at the White House with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Trump said in a post on Truth Social that his call with Putin was a “very productive one.” The two leaders agreed to set up a meeting next week between high-level advisers, led by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. That would be followed by an in-person meeting between Trump and Putin in Hungary’s capital, Trump said.

Trump’s call with Putin appeared to dim prospects that the U.S. would send Tomahawk cruise missiles, capable of traveling 1,000 miles, to Ukraine. In recent days, he had signaled publicly and privately that he was leaning toward providing the missiles, according to two people familiar with the discussions.

But speaking to reporters on Thursday afternoon, the president indicated he had no immediate plans to provide Ukraine with the Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Trump said he discussed Tomahawk missiles with Putin a “little bit,” but added the weapons are needed for the U.S. as well. “We can’t deplete our country,” Trump said. “They’re very vital, they’re very powerful, they’re very accurate, they’re very good, but we need them, too.”

The president said he asked Putin during the call, “Would you mind if I gave a couple thousand Tomahawks to your opposition?” Putin, Trump said, “didn’t like the idea.” The president added, “You think he’s going to say, ‘I’d love to have Tomahawks sent my way?’”

Putin warned Trump during the call that supplying Kyiv with the missiles “won’t change the situation on the battlefield, but would cause substantial damage to the relationship between our countries,” according to Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign-policy adviser.

Ukraine’s ‘Flamingo’ Cruise Missile Can Strike 1,800 Miles Into Russia

Play video: Ukraine’s ‘Flamingo’ Cruise Missile Can Strike 1,800 Miles Into Russia

With a 20-foot wingspan and designed to carry a one-ton warhead, the Ukrainian-built “Flamingo” cruise missile can cause serious damage deep inside Russia territory. Here’s what we know about it. Photo: AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky

Zelensky said in a social-media post Thursday that he had arrived in Washington and was meeting with U.S. defense companies on “powerful weapons that can definitely strengthen our protection.” He also tied Trump’s latest diplomatic success in brokering an initial ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war to the continuing Russia-Ukraine war.

“Putin is certainly no braver than Hamas or any other terrorist. The language of strength and justice will inevitably work against Russia as well. We can already see that Moscow is rushing to resume dialogue as soon as it hears about Tomahawks,” Zelensky said.

In addition to Tomahawk missiles, Trump and Zelensky are expected to discuss other issues around Ukraine’s U.S.-provided long-range weapons, including U.S. restrictions on the use of these systems to strike inside Russia. The Biden administration sent Kyiv the Army Tactical Missile System, which can travel roughly 200 miles. But under Trump the Pentagon gave Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth the authority to veto any use of that weapon against targets in Russia.

The U.S. already has been providing Ukraine with intelligence for long-range strikes on energy infrastructure deep inside Russian territory, allowing Kyiv to hit refineries, pipelines, power stations and other targets, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

Since Trump’s August meeting with Putin in Alaska, the president had expressed frustration with the Russian leader over his refusal to compromise and bring an end to the war with Ukraine. Trump has floated placing punitive sanctions on Russia—a move supported by Zelensky and some Republicans in Congress—but has held off so far.

Trump gave no indication of any sanction plans in his readout of the call with Putin but told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday afternoon that he wanted to delay imposing punitive economic measures against Moscow. “I’m not against anything,” he said. “I’m just saying it may not be perfect timing.”

Russia’s Wartime Adaptation Against Ukraine

https://www.orfonline.org/research/russia-s-wartime-adaptation-against-ukraine?utm

Authors

Rahul Rawat

Rahul Rawat is a Research Assistant with ORF’s Strategic Studies Programme (SSP). He also coordinates the SSP activities. His work focuses on strategic issues in the ...

Rajoli Siddharth Jayaprakash

Rajoli Siddharth Jayaprakash is a Junior Fellow with the ORF Strategic Studies programme, focusing on Russia’s foreign policy and economy, and India-Russia relations. Siddharth is a ...

Introduction

On 24 February 2022, Russian forces crossed into Ukraine from Belarus in the north, Crimea in the south, Donbas in the southeast, and Kharkiv and Sumy in the northwest under the guise of a ‘special military operation’, to demilitarise Ukraine and ensure it remains neutral with minimal Western influence. Earlier, in winter 2021, Russia had deployed a larger number of troops on the Ukraine border and began constructing multiple military structures, including field hospitals, to deter Ukraine from joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Kyiv’s unwillingness to negotiate with Russia in late 2021 and early 2022 resulted in Russia launching an invasion to claim the territories along the left bank of the Dnieper River.

Russia expected to achieve this objective within weeks, but Ukrainian forces were able to push back, forcing the Russian military to focus on the Donbas and the Southeast regions. Moscow suffered considerable losses in the initial days, grappling with manpower shortages and supply concerns. Recognising the pitfalls in its planning and execution of war, Russia was able to adapt its strategy in the following months, making major changes in force structure, doctrinal thinking, preparedness, and the conduct of warfare, and has since made considerable gains. As of February 2025, Russian forces have captured 20 percent of Ukrainian territories, controlling over three-fourths of Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaparozhzia, and nearly all of Lugansk.

This paper assesses Russia’s military adaptations since 2023 at three levels of war—tactical, operational, and strategic—that have translated into battlefield gains. Notably, it presents a thematic analysis of Russia’s military adaptation, and not a temporal evolution of these actions.

Understanding Military Adaptation

Adaptation in the military context can be understood as “the alteration of existing competencies at either the institutional or operational level, to enhance performance based on perceived gaps or deficiencies generated by combat experience during wartime.” Two key elements of change are crucial: any adaptation should be of sufficient magnitude to transform how the military operates, and the change must result in an improved fit between the military and the environment, regardless of the pace of environmental changes.

Militaries often contend with the inherent incongruence between orders and discipline on the one hand and ground realities and feedback on the other, which can result in subordinates questioning the wisdom of command directives and plan orders. This tension, occasionally further driven by the myopia of senior generals and unforeseen environments, makes adaptation a necessity—and a challenge—for any military organisation.

The key elements of military adaptation are:

The capacity to gain and sustain environmental awareness of the system
The capacity to make changes (at different time scales and organisational levels) based on an environmental understanding and the notion of fitness
The capacity to retain and encode useful information that improves success
The ability to measure the success and failure of actions

Decoding Russian Thinking on New Wars

However, this strategy came under scrutiny following the invasion of Ukraine; the strategic emphasis on non-kinetic and hybrid warfare resulted in Russian forces having a limited impact in Ukraine. Notably, the Russian military had been configured to meet the demands of existing mission-based operations, rather than a major full-scale conventional war. In Moscow’s pre-war calculus, small regional conflicts did not necessitate the mobilisation of the population or the implementation of serious economic measures. Such thinking led Russia not to maintain a large standing army, and the existing force lacked the necessary level of readiness. As a result, the military-industrial complex focused on more ambitious, technologically advanced planning for long-term military operations and campaigns.

Aims and Objectives in Ukraine

Russia's involvement in Crimea, Donbas, and Syria has been labelled as either deniable or semi-overt in nature. In contrast, its aims and objectives in the ongoing war in Ukraine are issue-based yet flexible, subject to situation on the battlefield and beyond, despite a conventional military operation. Notably, following the initial setback, Russian President Vladimir Putin has avoided expressing clear political end goals to retain the advantage of manoeuvre in the future. In the early weeks of the war, when Russian and Ukrainian negotiators met in Türkiye, Moscow demanded Kyiv remain neutral, including by maintaining a limited armed force and not joining NATO. However, as the war progressed, Russia’s objectives became more maximalist, primarily due to the conflict's longevity and the need to justify the cost of the war (see Table 1 for examples of Russia’s security concerns and war objectives, based on statements by officials).

Continued at this link: https://www.orfonline.org/research/russia-s-wartime-adaptation-against-ukraine?utm

6. Microsoft: Russia, China increasingly using AI to escalate cyberattacks on the US

Do we recognize that we are in a cyber war right now? Do we understand that it is a key line of effort in China's Unrestricted Warfare strategy, Russia's New Generation or Nonlinear Warfare strategy or Iran's unconventional warfare strategy or north Korea's political warfare strategy with Juche characteristics (with its all purpose sword)?

Excerpts:

The U.S. is the top target for cyberattacks, with criminals and foreign adversaries targeting companies, governments and organizations in the U.S. more than any other country. Israel and Ukraine were the second and third most popular targets, showing how military conflicts involving those two nations have spilled over into the digital realm.

Russia, China and Iran have denied that they use cyber operations for espionage, disruption and disinformation. China, for instance, says the U.S. is trying to “ smear ” Beijing while conducting its own cyberattacks.

...

North Korea has pioneered a scheme in which it uses AI personas to create American identities allowing them to apply for remote tech jobs. North Korea’s authoritarian government pockets the salaries, while the hackers use their access to steal secrets or install malware.

It’s the kind of digital threat that will face more American organizations in the years to come as sophisticated AI programs make it easier for bad actors to deceive, according to Nicole Jiang, CEO of Fable, a San Francisco-based security company that uses AI to sniff out fake employees. AI is not only a tool for hackers, but also a critical defense against digital attackers, Jiang said.

“Cyber is a cat-and-mouse game,” she said. “Access, data, information, money: That’s what they’re after.”

Microsoft: Russia, China increasingly using AI to escalate cyberattacks on the US

By DAVID KLEPPER

Updated 4:19 PM EDT, October 16, 2025

Leer en español

https://apnews.com/article/ai-cybersecurity-russia-china-deepfakes-microsoft-ad678e5192dd747834edf4de03ac84ee

AP · DAVID KLEPPER · October 16, 2025

WASHINGTON (AP) — Russia, China, Iran and North Korea have sharply increased their use of artificial intelligence to deceive people online and mount cyberattacks against the United States, according to new research from Microsoft.

This July, the company identified more than 200 instances of foreign adversaries using AI to create fake content online, more than double the number from July 2024 and more than ten times the number seen in 2023.

The findings, published Thursday in Microsoft’s annual digital threats report, show how foreign adversaries are adopting new and innovative tactics in their efforts to weaponize the internet as a tool for espionage and deception.

AI’s potential said to be exploited by US foes

America’s adversaries, as well as criminal gangs and hacking companies, have exploited AI’s potential, using it to automate and improve cyberattacks, to spread inflammatory disinformation and to penetrate sensitive systems. AI can translate poorly worded phishing emails into fluent English, for example, as well as generate digital clones of senior government officials.

Government cyber operations often aim to obtain classified information, undermine supply chains, disrupt critical public services or spread disinformation. Cyber criminals on the other hand work for profit by stealing corporate secrets or using ransomware to extort payments from their victims. These gangs are responsible for the wide majority of cyberattacks in the world and in some cases have built partnerships with countries like Russia.

Increasingly, these attackers are using AI to target governments, businesses and critical systems like hospitals and transportation networks, according to Amy Hogan-Burney, Microsoft’s vice president for customer security and trust, who oversaw the report. Many U.S. companies and organizations, meanwhile, are getting by with outdated cyber defenses, even as Americans expand their networks with new digital connections.

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Companies, governments, organizations and individuals must take the threat seriously if they are to protect themselves amid escalating digital threats, she said.

“We see this as a pivotal moment where innovation is going so fast,” Hogan-Burney said. “This is the year when you absolutely must invest in your cybersecurity basics,”

US is a popular target

The U.S. is the top target for cyberattacks, with criminals and foreign adversaries targeting companies, governments and organizations in the U.S. more than any other country. Israel and Ukraine were the second and third most popular targets, showing how military conflicts involving those two nations have spilled over into the digital realm.

Russia, China and Iran have denied that they use cyber operations for espionage, disruption and disinformation. China, for instance, says the U.S. is trying to “ smear ” Beijing while conducting its own cyberattacks.

In a statement emailed to The Associated Press on Thursday, Iran’s mission to the United Nations said Iran rejects allegations that it is responsible for cyberattacks on the U.S. while reserving the right to defend itself.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran does not initiate any form of offensive cyber operation against any state,” the mission wrote in the statement. “However, as a victim of cyber operations, it will respond to any such threat in a manner proportionate to its nature and scale.”

North Korea has pioneered a scheme in which it uses AI personas to create American identities allowing them to apply for remote tech jobs. North Korea’s authoritarian government pockets the salaries, while the hackers use their access to steal secrets or install malware.

It’s the kind of digital threat that will face more American organizations in the years to come as sophisticated AI programs make it easier for bad actors to deceive, according to Nicole Jiang, CEO of Fable, a San Francisco-based security company that uses AI to sniff out fake employees. AI is not only a tool for hackers, but also a critical defense against digital attackers, Jiang said.

“Cyber is a cat-and-mouse game,” she said. “Access, data, information, money: That’s what they’re after.”

AP · DAVID KLEPPER · October 16, 2025

7. Why the U.S. Is Losing the Cognitive Competition

Recall that one of the intentions of the Nunn-Cohen Amendment to the Goldwater Nichols Defense Reorganization Act was to not only establish USSOCOM but to give one organization the responsibility for "low intensity conflict" for the Department. Thus, ASD SO/LIC was established. While USSOCOM has been a definite success, ASD SO/LIC was never empowered and resourced to be the sole proponent, or champion, for low intensity conflict or what today we would call irregular warfare.

I offer some random thoughts on irregular warfare following this essay.

Excerpts:

U.S. focus on IW and its subset, cognitive warfare, has been erratic. The U.S. struggles with adapting its plans to the use of cognitive warfare while our leaders have consistently called for more expertise for this type of warfare. In 1962, President Kennedy challenged West Point graduates to understand: "another type of war, new in its intensity, ancient in its origin, that would require a whole new kind of strategy, a wholly different kind of force, forces which are too unconventional to be called conventional forces…" Over twenty years later, in 1987, Congress passed the Nunn-Cohen Amendment that established Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and the Defense Department’s Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict (SO/LIC) office. Another twenty years later, then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that DoD needed “to display a mastery of irregular warfare comparable to that which we possess in conventional combat.”

After twenty years of best practices of IW in the counter terrorism area, the 2020 Irregular Warfare Annex to the National Defense Strategy emphasized the need to institutionalize irregular warfare “as a core competency with sufficient, enduring capabilities to advance national security objectives across the spectrum of competition and conflict.” In December 2022, a RAND commentary pointed out that the U.S. military failed to master IW above the tactical level. I submit, we have failed because we have focused on technology at the expense of expertise and creativity, and that we need to balance technology with developing a workforce that thinks in a way that is different from the engineers and scientists that create our weapons and collection systems.

Why the U.S. Is Losing the Cognitive Competition

https://www.thecipherbrief.com/cognitive-warfare-intelligence

thecipherbrief.com · October 16, 2025

16 October, 2025

Renee Pruneau Novakoff

Former Deputy Director of Intelligence for Sensitive Activities and Special Programs, Office of the Secretary of Defense

Renee Pruneau Novakoff served for over forty years in the Department of Defense and several Intelligence agencies to include NSA, CIA, ODNI, and DIA. Her last assignment was in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, providing oversight and guidance for the Defense Department’s special programs and sensitive activities to include Human intelligence, Information Operations, counter supply. Previously, Ms. Novakoff served as Joint Staff Director for Collection Management where she was responsible for leading the Defense Collection Enterprise. She also served as Joint Staff Director for Strategy, Plans and Policy. Ms. Novakoff also served as the Principal Deputy National Intelligence Manager for Russia, Europe, and Eurasia at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). Prior to that assignment she was the Acting National Intelligence Manager for Western Hemisphere.

EXPERT OPINION — In order for the U.S. to successfully compete for global influence against its adversaries and to avoid a kinetic fight, we must excel at cognitive warfare; that is military activities designed to affect attitudes and behaviors. This type of warfare is a subset of irregular warfare (IW) and combines sensitive activities to include information operations, cyber, and psychological operations to meet a goal. To develop these kinds of operations, the U.S. needs intelligence professionals who are creative and experts in their field. Additionally, the U.S. intelligence and operations sectors need to be comfortable working together. Finally, the U.S. needs decision makers who are willing to take risks and employ these methods. Without these components, the U.S. is doomed to fail in competing against its adversaries who practice cognitive warfare against us on a regular basis.

U.S. focus on IW and its subset, cognitive warfare, has been erratic. The U.S. struggles with adapting its plans to the use of cognitive warfare while our leaders have consistently called for more expertise for this type of warfare. In 1962, President Kennedy challenged West Point graduates to understand: "another type of war, new in its intensity, ancient in its origin, that would require a whole new kind of strategy, a wholly different kind of force, forces which are too unconventional to be called conventional forces…" Over twenty years later, in 1987, Congress passed the Nunn-Cohen Amendment that established Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and the Defense Department’s Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict (SO/LIC) office. Another twenty years later, then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that DoD needed “to display a mastery of irregular warfare comparable to that which we possess in conventional combat.”

After twenty years of best practices of IW in the counter terrorism area, the 2020 Irregular Warfare Annex to the National Defense Strategy emphasized the need to institutionalize irregular warfare “as a core competency with sufficient, enduring capabilities to advance national security objectives across the spectrum of competition and conflict.” In December 2022, a RAND commentary pointed out that the U.S. military failed to master IW above the tactical level. I submit, we have failed because we have focused on technology at the expense of expertise and creativity, and that we need to balance technology with developing a workforce that thinks in a way that is different from the engineers and scientists that create our weapons and collection systems.

Adversaries Ahead of Us

IW and especially cognitive warfare is high risk and by definition uses manipulative practices to obtain results. Some policy leaders are hesitant to use this approach to develop influence strategies which has resulted in the slow development of tools and strategies to counter our adversaries. U.S. adversaries are experts at IW and do not have many of the political, legal, or oversight hurdles that U.S. IW specialists have.

Chinese military writings highlight the PRC’s use of what we would call IW in the three warfares. This involves using public opinion, legal warfare, and psychological operations to spread positive views of China and influence foreign governments in ways favorable to China. General Wang Haijiang, commander of the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) Western Theatre Command, wrote in an official People’s Republic of China (PRC) newspaper that the Ukraine war has produced a new era of hybrid warfare, intertwining “political warfare, financial warfare, technological warfare, cyber warfare, and cognitive warfare.” The PRC’s Belt and Road Initiative and Digital Silk Road are prime examples of using economic coercion as irregular warfare. Their Confucius Centers underscore how they are trying to influence foreign populations through language and cultural training.

Russia uses IW to attempt to ensure the battle is won before military operations begin and to enhance its conventional forces. Russia calls this hybrid war and we saw this with the use of “little green men” going into Crimea in 2014 and the use of the paramilitary Wagner forces around the world. Russia also has waged a disinformation campaign against the U.S. on digital platforms and even conducted assassinations and sabotage on foreign soil as ways to mold the battle space toward their goals.

What Is Needed

U.S. architects of IW seem to primarily focus on oversight structures and budget, and less on how to develop an enduring capability.

Through the counterterrorism fight, the U.S. learned how to use on-the-ground specialists, develop relationships at tribal levels, and understand cultures to influence the population. The U.S. has the tools and the lessons learned that would enable a more level playing field against its adversaries, but it is not putting enough emphasis on cognitive warfare. A key to the way forward is to develop SOF personnel and commensurate intelligence professionals to support the SOF community who understand the people, the geography, and the societies they are trying to influence and affect. We then must go further and reward creativity and cunning in developing cognitive warfare strategies.

The Department of Defense and the intelligence community have flirted with the need for expertise in the human domain or social cultural sphere for years. The Department of Defense put millions of dollars into socio cultural work in the 2015-time frame. This focus went away as we started concentrating more on near peer competition. Instead, we focused on technology, better weapons and more complex collection platforms as a way to compete with these adversaries. We even looked to cut Human Intelligence (HUMINT) to move toward what some call a lower risk approach to collection—using technology instead of humans.

SOF personnel are considered the military’s most creative members. They are chosen for their ability to adapt, blend in, and think outside the box. This ingenuity needs to be encouraged. We need a mindful balancing of oversight without stifling that uniqueness that makes IW so successful. While some of this creativity may come naturally, we need to ensure that we put in place training that speaks to inventiveness, that pulls out these members’ ability to think through the impossible. Focused military classes across the services must build on latest practices for underscoring creativity and out of the box thinking. This entrepreneurial approach is not typically rewarded in a military that is focused on planning, rehearsals, and more planning.

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Focusing on Intelligence and Irregular Warfare

An important part of the equation for irregular warfare is intelligence. This foundation for irregular warfare work is often left out in the examination of what is needed for the U.S. to move IW forward. In the SOF world, operators and intelligence professionals overlap more than in any other military space. Intelligence officers who support IW need to have the same creative mindset as the operators. They also need to be experts in their regional areas—just like the SOF personnel.

The intelligence community’s approach to personnel over the past twenty or so years works against support for IW. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the intelligence community has moved from an expertise-based system to one that is more focused on processes. We used to have deep experts on all aspects of the adversary—analysts or collectors who had spent years focused on knowing everything about one foreign leader or one aspect of a country’s industry and with a deep knowledge of the language and culture of that country. With many more adversaries and with collection platforms that are much more expensive than those developed in the early days of the intelligence community, we cannot afford the detailed expert of yore anymore. The current premise is that if you know the processes for writing a good analytical piece or for being a good case officer, the community can plug and play you in any context. This means, we have put a premium on process while neglecting expertise. As with all things—we need to balance these two important aspects of intelligence work.

To truly understand and use IW, we need to develop expert regional analysts and human intelligence personnel. Those individuals who understand the human domain that they are studying. We need to understand how the enemy thinks to be able to provide that precision to the operator. This insight comes only after years of studying the adversary. We need to reward those experts and celebrate them just as much as we do the adaptable plug and play analyst or human intelligence personnel. Individuals who speak and understand the nuances of the languages of our adversaries, who understand the cultures and patterns of life are the SOF member’s best tool for advancing competition in IW. Developing this workforce must be a first thought, not an afterthought in the development of our irregular warfare doctrine.

CIA Director William Casey testified before Congress in 1981:

“The wrong picture is not worth a thousand words. No photo, no electronic impulse can substitute for direct on the scene knowledge of the key factors in a given country or region. No matter how spectacular a photo may be it cannot reveal enough about plans, intentions, internal political dynamics, economics, etc. Technical collection is of little help in the most difficult problem of all—political intentions. This is where clandestine human intelligence can make a difference.”

Not only are analytical experts important in support of IW but so are HUMINT experts. We have focused on technology to fill intelligence gaps to the detriment of human intelligence. The Defense Intelligence enterprise has looked for ways to cut its HUMINT capability when we should be increasing our use of HUMINT collection and HUMINT enabled intelligence activities. In 2020, Defense One reported on a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) plan to cut U.S. defense attaches in several West African countries and downgrade the ranks of others in eight countries. Many advocate for taking humans out of the loop as much as possible. The theory is that this lowers the risk for human capture or leaks. As any regional expert will tell you, while satellites and drones can provide an incredible amount of intelligence from pictures to bits of conversation, what they cannot provide is the context for those pictures or snippets of conversation. As Director Casey inferred, it is only the expert who has lived on the ground, among the people he/she is reporting on who can truly grasp nuances, understanding local contexts, allegiances, and sentiments.

While it is important to continue to upgrade technology and have specialists who fly drones and perform other data functions, those functions must be fused with human understanding of the adversary and the terrain. While algorithms can sift through vast amounts of data, human operatives and analysts ensure the contextual relevance of this data. Technologies cannot report on the nuances of feelings and emotions. The regional experts equip SOF operators with the nuanced understanding required to navigate the complexities that make up the “prior to bang” playing field. This expertise married with cunning and creativity will give us the tools we need to combat our adversary in the cognitive warfare domain.

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Conclusion

The need for contextual, human-centric understanding for being able to develop plans and operations for cognitive warfare that can compete with our adversaries and keep us from a kinetic fight is paramount. Those who try to make warfare or intelligence into a science miss the truth, that to be proficient in either, art is a must. We need expertise to be able to decipher the stories, motives, and aspirations that make cognitive warfare unique. Regional intelligence experts discern the patterns, motives and vulnerabilities of adversaries; key needs for developing IW campaigns and for influencing individuals and societies. We need seasoned human intelligence personnel, targeters, and analysts who are experts on the adversary to be able to do this. We also need to develop and reward creativity, which is a must for this world.

We also have to be upfront and acknowledge the need to manipulate our adversaries. U.S. decision makers must concede that to win the next war, cognitive warfare is a must and it is essential for these leaders to take calculated risks to mount those campaigns to influence and manipulate.

The cost of cognitive warfare is but a rounding error when compared to the development of new technical intelligence collection platforms and the platforms’ massive infrastructures. This rounding error is a key lynchpin for irregular warfare and irregular warfare is our most likely avenue for avoiding a kinetic war. Human operatives, out of the box thinking, and expert analysts and human intelligence personnel are the needed bridges that connect data into actionable insights to allow our SOF community to practice the type of irregular warfare we have proven historically that the U.S..S. can provide and must provide to counter our adversaries and win the cognitive war we are currently experiencing.

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Renee Pruneau Novakoff

cognitive warfare hybrid warfare information operations irregular warfare humint disinformation information warfare intelligence gray zone

Key point: We should stop the proliferation of terminology (which I think causes intellectual paralysis) and adopt Irregular Warfare as the military contribution to Political Warfare. Political warfare is how we should describe the competition space between peace and war and is the defining element in Strategic Competition (SC). While state on state warfare is the most dangerous threat or course of action in SC and why we must absolutely invest in deterrence and defense, political warfare is the most likely threat or course of action.

Simple criteria for a definition:

1. How will it help me “do strategy?”

2. How will it help me contribute to campaigning?

3. How will it help me communicate with decision makers?

What is not a requirement for a good definition: consensus. In fact I would argue that consensus is the root of all bad and worthless definitions.

"Political warfare includes all measures short of war... for hostile intent through discrete, subversive, or overt means short of open combat... Whereas gray zone tells us where along a spectrum between war and peace activities take place, political warfare tells us why."

⁃ Matt Armstrong

My view: I am a great believer in the contributions that unconventional warfare can make to US national security when employed appropriately. I believe irregular warfare is the military contribution (the whole of the military and not SOF alone) to political warfare. Political warfare (George Kennan and Paul Smith) is the way I think we should characterize strategic competition in the gray zone of strategic competition below the threshold of war. And I believe that SOF's contribution to irregular warfare is through the application of its special warfare capabilities, primarily and broadly best described as unconventional warfare and foreign internal defense, psychological operations, and civil affairs operations. And yes, counterterrorism against violent extremist organizations is still a major component as well. (as is crisis response). And I would add that some elements of unconventional warfare (working through, by, and with indigenous forces to create dilemmas for our adversaries), psychological operations, civil affairs, special reconnaissance, and direct action will play important supporting roles to the joint force in large scale combat operations. Irregular warfare will always be an element of large scale combat operations in the rear area of friends and enemies, on the periphery, and in adjacent and offset locations that affect the parties to the conflict, and in post conflict operations.

However, I was recently reminded by a fellow retired Army Colonel that many of us seem to be applying the moniker of irregular and unconventional to everything. Is that what this essay is doing? Do we need "unconventional multi domain operations?" (I know I have stretched the author's words here but only to make a point). Drones and electronic warfare, cyber and long range precision strikes, do not belong solely as components of irregular warfare even if their "newness" (for those who are just discovering them) make them seem irregular or unconventional. They are tools of warfare across the spectrum of conflict, e.g., part of irregular warfare and large scale combat operations. "Newness" does not make something irregular or unconventional. In fact irregular and unconventional warfare are actually "old" but timeless as at the root they focus on operations in the human domain (which we have decided not to recognize as a distinct domain for various reasons but I digress and deflect).

In 2008 the National Defense Strategy recognized the requirement for the Department of Defense (DOD) to “display a mastery of irregular warfare comparable to that which we possess in conventional combat.”

In 2008 Secretary of Defense Robert Gates identified the lack of IW focus problem. Writing in his memoir, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, he said:

“In the spring of 2008, the vital issue of the military services’ preoccupation with planning, equipping, and training for future major wars with other nation-states, while assigning lesser priority to current conflicts and all other forms of conflict, such as irregular or asymmetric war, came to a head. It went to the heart of every other fight with the Pentagon I have described. In my four and a half years as secretary, this was one of the few issues where I had to take on the chairman and the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

I would characterize the threats we face in terms of the Gray Zone as a spectrum of cooperation, competition, and conflict in that space between peace and war. We seek and desire cooperation, we have to be able to compete, and while we want to avoid conflict we must prepare for it. One of the important forms of conflict can be described by revolution, resistance, insurgency, terrorism, and civil war (RRIT & CW)) with our adversaries from AQ to ISIS to the Russian Little Green Men to the Iran Action Network or China’s PLA are all executing strategies of modern unconventional warfare, with their own unique characteristics, to exploit the conditions of revolution, resistance, insurgency, terrorism and civil war (RRIT &CW) to achieve their strategic political objectives.

We face strategic competition, not only among state actors and state and non-state actors but also in two competing ideas - one is the national interest to maintain a stable rules based international nation-state system based on respect for and protection of sovereignty. This idea can be supported in part through the application of one of the major special warfare activities: foreign internal defense in which SOF and other US military and government agencies seek to assist friends, partners, and allies in their own defense and development programs so that they can defend themselves against lawlessness, subversion, insurgency, and terrorism that would threaten their sovereignty. The other idea is a fundamental human right which is the right of a people to seek self determination of government and this can be supported by the special warfare activity of unconventional warfare which consists of activities to enable a resistance or insurgency to coerce, disrupt, or overthrow a government or occupying power. These two competing ideas must be reconciled through the correct application of national statecraft and political warfare, supported by special warfare in the gray zone.

We still need the scalpel of surgical strike to capture/kill high value targets wherever necessary to support US national security.

The IW annex to the NDS ensures that we focus on IW, that it is not a “lesser included case” and it is not only the province of special operations forces.

And I would add with absolutely no apologies to Leon Trotsky: America may not be interested in irregular, unconventional, and political warfare but IW/UW/PW are being practiced around the world by those who are interested in them – namely the revisionist, rogue, and revolutionary powers and violent extremist organizations.

Political Warfare

George Kennan:

“Political warfare is the logical application of Clausewitz's doctrine in time of peace. In broadest definition, political warfare is the employment of all the means at a nation's command, short of war, to achieve its national objectives. Such operations are both overt and covert. They range from such overt actions as political alliances, economic measures (as ERP--the Marshall Plan), and "white" propaganda to such covert operations as clandestine support of "friendly" foreign elements, "black" psychological warfare and even encouragement of underground resistance in hostile states.”

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/history/johnson/65ciafounding3.htm

Paul Smith:

"Political warfare is the use of political means to compel an opponent to do one's will, based on hostile intent. The term political describes the calculated interaction between a government and a target audience to include another state's government, military, and/or general population. Governments use a variety of techniques to coerce certain actions, thereby gaining relative advantage over an opponent. The techniques include propaganda and psychological operations (PSYOP), which service national and military objectives respectively. Propaganda has many aspects and a hostile and coercive political purpose. Psychological operations are for strategic and tactical military objectives and may be intended for hostile military and civilian populations." Smith, Paul A., On Political War (Washington: National Defense University Press, 1989), p. 3. https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a233501.pdf

“Irregular Warfare Thinking”*

Because IW is the dominant form of war in the emergent human domain.

We need to infuse “irregular warfare thinking”* into DOD and “political warfare thinking” into the US government.

*What is “Irregular warfare thinking?” It is thinking about the human element in the full spectrum of competition and conflict up to and including conventional and nuclear war. It includes, but is not limited to, all aspects of lawlessness, subversion, insurgency, terrorism, political resistance, non-violent resistance, political violence, urban operations, stability operations, post-conflict operations, cyber operations, operations in the information environment (e.g., strategic influence through information advantage, information and influence activities, public diplomacy, psychological operations, military information support operations, public affairs), working through, with, and by indigenous forces and populations, in irregular warfare, political warfare, economic warfare, alliances, diplomacy, and competitive statecraft in all regions of the world.

Irregular warfare is the military contribution to political warfare. Political warfare is the action of the whole of government in strategic competition.

8. Forgotten history of the Wilbur J Cohen Building - There is so much more to the story than being home to VOA since 1954

We need to revitalize and VOA, et al., and return America to the information battlefield. Matt Armstrong's essay below is a short history of the US in the information space.

As noted it is a building that requires substantial modernization. I don't think they have had working escalators in many years. But VOA would have moved into modern facilities had it not been "gutted" by the current administration.

Excerpts:

The Cohen Building housed the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversaw VOA and its sister networks, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (merged in 1977), Radio Free Asia, the Middle East Broadcasting Network, and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting. The headquarters staff provided critical infrastructure support to the networks. The BBG was since renamed the Agency for Global Media after the insulating board—the actual functional firewall protecting the political manipulation of the networks—was removed to make the AGM CEO a political appointment. Of course, AGM has since been gutted, as has VOA.

Perhaps it's fitting that the Cohen Building days are numbered, as the one tenant that operated from the building for nearly the life of the building, even through substantial organizational changes, is now gone.

The history of the Cohen building is intertwined with US international information efforts to counter disinformation, correct misinformation, and fill information gaps for people abroad, primarily, but not exclusively, those living under regimes that impose censorship and use disinformation to rule.

It is an old building that requires substantial modernization. Back when I was on the BBG board, one of BBG’s senior staff identified and developed a plan to relocate the agency to modern offices in a move for a better and more expansive space that could have also consolidated the offices of RFE/RL, RFA, MBN, and OCB with lower maintenance burdens. The agency, and thus the taxpayer, would have saved a substantial amount of money for vastly superior offices befitting one of the largest news media companies in the world. Unfortunately, the plan didn’t come to pass. Even if the BBG had moved, ultimately the story of the agency and the Cohen Building would likely have had the same ending they have now.

Forgotten history of the Wilbur J Cohen Building

There is so much more to the story than being home to VOA since 1954

https://mountainrunner.substack.com/p/forgotten-history-of-the-wilbur-j?r=7i07&utm

Matt Armstrong

Oct 16, 2025

“A postcard from the 1940s showing the would-be Social Security headquarters in Washington as it looked shortly after its construction.” Source: the Social Security Administration (https://www.ssa.gov/history/cohenbldg.html)

Somehow, I missed that Congress decided to sell the Wilbur J. Cohen Building, so it came as a shock when I read about it in

Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter. Also referred to as the Social Security Board building, the Social Security Building, or, in recent decades, simply as the Cohen Building, it occupies a block bounded by 4th Street, C Street, 3rd Street, and Independence Avenue in Washington, DC.Cox Richardson provided a brief two-sentence history of the building, which she sourced from another website cited in her endnotes. This site’s information seemed to come from a quick Google search and was both correct and inaccurate. Cox Richardson wrote that the Social Security Administration never occupied the structure, and that “the War Production Board, which managed the conversion of US companies to wartime production, commandeered the building, and then in 1954 the Voice of America (VOA) moved in.” The problem is that this brief overview overlooks how vital the building was to the history of VOA and, more broadly, to US efforts to counter foreign disinformation and correct misinformation both domestically and internationally, as well as to fill information gaps abroad since soon after the building opened its doors.

I don’t fault Cox Richardson for the oversight. It is my experience as a Governor of the former Broadcasting Board of Governors that oversaw US international broadcasting operations, including VOA, from the Cohen building, as a practitioner, advisor, and historian of US international efforts to understand, inform, and influence foreign audiences, and in a prior government oversight/advocacy role that advised Congress, the State Department, and the White House regarding these same activities, that its relevance is largely unknown to most historians who focus on this area of US history.

The structure was built in 1940 for the Social Security Board, as the Social Security Administration was then known, to house SSB staff who were to be relocated from Baltimore. The war in Europe, however, changed the plan. (For convenience, I will refer to the building as the Social Security Building.)

On May 28, 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt revived the Council of National Defense to reactivate the council’s Advisory Commission. As the Commission noted, “In May 1940, when Germany began her westward offensive through Belgium and the Netherlands, the President turned to a long dormant statute for authority to organize a concerted attack on the economic and industrial phases of national defense.”1 The statute referred to was a 1916 act that established the Council of National Defense and an Advisory Commission to that Council. In the First World War, the CND, chaired by the Secretary of War, was quite active. (By the way, the Secretary of State was not a part of the Council.) The Advisory Commission served as a pathway for bringing civilians into government oversight and planning, including Edward Stettinius, William Knudsen, Chester C. Davis, and Leon Henderson, among others. Each advisor was charged with and responsible for investigation, research, and coordination in their designated fields, and was responsible directly to the President.

The Advisory Commission had significant portfolios, and each required a considerable staff. The following month, the Advisory Commission requisitioned the building to house its staff and that of related agencies, which included more than the War Production Board.

One of these other agencies was the Office of Emergency Management. Established in July 1939 to “advise and assist the President in the discharge of extraordinary responsibilities imposed upon him by the emergency conditions arising out of the unsettled world conditions,” it had broad authority to engage and coordinate activities and information dissemination between the federal government and state and local defense councils, and other local and private actors.2 To give a sense of OEM’s size and scope, the 1942 budget request for OEM was over $13.6 million, the equivalent of $314 million today.

Not immediately placed in the Social Security Building was the Office of Government Reports, also established in July 1939. OGR had three components, including the Division of Press Intelligence (116 staff in 1941). This was a clipping service for all of the executive branch and for the House and Senate to have “a record of public opinion as reflected in the press on any subject which deals with the Government.” To give a sense of the scope of this operation, the chief of the division told Congress in 1941 that the “Army and the Navy, for the first time, have begun to rely on us very heavily for that sort of work, to save setting up operations of their own. The State Department demand has been doubled in the past year; the Justice Department, including the FBI, has increased its demand very heavily. The Defense Commission, the [Office of Production Management], and others have began the use of our service and, of course, their demand has been very heavy.” The Division of Press Intelligence monitored 350 daily newspapers across the country. The value of the Press Intelligence operation to the Advisory Commission and the rest of the government is hard to understate.

Also under OGR was the Information Service. Also known as the United States Information Service, USIS liaised with and coordinated activities between the federal government, state and local governments, and private citizens. It provided information outward to these groups and consolidated information for the President on the functioning of federal programs in the states. USIS had 30 staff in 1941, 25 in Washington, and 5 in New York. USIS was the central “information service concerning public affairs, primarily Government affairs” for the use “of the public or of Government people.”3

Though OEM is relevant to this story, the real story begins after Pearl Harbor.

In June 1942, the Office of War Information was formed by merging the Office of Emergency Management, the Office of Facts and Figures, the Office of Government Reports, and the Foreign Information Service (an element formerly under the Office of the Coordinator of Information.4

Elmer Davis, the Director of OWI, faced a management challenge in consolidating the many agencies into the new organization. The several component parts had their own offices, often more than one, scattered across Washington, and sometimes outside of the district. Office space before the war was tight, and after, it was even tighter with the War Department and others quickly building new structures to accommodate increased personnel requirements.

Adequate space could not be found near the White House or the State Department, which was then essentially the same place. The State Department was still headquartered in the State, War, and Navy Building, now called the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which sits next to the White House.5

The Social Security Building was the only location with enough space for the consolidated operations. Davis noted in his final report to the President in 1945 that it “should have been insisted that a war information office, to be fully effective, must be close not only to the White House and the State Department, but to the offices of the principal Washington correspondents.” The Social Security Building was physically distant at “two miles from downtown” and a considerable distance away from where it needed to be, and “accordingly the agency lost some of its effectiveness.”^⁠

Closely connected but not subsumed within OWI and worth mentioning is the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, initially called the Foreign Broadcast Monitoring Service. It was a function of the Federal Communications Commission, serving as “the ears of Uncle Sam since 1940.” By the end of the war, FBIS provided daily reports to 25 government agencies (and 15 agencies by teletype), with a staff of 170 in Washington, 105 in the field, including monitoring stations in Guam, Kauai, Portland (Oregon), and Silver Hill (Maryland). FBIS had an office in the Social Security Building to provide direct and immediate support to OWI.

On August 31, 1945, Truman issued an executive order closing OWI. Two weeks earlier, OWI delivered to the President, at Truman’s request, a memorandum on the dissolution of the Office. The executive order followed OWI’s advice and OWI’s international information programs, and the international information of the Coordinator for Inter-American Affairs was sent to the State Department. Under the topic of a “General information service by the government to the rest of the world,” OWI declared, “We emphatically believe that there should be such a service and that it should be under State Department jurisdiction.” OWI justified this advice by stating:

The spread of ideas hostile to us and the blackout of teal understanding of America that preceded World War II prove that never again should America as a nation let the telling of its official story be left to chance. Neither should it be left to the information activities of other nations more interested in telling their own stories. And never gain should the nation as a nation be satisfied with an unbalanced picture of America which must result if private telling in many media is left wholly unsupplemented. In advocating this permanent service, we are only asking that America should not deprive itself of one of the most potent weapons for peace.

The international radio service called VOA, OWI, echoed a State Department report on the nation’s post-war information requirements completed in July 1945, in saying the “facilities should be held intact and operation continued under the State Department until the US Government decides on an eventual disposition which will be in the best interest of the nation.” By November, the State Department’s interest was to move the radio operation outside of government and into a private non-profit funded by the government that was overseen by a Board of Trustees nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, and whose daily operations were managed by a chief executive officer. The department continued to press that organization through 1947, though despite some Congressional support, key Republicans in the Senate blocked the move.

Though the bureaucracy of OWI’s VOA was in the Social Security Building, operational details, including programming, were located in New York, where engineers, foreign language speakers and writers, and other experts in radio operations were relatively plentiful.6

The day of Truman’s executive order, William Benton met with Secretary of State James Byrnes, who solicited Benton to become the Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and manage those information programs to be sent to the department, the department’s domestic and foreign information policies and programs, and to lead the coordination of the government’s international information policies. Two weeks later, he became the Assistant Secretary, and a week after that, he was looking at the Social Security Building. He noted that “there is going to be lots of space in the Social Security Building now occupied by OWI. Even though this is a long way away, and even though this is an alternative I don’t like, I would rather throw all my people into the OWI space, or as many of them as can be crowded into it, than have them scattered all over the City as they are now.” (To get a sense of the scale of the international information programs, after Benton right-sized for post-war needs and further reduced staff following Congressional appropriations cuts, in 1953, when the semi-autonomous International Information Administration in the State Department was abolished to form the independent federal agency, the US Information Agency, about half of the State Department’s personnel and budget were administered by IIA.)

In 1947, the Social Security Building was renamed the Federal Security Building. The Federal Security Agency, created in 1939, oversaw social security (so, in a way, the SSB finally made its way into the building), food and drug safety, education planning, and health programs. The building was also home to the National Housing Administration and the Civilian Production Administration.

VOA’s broadcasting operations remained in New York until 1954, when operations were shifted to Washington. In 1957, President Dwight Eisenhower addressed VOA’s audiences abroad from VOA in the Social Security Building.

In 1985, President Ronald Reagan did the same. It was his weekly radio address, but this time it was simulcast at home and abroad. His address aimed to correct disinformation and misinformation by the Soviet Union.

The Cohen Building housed the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversaw VOA and its sister networks, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (merged in 1977), Radio Free Asia, the Middle East Broadcasting Network, and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting. The headquarters staff provided critical infrastructure support to the networks. The BBG was since renamed the Agency for Global Media after the insulating board—the actual functional firewall protecting the political manipulation of the networks—was removed to make the AGM CEO a political appointment. Of course, AGM has since been gutted, as has VOA.

Perhaps it's fitting that the Cohen Building days are numbered, as the one tenant that operated from the building for nearly the life of the building, even through substantial organizational changes, is now gone.

The history of the Cohen building is intertwined with US international information efforts to counter disinformation, correct misinformation, and fill information gaps for people abroad, primarily, but not exclusively, those living under regimes that impose censorship and use disinformation to rule.

It is an old building that requires substantial modernization. Back when I was on the BBG board, one of BBG’s senior staff identified and developed a plan to relocate the agency to modern offices in a move for a better and more expansive space that could have also consolidated the offices of RFE/RL, RFA, MBN, and OCB with lower maintenance burdens. The agency, and thus the taxpayer, would have saved a substantial amount of money for vastly superior offices befitting one of the largest news media companies in the world. Unfortunately, the plan didn’t come to pass. Even if the BBG had moved, ultimately the story of the agency and the Cohen Building would likely have had the same ending they have now.

Minutes of the Advisory Commission to the Council of National Defense, June 12, 1940, to October 22, 1941, iii.

The existence and proliferation of the state and local defense councils in the First World War (and in 1940) are oddly overlooked by historians examining the role and function of Commission on Public Information. That fact and what it means to our understanding of CPI is for a different time.

“Questions are received by telephone, by mail, and in person at our office. They run about 100,000 inquiries a year.”

Many historians associate OWI with the World War I-era Committee on Public Information, even going as far as stating CPI was a predecessor agency to OWI. This association is inaccurate for several reasons beyond that it requires ignoring OME, OGR, OFF, and the Coordinator for Inter-American Affairs (established in 1939). That discussion is for later, however.

One of Secretary of State George C. Marshall’s first acts as Secretary in January 1947 was to authorize the long-delayed move to “gaudier, more commodious, even air-conditioned quarters in a questionable part of town” that had been built for the War Department, which had already decamped for the Pentagon.

Manhattan, to be specific. There, OWI had more than 1400 employees supporting round-the-clock operations. They produced over 2600 radio shows a week in 20 languages, using 21 radio transmitters. The Washington and Manhattan offices also supported 33 OWI “outposts” abroad.

9. Allies United Against China on Rare Earths

I am reminded of when we cut off Japan from oil and resources.

When the U.S. cut off oil and resources to Japan in 1941, it created a crisis that forced Japan to choose between retreating from its expansionist policies or seizing resources by force. Japan chose the latter, seeing the embargo as an existential threat and a catalyst for war. The embargo led Japan to attack Pearl Harbor to neutralize the U.S. Pacific Fleet, which was the primary obstacle to Japan's plan to conquer Southeast Asia for its resources.

"Just saying." (Not making an explicit comparison.)

Allies United Against China on Rare Earths

Bessent has the right idea, but then why hit friends with tariffs?

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/scott-bessent-china-rare-earth-minerals-tariffs-allies-39864d6a

By The Editorial Board

Oct. 16, 2025 5:55 pm ET

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent ken cedeno/Reuters

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday he plans to coordinate with allies to counter China’s weaponization of rare-earth minerals. It’s the right move, though he might find it easier to rally the world if President Trump weren’t also hitting our allies with unprovoked unilateral tariffs.

Mr. Bessent earlier in the week accused Beijing of pointing “a bazooka at the supply chains and the industrial base of the entire free world,” by threatening global export controls on products that contain even minuscule amounts of Chinese rare earths. He’s right. China has a stranglehold on these minerals, and it’s a serious problem.

Rare earths are required for all sorts of electronics, auto parts, AI chips and chip-making equipment, medical devices, drones, Tomahawk missiles and much more. China accounts for about 70% of rare-earth mining and more than 90% of refining. Beijing now plans to make foreign companies get its permission to export these and most high-tech goods.

The Chinese Communist Party’s primary goal is to bully the U.S. into easing its export controls on AI computer chips, chip-making equipment and other technologies. The Chinese are also seeking to coerce other countries to stop cooperating with U.S. export controls.

“We’re going to have a fulsome, group response to this, because bureaucrats in China cannot manage the supply chain or the manufacturing process for the rest of the world,” Mr. Bessent said Wednesday. He added: “We’re going to be speaking with our European allies, with Australia, with Canada, with India and the Asian democracies.”

A united front will give the U.S. more economic heft to counter China’s coercion. Japan’s Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato this week called for G-7 countries to “unite and respond” to China’s economic aggression, as they have to Russia’s war in Ukraine. The troubling reality is that the U.S. all by itself might not be able to defeat China in a military and technological arms race.

The U.S. will need backup from allies that have other cards they could play against China. The Trump Administration has sought the expertise and assistance of South Korean shipbuilders. It could likewise cultivate trade partnerships to develop alternative sources of rare earths, which might include India, Malaysia and Australia.

The Defense Department this summer announced a deal to help MP Materials build out a domestic rare-earths supply chain. But it will be hard for the U.S. to scale up rare-earth production in the short term, and maybe even the medium term, not least because of destructive U.S. permitting obstacles. A technological breakthrough on the scale of hydraulic shale fracking might be needed if the U.S. is going to produce significant amounts of rare earths, and the Energy Department is funding research into novel, more efficient production processes.

But building alliances is as critical to countering China’s economic aggression as it is to containing Beijing’s imperial ambitions. American allies are equally victims of China’s mercantilism, and they don’t like how it’s menacing the neighborhood and abetting Russia’s grinding war in Ukraine. The problem is that Mr. Trump has strained U.S. friendships by pointing his own tariff bazooka at their supply chains and industrial bases.

“If China wants to be an unreliable partner to the world, then the world will have to decouple” from China, Mr. Bessent warned. That may be, but the Administration’s call for a united front against Beijing would be stronger if the U.S. acted as a reliable trading partner.

WSJ Opinion: Tomahawk Missiles for Ukraine? Trump Threatens, Putin Calls, and Zelensky Visits

Play video: WSJ Opinion: Tomahawk Missiles for Ukraine? Trump Threatens, Putin Calls, and Zelensky Visits

After Donald Trump suggests he might send Ukraine's defenders U.S. long-range Tomahawk missiles, he has a phone call with Vladimir Putin, one day before Volodymyr Zelensky is set to arrive in Washington. Is this an opportunity for Trump to take concrete action that matches his hardening rhetoric toward Putin's war, and how much could Tomahawks matter on the battlefield?

Appeared in the October 17, 2025, print edition as 'Allies United Against China on Rare Earths'.

10. The military’s big gamble on small nuclear reactors

I think this is a smart move. It could not only revolutionize Army logistics, it could be a game changer in the civilian world after the Army provides its value.

I am torn now - should we go ahead and buy the Generac generator we were considering or should we put that off until we can get our own microreactor (note attempt at humor).

Excerpts:

The idea of building small-scale reactors has long been technologically feasible; nuclear submarines have existed for decades. But reactors are expensive to develop and must overcome complicated regulatory hurdles, leading developers to opt for bigger projects with greater payoffs.

Yet microreactors bring significant advantages if built at scale. Although they produce a fraction of what full-size power plants generate, a nuclear reactor that fits on the back of a flatbed truck could be transported wherever it’s needed most. And that small package could still fuel a small town or military base without needing to refuel regularly. They would be ideal following natural disasters or energy shocks.

The military’s plans are ambitious. The program, known as Janus, would be funded by the Defense Innovation Unit and rely on commercial partners to develop the reactors. The Energy Department would oversee safety. Hitting even the three-year goal would take a level of agility that nuclear regulators have not been known for.

Opinion

Editorial Board

The military’s big gamble on small nuclear reactors

The U.S. Army’s plan to deploy microreactors could be crucial after attacks on the electric grid.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/10/15/nuclear-power-microreactors-military-army-janus/

October 15, 2025 at 4:47 p.m. EDTOctober 15, 2025

2 min

316

A nuclear power plant in Waynesboro, Georgia. (Mike Stewart/AP)

The military is planning to go big on nuclear energy — by going small. The only problem with this excellent idea is that it can’t come fast enough.

The U.S. Army announced this week that it is launching a program to power domestic military bases with small nuclear reactors – three years from now. No “microreactor” currently operates in the United States, but it’s a worthy gamble that could provide benefits far beyond its military applications.

The best of The Post’s opinions and commentary, in your inbox every morning

The idea of building small-scale reactors has long been technologically feasible; nuclear submarines have existed for decades. But reactors are expensive to develop and must overcome complicated regulatory hurdles, leading developers to opt for bigger projects with greater payoffs.

Yet microreactors bring significant advantages if built at scale. Although they produce a fraction of what full-size power plants generate, a nuclear reactor that fits on the back of a flatbed truck could be transported wherever it’s needed most. And that small package could still fuel a small town or military base without needing to refuel regularly. They would be ideal following natural disasters or energy shocks.

The military’s plans are ambitious. The program, known as Janus, would be funded by the Defense Innovation Unit and rely on commercial partners to develop the reactors. The Energy Department would oversee safety. Hitting even the three-year goal would take a level of agility that nuclear regulators have not been known for.

Janus is also destined to run into the same problem that is dragging down the commercial nuclear industry’s grander ambitions: obtaining the nuclear fuel needed to power it. The United States was once the world’s leading producer of uranium, but it has since ceded that ground to its adversaries. For years, it has relied on Russia to supply the heavy metal. Now, the government is racing to find alternative sources and to rebuild its enrichment capacity. This requires overcoming hostile resistance from environmentalists.

Despite the challenges, the Pentagon deserves credit for its ambition. Ensuring the military has the power it needs would also help America project another kind of power.

11. The Second Front: PRC Micro-Occupation in the Philippines, Part 2

"Part IIb"

Excerpts:

Conclusion: The Second Front’s Strategic Imperative

The micro-occupation threat to the Philippines represents a clear and present danger requiring immediate, prioritized response within severe resource constraints. This tiered framework proposes an approach to support defense planning. Improving national resilience in the Philippines protects more than its territorial sovereignty. The Philippines represents a potential linchpin determining the outcome of conflict in the Taiwan Strait. Seizing control of Batanes by the PRC would secure its southern flank for operations against Taiwan. Occupation of the EDCA sites would reduce the United States’ power projection capabilities in the region. Critically, PRC micro-occupations across the Philippine archipelago could create multiple crisis points, fragmenting allied responses and providing Beijing with the strategic distraction needed to achieve a fait accompli in Taiwan.

The strength of the Philippine response will lie not in matching PRC capabilities symmetrically but in making micro-occupation attempts costly enough to deter initiation and unsustainable enough to ensure eventual failure. This requires focused application of limited resources to priority vulnerabilities, development of innovative asymmetric responses, and building national unity around a shared understanding of the threat. This framework provides an analytical foundation, but success ultimately depends on the willingness to act before the crisis reaches Philippine shores. In the grand strategic competition between Beijing and the free world, the Philippines may find itself not as collateral damage but as the decisive terrain where the future of the Indo-Pacific is determined.

The Second Front: PRC Micro-Occupation in the Philippines, Part 2

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/10/17/the-second-front-part-two/

by Chad Machiela, by Duc DuClos, by Anthony Bacus

10.17.2025 at 06:00am

Editor’s Note: This article is Part IIb in a series on the development of the Armed Forces of the Philippines Community Home Defense Operations (CHDO). _______________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Second Front: PRC Micro-Occupation in the Philippines Part 2a described the salami-slicing of features within the Exclusive Economic Zone of the Philippines and throughout the West Philippine Sea. We presented a framework for assessing and developing operational concepts to mitigate the threat of continued PRC extraterritorial seizure of the Philippines’ territory, based on the PRC’s actions throughout the West Philippine Sea and in the Himalaya Mountains along the Line of Control with India, and the PRC’s stated objectives regarding Taiwan.

We recommended considering a red zone, identifying features already occupied or under threat of occupation by the PRC, and an orange zone, identifying occupied Philippine islands at risk of limited occupation by the PRC as part of an invasion or blockade of Taiwan. We recommended assigning a yellow zone, comprised of provinces on northern Luzon at risk of occupation secondary to PRC operations against Taiwan. We also described a gold zone, which includes the island of Palawan and associated smaller islands, as being at risk of PRC micro-occupation as part of controlling the West Philippine Sea and the Balabac Strait, Sibutu Passage, and Mindoro Strait. These zones are depicted in Figure 1.

Part 2 of this article discusses the green zone, which represents Philippine territory that the PRC is unlikely to attempt to occupy, but rather coerce through diplomatic and economic pressure, targeting of leadership, and non-lethal operations such as cyberattacks, system sabotage, and misinformation.

Figure 1. The Philippine Islands depicting Red, Yellow, Gold, and Green Threatened Zones (image created by the authors using QGIS)

The Green Zone Challenge: Comprehensive Non-Lethal Attacks

Beyond the physical occupation tiers lie what we term green zones—areas unlikely to face direct PRC occupation but sure to experience comprehensive attack through narrative, economic, cyber, and political warfare. These zones encompass most of the Philippine archipelago, including Metro Manila, the Visayas, and Mindanao, where PRC operations would seek to paralyze decision-making and prevent effective resistance.

Information warfare poses the most significant threat to the Green Zone. PRC information operations would exploit existing political divisions, economic anxieties, and historical grievances to fragment national unity. During the 2012 Scarborough Shoal standoff, Chinese propaganda flooded Philippine social media to pressure Philippine citizens regarding the consequences of perceived threats to PRC sovereignty. While seizing additional terrain, these efforts would intensify exponentially with the increased scale of the PRC’s cyber capabilities. Coordinated bot networks would amplify divisive content, pitting regions against each other by messaging, for example, “Why should Mindanao sacrifice for islands near Taiwan?” Deepfakes showing Philippine officials capitulating or US forces withdrawing would spread faster than fact-checkers could respond. Historical grievances about American colonialism would be weaponized to undermine EDCA support, while simultaneously promoting narratives of PRC investment bringing prosperity to accommodating provinces. The presence of Overseas Filipino Workers’ (OFW) families with members working in Taiwan, Hong Kong, or mainland PRC creates additional leverage points for PRC influence or coercion.

Economic warfare would systematically target Philippine pressure points. The 2012 banana import restrictions following the Scarborough Shoal dispute cost Philippine exporters millions. The 150,000 overseas Filipino workers in Hong Kong would likely receive “visa reviews,” creating family panic without formal threats. Philippine call centers serving Western companies may face mysterious connectivity issues traced to undersea cable “maintenance” by Chinese vessels or following the passage of ships over cable lines. Container ships bound for Philippine ports would experience bureaucratic delays in ports controlled by the PRC along their routes. Construction projects funded by PRC loans would halt, leaving half-built infrastructure as monuments to economic vulnerability. Even remittance flows—the lifeblood of countless Filipino families—would face “enhanced scrutiny” in PRC-influenced banking nodes.

Cyber operations would create cascading disruptions across critical sectors. Rather than dramatic infrastructure destruction that might provoke resistance, PRC hackers would employ “death by a thousand cuts:” persistent, deniable degradations that exhaust response capabilities. Even seemingly minor targets, such as the Philippine Statistics Authority, would face data corruption, making resource allocation and crisis response coordination more challenging.

Political warfare would target the fabric of Philippine democracy. PRC influence operations would cultivate and amplify existing political rivalries, turning every policy debate into a referendum on resistance versus accommodation. Local politicians in economically vulnerable areas would receive subtle overtures, such as partnership opportunities contingent on stability. Business leaders with Chinese partnerships may be incentivized to advocate for “pragmatic” policies. Academic conferences funded by PRC cultural organizations would feature respected Filipino scholars arguing that resistance over “minor islands” threatens decades of development. Even labor unions may face pressure as Chinese-invested factories threaten closures if “political tensions” continue. The goal isn’t crude control but creating enough domestic opposition to make sustained resistance politically impossible. Persistent corruption in the domestic political landscape may already form part of this broader playbook.

Synchronized across multiple domains, these activities create a sense of inevitable defeat before physical occupation even begins. The Philippines would find itself fighting on a dozen fronts simultaneously, each requiring different expertise and resources to counter, while the source of attacks remains deniable.

Resource Allocation Under Constraints

The Armed Forces of the Philippines face the challenge of defending against this threat spectrum with limited resources that cannot match the PRC’s capabilities symmetrically. This reality demands a prioritization framework that acknowledges hard truths about what can be defended versus what must be prepared for in post-occupation resistance.

For Tier 1 red zones, immediate action is essential before gray-zone activities crystallize into permanent occupation. Reinforcing Second Thomas Shoal requires creative solutions beyond traditional resupply, such as establishing underwater cache points using local diving operations as cover or developing commercial drone delivery capabilities. Establishing a permanent Coast Guard presence at Sabina Shoal through rotating deployments must be supplemented by the integration of civilian maritime fleets, including fishing vessels equipped with encrypted satellite communications and video recording equipment, increasing maritime domain awareness, and exposing PRC coercion of fisherfolk to the international audience. Deploying mobile coastal defense missiles to Palawan requires more than just hardware; it demands creating multiple firing positions, coupled with unpredictable schedules and rapid displacement procedures practiced during disaster response drills, as well as integration with local early warning networks that can distinguish between Chinese fishing fleets and invasion flotillas.

Philippine sailors, assigned to Naval Special Operations Units, and US Naval Special Warfare operators conduct live fire weapons training in Palawan, Philippines, during Balikatan 23, April 19, 2023. US Navy Photo.

Tier 2 orange zones require rapid development of resistance infrastructure before a Taiwan crisis. Pre-positioning supplies means more than stockpiling food and ammunition; it requires cached communication equipment hardened against electromagnetic pulses, medical supplies distributed across multiple concealment sites, and fuel reserves in locations known only to trusted local networks. The window may be measured in months, making Batanes the most time-sensitive priority after ongoing confrontations in the West Philippine Sea. Integration with local fishing cooperatives enhances maritime reconnaissance networks. The construction of community “typhoon shelters” with reinforced basements provides dual-use infrastructure.

Tier 3 yellow zones require enhanced protection against unconventional threats, in addition to traditional defense. Cybersecurity improvements, counter-intelligence capabilities, detecting infiltration, and rapid reaction forces responding to sabotage take precedence over conventional positions. Creating command redundancy and developing alternative facilities ensures continued functionality in the event of successful attacks.

Tier 4 gold zones require long-term capability development, acknowledging both strategic importance and available preparation time. Building integrated coastal defense, establishing distributed logistics, and surviving under attack, as well as creating auxiliary facilities that disperse critical capabilities, provides resilience against standoff strikes while maintaining operational capability.

Green zones require investment in societal resilience to support military defense. Strengthening cyber defenses, developing strategic communication to counter PRC narratives, and building economic resilience require a whole-of-government approach that extends beyond traditional military planning.

Establishing the Philippine “Red Beach” Framework

Taiwan’s designation of fourteen invasion beaches as “red beaches” created shared understanding among planners, officials, and the public about priority threats. The Philippines needs a similar framework that acknowledges the unique archipelagic challenges while providing clear defense. The Taiwan model works because it simplifies complex military planning into understandable geographic priorities—everyone from generals to citizens knows that Taichung and Tainan beaches require special attention. For the Philippines, the challenge is more complex due to its dispersed island geography, but the approach remains viable.

This tiered zone system—red for immediate West Philippine Sea threats, orange for Batanes proximity risks, yellow for Northern Luzon EDCA vulnerabilities, gold for Palawan strategic concerns, and green for nationwide non-lethal attacks—provides such a framework. It enables resource allocation based on threat probability and timeline urgency, rather than attempting a comprehensive defense that exceeds the scope of available resources.

…success ultimately depends on the willingness to act before the crisis reaches Philippine shores.

The framework also facilitates international engagement by clearly communicating the Philippines’ priorities and vulnerabilities. The AFP can describe capability gaps in defending red zones or preparing for resistance in orange zones. This clarity enables more effective security cooperation with partners facing similar threats. When discussing defense cooperation with the United States, Japan, or Australia, Philippine officials can specify exactly which zones require specific types of assistance, such as maritime domain awareness for red zones, resistance training for orange zones, cybersecurity for yellow zones, and coastal defense for gold zones. This precision transforms abstract security discussions into capability development.

Public communication benefits from providing citizens with clear and understandable threat information and reducing panic. Communities in orange zones can understand their defensive role and the importance of preparation. In contrast, residents in green zones can identify and address non-lethal threats and misinformation, thereby contributing to societal resilience. This shared understanding fosters national unity, rather than leaving citizens confused by ambiguous threats.

Implications for Philippine Territorial Defense

The threat of micro-occupation fundamentally challenges the Philippines’ defense doctrine, which was developed to maintain internal security and stability. The dispersed, low-intensity nature of creeping occupation paradoxically requires capabilities similar to those of counterinsurgency—information gathering, population engagement, and distributed operations—but applied in reverse to resist external occupation rather than suppress internal rebellion. This doctrinal shift is more profound than simply reorienting from internal to external threats; it requires reconceptualizing the entire relationship between military forces, civilian populations, and territorial control.

The traditional AFP approach emphasized controlling population centers and maintaining government presence in contested areas. Counter-micro-occupation doctrine must instead prepare for scenarios where government forces are absent or underground, where civilian populations must sustain resistance without overt military support, and where success is measured not by the territory held but by the imposition of costs on the occupier. This inversion of conventional military thinking challenges every aspect of doctrine, training, and equipment. Infantry units trained for jungle patrols against the NPA must now prepare for maritime infiltration and island defense. Intelligence services focused on penetrating domestic insurgent networks must pivot to detecting foreign special operations forces and countering sophisticated electronic surveillance.

The Community Home Defense Operations (CHDO) concept being developed by the AFP Joint Special Operations Command provides a framework for this doctrinal evolution. By adapting historical models to local conditions, the Philippines can enhance national resilience and establish the groundwork for potential resistance to occupation, with the added benefit of making communities more resilient to earthquakes, storms, and floods in the process.

This resistance concept draws from successful models—the French Maquis, Norwegian resistance, and more recently, Ukrainian territorial defense forces—but must be adapted to archipelagic realities where each island becomes its own cell, potentially isolated for extended periods. It is essential to emphasize that CHDO is also grounded in Philippine historical experience, such as the Citizen Armed Force Geographical Units (CAFGU), the Civil Defense Law, and community-based defense models. This ensures that concepts are not merely imported doctrine but grounded in local realities.

The Philippines can enhance national resilience and establish the groundwork for potential resistance to occupation.

The training of civilian auxiliaries, establishing stay-behind networks, and preparing for occupation operations require different skills than those needed for direct action raids. For JSOC, this represents the most critical doctrinal and cultural pivot, moving from counterterrorism operations of the past two decades toward building the foundations of national resistance.

This transition must occur while maintaining internal security capabilities, which requires careful management. The psychological shift is equally significant because special operators accustomed to being hunters must now teach others to survive and resist while being hunted. This requires developing new training programs, doctrine, and even selection criteria, prioritizing endurance and cultural integration over lethal skills.

Conventional forces must also adapt to micro-occupation threats that blur traditional boundaries between war and peace. Maritime forces patrolling red zones face PRC vessels employing calibrated aggression designed to avoid triggering combat while achieving tactical advantages. Ground forces in orange zones must prepare the population for resistance while avoiding provocations that could provide pretexts for preemptive PRC action. Air forces face the challenge of maintaining readiness without exhausting resources responding to persistent PRC probes and intrusions. Each service must develop new operational concepts that function in the gray space between peace and war, where traditional rules of engagement provide little guidance and strategic restraint often trumps tactical advantage.

The Narrow Window for Preparation

Ongoing gray zone activities in the West Philippine Sea could escalate immediately based on PRC political decisions rather than military timelines, as forces are already present. Orange zones could be occupied as part of a conflict in the Taiwan Strait within 24 to 48 hours, providing little time to prepare as tensions escalate. Yellow zones require immediate hardening against threats that PRC forces can already execute.

The PLA’s rapid modernization has dramatically shortened required timelines for complex operations. What might have required months of visible preparation a decade ago can now be executed with little warning, thanks to forward power projection and the expansion of PRC amphibious lift capacity, as demonstrated in exercises involving civilian roll-on/roll-off ferries. The proliferation of PRC maritime militia vessels, with over 300 large vessels by recent counts, provides ready platforms for rapid conversion to military use. Intelligence indicators that traditionally provided strategic warning are becoming less reliable as the PRC develops capabilities for fast transition from peace to war.

Resource constraints exacerbate these time pressures. Wealthy nations may pursue modernization comprehensively. Budgetary limitations constrain the Philippines to carefully sequence capability development, addressing the most urgent threats first. This sequencing must account not only for threat probability but also preparation timelines, with longer-lead items initiated early even for lower-tier threats. The acquisition of major weapons systems requires years from decision to deployment, meaning that choices made today will determine capabilities available in 2027-2028 when Taiwan tensions may peak. Training programs for resistance networks require 18-24 months to produce a competent cadre, infrastructure hardening projects need 12-18 months for completion, and establishing intelligence networks in threatened areas demands months of patient cultivation.

Conclusion: The Second Front’s Strategic Imperative

The micro-occupation threat to the Philippines represents a clear and present danger requiring immediate, prioritized response within severe resource constraints. This tiered framework proposes an approach to support defense planning. Improving national resilience in the Philippines protects more than its territorial sovereignty. The Philippines represents a potential linchpin determining the outcome of conflict in the Taiwan Strait. Seizing control of Batanes by the PRC would secure its southern flank for operations against Taiwan. Occupation of the EDCA sites would reduce the United States’ power projection capabilities in the region. Critically, PRC micro-occupations across the Philippine archipelago could create multiple crisis points, fragmenting allied responses and providing Beijing with the strategic distraction needed to achieve a fait accompli in Taiwan.

The strength of the Philippine response will lie not in matching PRC capabilities symmetrically but in making micro-occupation attempts costly enough to deter initiation and unsustainable enough to ensure eventual failure. This requires focused application of limited resources to priority vulnerabilities, development of innovative asymmetric responses, and building national unity around a shared understanding of the threat. This framework provides an analytical foundation, but success ultimately depends on the willingness to act before the crisis reaches Philippine shores. In the grand strategic competition between Beijing and the free world, the Philippines may find itself not as collateral damage but as the decisive terrain where the future of the Indo-Pacific is determined.

Tags: irregular warfare, Micro-Occupation, Philippines, PRC, Unconventional Warfare

About The Authors

Chad Machiela
CW5 Chad Machiela (USA Retired) is a faculty research associate at the Naval Postgraduate School. He retired from the Army as a Special Forces warrant officer with over 30 years of special operations experience working throughout the Indo-Pacific, Central, and European Commands.
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Duc DuClos
CW5 Maurice "Duc" DuClos currently serves as a Guest Lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, California. His professional background includes various positions at the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) Joint Special Operations University (JSOU), the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School (USAJFKSWCS), 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) and 2/75th Ranger Battalion.
View all posts
Anthony Bacus
LTC Anthony Bacus is a member of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). He is a graduate of the U.S. National Defense University (NDU) at Ft Bragg, North Carolina. He is currently serving as the JC5 in JSOC at Camp Aquinaldo in Quezon City, Philippines.

12. Democratized Intelligence: How Open-Source Intelligence is Reshaping Asymmetric Advantage

If it was worth reading once it is worth reading again.

Excerpts:

The OSINT revolution represents a structural rather than temporary transformation in the global intelligence landscape. As commercial satellite resolution improves, machine learning tools become increasingly accessible, and analytical methodologies evolve, the capability gap between institutional and open-source intelligence will likely narrow further.

For military and intelligence practitioners, this environment requires fundamental reassessment of operational security assumptions, collection priorities, and analytical frameworks. Operations must be planned with the assumption of continuous observation rather than periodic collection. Collection should prioritize information unavailable through open sources rather than duplicating publicly accessible data. Analysis must integrate open-source insights alongside classified information to develop comprehensive understanding exceeding what either approach alone could generate.

Perhaps most significantly, this transformation requires conceptual evolution beyond traditional notions of “intelligence as information monopoly” toward understanding it as an analytical advantage within transparent environments. When multiple actors can access similar information, advantage shifts from exclusive collection toward superior analysis, contextual understanding, and effective utilization rather than information control alone. This conceptual shift represents perhaps the most challenging but essential adaptation for traditional security organizations navigating this transformed landscape.

The democratization of intelligence through open-source methods has shattered state information monopolies. Non-state actors now track troop movements and expose covert actions in near-real time. That visibility shifts the center of gravity in irregular warfare from hidden collection to rapid analysis and transparent proof. Commanders who ignore this shift will fight blind while adversaries shape the narrative and exploit newly unmasked vulnerabilities. The answer is not tighter secrecy but smarter fusion—pairing classified sensors with public feeds, stress-testing plans against commercial satellites, and training every staff cell to validate OSINT at speed. In a battlespace where anyone can see, verify, and broadcast, advantage belongs to forces that turn radical transparency into faster, sharper decisions.

Democratized Intelligence: How Open-Source Intelligence is Reshaping Asymmetric Advantage

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/10/17/democratized-intelligence-open-source-osint-revolution/

by Josh Luberisse

10.17.2025 at 06:00am

Editor’s Note: this article is being republished with the permission of the Irregular Warfare Initiative as part of a republishing arrangement between IWI and SWJ. The original article was published on August 28, 2025 and is available here.

Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 crashed in eastern Ukraine in 2014, killing all 298 passengers. Russian-backed separatists and the Russian government denied involvement despite the world pointing in their direction. Russia promoted multiple alternative explanations, which a small team of online investigators at Bellingcat systematically disproved. Using only publicly available satellite imagery, social media, and digital forensics, Bellingcat analysts identified the Russian missile system responsible, tracked it from Russia to Ukraine, and documented its return with one missile missing. Their investigation, conducted without classified intelligence access, subpoenaed records, or state resources, proved more comprehensive and transparent than many official accounts. Independent analysts clearly demonstrated that they could compete with state powers in intelligence.

This watershed moment fundamentally transformed global intelligence capabilities. States have long monopolized intelligence work through sophisticated collection and analysis techniques. Barriers to entry were high and required states to expend the resources to build satellite networks, deploy human intelligence networks, and develop specialized analytical capabilities. Today, that monopoly has eroded dramatically as open-source intelligence (OSINT) capabilities previously requiring massive state investment are now accessible to non-state actors, researchers, advocacy groups, and individuals of modest means.

This democratization creates unprecedented opportunities in irregular warfare. Less-resourced actors can now develop sophisticated intelligence capabilities without corresponding institutional infrastructure. Understanding this transformation is essential for practitioners confronting an operational environment where information superiority no longer remains a guaranteed advantage, and all actors play on a more level playing field in intelligence.

The OSINT Revolution

The foundation of this intelligence democratization rests on three converging developments: technological accessibility, methodological transparency, and analytical tool democratization. Together, these factors have transformed capabilities once requiring billions in state investment into accessible functions available to any motivated actor with internet access and modest technical skills.

In terms of technological accessibility, commercial satellite imagery represents the most visible capability shift. Once the exclusive means of states with space programs, companies like Maxar, Planet, and BlackSky provide sub-meter resolution imagery capable of distinguishing objects smaller than one meter across – only requiring minimal commercial subscriptions for daily access. The cost asymmetry is staggering. Accessing imagery would have required a national satellite program 20 years ago, but now costs a few thousand dollars monthly. Resolution and coverage are constantly improving. When Russian forces began massing on Ukraine’s borders in 2021, open-source analysts identified and tracked specific unit movements and equipment buildups with precision comparable to government intelligence assessments. Unlike government assessments, these came with full public transparency and minimal delay.

Beyond raw collection capabilities, methodology transparency is similarly significant. Techniques once carefully guarded within intelligence agencies are now taught openly through online courses, YouTube tutorials, and dedicated communities. These techniques include geolocation through shadow analysis, which measures shadows to determine location; chronolocation via vegetation patterns, which analyzes foliage changes to date imagery; and pattern-of-life analysis, which maps routes as well as individual and organizational routines. The Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS) exemplifies this trend, having developed sophisticated open-source methodologies for tracking illicit shipping, sanctions evasion, and proliferation networks rivaling government capabilities.

Digital forensics tools have undergone similar democratization through both commercial development and open-source projects. Software for verifying images, analyzing metadata, tracking online activities, and processing large datasets now exists in user-friendly forms accessible to researchers with minimal technical background. When Syrian troops used chemical weapons in Douma, open-source investigators leveraged free tools to establish attack timelines and identify responsible military units with forensic precision rivaling traditional intelligence analysis.

Such capability diffusion creates asymmetric opportunities where small organizations can develop targeted intelligence functions meeting their specific needs without building comprehensive agencies or infrastructure. The resource asymmetry is striking. RAND studies and congressional testimony show that small OSINT cells can generate 70–90 percent of the analytic value of classified collection while operating at roughly two percent of the cost of a comparable government program. This cost‑utility ratio is most dramatic in mission areas such as conflict documentation, attribution investigation, tracking sanctions evasion, and pattern‑of‑life analysis—all functions central in irregular warfare.

Case Study: The Bellingcat Effect

Bellingcat’s emergence as a non-state intelligence organization represents a paradigm shift for conducting sophisticated analysis outside of traditional structures. Founded by Eliot Higgins, who began as a blogger analyzing weapons in Syrian social media posts, the organization has evolved into a globally recognized investigative unit whose findings regularly influence foreign policy, legal proceedings, and public understanding of complex security events.

Bellingcat’s methodology demonstrates how networked approaches can replace traditional intelligence hierarchies. Rather than building comprehensive in-house capabilities, Bellingcat leverages distributed expertise across a global network of contributors with specialized skills in areas including satellite imagery analysis, weapons identification, data visualization, and regional expertise. This networked model—where capabilities emerge from connectivity rather than centralization—creates organizational resilience and analytical depth exceeding what similarly resourced traditional organizations could achieve.

Bellingcat’s impact has inspired similar organizations worldwide, creating a growing ecosystem of specialized OSINT entities with distinct focuses. The Syrian Archive documents war crimes through digital preservation of evidence. The Digital Forensic Research Lab analyzes disinformation operations and digital manipulation. C4ADS tracks illicit networks through data fusion approaches. Collectively, these organizations represent an emerging “fifth estate” conducting oversight, investigation, and analysis functions traditionally reserved for state intelligence without corresponding institutional constraints or classification limitations.

The expansion of non‑state analytic hubs raises a credibility paradox. On one hand, Bellingcat, C4ADS, and the Syrian Archive often gain greater public trust because their methods and data are transparent—any reader can replicate a geolocation or satellite comparison. On the other hand, because they lack sovereign authority and sometimes formal oversight, governments can dismiss their findings as “unverified” or fake news. The decisive variable is methodological transparency: open datasets, step‑by‑step sourcing, and peer replication have become the new currency of credibility, often offsetting the absence of state imprimatur.

Strategic Implications

For non-state actors engaged in irregular warfare, this intelligence democratization creates unprecedented strategic opportunities. Insurgent organizations can develop sophisticated understanding of adversary deployments, identify protection vulnerabilities, and document human rights violations for narrative advantage without requiring state sponsorship or specialized technical assistance. The resulting intelligence asymmetry fundamentally alters irregular warfare dynamics by reducing the information advantages state actors historically maintained.

Ukraine’s use of OSINT networks during the current conflict demonstrates this advantage. By combining government intelligence with crowdsourced reporting, commercial satellite analysis, and specialized OSINT organizations tracking Russian deployments, they developed battlefield awareness exceeding their own institutional capabilities. This enabled precision targeting and strategic communication supported by publicly verifiable evidence that shapes international narratives while maintaining operational security advantages.

For traditional intelligence agencies, this transformation creates both challenges and opportunities. The greatest challenge emerges through operational security implications: activities once conducted with reasonable invisibility now risk potential documentation through publicly available means. This transparency pressure fundamentally changes covert action risk calculations, as operations historically conducted with plausible deniability now face substantial attribution risks through OSINT methods regardless of traditional tradecraft quality.

This transformation also creates personnel challenges as government agencies increasingly compete with private OSINT organizations for analytical talent. Intelligence professionals now have unprecedented opportunities outside of traditional agencies, forcing institutional adaptation through revised career paths, compensation structures, and operational practices to retain specialized expertise.

However, traditional agencies can also leverage this ecosystem through what former CIA Deputy Director Carmen Medina calls “intelligence integration,” where classified collection focuses on gaps that open sources cannot fill while leveraging public analysis for context, corroboration, and amplification. This combination of open and classified sources can create more comprehensive understanding than either approach alone, particularly when addressing complex transnational challenges.

Military operations face disruption through this intelligence democratization. Movements once hidden from adversary collection now face monitoring through commercial satellites, enabling even modestly resourced opponents to track deployments, identify patterns, and target vulnerabilities with precision. The 2022 Russian invasion planning became public months before execution, in part, through commercial satellite documentation of their buildup, demonstrating how even major powers can no longer shield operational preparations from global observation regardless of classification measures or information control attempts.

For policymakers, perhaps the most significant implication emerges through narrative competition. When civilian airline MH17 was shot down, Russian authorities expected to control the narrative through traditional information dominance. Instead, Bellingcat’s comprehensive open-source investigation established an evidence-based counter-narrative that progressively gained credibility through its transparency and methodological rigor. Open-source investigations’ ability to challenge official narratives creates fundamentally different information environments, which require sophisticated engagement strategies beyond traditional classification-based approaches.

Despite these advantages, OSINT has important limitations. Verification remains challenging without corroborating classified sources, especially when actors deliberately manipulate open sources and the truth is ambiguous at best. Questions of reliability persist—some view non-state OSINT as more credible due to its transparency and independence from government narratives, while others question its legitimacy without official sanction. Additionally, OSINT organizations struggle with sustainability challenges, uncertain funding models, and potential legal vulnerabilities when handling sensitive information without institutional protections.

The Future of Intelligence Democratization

The OSINT revolution represents a structural rather than temporary transformation in the global intelligence landscape. As commercial satellite resolution improves, machine learning tools become increasingly accessible, and analytical methodologies evolve, the capability gap between institutional and open-source intelligence will likely narrow further.

For military and intelligence practitioners, this environment requires fundamental reassessment of operational security assumptions, collection priorities, and analytical frameworks. Operations must be planned with the assumption of continuous observation rather than periodic collection. Collection should prioritize information unavailable through open sources rather than duplicating publicly accessible data. Analysis must integrate open-source insights alongside classified information to develop comprehensive understanding exceeding what either approach alone could generate.

Perhaps most significantly, this transformation requires conceptual evolution beyond traditional notions of “intelligence as information monopoly” toward understanding it as an analytical advantage within transparent environments. When multiple actors can access similar information, advantage shifts from exclusive collection toward superior analysis, contextual understanding, and effective utilization rather than information control alone. This conceptual shift represents perhaps the most challenging but essential adaptation for traditional security organizations navigating this transformed landscape.

The democratization of intelligence through open-source methods has shattered state information monopolies. Non-state actors now track troop movements and expose covert actions in near-real time. That visibility shifts the center of gravity in irregular warfare from hidden collection to rapid analysis and transparent proof. Commanders who ignore this shift will fight blind while adversaries shape the narrative and exploit newly unmasked vulnerabilities. The answer is not tighter secrecy but smarter fusion—pairing classified sensors with public feeds, stress-testing plans against commercial satellites, and training every staff cell to validate OSINT at speed. In a battlespace where anyone can see, verify, and broadcast, advantage belongs to forces that turn radical transparency into faster, sharper decisions.

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the official position of the Irregular Warfare Initiative, Princeton University’s Empirical Studies of Conflict Project, the Modern War Institute at West Point, or the United States Government.

Tags: information operations, information warfare, Irregular Warfare; IW, OSINT; Open-source intelligence

About The Author

Josh Luberisse
Josh Luberisse is a researcher and author specializing in asymmetric warfare, cybersecurity, and intelligence studies. He writes at the intersection of emerging technologies and irregular conflict, with a focus on how non-state actors are leveraging new capabilities to challenge traditional power structures.

13. Irregular Solutions for Irregular Threats: Maritime Lessons from Dutch Counterpiracy Operations in Colonial Indonesia

Ther reciprocal re-publishing partners between the Irregular Warfare Initiative and Small Wars Journal is a good thing.

Excerpts:

In a sense, this parallels 21st century counterpiracy operations off the coast of Somalia. Initially, flag states relied on naval deployments, but Somali pirates held significant advantages with their fast and maneuverable skiffs and their ability to avoid direct confrontation. This led states to turn to irregular solutions: embarked guards and a larger number of cheaper, smaller escort vessels – as seen in counterpiracy operations in the Gulf of Guinea – provided a more effective defense and deterrence than a few powerful warships. In this sense, the rise of private maritime security companies mirrors the Dutch decision to counter irregular threats with equally irregular forces.

Further analogies can be observed regarding the apparent issue of cost-effectiveness, which played a significant role in both the establishment of the Governor’s Navy and the utilization of private maritime security companies today. Moreover, institutional conflict within naval circles concerning a navy’s ‘core task’ also represent a persistent feature regarding the delegation of security, as illustrated by Rear Admiral Terence McKnight, the inaugural commander of CTF-151, who in 2012 said: “It is time for the maritime community to take responsibility for their own security and free our navies to defend our freedoms on the high seas.” Additionally, similar to the political pressures faced by the ill-equipped and outnumbered Colonial Navy, the international naval coalitions equally received harsh criticism from their respective political establishments, as their attempts to suppress piracy initially had little effect and caused the further diffusion of pirate activity over a larger area.

With the return of great power competition and a renewed focus on traditional security, these insights may regain relevance. The Houthi attacks have increasingly become a concern for the private security industry, while states are growing more reluctant to engage in such non-traditional and irregular maritime threats. Moreover, the mobilization of equally irregular actors by states in countering a variety of asymmetric threats, as we saw with the Governor’s Navy, might make a return as well. As discussed concerning the use of nonmilitary actors in the South and East China Sea disputes, where coast guards and maritime militias are progressively overshadowing their naval counterparts. Whether Mark Twain said so or not, the maxim that history does not necessarily repeat itself but often rhymes certainly holds true, as the case study of Dutch colonial maritime strategy in the Indonesian archipelago highlights.

Irregular Solutions for Irregular Threats: Maritime Lessons from Dutch Counterpiracy Operations in Colonial Indonesia

by Pieter W.G. Zhao

10.17.2025 at 06:00am

With the de facto closure of the vital Red Sea route between Europe and Asia, 2024 proved a particularly challenging year for global maritime shipping. Houthi attacks forced shipping companies to reroute vessels around Africa, driving up costs and disrupting supply chains. While reflecting on the previous year, the Council on Geostrategy, a British think tank, stated that “The failure to establish the level of sea control needed to secure trade raises important questions as to the effectiveness of naval protection, future approaches, and most importantly, how navies that are already stretched thin ought to balance preparing for peer conflict with safeguarding shipping.” This statement captures a central tension that has confronted navies since the turn of the century: the need to balance persistent, non-traditional maritime security threats, such as maritime terrorism, piracy, and illegal fishing, with the renewed demands of great power competition, deterrence, and preparing for peer conflict. This article examines colonial Dutch counter-piracy operations to illuminate the tension between securing commerce and preparing for conflict, offering insights for modern maritime strategy.

Since late 2023, multinational operations in the Red Sea such as Prosperity Guardian, Aspides, and Poseidon Archer have struggled to reassure commercial shipping. Warships were scarce, response times slow, and much of the burden fell to private security firms. For Aspides, a fraction of the planned vessels were deployed, underscoring states’ reluctance to commit limited assets to missions perceived as non-traditional. These shortcomings echo earlier responses to Somali piracy, where Combined Task Forces 150 and 151 and the EU’s Operation Atalanta faced similar criticism over cost, sustainability, and strategic prioritization.

This modern dilemma is not unprecedented. The need to protect commercial shipping in peacetime while preparing for major conflict has shaped maritime strategy for centuries. History shows that navies often delegated certain maritime security responsibilities to nonmilitary or irregular actors to preserve high-end warfighting readiness. One telling example comes from Dutch colonial counter-piracy operations in the Indonesian archipelago during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There, Dutch authorities faced the same dual challenge of persistent piracy threatening trade and the need to remain ready for peer conflict. Examining how they navigated these pressures offers valuable insights for today’s naval planners and policymakers confronting the same enduring trade-off.

Historical Context: The Dutch in Colonial Southeast Asia

The Dutch regained control of their former colonial possessions in present-day Indonesia under the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814. Although their territorial possessions had been relatively limited at the time, the nineteenth century saw a period of widespread Dutch expansionism marked by imperialist wars aimed at enlarging and consolidating territory. By 1900, the Kingdom of the Netherlands centrally administered most of present-day Indonesia.

The military organization, tasks, and ministerial coordination of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL) were relatively straightforward. But the maritime domain was not, consisting of two to three separate organizations subordinate to different departments with varying (and often rivaling) responsibilities. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Dutch maritime forces in the Indonesian archipelago comprised a complex organization of conventional national forces, a regional force, and a civilian paramilitary force. This arrangement resulted primarily from what were described as “dual pressures.” On one hand, the Dutch sought external security against outside powers such Britain, Spain, and, later, Japan. On the other, they faced an internal security challenge centered on persistent piracy around the archipelago. In other words, this was a dual challenge comparable to today’s tension between traditional maritime security responsibilities and the need to balance irregular threats.

Like other regions with significant maritime trade, piracy has been a persistent feature of the Malaysian and Indonesian archipelagos. However, by the start of the nineteenth century, piracy increased considerably as a consequence of the diminishing power of the East India Companies and the resulting changes in intra-Asian trade patterns. As soon as the Dutch Commissioner-General arrived in 1816, alarming reports concerning attacks on commercial shipping and coastal regions arrived. The Dutch labeled these attacks “acts of piracy,” but Indonesians often saw them as legitimate resistance against foreign rule sanctioned by local rulers not unlike early-modern European privateering.

Besides piracy, the Dutch colonial administration was wary of foreign power encroachment on its territorial claims. Interestingly, the colonial administration considered these concerns to be interrelated with the issue of piracy, as they feared that Britain or Spain could justify intrusions into Dutch-claimed territory under the guise of counterpiracy operations. As such, a successful maritime counterpiracy strategy was considered essential for various socio-economic, colonial administrative, and geopolitical reasons.

Dutch Colonial Maritime Strategy: A Dual Approach

To handle these dual pressures, the Dutch formed a colonial navy, Koloniale Marine. This force was separate from the Royal Netherlands Navy’s auxiliary squadron, reported to the Ministry of the Colonies instead of the Ministry of the Navy, and drew personnel from the regular navy. The newly colonial navy carried out internal security and counterpiracy responsibilities, while the auxiliary squadron had the core task of protecting the Dutch colonial territories against external threats. The auxiliary squadron had a relatively meager fleet of two frigates and four corvettes in 1818, in practice acting as an auxiliary to the colonial navy. The latter had 38 vessels with roughly 1,000 sailors and officers the same year. The colonial navy was primarily outfitted with conventional but outdated warships, converted commercial vessels, and gunboats to face largely ill-equipped and asymmetric adversaries, an arrangement that today may be considered maritime irregular warfare.

The Dutch took a conventional approach to an inherently asymmetric and irregular naval threat by choosing the colonial navy. As a result, the colonial navy proved utterly ineffective at its primary task of counterpiracy. There were occasional successes, such as in 1817, when the colonial navy’s frigate HNLMS Wilhelmina captured several pirate vessels off Seram Island. But their slow, bulky ships were no match for the fast and agile pirate craft, which avoided direct confrontation. Moreover, the densely wooded islands with their hidden inlets offered the pirates excellent hiding spaces. And since they could often count on the support of the local population, they were nearly untraceable. Accordingly, the cost of the colonial navy was disproportionate to its benefits, and criticism rapidly grew over the use of costly naval assets for ineffective counterpiracy operations. Moreover, naval officers increasingly began to lament such ineffective counterpiracy tasks, which they considered a task “unworthy of the navy.”

Piracy in the Indonesian archipelago persisted despite the colonial navy’s best efforts. The Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies decided to change strategy in 1821 by recruiting and mobilizing the local Javanese population for counterpiracy purposes. Their fast-sailing and maneuverable kruisprauwen cruisers were small indigenous sailing boats suited for the environment. These units would be decentrally organized under the authority of the local “resident,” a high-ranking Dutch colonial official governing an administrative division and armed with three to four guns, klewangs (traditional swords), and assegais (javelins). Local colonial authorities established a paramilitary civilian maritime force, crewed and outfitted by the local population, often under the command of a Dutch officer. This essentially countered an irregular threat with an equally irregular force. This “third” maritime force was known as the “Government’s Navy” (Gouvernementsmarine) in 1861.

The irregular Government’s Navy proved more effective at countering piracy than its naval counterpart, leading to the colonial navy’s disbanding in 1838. Vessels were reassigned to the auxiliary squadron of the Royal Netherlands Navy, which thereafter became known simply as the Dutch Squadron (Nederlands Eskader), as it no longer served as an auxiliary to the colonial navy. Although the conventional Dutch Squadron officially supported counterpiracy efforts, in practice the Government’s Navy absorbed most non-traditional security tasks. As a result, the squadron acquired the local nickname “half company” (Setengah Kompeni) due to its semi-military status.

The division allowed the Ministry of the Colonies, which was responsible for the Government’s Navy, to focus exclusively on the provision of inexpensive, small, and maneuverable vessels for counterpiracy purposes. Previously, the Ministry of the Navy obstructed their purchase as those capabilities were considered useless for more traditional security responsibilities. A larger fleet of smaller vessels was seen as more effective against asymmetric threats like piracy than a handful of larger, more sophisticated warships. Throughout the nineteenth century, the Government Navy maintained between 34 and 90 vessels, far outnumbering the much smaller regular naval fleets. Moreover, by recruiting locally and increasingly under the supervision of Dutch merchant officers instead of the more expensive naval officers, the counterpiracy campaigns became more cost-effective. As such, the Dutch colonial authorities effectively delegated and civilianized counterpiracy operations away from the regular military actors towards the more irregular and semi-military Government’s Navy.

Historical Parallels with Today

The Dutch colonial experience in the Indonesian archipelago offers striking parallels to the maritime security challenges confronting today’s navies, now underscored by the Houthi campaign in the Red Sea. Then, as now, maritime forces faced a persistent dual pressure: sustaining internal security against threats such as piracy or terrorism while remaining ready for external defense against powerful state rivals. The Dutch also recognized that these missions were connected: suppressing piracy helped deter foreign encroachment. Similarly, today’s “non-traditional” maritime threats (such as piracy, terrorism, and illegal fishing) are often closely linked to larger geopolitical competition. While the strategic contexts differ, the Houthi threat to shipping illustrates how seemingly localized maritime security challenges can be shaped and amplified by the ambitions of more powerful state actors.

The most striking analogy, however, is represented by the Dutch colonial authorities’ decision to delegate or outsource an asymmetric threat, in this case, counterpiracy operations, to an equally asymmetric and irregular semi-military civilian force. The Governor’s Navy, crewed with local Javanese under the supervision of Dutch merchant or naval officers, operated with a semi-military objective and thus represented an early precursor to today’s private maritime security companies.

In a sense, this parallels 21st century counterpiracy operations off the coast of Somalia. Initially, flag states relied on naval deployments, but Somali pirates held significant advantages with their fast and maneuverable skiffs and their ability to avoid direct confrontation. This led states to turn to irregular solutions: embarked guards and a larger number of cheaper, smaller escort vessels – as seen in counterpiracy operations in the Gulf of Guinea – provided a more effective defense and deterrence than a few powerful warships. In this sense, the rise of private maritime security companies mirrors the Dutch decision to counter irregular threats with equally irregular forces.

Further analogies can be observed regarding the apparent issue of cost-effectiveness, which played a significant role in both the establishment of the Governor’s Navy and the utilization of private maritime security companies today. Moreover, institutional conflict within naval circles concerning a navy’s ‘core task’ also represent a persistent feature regarding the delegation of security, as illustrated by Rear Admiral Terence McKnight, the inaugural commander of CTF-151, who in 2012 said: “It is time for the maritime community to take responsibility for their own security and free our navies to defend our freedoms on the high seas.” Additionally, similar to the political pressures faced by the ill-equipped and outnumbered Colonial Navy, the international naval coalitions equally received harsh criticism from their respective political establishments, as their attempts to suppress piracy initially had little effect and caused the further diffusion of pirate activity over a larger area.

With the return of great power competition and a renewed focus on traditional security, these insights may regain relevance. The Houthi attacks have increasingly become a concern for the private security industry, while states are growing more reluctant to engage in such non-traditional and irregular maritime threats. Moreover, the mobilization of equally irregular actors by states in countering a variety of asymmetric threats, as we saw with the Governor’s Navy, might make a return as well. As discussed concerning the use of nonmilitary actors in the South and East China Sea disputes, where coast guards and maritime militias are progressively overshadowing their naval counterparts. Whether Mark Twain said so or not, the maxim that history does not necessarily repeat itself but often rhymes certainly holds true, as the case study of Dutch colonial maritime strategy in the Indonesian archipelago highlights.

Tags: East China Sea, irregular warfare, IWI Republish, Maritime Security, South China Sea

About The Author

Pieter W.G. Zhao
Pieter W.G. Zhao is a non-resident fellow at the Irregular Warfare Initiative, affiliated with Project Maritime. He is a PhD Researcher at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where his research focuses on the role of nonmilitary and irregular actors in maritime warfare and security throughout history. As a historian, his research interests include international security and geopolitics, with a particular focus on the maritime domain and the Indo-Pacific region.

14. Finally, Japan is standing up for itself

Just as an aside, everyone publicly complains about POTUS' pressure, but I heard from many allies yesterday at a conference that in both Asia and Europe his pressure has been the necessary wake-up call. Our allies know they need to do this. They may not like the methods but all agree that the outcome is necessary.

Opinion

Editorial Board

Finally, Japan is standing up for itself

Japan is spending more on defense. Trump’s pressure helped.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/10/15/japan-defense-military-trump-takaichi/

October 15, 2025 at 5:11 p.m. EDTOctober 15, 2025

2 min

259

An Osprey aircraft takes off during a Japan-U.S. military exercise outside Tokyo. (Eugene Hoshiko/AP)

Japan is known for its predictable governance, which makes recent drama over who becomes the next prime minister unusual. Yet the good news is that messy politics won’t stop the wealthy island from doing more to defend itself.

The best of The Post’s opinions and commentary, in your inbox every morning

The most likely next prime minister is Sanae Takaichi of the Liberal Democratic Party, which put her in position to become Japan’s first female leader. Yet complicated legislative math has created an opening for an alternative from Japan’s divided opposition. No one knows who will be there to welcome President Donald Trump on a planned visit to Japan later this month.

The American should be pleased regardless of who gets the top job. For decades, Japan’s U.S.-imposed constitution has limited its military capabilities, and the country spent meager amounts on defense. Yet Japan has undergone a quiet revolution. The country is dramatically increasing defense spending and having a robust debate about whether to amend the “pacifist clause” of its constitution. Most of the country’s political parties, following public opinion, broadly support the shift from meek self-defense to more active deterrence.

Trump had repeatedly criticized the decades-old U.S.-Japan security treaty as “one-sided.” He can take some credit for Japan’s decision in December 2022 to double its defense spending to 2 percent of its gross domestic product by 2027. Currently the number stands at 1.8 percent of GDP — higher than at any point since the 1960s.

Follow Trump’s second term

Japan still could do more given the dangers posed by China’s military assertiveness in the Pacific. The second Trump administration has asked Tokyo to raise spending to 3.5 percent of GDP, matching NATO’s commitment to core defense spending. Japan is looking to acquire more long-range precision missiles, develop counterstrike capabilities and deploy more drones and tracking satellites. The country’s elites, perhaps looking to nearby South Korea, also hope to expand the domestic arms industry and become a major exporter.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as well as China incursions into the waters near the Japanese-administered Senkaku islands, have been a wakeup call. The main political disagreement is not over new military spending, but how to pay for it. The LDP proposes a combination of tax increases and bond issues. The opposition Democratic Party for the People prefers not to raise taxes but reallocate funds from domestic programs.

China recently warned Japan against purchasing weapons “which far exceeds what is required for its exclusively defense-oriented policy.” North Korea has accused Japan of “military recklessness.” The whining from these adversaries underscores why it’s so essential for Japan to bulk up. The U.S.-Japan security alliance has been the linchpin of regional stability for decades, and Americans have reason to be optimistic that yet another ally has stepped up.

15. Developing | China expels He Weidong, Miao Hua and 7 other generals from party and military

The CCP's game of thrones? China's version of officers serving at the pleasure of the President?

Developing | China expels He Weidong, Miao Hua and 7 other generals from party and military

He is the third member of the powerful Central Military Commission to be removed from office

https://www.scemp.com/news/china/military/article/3329429/chinas-no-2-general-he-weidong-expelled-communist-party?tpcc=enlz-today_international&UUID=b6aa9fa1-137f-48da-8e5d-b6a303526224&next_article_id=3329415&article_id_list=3329429,3329415&tc=3

Yuanyue Dangin BeijingandLiu Zhen

Published: 5:37pm, 17 Oct 2025Updated: 6:30pm, 17 Oct 2025

China’s second-ranked military general has become the latest in a series of top brass to come under investigation for corruption, China’s Ministry of National Defence announced on Friday.

He Weidong, vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) and a member of the 24-man Politburo, was expelled from the Communist Party and the army, the ministry said.

He is the first serving member of the present Politburo, the Communist Party’s top decision-making body, to face such an investigation.

He Weidong was vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission and a member of the 24-man Politburo. Photo: Xinhua

In a rare instance of a voluntary public release, ministry spokesman Senior Colonel Zhang Xiaogang said nine senior military officials had been investigated and punished.

“Upon investigation, it has been determined that these nine individuals seriously violated party discipline and allegedly committed grave duty-related crimes. The amounts involved are particularly huge, the nature of the offences extremely severe, and the impact is exceptionally negative,” Zhang told a regular media briefing on Friday.

In addition to He, the subjects of investigation include: Miao Hua, former member of the CMC in charge of the military’s political, ideology and personnel work; He Hongjun, Miao’s deputy and former executive; and Wang Xiubin, former executive deputy director of the CMC Joint Operations Command Centre.

Miao Hua. Photo: Handout

Lin Xiangyang, former commander of the Eastern Theatre Command; Qin Shutong, former political commissar of the army; Yuan Huazhi, former political commissar of the navy; Wang Houbin, former commander of the Rocket Force; and Wang Chunning, former commander of the People’s Armed Police Force were also being investigated.

He Weidong is the third CMC member to be removed since the existing line-up took office in 2022.

“The serious investigation and punishment of He Weidong, Miao Hua, He Hongjun, and others once again demonstrates the firm determination of the Party’s Central Committee and the Central Military Commission to carry the fight against corruption through to the end. It highlights a clear stance that there is no place for corrupted officials to hide within the military,” Zhang said.

China sacks defence minister Li Shangfu with no explanation after nearly two-month absence

Zhang said the cases were “a significant achievement” in the party and the military’s anti-corruption drive, and would make the military “purer, more consolidated, and endowed with stronger cohesion and combat effectiveness”.

The CMC, chaired by President Xi Jinping, sits at the apex of China’s military command chain.

At the 20th party congress in 2022, seven people were selected to sit on the commission but only four of those appointees remain, a situation not seen in decades.

In addition to Xi, only vice-chairman Zhang Youxia and two members – Liu Zhenli, head of the Joint Staff Department, and Zhang Shengmin, who leads the military’s discipline inspection commission – are still on the CMC.

More to follow …

Yuanyue Dang

Yuanyue joined the Post in 2022 after working as a feature writer for various Chinese media outlets. He graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong with a bachelor's degree in journalism and holds a master’s degree in anthropology from University College London.

Liu Zhen

Liu Zhen joined the Post in 2015 as a reporter on the China desk. She previously worked with Reuters in Beijing.

16. An Internet Shutdown Cuts Off Iranians From One Another, and the World

Controlling information access is key to survival for any totalitarian regime.

An Internet Shutdown Cuts Off Iranians From One Another, and the World

Since its brief June war with Israel, Iran has throttled internet traffic and jammed GPS, making day-to-day tasks online almost impossible and prompting Iranians’ fears of greater surveillance.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/17/world/middleeast/iran-shutdown-restrictions.html

By Sanam Mahoozi and Erika Solomon

Oct. 17, 2025

Throughout its 12 days of war with Israel in June, Iran enforced a near total internet blackout on its people, saying that it was a necessary security measure to stop Israeli infiltration.

Though the authorities have since technically lifted the blackout, internet activists, tech entrepreneurs and rights monitors say that a wartime chokehold on the web remains, leaving many Iranians still in the dark.

Digital rights experts say that internet speeds have been slowed, online traffic has been curtailed and geolocation positioning services, or GPS, is jammed. The use of satellite internet tools like Starlink, which could allow users to bypass such blocks, has been criminalized.

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Many Iranians once used VPNs — virtual private networks — to circumvent restrictions. But those are increasingly difficult to reach in the country.Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times

The partial shutdown has left Iranians struggling to communicate with one another and the outside world. Compounding Iran’s international isolation, the United Nations recently reimposed sanctions on its nuclear program.

The internet restrictions have had profound implications for ordinary Iranians. Since the war, simple tasks like finding directions, ordering a taxi or paying for groceries online have become an hourslong saga.

Abbas, a 71-year-old businessman, eventually gave up on his phone’s online directions as he tried to find a friend’s house in the city of Karaj.

“I kept driving in circles,” said Abbas, who asked to withhold his last name out of fear of reprisal for speaking to foreign media, adding that he was not alone in his frustration. “Everybody is lost.”

Officials from Iran’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technology did not respond to requests for comment on internet restrictions. But a June article by the news agency Tasnim, which is linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, said that “internet restrictions are necessary in wartime for defense against the enemy.”

Sattar Hashemi, the information minister, has publicly acknowledged GPS jamming, saying it was intended to stop Israel from flying drones in Iran. The authorities have also told state media that internet controls are necessary to prevent the spread of Israeli disinformation and cyberattacks.

Curbing the internet will have limited impact on Israeli intelligence, said Amir Rashidi, director of digital rights and security at the Miaan Group, a U.S.-based rights organization focused on the Middle East. He said Iran was already deeply infiltrated by Israeli operatives.

Israel demonstrated the extent of its intelligence on Iran during the brief June war, when the military killed a string of top generals and nuclear scientists in their homes, knocked out air-defense systems and forced the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, into hiding.

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The internet restrictions have made it difficult for Iranians to communicate with one another and with the world.Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times

The Islamic Republic has partly censored the internet since 2005, with social media sites like Facebook or Instagram blocked across the country. It has also temporarily shut down internet access in parts of the country before, in response to large-scale antigovernment protests.

After Israel attacked Iran’s nuclear and military sites in June, the Iranian authorities severed public access to websites and online messaging platforms, except for state-run or government-approved networks. They also blocked internet-based calls, along with international phone calls and text messages, making it almost impossible for Iranians to reach loved ones abroad.

Digital rights activists say the recent shutdown has been far reaching and seemingly open-ended, and signals a growing wariness among Iranian officials since the war about allowing open internet access.

After the fighting ended in June, it emerged that Israel had used mobile phones and online tools to track the bodyguards of Iran’s leaders and nuclear scientists. Internet activists inside Iran and abroad argue that the authorities are exploiting those security concerns to curb the relative social and political freedoms that the web offers, not least as an outlet for criticizing the government.

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The Iranian authorities have publicly acknowledged GPS jamming, describing it as a protection against Israeli drones. Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times

The shutdown also gave Iran a long sought-after opportunity to shift its internet model closer to that found in China, by imposing the use of domestic versions of international apps for everything from messaging to shopping, analysts say.

WhatsApp, an international messaging app, has been temporarily banned in Iran before, but Iranians have often used virtual private networks, or VPNs, to circumvent those restrictions.

During the fighting in June, when Iran heavily restricted internet access, international apps such as WhatsApp were blocked and many VPNs became inaccessible, according to Mr. Rashidi of Miaan. That forced Iranians to switch to using local platforms like Bale, a messaging app, which many had long avoided because of surveillance concerns.

“Iran’s entire goal for decades now was to isolate people as much as possible onto the domestic network,” said Fereidoon Bashar, the director of a Toronto-based tech firm, ASL19, which makes VPN software for the Iranian market.

Since the war, VPN use has largely been restored, but most are domestically-made platforms, which experts say could be subject to surveillance and monitoring by the authorities.

The use of VPNs had been so widespread that Iranians were some of the most prolific users of Instagram, despite its official ban. And senior officials — including Ayatollah Khamenei — frequently release statements on platforms like X, which is also banned.

The extent of the recent crackdown, however, has broken many Iranians’ will to get around the restrictions.

Internet censors have cut off many tools that were once used to access the internet, said Saeed Souzangar, a tech entrepreneur based in Tehran. “I am a tech expert and, right now, I am connected with immense difficulty.”

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Digital rights experts say the current shutdown reflects a growing wariness among Iranian officials, since the June war, about allowing open internet access.Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times

The censorship has hurt Iranian businesses at a time of severe economic crisis.

Amirhossein, a 38-year-old in the IT department of a food distributor, said some employees had resorted to manually checking inventories rather than relying on online systems. He asked not to be identified by his full name out of concerns about talking to foreign media.

In August, 100 companies signed a letter demanding that the government lift internet restrictions.

In response, Iran’s authorities passed a law imposing a “tiered internet” system, in which businesses, academics and journalists can receive access to faster internet than general users. Wary of previously strong resistance to the project, however, the government has put the system in place slowly.

Cybersecurity experts like Mr. Rashidi of Miaan warned that such measures were gradually eroding most Iranians’ access to unfettered internet. With each shutdown, the restrictions have worsened, he said, adding, “This is the new norm.”

See more on: Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (Quds Force), Ali Khamenei

17. Why U.S. Strikes Against Drug Boats Matter

Excerpts:

Just Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You Should

Is all this functionally irrelevant? In a sense, yes. It seems clear that there are immense political advantages to this expansive assertion of legal authority: U.S. forces face minimal risk; the president looks uniquely aggressive in combating the drug problem; there is little sympathy for the alleged drug-runners being attacked; and Venezuela has neither the interest nor capacity to intercede on their behalf. Nor is there meaningful domestic legal risk. Unlike so many of this administration’s moves, there is almost no chance a U.S. court will entertain a challenge to the president’s authority in this case. This leaves only Congress to scrutinize and ultimately check abuse of war power by a president, but as Justice Robert Jackson warned in a famous Supreme Court decision striking down President Harry Truman’s seizure of U.S. steel mills to end a strike that jeopardized war production during the Korean conflict, party loyalties have quite obviously nullified any congressional interest in checking this aggrandizement of power.

But being able to get away with something does not make it legitimate. No one should underestimate the consequences of treating what is by all accounts a criminal enforcement problem as “war,” triggering the use of combat power to kill criminals as a measure of first resort. That is a slippery slope. When coupled with the established U.S. interpretation of the international legal right of self-defense that permits projection of military force into the territory of another nation when that nation is “unable or unwilling” to prevent the activities of a non-state group engaged in armed conflict with the United States, this opens the door to extending attacks into Venezuelan territory. The consequences of such an attack are not hard to predict: Venezuela acts to defend its territory, and suddenly an interstate armed conflict comes into existence. Where it ends would be anyone’s guess.

A Venezuelan friend recently shared with me his view that such an outcome might be celebrated by the millions of Venezuelans living under President Nicolás Maduro’s tyranny. That is certainly true, as is the likelihood that defeating the Venezuelan armed forces would probably be relatively easy. Yet one need only consider the U.S. experiences in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya to understand that what would come after that might very well be quite difficult. But the slippery slope extends beyond the United States. Other governments dealing with problematic criminal threats might very well adopt the U.S. playbook, expanding “policing through combat” and asserting justification to extend combat operations into the territory of other states. That might sound fine in the abstract, but the consequences for human rights, respect for basic liberties, and international stability would almost certainly paint a different picture.

Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, I have been among the most vocal advocates for the view that international law and the meaning of armed conflict — especially against organized non-state armed groups — should evolve to keep pace with the evolving nature of such threats. But there is a difference between pushing the envelope and shredding it. While it may be tempting to applaud this aggressive military campaign against Tren de Aragua, it seems wise to reflect on President Dwight Eisenhower’s admonition from his first inaugural address: “Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America.”

Why U.S. Strikes Against Drug Boats Matter

Geoffrey Corn

October 17, 2025

warontherocks.com · October 17, 2025

On Oct. 14, President Donald Trump announced on social media that the United States had once more attacked an alleged drug smuggling small boat in international waters off the coast of Venezuela. This is the latest strike in what the Trump administration has, in a notification to Congress, designated a “non-international armed conflict” against Tren de Aragua, a narco-group based in Venezuela. In other words, the administration has invoked war powers to justify the targeting of these vessels and, ostensibly, other assets of the organization in the future — perhaps even inside Venezuela.

This assertion that the United States is now engaged in a “war” against Tren de Aragua matters for two profound reasons. First, these attacks may very well expand into Venezuelan territory with an almost certain risk of a Venezuelan military response. While such a response is unlikely to present a significant impediment to U.S. forces, what began as a limited action against a handful of alleged drug smugglers could quickly expand to an interstate war, regime change (which recent news suggests may be the administration’s ultimate goal), and all the second and third order consequences the United States has experienced that are often harder to address than defeating the enemy in battle.

Second, by invoking the characterization of armed conflict against what is by any objective measure a criminal threat that does not justify that invocation, the United States is setting a precedent of pretextual invocation of extraordinary combat power that other countries may follow in the future, resulting in overzealous claims of war powers, international destabilization, and abuse of fundamental human rights.

This raises a critical question: Do the objective facts warrant characterizing the threat posed by such a group as being of a magnitude to amount to an armed conflict, justifying crossing that line from the normal criminal law response authority to the extraordinary powers derived from such a situation? While the Trump administration asserts a categorical “yes” to this question, the objective facts point to a categorical “no.”

BECOME A MEMBER

Crossing the Line

States bear a fundamental obligation to protect their people and territory from a wide array of threats. This obligation, and the state’s authority to fulfill it, is beyond dispute. But this does not mean that every threat justifies the use of combat power — a power restricted to “war,” what international law designates as armed conflict.

Like domestic law, international law — through the operation of human rights principles — normally limits the power of the state to disable criminals who pose a threat. That power is fundamentally constabulary in nature — law enforcement authority. This means states may only resort to using deadly force as a last resort and only in response to an actual or imminent unlawful threat (not a future threat) of death or great bodily harm. This is why police carry less-than-lethal weapons, like Tasers, enabling the use of minimum necessary force to subdue a threat. Once an individual is subdued, subsequent deprivation of liberty — detention — requires a criminal charge, prompt appearance before a judicial officer to validate the arrest, and ultimately trial and conviction with the accordant imposition of penal sanction.

If, in contrast, the state is engaged in an armed conflict, the range of lawful measures to bring the enemy — in the collective sense — into submission is far more permissive. The legality of these measures is derived from international law, namely the law of armed conflict. Members of the enemy armed group are subject to deadly attack as a measure of first resort, and those attacks are justified based on a determination of enemy belligerent status and not based on the individual posing an actual or imminent threat. This attack authority terminates only if the enemy belligerent is taken “out of the fight” as the result of capture, wounds, or sickness. And if captured, deprivation of liberty — detention — is justified to prevent a return to hostilities and based solely on the enemy belligerent status determination. This means there is no requirement for criminal charge or trial (although that is an option) and that the detention is indefinite, with repatriation required at the end of hostilities. Furthermore, if the detaining power determines the detainee committed a “war crime” prior to capture, criminal sanction may be imposed by a military rather than civilian court.

All this indicates why crossing the line between peacetime security operations and armed conflict has such profound consequences. Prior to 1949, there was almost no international legal indication of where that line was drawn. This was in large part because the international law of war was understood to apply only to interstate “wars,” coupled with the assumption that it would not be difficult to determine when war began. But following World War II, international law evolved to include within the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 express provisions indicating when those treaties — and the broader law of armed conflict — came into force, or more pragmatically, what “triggers” application of the “‘wartime” law. For interstate conflicts, the answer was simple: any dispute between states resulting in hostilities between armed forces. The duration, intensity, or even characterization of such situations by the states involved was irrelevant. Armed conflict was intended to be a pragmatic, and not formalistic concept.

Coupled with this definition of what international lawyers now call “international armed conflict” came another provision requiring “parties” to an “armed conflict not of an international character” to ensure humane treatment of any individual not actively participating in hostilities. This was a monumental development in the law. For the first time, international legal regulation was injected into what were commonly known as “internal” armed conflicts: armed hostilities between state authorities and organized non-state armed groups. While quite modest in scope, the dam was broken, and states were obligated to ensure respect for international law if and when an internal threat rose to the level of armed conflict.

Exaggeration and Expansion

Since 1949, both the understanding of what qualifies as a non-international armed conflict and the extent of applicable legal regulation has expanded substantially. Perhaps the most profound expansion has been the characterization of non-state armed groups that operate transnationally as threats triggering the existence of a non-international armed conflict. The most influential example has been what the United States characterizes as an ongoing, global armed conflict against al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Today, certainly as far as the United States is concerned, the law of armed conflict may be justifiably “triggered” in response to transnational non-state threats.

Thus, in theory there is no legal impediment to characterizing operations against a transnationally operating non-state group — even a narco-terrorist group — as an armed conflict, at least in accordance with prior U.S. interpretation. But theory alone is insufficient to justify this claim of non-international armed conflict. That theory must be paired with objective facts that support this invocation — facts that are woefully insufficient in the Tren de Aragua case.

Defining what qualifies as a non-international armed conflict that justifies use by the state of extraordinary “wartime” powers has been far more difficult than defining the interstate armed conflict counterpart. There are, however, some almost universally recognized benchmarks. First, the threat faced by the state must be an organized armed group. This does not mean the group needs to have a formal organization and command structure like national armed forces. It does, however, mean the group must have sufficient military-type capability to engage in hostilities and that group members operate under the direction of group leadership. Second, and most significant in relation to Tren de Aragua, the group must engage in a level of violence against the state (or present an imminent threat of such violence) of such magnitude that it necessitates resort to military combat operations in response. This is known in international law as the “organization and intensity” test for what qualifies as an armed conflict.

In more pragmatic terms, there is an imperative question that should be asked when assessing the legitimacy of a state asserting it is involved in an armed conflict with a non-state group: whether the activities of that group have overwhelmed (or are about to overwhelm) normal law enforcement response capabilities. This was the true essence of the concept of non-international armed conflict since the 1949 inception of that legal concept: Does the extraordinary nature of the threat necessitate invocation of extraordinary response authority?

To answer this question, the Trump administration has emphasized — and exaggerated — the fentanyl death toll in the United States. There can be no real debate that the loss of approximately 80,000 lives each year to this pernicious illegal drug is tragic. Setting aside a recent report that Venezuela plays no role in the movement of fentanyl, although some Colombian cocaine passes through that country, harmful effect does not ipso facto indicate the United States is engaged in an armed conflict with a narco syndicate responsible for a portion of that influx. Nor does it justify the administration’s analogy to the threat posed by — and the U.S. response to — al-Qaeda. The fundamental difference between these two threats is intent: Unlike al-Qaeda, there is no objective support for the conclusion that Tren de Aragua intends to inflict death and destruction on the United States or its citizens, armed forces, or facilities abroad. Indeed, if the group is motivated by the profits derived from the sale of illegal narcotics, it is counter-intuitive to infer an intent to kill the consumers or provoke the type of armed response they now confront.

The administration should be applauded for designating this group (and other narco groups) as foreign terrorist organizations. This move justifiably expanded federal criminal and immigration powers to deprive the group of resources (most notably triggering the Material Support to Terrorism statute, a federal crime that prohibits anyone from providing resources or support to the group knowing the group has been so designated). But this in no way indicates the existence of an armed conflict. Nor does it, or the illegal activities of the group, justify invocation of unilateral presidential war powers, an invocation historically restricted to protecting the nation and its citizens abroad from actual or imminent armed attacks. Instead, the Trump administration’s assertion of armed conflict appears to be a pretext to justify invoking both constitutional and international legal authority inapplicable to this situation.

Just Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You Should

Is all this functionally irrelevant? In a sense, yes. It seems clear that there are immense political advantages to this expansive assertion of legal authority: U.S. forces face minimal risk; the president looks uniquely aggressive in combating the drug problem; there is little sympathy for the alleged drug-runners being attacked; and Venezuela has neither the interest nor capacity to intercede on their behalf. Nor is there meaningful domestic legal risk. Unlike so many of this administration’s moves, there is almost no chance a U.S. court will entertain a challenge to the president’s authority in this case. This leaves only Congress to scrutinize and ultimately check abuse of war power by a president, but as Justice Robert Jackson warned in a famous Supreme Court decision striking down President Harry Truman’s seizure of U.S. steel mills to end a strike that jeopardized war production during the Korean conflict, party loyalties have quite obviously nullified any congressional interest in checking this aggrandizement of power.

But being able to get away with something does not make it legitimate. No one should underestimate the consequences of treating what is by all accounts a criminal enforcement problem as “war,” triggering the use of combat power to kill criminals as a measure of first resort. That is a slippery slope. When coupled with the established U.S. interpretation of the international legal right of self-defense that permits projection of military force into the territory of another nation when that nation is “unable or unwilling” to prevent the activities of a non-state group engaged in armed conflict with the United States, this opens the door to extending attacks into Venezuelan territory. The consequences of such an attack are not hard to predict: Venezuela acts to defend its territory, and suddenly an interstate armed conflict comes into existence. Where it ends would be anyone’s guess.

A Venezuelan friend recently shared with me his view that such an outcome might be celebrated by the millions of Venezuelans living under President Nicolás Maduro’s tyranny. That is certainly true, as is the likelihood that defeating the Venezuelan armed forces would probably be relatively easy. Yet one need only consider the U.S. experiences in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya to understand that what would come after that might very well be quite difficult. But the slippery slope extends beyond the United States. Other governments dealing with problematic criminal threats might very well adopt the U.S. playbook, expanding “policing through combat” and asserting justification to extend combat operations into the territory of other states. That might sound fine in the abstract, but the consequences for human rights, respect for basic liberties, and international stability would almost certainly paint a different picture.

Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, I have been among the most vocal advocates for the view that international law and the meaning of armed conflict — especially against organized non-state armed groups — should evolve to keep pace with the evolving nature of such threats. But there is a difference between pushing the envelope and shredding it. While it may be tempting to applaud this aggressive military campaign against Tren de Aragua, it seems wise to reflect on President Dwight Eisenhower’s admonition from his first inaugural address: “Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America.”

BECOME A MEMBER

Geoffrey S. Corn is the George R. Killam Jr. Chair of Criminal Law and director of the Center for Military Law and Policy at Texas Tech University School of Law. Prior to joining academia he served as an Army officer for 21 years, retiring as a lieutenant colonel. He served one additional year as the civilian senior Army law of war advisor.

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

Image: The White House via X

warontherocks.com · October 17, 2025

18. Trump threatens US military force in Gaza amid fragile ceasefire

Trump threatens US military force in Gaza amid fragile ceasefire

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2025/10/16/trump-threatens-us-military-force-in-gaza-amid-fragile-ceasefire/

militarytimes.com · Carla Babb · October 16, 2025

President Donald Trump has threatened to use U.S. military force inside Gaza amid a fragile ceasefire between Hamas and Israel.

“If Hamas continues to kill people in Gaza, which was not the Deal, we will have no choice but to go in and kill them. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social.

The threat comes as Hamas-linked gunmen appeared to carry out a public execution in Gaza on Monday, according to an eyewitness. Video of the event reportedly showed seven people kneeling at gunpoint with masked fighters pointing guns at the back of their heads. The video freezes the moment shots are fired.

The U.S. military has sent about 200 troops to Israel to help support and monitor the ceasefire deal. The civil-military coordination center being stood up by U.S. Central Command will also include partner nations and non-governmental organizations to help coordinate the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza and provide security assistance.

The head of U.S. Central Command is currently in Israel to talk with regional partners and help get these ceasefire initiatives off the ground, a U.S. defense official told Military Times on Thursday.

The U.S. military policy in Gaza remains “no boots on the ground,” per U.S. officials, except for up to two dozen CENTCOM observers who are monitoring the situation inside Gaza.

Meanwhile, Israel is now accusing the Hamas terror group of not holding up its end of the historic ceasefire deal by withholding the remains of dead hostages.

President Trump on Monday traveled to Israel and Egypt to mark the beginning of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire. As part of the agreement, Hamas returned the 20 remaining living hostages, while Israel released some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas returned the bodies of two more hostages to Israel on Wednesday, totaling nine of the 28 hostages thought to have died, but said it would take significant effort and special equipment to find the rest. Israeli authorities have returned 30 bodies to Gaza.

Israel vowed to destroy Hamas in retaliation for the October 7 terror attack that killed 1,200 people and led to the capture of 250 hostages.

Israel’s counteroffensive killed tens of thousands of people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, while Israel says the death toll includes thousands of Hamas fighters.

19. Infantry brigades shift to mobile brigades in Army transformation

Infantry brigades shift to mobile brigades in Army transformation

https://www.defensenews.com/news/your-army/2025/10/16/infantry-brigades-shift-to-mobile-brigades-in-army-transformation/

Defense News · Todd South · October 16, 2025

Over the next two years, the U.S. Army will convert 25 Infantry Brigade Combat Teams into new formations known as Mobile Brigade Combat Teams as part of the service’s “Transforming in Contact” initiative, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George said at a media roundtable in September.

As part of the service’s initiative to rapidly deliver new capabilities to operational units, three brigades are already undergoing the MBCT transition and their leaders recently discussed some of the changes at the Maneuver Warfighter Conference at Fort Benning, Georgia, in September.

Key overhauls to the brigades include the addition of a multifunctional reconnaissance company and a multipurpose company to bring fires and strike capability down to lower tactical levels.

That’s in part because experimentation with loitering munitions and drones at lower echelons is paying off in destroying targets.

Col. Joshua Glonek, commander of 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, noted that 90% of fire missions during one training rotation at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center were viewed through drones. Users fired 50% fewer artillery rounds but were 300% more lethal due to the accuracy that using the platforms provided, he said.

Col. Trevor Voelkel, chief of staff for the 101st Airborne Division, said that his brigade had nearly 400 drones at its disposal.

But drones weren’t the only measure that changed the effectiveness of the newly reorganized brigades.

The Infantry Squad Vehicle, or ISV, enabled maneuvers for traditionally dismounted soldiers that they’d not experienced before adding the vehicles.

Fifty-mile movements were now feasible.

A paratrooper rides in an Infantry Squad Vehicle to his team’s objective during Devil Avalanche at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. (Spc. Aiden O’Marra/U.S. Army)

And pairing the ISVs with helicopter delivery means that soldiers can land vehicles outside the enemy’s defenses and penetrate from there, Voelkel noted.

But Col. David Lamborn, commander of 2nd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, said soldiers had to view the vehicle as a mobility platform and not a fighting vehicle. Troops must still include dismounted operational plans in their strategy.

“Do not become fixated on the ISV,” Lamborn said. “It’s not a fighting platform. It’s a tool, just a tool in the toolkit.”

The IBCTs transitioning to MBCTs will have ISVs and drones along with the new formations, the colonels said.

Each of the three colonels noted another key feature of the new formations and a necessary tactic: hiding in plain sight in the electromagnetic spectrum. The colonels advised new leaders to become familiar with the waveforms and communications plans they will need in order to be effective when commanding the brigades.

“Camouflage according to the terrain that you’re in,” Lamborn said.

For example, when his unit operated in Oahu, they were able to hide within the dense signals all around them but when they conducted operations on Luzon, Philippines, the rural area meant shutting down many devices to avoid being detected.

About Todd South

Todd South has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.

20. US military’s Libya outreach adds rung as rival sides to join special operations exercise

US military’s Libya outreach adds rung as rival sides to join special operations exercise

https://www.stripes.com/theaters/africa/2025-10-16/africom-libya-flintlock-exercise-19444784.html?utm

Stars and Stripes · John Vandiver · October 16, 2025

British and Ivorian special operations soldiers demonstrate an assault during exercise Flintlock on April 22, 2025, in Jacqueville, Ivory Coast. In a first for Libya, the country will be included in next year's iteration of the special operations exercise, U.S. Africa Command said in a statement Oct. 14, 2025. (Zachary Wright/U.S. Air Force)

STUTTGART, Germany — Libya will be incorporated into U.S. Africa Command’s flagship special operations exercise next year, the latest American military overture to the war-torn country whose strongman leader lost power in 2011 after NATO bombing.

Libyan involvement in Flintlock 26 was announced Tuesday by AFRICOM deputy commander Lt. Gen. John Brennan, who has made recent visits to Tripoli and Sirte to meet with rival groups vying for leadership of the country.

“This exercise isn’t just about military training,” Brennan said in an AFRICOM statement. “It’s about overcoming divisions, building capacity, and supporting Libya’s sovereign right to determine its own future.”

The training site for the exercise next spring will be near the central Libyan city of Sirte, the Stuttgart-based command said.

Flintlock involves numerous countries across Africa and is largely focused on developing counterterrorism capabilities of their respective militaries.

Control of Libya is being contested by two opposing factions, an internationally recognized government in Tripoli and the Libyan National Army, which dominates much of the eastern part of the country and is backed by Russia.

“By working alongside Libyans from the west and the east, we’re directly contributing to Libyan efforts to unify their military institutions,” AFRICOM said.

It added that the participation of western and eastern Libyan forces “marks a significant step forward in … enabling strong U.S.-Libya security cooperation.”

Libya has been in disarray since a NATO-backed popular uprising in 2011 overthrew longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who died in subsequent fighting that turned into a civil war.

Over the past year, the U.S. has stepped up efforts to forge closer ties with military officials in the north African country.

That outreach included visits to Tripoli and Benghazi by U.S. 6th Fleet flagship USS Mount Whitney in April, marking the first port calls by a Navy ship to the country in 56 years.

At the time, experts said the naval engagement likely was intended to send a message to China and Russia about U.S. resolve across the Mediterranean Sea, a region vital to trade and power projection.

The AFRICOM announcement comes amid political deadlock in Libya. Progress has stalled on a road map proposed in August by the United Nations for general elections over the course of the next year that would select a new unified government.

The political body in the east that is challenging the central government is backed by former warlord Khalifa Haftar, who leads the Libyan National Army.

Haftar was accused by Gadhafi’s regime of being a CIA asset. He returned to Libya in 2011 to lead rebel forces against the dictator.

Top U.S. military commanders and diplomats have met directly with Haftar on numerous occasions seeking to boost cooperation between rival factions.

“Flintlock 26 will be a tangible demonstration of our growing partnership with Libyan military officers in both the west and east,” Brennan said.

Stars and Stripes · John Vandiver · October 16, 2025

21. Russia Is Arming Drones With North Korean Cluster Weapons, Report Says

No surprise. But north Korea is hiking important (and deadly) contributions to Putin's War.

Russia Is Arming Drones With North Korean Cluster Weapons, Report Says

Though Pyongyang has largely pulled its soldiers off the front lines in Ukraine, it is expanding the types of ammunition it supplies to Russia.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/us/politics/russia-north-korean-cluster-weapons.html?utm

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A previously unknown North Korean cluster munition that was used as the warhead in a Russian drone found near Kherson, Ukraine, in September.Credit...Conflict Armament Research

By John Ismay

Reporting from Washington

Oct. 16, 2025

Russian forces are using small drones armed with North Korean cluster munitions in attacks in southern Ukraine, as North Korea expands its support for Russia’s military, according to a report published on Thursday by a weapons research group.

Independent investigators who visited Ukraine last week examined a previously unknown type of North Korean cluster munition that was fitted to a Russian drone found near the city of Kherson on Sept. 23.

Cluster munitions are a class of military ordnance that break apart in midair and scatter smaller explosive or incendiary weapons, often called bomblets, over a large area.

North Korea has supplied Russia with soldiers, artillery shells and ballistic missiles, but the use of North Korean bomblets as warheads in small Russian drones has not previously been reported.

The investigators said the bomblet had been heavily modified and attached to a “first-person-view drone.” That type of drone relays a video feed that enables a soldier to more easily direct it to a target.

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The report was published by Conflict Armament Research, an independent group based in Britain that identifies and tracks weapons and ammunition used in wars. Ukrainian government authorities have invited the researchers to the country throughout the war to analyze and document Russian military hardware.

The group has found that even the most advanced Russian munitions rely on low-tech parts made by Western firms that have been smuggled into the country despite international sanctions.

Image

Russian servicemen learning how to use a first-person-view drone at a training range in the Rostov-on-Don region of southern Russia in 2024.Credit...Arkady Budnitsky/EPA, via Shutterstock

The report comes as President Trump has said he may send U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine to press Russia to negotiate an end to its three-and-a-half-year war. He is expected to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine at the White House on Friday to discuss possible Tomahawk sales, which would give Kyiv the ability to launch salvos of missiles into Moscow.

Markings on the North Korean bomblet show that it was made in 2000. It was retrofitted with 3-D-printed parts holding an electronic detonator that would explode when the drone impacted its target.

According to Damien Spleeters, one of the group’s researchers who documented the modified warhead, the North Korean bomblet appears to be a copy of an American munition first used in combat during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

That weapon, called the M42 Dual-Purpose Improved Conventional Munition, is roughly the size of a D-cell battery. They were packed into shells and rockets that U.S. artillery troops used to blanket suspected Iraqi Army positions, dispensing nearly 14 million of the bomblets on enemy forces during the 37-day war.

The M42 has largely been restricted from use by American forces because of its high failure rate and the hazard unexploded bomblets present to friendly forces as well as civilians in post-conflict areas.

Regardless, the Biden administration agreed to send 155-millimeter artillery shells containing M42-type submunitions to Ukraine in July 2023. At the time, the Pentagon called them “highly effective and reliable” and said it had consulted with Congress and allied nations before sending them.

The modifications seen to the previously unknown North Korean bomblet, which some Ukrainian officials have called the JU-90, required careful preparation.

“The 3-D printed parts designed and built specifically for this munition speak to a more sophisticated effort,” Mr. Spleeters said. “It’s a more systematic kind of improvisation.”

The discovery, his team wrote, “establishes yet another direct material link between the North Korean defense industry and the war in Ukraine.”

Russia produces the fuselage of some first-person-view drones, but most if not all of their other components are made in China, Mr. Spleeters said.

John Ismay is a reporter covering the Pentagon for The Times. He served as an explosive ordnance disposal officer in the U.S. Navy.

A version of this article appears in print on Oct. 17, 2025, Section A, Page 10 of the New York edition with the headline: Russia Puts Little Bombs From an Ally On Its Drones. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

22. A Grand Strategy of Reciprocity: How to Build an Economic and Security Order That Works for America

Excerpts:

The idea of spheres of influence offends liberal internationalist sensibilities. “During the cold war,” The Economist argued in July, “American- and Soviet-led blocs amounted to spheres of influence. After the USSR fell, both Democratic and Republican administrations repudiated such spheres as deplorable artefacts of the past, calling instead for a liberal world order, open to all.” That is true as a descriptive matter, but it only underscores the wishful thinking that underpinned the repudiation. What happens to a liberal world order “open to all” when some accept the invitation to join but not the terms of membership? They can be welcomed anyway, leading to a world order that is far from liberal, or they can be excluded, preserving the prospects for a liberal order that excludes some of the world. The former has been tried, and it failed. The latter, by insisting on reciprocity and accepting spheres as inevitable in a world of competing and incompatible economic and political systems, gives the United States a much better chance of achieving its goals and advancing its values.

Reciprocity holds the promise of improved economic prospects, reduced foreign commitments, and a return to the politics of a republic focused foremost on the interests of its own citizens. But adopting such a strategy will require American leaders—and ordinary Americans—to accept a more limited role for their country on the world stage. Patriotism demands realistic assessments of abilities and interests, not the outlandish embrace of goals the country has no power to achieve.

The gambler who responds to frustrating losses by placing bigger and riskier bets is said to be “on tilt.” In the United States, too many analysts are still assessing the hypothetical benefits of a hyperpower status that does not exist; too many politicians are still giving speeches about their affection for various forms of imagined empire. With a humbler and more realistic strategy of reciprocity, Washington would finally be placing a bet that the United States can win.

A Grand Strategy of Reciprocity

Foreign Affairs · More by Oren Cass · October 17, 2025

How to Build an Economic and Security Order That Works for America

Oren Cass

November/December 2025 Published on October 17, 2025

Ricardo Tomás

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The United States has pursued two grand strategies in the 80 years since World War II. One was an extraordinary success: the policy of “containment” that guided American economic investments, foreign relations, and military deployments during the Cold War, which led to the defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of the United States as the world’s lone superpower.

The same cannot be said, unfortunately, about the strategy adopted at the Cold War’s conclusion: an attempt to leverage superpower status to establish a “liberal world order” that Washington would secure and dominate. That strategy went by names including “enlargement,” as defined by President Bill Clinton’s first national security adviser, Anthony Lake, and “benevolent hegemony,” in the words of the neoconservative thinkers William Kristol and Robert Kagan, writing in these pages. This vision promised an enduring Pax Americana in which no other country could or would challenge U.S. supremacy, all evolved inevitably toward liberal democracy, and the global free market’s warm embrace rendered borders irrelevant while spreading prosperity worldwide.

By some measures, the strategy worked. U.S. GDP and stock prices steadily rose. Technology and trade stitched the world closer together. World War III did not start. But a clear-eyed appraisal of the post–Cold War era reveals a less rosy reality. Far from producing a utopia of shared prosperity and stable peace, American strategy in the past three decades has instead yielded a global economic order that allows other countries to exploit Washington’s largess, an ascendant authoritarian adversary in China, and simmering conflicts around the globe in which expectations of American commitment far outstrip the reality of American capacity—all of which have contributed to economic and social decay in the United States.

Any grand strategy is, in part, a bet on a particular theory of political economy. The bet on investing to rebuild a bulwark of market democracies whose prosperity would eventually overwhelm Soviet communism was a wise one. The subsequent bet, on the ability of globalization and free markets to render political economy irrelevant, was not. The time has come for a new wager. The best way to create a sustainable trading and security bloc is a strategy of reciprocity: an alliance among countries committed to engaging with each other on comparable terms while jointly excluding others that will not fulfill the same obligations.

Demanding reciprocity would counteract the beggar-thy-neighbor policies that have created unsustainable imbalances with U.S. trading partners, curtail Washington’s dependence on adversaries for critical goods, and limit the free-riding that has slowly eroded U.S. alliances and partnerships. By embracing reciprocity, the United States would also be rejecting an asymmetric order featuring a dominant power and its clients in favor of one in which participants all stand on equal footing with equal expectations. This would represent a healthy development in how the nation conceives of itself, moving away from an American empire and back toward an American republic.

Perhaps counterintuitively, the relative decline in American power has strengthened Washington’s hand when it comes to negotiating the terms of a new global order. The status quo is predicated on an American commitment to hegemony that precludes the possibility of pulling back. That commitment made sense as long as the United States remained dominant. But owing to the self-enfeeblement of its allies and the ascent of China, the United States can no longer maintain its predominance.

And so it seems plausible that a dramatic retrenchment—pulling back from global economic and military engagement and relying chiefly on the strategic depth and sizable market provided by the North American continent—could produce a better outcome than the ongoing descent into late-imperial exhaustion. Simply put, Washington can now consider walking away from the table if the terms of its relationships do not improve. Allies and partners know this and want to avoid that outcome, because the U.S. market and military remain indispensable to their own prosperity and security. Which means that, for the first time in the lives of contemporary policymakers, the United States is in a position to frame its demands around narrow self-interest, back them with credible consequences, and expect them to be taken seriously. The question that will define the next era of American statecraft is, What should those demands be?

In his second term, President Donald Trump has made progress toward developing a strategy of reciprocity. He and his administration deserve credit for recognizing the need for change, and they have been persuasive in signaling that they see walking away from the table as preferable to tolerating the status quo. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has conceded that European countries have been “free-riders,” taking advantage of the United States, and the most recent NATO summit concluded with an unprecedented commitment by members to raise their defense spending from at least 2.0 percent of GDP to at least 3.5 percent. Credibly threatened with tariffs, Canada and Mexico have begun reducing their economic ties with China; Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, and the European Union have all worked toward agreements to reduce their trade imbalances with the United States.

But even though Trump defines U.S. interests and weighs costs and benefits differently than did his predecessors, he has not yet translated his “America first” instincts into a coherent vision of a new global settlement. His trade agenda has appeared haphazard, and confronting all countries suddenly, simultaneously, and harshly has needlessly antagonized allies and heightened uncertainty. On China, the administration has oscillated unpredictably, pursuing a sharp decoupling one day and a grand bargain the next. And it has been difficult to discern the logic behind moves such as imposing stiff tariffs on India, purportedly in response to that country’s oil purchases from Russia.

To reset relationships and forge new ones on new premises requires communicating the reasons for the change, the shape of the new strategy, the character of American demands, and the consequences for failure to reach agreement. Reciprocity can provide those premises, on terms fair to both the United States and prospective allies. But Washington needs to establish and articulate those premises and terms as clearly as possible.

A BAD BET

For a brief moment after the defeat of Soviet communism, Americans debated whether they should return to the humble and noninterventionist foreign policy tradition that a bounty of natural resources and the protection of two oceans had enabled in the republic’s early years. But officials and politicians were exhilarated by victory, possessed of an astonishing hubris, and seduced by visions of empire offered by scholars and pundits. The United States, they decided, could and should dominate global affairs indefinitely.

The seminal Defense Planning Guidance developed by the George H. W. Bush administration in 1992 called for the United States to “promote increasing respect for international law, limit international violence, and encourage the spread of democratic forms of government and open economic systems,” and to “retain the pre-eminent responsibility for addressing selectively those wrongs which threaten not only our interests, but those of our allies or friends, or which could seriously unsettle international relations.” The following year, Clinton ratified this bipartisan consensus in a speech at the United Nations. “We cannot solve every problem,” he said, “but we must and will serve as a fulcrum for change and a pivot point for peace.” Four years later, in his second inaugural address, Clinton went further, anointing the United States the world’s “indispensable nation.”

Within a remarkable 12-month period surrounding that speech, a chorus of prominent thinkers cheered on this new credo. Kristol and Kagan assigned the American people “fundamental interests in a liberal international order, the spread of freedom and democratic governance, an international economic system of free-market capitalism and free trade,” and a “responsibility to lead the world.” The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman published his observation that “no two countries that both have a McDonald’s have ever fought a war against each other.” And the economist Paul Krugman asserted that “a country serves its own interests by pursuing free trade regardless of what other countries may do.”

Embedded in these declarations were three interlocking assumptions. First, that the United States, standing alone as the world’s sole economic and military superpower, would have the ability and will to dictate global events when and where it chose. Second, that all countries of geopolitical significance would move inexorably toward market capitalism and democratic governance and thus would have interests and systems compatible with a U.S.-led liberal world order. And finally, that free markets would automatically generate prosperity, for the United States most of all, and thus the expansion and integration of markets would reinforce the American position.

To allies, Washington has said “do this” and “stop that”—but rarely “or else.”

As long as those assumptions held, the costs incurred by the United States to preserve the status quo could yield it far larger benefits. Domination of global affairs allowed Washington to push other countries toward economic and political liberalization, which further expanded markets that the United States could then dominate and orient toward its own priorities. Outspending the rest of the world, combined, on defense and tolerating market abuses on the part of other countries—including currency manipulation, industrial subsidies, regulatory barriers, and wage suppression—were small prices to pay, and ones that the United States could easily afford.

For a time, these core assumptions seemed to hold. The 1990s began with the triumph of the U.S.-led coalition in the Persian Gulf War. Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization signed the Oslo accords, South Africa transitioned from apartheid to democracy, and NATO intervened successfully in the Balkan wars. The North American Free Trade Agreement took effect, the World Trade Organization launched, and the European Union adopted a common currency. At the decade’s end, the United States arrived at the crest of an economic boom, with a federal budget comfortably in surplus, unchallenged in any sphere of global leadership.

But in 2000, the Russian Federation elected Vladimir Putin as president, and he has led the country ever since. That October, the United States granted “permanent normal trade relations” to China with the expectation that the embrace would “increase the likelihood of positive change in China and therefore stability throughout Asia,” as Clinton had explained earlier that year at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos. “What some call globalization,” elaborated President George W. Bush the following July, “is in fact the triumph of human liberty across national borders.” Two months later, the Twin Towers fell, and the U.S. military plunged into Afghanistan.

In the years that followed, systems bearing no resemblance to market democracy gained traction, and countries that adopted them grew stronger, undermining international institutions built to serve liberal states, violating international law with impunity, and making a mockery of the global trading system. Washington failed to build stable democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the invasions of those countries accomplished little besides miring the United States in “forever wars” that cost thousands of American lives and trillions of dollars. Elsewhere, few young democracies consolidated their gains, while countries such as Russia, Turkey, and Venezuela slid further backward into authoritarianism.

A NATO exercise in Wierzbiny, Poland, September 2025 Kacper Pempel / Reuters

More than 40 U.S. military bases and some 80,000 American troops in Europe did nothing to deter Russia from invading Georgia in 2008, then Crimea in 2014, then the rest of Ukraine in 2022. The only perceptible effect of these massive deployments was to discourage Washington’s European allies from investing in their own defense. Meanwhile, China chipped away at the military dominance that was the prerequisite for American hegemony. By some estimates, its defense spending is equivalent to that of the United States, and it fields the world’s largest active-duty fighting force and largest naval fleet. China’s industrial power allows it to influence foreign conflicts—for instance, bolstering the war machine that powers Russia’s assault on Ukraine—and would give China an advantage in a lengthy war of attrition. U.S. shipbuilding capacity trails China’s by a factor of 1,000.

China’s growing advantages are a symptom of the broader failure of globalization. For the past three decades, the unfettered flow of goods and capital devastated American industry, helped drive up federal deficits, and provided the fuel for the financial meltdown that led to the global financial crisis of 2008 and the Great Recession that followed. The manufacturing sector’s crown jewels, from Intel to Boeing to General Electric, became laggards—overtaken not by new American entrepreneurs but by foreign state-subsidized enterprises. The sector has atrophied so badly that, according to data on productivity published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, factories today need more workers than they did a decade ago to produce the same output.

Although the U.S. service sector’s rise in relative importance was natural for an advanced economy, the stagnation in manufacturing was not. The abandonment of production, typified by Apple’s “designed in California, made in China” strategy, sent factory jobs overseas first—but the innovation soon followed. In the mid-2000s, the United States was ahead of China on 60 of 64 “frontier technologies” identified by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. By 2023, China led on 57.

In the twenty-first century, American military leadership and economic forbearance neither achieved an “enlargement” of the community of market democracies nor boosted American security and prosperity. It merely consumed the physical, financial, and social capital that the country had painstakingly accumulated. For global superpowers as much as for families, it turns out, one generation builds the wealth, the second enjoys it, and the third destroys it or sees it squandered.

NO MORE FREE RIDES

The hallmark of U.S. strategy during hegemony was the unconditionality of its vision, providing benefits to other countries regardless of how they exploited the arrangement. When NATO allies refused to meet their defense spending commitments, the United States might cajole, but its own commitment to defending every NATO country from any possible attack remained rock solid. If China manipulated its currency, subsidized its national champions, stole intellectual property, and denied U.S. firms access to its market, Washington might complain, but the American market would remain open to Chinese companies. When it came to its allies and partners, the United States would say “do this” and “stop that”—but it rarely said “or else.”

Over time, what developed among the expert class in Washington was a belief that open markets and alliances were ends unto themselves, so valuable that they were worth pursuing at any price, regardless of how other countries behaved. That belief was unfounded even when the United States was the predominant power; in the post-hegemony world, it is unmoored from reality. The country needs a new path.

One alternative would be retrenchment: taking advantage of the strategic depth afforded by geography to build a “Fortress America” with only Canada and Mexico as close partners. This would be a dramatic transformation but an entirely plausible one, and preferable to a status quo in which the United States continues to absorb the costs of attempting to preserve hegemony while enjoying none of the benefits that depend on preserving it. But that would be far from ideal: the country would lose the capacity to influence events around the world in situations that involved critical U.S. interests. Retrenchment would also shrink the scale of the broad open market in which American businesses innovate and grow.

The expert class came to see open markets and alliances as ends unto themselves.

At the same time, although the days of incurring costs in pursuit of benevolent hegemony are over, it would also be a mistake for the United States to pursue a nakedly coercive empire that leverages its economic and military power to exploit putative allies. Doing so would corrode the country’s democratic republic by elevating the interests of elites over those of ordinary citizens and would corrupt the country’s ethos of liberal governance and self-determination. It would also trigger resentments that would make U.S. alliances less stable and conflicts within them more likely.

Instead of pursuing either of those extremes, the United States should pursue reciprocity, focused on a set of commitments that allies must make to each other for the alliance to function well. Going forward, the question Washington should pose to any ally or potential partner is this: If each member were behaving the way you are, would the alliance be a strong one benefiting all members, or would it collapse?

On this basis, the United States should make three core demands of any prospective participant in a U.S.-led trading and security bloc. First, Washington should insist that its allies and partners are prepared to take primary responsibility for their own security. A country that does not even attempt to defend itself brings a security deficit to a coalition and acts as a drain on the collective defense, imposing obligations on others that it cannot reciprocate.

Trump speaking with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Turnberry, Scotland, July 2025 Evelyn Hockstein / Reuters

Consider Germany, which has relied on the United States for security in its region since the end of World War II. “We cannot substitute or replace what the Americans still do for us,” Merz conceded in May. The same cannot be said about what, if anything, the Germans still do for the United States. The basing of so many American troops on German soil, at American expense, serves the Germans, the rest of Europe, and the dreams of empire that some in Washington still harbor. But it does not serve the interests of the typical American. The U.S.-German relationship is not an alliance in any meaningful sense of the term: in reality, Germany is a client and the United States is a patron, although one that gets little in exchange for its patronage. The bases in Germany should be German bases, hosting German troops paid by the German government to maintain comparable capabilities.

Conversely, a country that can take responsibility for deterring and defeating common foes in its own region while contributing intelligence and technology to its partners is invaluable. In June, the Israeli air campaign against Iran provided a concrete illustration. Israel hoped the United States would join, but had little leverage to make it do so. U.S. leaders were able to assess their options and decide which best advanced American interests. When Trump opted to take part, American B-2s were able to follow a path already cleared and strike targets already softened by Israeli forces. Iran found it unwise to attempt more than a symbolic retaliation.

A strategy of reciprocity would call for ending direct U.S. aid to Israel; it is wholly unnecessary given Israel’s wealth and strategic position, and it does not deliver a clear benefit to the United States. But Washington should gladly continue selling arms to Israel, and even providing financing for those sales, as it should for other allies that take primary responsibility for their own regions. Israel generally allocates more than five percent of its GDP to defense spending even when not engaged in active conflicts, and it mandates conscription for a majority of citizens. Israel does these things not to secure Washington’s blessing but to secure itself. Imagine what the United States would save, and how much more secure from Russian and Chinese aggression the world would be, if countries such as Germany and Japan were equally determined to deter their regional adversaries.

IN OR OUT?

If it pursued reciprocity, Washington would also make a second demand: balanced trade. Economists have long understood that the benefits of free trade are undermined if countries adopt beggar-thy-neighbor policies that shift productive capacity to themselves at the expense of partners. In its efforts to achieve benevolent hegemony, the United States tolerated being beggared by its neighbors. For example, major trading partners such as Germany, Japan, and South Korea have pursued aggressive industrial policies and export-led growth strategies that shifted productive capacity from the United States and created persistent trade imbalances.

The United States tolerated this state of affairs partly for the sake of securing the loyalty of its allies and partners, and partly out of a mistaken belief that making things did not matter anymore and offshoring American industry would lead to cheaper goods for American consumers and better jobs in high-value service industries. Those tradeoffs have become untenable, as a weakened manufacturing sector has frayed the social fabric by eliminating millions of good blue-collar jobs, shattered the foundations of local economies across broad swaths of the country, reduced investment and innovation, imperiled supply chains, and eliminated the strategic depth afforded by a robust industrial base.

The United States should be a strong advocate for a large and open market as a core feature of an alliance, but it must insist that all participants foster the mutual benefit that a well-functioning trading system provides. In practice, this requires that each country commit to maintaining balance in its own trade, buying as much from others in the bloc as it sells to them. In the global trading system today, the United States operates as the consumer of last resort, absorbing surpluses from all who wish to run them. No other country can match China’s abuse of the global trading system, but Germany, Japan, and South Korea all rely on export-led growth and expect the U.S. economy to absorb their massive export surpluses, too, to the benefit of their producers and the detriment of American competitors.

Although a bilateral imbalance between any two countries is not necessarily problematic, an alliance cannot tolerate members pursuing large overall surpluses, which by definition necessitate others to run large deficits. Reciprocity would require using tariffs, quotas, or other regulatory barriers to discipline any country that is creating a structural imbalance. Countries running persistent surpluses could also commit to voluntary restraints on their own exports and could encourage their companies to build capacity in allied markets, as Japan did in the 1980s after the Reagan administration objected to Japanese automakers pouring cheaper cars into the American market. Countries that refused to play by the rules and pursue balance would be pushed out of the common market and face a high, uniform tariff from all members of the bloc.

In an era when the United States guaranteed open access to its market regardless of whether participants followed the rules, other countries quite rationally took advantage. If the United States instead conditioned access to its market on trading relationships that are balanced and thus mutually beneficial, countries will find it in their interest to adjust accordingly. The shock waves triggered by the Trump administration’s tariffs are educating both economists and U.S. allies on this point. Canada, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the European Union have all altered their own trade policies—lowering barriers for U.S. exporters and raising barriers for China’s, in various combinations—and some have also made large commitments to invest in expanding U.S. capacity.

CONSCIOUS UNCOUPLING

The third demand of a reciprocity strategy is simple: “China out.” The strategy of benevolent hegemony atop a liberal world order assumed the United States would remain the lone superpower, all countries would move toward market democracy, and free trade among them would foster prosperity for all. But China didn’t follow the script. How would U.S. leaders in 1997 react if a time traveler could go back and tell them that China—whose GDP per capita was then lower than that of the Republic of the Congo—would remain an authoritarian country with a state-run economy yet rise to match the United States geopolitically and outcompete it in industrial power? Presumably, they would laugh. But anyone who believed it would surely abandon the blind embrace of China on the spot. The United States, after all, had triumphed in a Cold War during which not even the most orthodox free-market libertarians advocated that the United States pursue trade with the Soviet Union or otherwise entangle the American and Soviet economic and political systems.

U.S. producers will not be able to enjoy the benefits of free trade if they are forced to compete against state-subsidized Chinese competitors in the Japanese market, or face imports from Malaysia into the U.S. market that rely on Chinese materials and components sold below cost. Thus, other countries’ access to the American market must be conditioned on their willingness to exclude China. The requirement of balanced trade would itself push countries in this direction, as many are discovering in the wake of the escalating U.S.-Chinese tariff war. The American refusal to continue absorbing China’s surplus has led to import surges into Europe, for instance, creating enormous headaches for leaders there. With the United States maintaining an unconditionally open market, Mexico might want to welcome enormous investment from BYD, the Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer, in factories that would then export cars into the United States. But if Mexico cannot run an enormous trade surplus with the United States, the proposition loses its appeal.

The China challenge goes far beyond trade imbalances, of course. As Chinese leader Xi Jinping shuts off the global supply of rare-earth magnets, the world is seeing the cost of letting the Chinese Communist Party manipulate and corner vital strategic markets. China makes investments abroad to usurp critical technologies and exercises political leverage over investors in the Chinese market. Governments and corporations will repeatedly see advantage in accepting what China offers, even as the cumulative effect of those bargains weakens both. If Washington pursued a strategy of reciprocity, the security of the United States and its allies and partners, and the freedom of the open market they would share, would depend on holding all participants accountable for disavowing that course.

The idea of spheres of influence offends liberal internationalist sensibilities.

Investment flows likewise require decoupling. The United States and its allies and partners should prohibit inbound investment from China (including foreign direct investment that results in China-based firms operating within their borders) and also prohibit their own citizens and firms from holding assets or making investments within China’s borders. Technology ecosystems will also need to diverge, especially as the United States leads efforts to restrict China’s access to cutting-edge artificial intelligence chips and chip-making equipment. On all fronts, the principle must be that one can do business in the Chinese sphere or the American one, but not both.

After decades during which Washington entangled the U.S. and Chinese economies, abandoned expertise and neglected to invest in domestic manufacturing, and accepted dependence on Chinese supply chains, the process of decoupling will impose real costs on the United States. In the short run, some consumer products will become more expensive. Some businesses will suffer from the loss of suppliers or customers. Reindustrialization will require substantial new investment, which implies some reductions in consumption.

But these results are best understood as the price of losing the bet on globalization. Climbing back out of that hole was always going to be expensive. The longer that policymakers refuse to acknowledge reality and insist on doubling down on the failed status quo, the more expensive it will become. Conversely, paying those costs now represents an investment in reindustrialization that will pay enormous dividends for decades.

RECIPROCITY TO THE RESCUE

The United States retains considerable leverage to redefine its role in the world and shape a new U.S.-led alliance system accordingly. Other countries will sulk when they realize that the old deal is no longer available. But if Washington can make clear that the options are a new alliance or no alliance, other market democracies will rationally accept the offer.

The deal would be a fair one. The United States would hold other countries only to the same conditions to which it would expect to be held. Obviously, it would remain a heavy spender on its own defense and the common defense; it would not expect other countries to pay the full cost. In seeking balanced trade, it would be asking others to meet it in the middle, not to accept a role reversal in which American producers get to dominate global markets.

These new American demands would disrupt the status quo and impose short-term costs on allies and partners. But they, too, would ultimately benefit. Those in Asia surely wish they could credibly defend Taiwan without wondering whether the United States would truly do so if push came to shove. Those in Europe surely wish they could have credibly warned Putin away from invading Ukraine. In Germany and Japan, especially, export-led growth models appear to have run their course and have given way to stagnation. Both countries would do well to turn toward strategies that boost domestic consumption. And while the lure of cheap Chinese goods and capital has repeatedly proved irresistible in the short run, all are aware of the long-term risks. Any market democracy should be excited to accept a partnership on those terms over the alternative of falling into a Chinese sphere of influence, and the United States can afford to hold firm on the terms.

American cars at a port in Yokohama, Japan, July 2025 Kim Kyung-Hoon / Reuters

The idea of spheres of influence offends liberal internationalist sensibilities. “During the cold war,” The Economist argued in July, “American- and Soviet-led blocs amounted to spheres of influence. After the USSR fell, both Democratic and Republican administrations repudiated such spheres as deplorable artefacts of the past, calling instead for a liberal world order, open to all.” That is true as a descriptive matter, but it only underscores the wishful thinking that underpinned the repudiation. What happens to a liberal world order “open to all” when some accept the invitation to join but not the terms of membership? They can be welcomed anyway, leading to a world order that is far from liberal, or they can be excluded, preserving the prospects for a liberal order that excludes some of the world. The former has been tried, and it failed. The latter, by insisting on reciprocity and accepting spheres as inevitable in a world of competing and incompatible economic and political systems, gives the United States a much better chance of achieving its goals and advancing its values.

Reciprocity holds the promise of improved economic prospects, reduced foreign commitments, and a return to the politics of a republic focused foremost on the interests of its own citizens. But adopting such a strategy will require American leaders—and ordinary Americans—to accept a more limited role for their country on the world stage. Patriotism demands realistic assessments of abilities and interests, not the outlandish embrace of goals the country has no power to achieve.

The gambler who responds to frustrating losses by placing bigger and riskier bets is said to be “on tilt.” In the United States, too many analysts are still assessing the hypothetical benefits of a hyperpower status that does not exist; too many politicians are still giving speeches about their affection for various forms of imagined empire. With a humbler and more realistic strategy of reciprocity, Washington would finally be placing a bet that the United States can win.

OREN CASS is Founder and Chief Economist of American Compass and the editor of The New Conservatives: Restoring America’s Commitment to Family, Community, and Industry.

Foreign Affairs · More by Oren Cass · October 17, 2025

23. Asia’s Trump Problem: The Region Lacks Leaders Who Connect With the U.S. President

Excerpts:

An ideological odd couple relationship seemed possible between Trump and South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, who was elected in June. Lee pulled off a masterful Oval Office performance on August 25, reassuring Trump of South Korean investment commitments to the U.S. economy and talking down tariff levels. Although Lee comes from the progressive left and filled his team with political advisers who are veterans of the pro-democracy protests of the 1980s, which were partly shaped by anti-American (and even pro–North Korean) views, he has proven a pragmatist on foreign policy determined to strengthen ties with the United States and Japan. But in September, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials raided a Hyundai plant in Georgia, looking for workers overstaying their visas. The image of more than 300 South Korean employees being marched away as prisoners outraged the South Korean public, who had just been told that the relationship between Washington and Seoul was growing stronger. South Korean support for the U.S. alliance was around 90 percent, but anti-American voices within Lee’s progressive circle are now emboldened, and the relationship between Lee and Trump is in need of repair. Trump’s attendance at APEC later this month offers a chance for reconciliation, if both sides can take advantage of it.

...

Abe’s disciplined approach to Trump, and to competition with China, provided the conceptual glue needed to cement an Asia strategy that also benefited Japan—the United States’ own version of a free and open Indo-Pacific framework. The August meeting between Trump and European leaders had a similar purpose, allowing Europe to stabilize U.S.-Ukrainian policy, keep Zelensky in the fight, and bolster Europe’s security in spite of Putin’s welcome in Alaska.

But without a skillful manager like Abe, the trajectory of Trump’s Asia approach remains uncertain. Some in the current administration share the first Trump administration’s alarm about Chinese hegemonic ambitions. Others—including, it appears, Trump—see diplomacy with China as an opportunity for trade deals in the near term and are willing to set aside other concerns. As key pillars in the U.S. security architecture built over the past 20 years are crumbling (such as the Quad), U.S. allies are urging greater American engagement with the Indo-Pacific, especially after major cuts to development assistance created openings for Chinese coercion in the region.

The second Trump administration is certainly more difficult to manage given the president’s love of tariffs and general unpredictability, and no current Asian leader can claim a mandate at home comparable to Abe’s. But although no Abe-like Trump whisperer currently exists among Asia’s leaders, that absence cannot be allowed to remain. Asian leaders have an even greater incentive to keep Washington in play than they did in 2017 because of China’s ambitions, and only the United States has the composite power Asia needs to maintain regional defenses and deter Beijing’s aggression. Despite Trump’s unpredictability, key members of his administration are ready to step up engagement with Asia. This time, however, the initiative will likely come only from the top. Thus, personal relationships with Trump are even more important for Asian powers than they were during Trump’s first term. Whatever combination of flattery, persuasion, and political alignment is required, Asian leaders should learn from their European counterparts and ensure that the United States stays in the game.

Asia’s Trump Problem

Foreign Affairs · More by Michael J. Green · October 17, 2025

The Region Lacks Leaders Who Connect With the U.S. President

Michael J. Green

October 17, 2025

South Korean President Lee Jae-myung meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., August 2025 Brian Snyder / Reuters

MICHAEL J. GREEN is CEO of the U.S. Studies Centre at the University of Sydney and Henry A. Kissinger Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

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In August, just days after U.S. President Donald Trump had welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin to a summit in Alaska, a remarkable image emerged from the White House. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had scrambled to Washington to meet with Trump and shore up U.S. support for Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion. But Zelensky was not alone: joining him at his meeting with Trump were the leaders of Finland, France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom, as well as the European secretary-general of NATO and the president of the European Commission. A photo of the entire group provided a corrective of sorts to the images that had emerged of Trump and Putin greeting each other warmly in Anchorage.

The European leaders’ decision to accompany Zelensky reflected a combination of courage and pragmatism. It would have been easier to condemn Trump for welcoming Putin onto U.S. soil, or to hold a countersummit in Europe and avoid the potential domestic political embarrassment of paying homage in the Oval Office. But those options would have required the European leaders to believe that they can prevent a Russian victory in Ukraine (and guarantee their own countries’ security) without U.S. military, economic, and diplomatic power. And they know that they cannot do so.

So instead, they leveraged their strengths—Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s ideological proximity to Trump, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s relatively frequent contact with him, and Finnish President Alexander Stubb’s unique rapport with him (based in no small part on Stubb’s golfing prowess)—to charm, cajole, and push the disruptive U.S. president more or less in the right strategic direction. The result was an agreement to ship advanced U.S. weapons systems to Ukraine via NATO purchases, with Trump even considering Kyiv’s request for Tomahawk missiles.

For European leaders, this collaborative effort to spur Trump to stick with U.S. allies—and with the alliance system the United States itself had built—represented a sharp departure from his first term. Back then, European leaders played supporting parts at best: their voters disdained Trump, and their personal temperaments limited their ability to connect with him. While they struggled, the leading role of “Trump manager” within the U.S. alliance network was played by Asian leaders—most masterfully by Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister at the time. A famous photo taken at the G-7 summit in Quebec in 2018 captures Abe’s approach. In it, German Chancellor Angela Merkel appears to impatiently confront a defiant or dismissive Trump while French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minster Teresa May seem to be backing Merkel. Meanwhile, a pained Abe stands by Trump’s side, mimicking the U.S. president’s body language and perhaps looking for an opportunity to diffuse the tension.

The Trump team came to office in 2017 with no clear concept for their Asia strategy, so Abe helped convince them to adopt Japan’s “free and open Indo-Pacific” framework. When Trump threatened to rain “fire and fury” on North Korea, Abe promised Japan’s support—but quietly added conditions that defined whether force should actually be used. Where many world leaders sought to avoid confrontations with the mercurial U.S. president, Abe held 20 meetings, 32 phone calls, and five rounds of golf with Trump during his first term. “It wasn’t really 20 summits,” one Japanese diplomat quipped to me, “but the same summit 20 times.”

Abe understood that American power was indispensable to Japan’s interests and worked to shape it with considerable success. And during Trump’s first term, Asian leaders followed his example. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi managed to get Trump to join him in Texas in 2019 for an appearance before 50,000 members of the Indian diaspora; the rally was titled “Howdy Modi.” Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his ambassador in Washington, Joe Hockey, formed close relationships with Vice President Mike Pence and Trump’s national security team to stay aligned on China strategy and engagement in the South Pacific. And even South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who came from the political left and was an unlikely partner for Trump, rallied to the U.S. president’s side to encourage diplomacy with North Korea.

But in Trump’s second term, Asian leaders have struggled to manage their alliances with Trump. No one has stepped forward to fill the hole left by Abe, who resigned in 2020 owing to illness and was assassinated in 2022. This is surprising for a number of reasons. For one, in some respects, Trump’s approach to the region resembles an “Asia first” strategy far more than it did during his first term. Moreover, polls conducted in 2024 showed that in Australia, India, Japan, and South Korea, people were initially far less alarmed about Trump’s return than were Europeans. Nor can Asian leaders’ relative reticence be pegged to their political standing. European leaders are not in stronger political situations than they were last time or than Asian leaders are today: Starmer’s approval numbers are underwater, as are those of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and Macron is barely holding on to power. And although European leaders are certainly more motivated to make the transatlantic relationship work because of the war in Ukraine, this does not fully explain the passive approach among Asian leaders, given the increased military and economic threat from China.

Having lost its leading Trump whisperer in Abe, Asia seems somewhat at sea in its relationship with the United States. It is possible that the role could be filled by the newly selected leader of Japan, Sanae Takaichi, a protégé of Abe’s who shares a number of his views (although her political future is uncertain after the defection of her party’s main coalition partner on October 10). But thus far in Trump’s second term, no Asian ally has managed to make inroads with the U.S. president comparable to Abe’s. As a result, U.S. strategy in Asia remains muddled, and Asian leaders are missing the full benefits of American partnership, including greater security against China.

NO ABE HERE

In private, one factor that Asian officials repeatedly point to in explaining their recent passivity is the policymaking process of the second Trump administration, which is more chaotic and unpredictable than it was during the first term. Back then, they could count on reliable and influential partners inside the administration, such as National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Matt Pottinger, who served as senior director for Asia on the National Security Council. This time around, in contrast, the administration’s periodic purges of alleged globalists and a diminished role for the NSC have made it more difficult for allies to know where to dock on key issues or to expect counterparts in Washington to take initiative without first knowing Trump’s position.

Trump’s tariff policies also rattled Asian leaders in ways that even his first-term musings about war and peace with North Korea did not. Australia can easily survive the ten percent tariffs levied by the administration, but Trump threatened additional 200 percent tariffs on pharmaceuticals—a third rail in Australian politics—if Australia does not start paying more for U.S.-manufactured drugs. Meanwhile, Tokyo is resigned to the 15 percent tariffs levied on Japanese exports to the United States, but the 100 percent tariffs on semiconductors that Trump has floated would be devastating for Japanese firms. And India is angry and perplexed that it must endure 50 percent tariffs for buying Russian oil even as Trump embraced Putin in Alaska and dropped the threat of further U.S. economic sanctions on Moscow.

The reasons why this dissatisfaction has not produced a more robust effort to manage Trump vary in each country. In Japan, the main problem has been the political weakness of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Despite frustration over tariffs and some polls showing that only 16 percent of the Japanese public trusts Trump, support for the U.S.-Japanese alliance remains at 90 percent or more, mostly owing to the sense of a shared threat from China. The Japanese public would take an approach like Abe’s if they could get it, but nobody has emerged with Abe’s domestic political strength or acumen for Trump. Former Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s early gains in a February meeting with Trump were undone by U.S. tariffs and Ishiba’s weak standing within his own party (he resigned in early September, triggering October elections). His successor, Takaichi, is more conservative, supports a “Japan first” approach, and has hawkish views on China that could resonate with the Trump administration.

Trump, however, is beginning to soften his own stance on China ahead of a planned 2026 visit to Beijing and hopes for a positive trade agreement with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. If she becomes prime minister, Takaichi is likely to meet Trump for the first time in a matter of weeks at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea, and although she would be right to caution Trump about China, as Abe did, such a warning is riskier in the face of Trump’s shifting priorities. If Trump pushes aside Takaichi in favor of U.S.-Chinese relations, she will suffer politically at home. But Beijing’s announcement on October 9 that it would expand export restrictions on rare-earth metals (which are critical for technology manufacturing) sparked a combative response from Trump, who threatened an additional 100 percent tariff on Chinese imports and suggested he would cancel his plan to meet with Xi at APEC. Trump is due to visit Japan at the end of October, and Takaichi may be able to use the new tension between Trump and Xi to her advantage—but only if she can get her house in order first.

Asia seems somewhat at sea in its relationship with the United States.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese appears domestically strongest, having clobbered the conservatives in national elections in May. But despite some phone calls with Trump and a photo op at the UN General Assembly, he has maintained an arms-length relationship with the U.S. president compared with his counterparts in Japan or South Korea. When Albanese visits the White House on October 20 for his first official meeting with Trump, he’ll have the advantage of a long-standing alliance between Australia and the United States. Australia has fought alongside the United States in all of the latter’s major conflicts since World War I, and the two countries maintain strong defense and intelligence-sharing practices (of growing importance for both sides given competition with China). As part of the AUKUS agreement, signed in 2021, Australia agreed to purchase multiple U.S. Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines. This year’s iteration of Talisman Sabre, a bilateral military training exercise between the United States and Australia, was the largest since the program started in 2005. Canberra is also ready to work with Washington on securing supply chains for critical minerals, given Australia’s extensive mining resources.

But there have also been discordant notes in the alliance that the two leaders will have to manage. The Pentagon’s decision to review the value of AUKUS rattled Australian officials; the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, blasted Australia for its recognition of Palestinian statehood; and the two governments could not be further apart in their positions on climate change. Albanese’s Labor government has also used a more moderate tone in its response to the China threat than has the United States, emphasizing the stabilization of relations with Beijing—although that could be a positive for Albanese, if Trump’s own approach to China continues to shift. Trump is deeply unpopular with the Labor Party’s left flank—Pew surveys show that negative views of Trump are much stronger in Australia than other parts of Asia—and some of Albanese’s advisers argue that he should keep a low profile around the American president. Albanese, however, is committed to his first meeting in Washington, where he has an opportunity to pull Trump into deeper engagement with the region—especially Southeast Asia and the Pacific, which are under pressure from China and critical to Australia’s security.

An ideological odd couple relationship seemed possible between Trump and South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, who was elected in June. Lee pulled off a masterful Oval Office performance on August 25, reassuring Trump of South Korean investment commitments to the U.S. economy and talking down tariff levels. Although Lee comes from the progressive left and filled his team with political advisers who are veterans of the pro-democracy protests of the 1980s, which were partly shaped by anti-American (and even pro–North Korean) views, he has proven a pragmatist on foreign policy determined to strengthen ties with the United States and Japan. But in September, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials raided a Hyundai plant in Georgia, looking for workers overstaying their visas. The image of more than 300 South Korean employees being marched away as prisoners outraged the South Korean public, who had just been told that the relationship between Washington and Seoul was growing stronger. South Korean support for the U.S. alliance was around 90 percent, but anti-American voices within Lee’s progressive circle are now emboldened, and the relationship between Lee and Trump is in need of repair. Trump’s attendance at APEC later this month offers a chance for reconciliation, if both sides can take advantage of it.

Perhaps no U.S. ally was more confident about Trump’s return than Modi—and no one has been more disappointed. On top of the 50 percent tariffs he levied against India, Trump infuriated New Delhi by taking full credit for ending the military clash that broke out in May between India and Pakistan and then inviting Pakistan’s army chief to the White House. To many in India, this resembles a symbolic return to the kind of regional policy that Washington pursued 25 years ago, before it forged a strategic partnership with India. Modi could have gone the Abe route and brushed off these slights, instead working to push Trump in a better direction. But that would have been out of character for Modi, and now that his party’s governing majority in parliament has been reduced and the Indian economy is slowing, he, too, faces a more challenging domestic political situation than he did during Trump’s first term. Trump did wish Modi a happy birthday on September 17, and Modi replied warmly. But if Trump’s expected absence at the Quad summit in India later this year is any indication, the relationship between Washington and New Delhi appears likely to remain broken for a while.

SPURRED BY BEIJING

Abe’s disciplined approach to Trump, and to competition with China, provided the conceptual glue needed to cement an Asia strategy that also benefited Japan—the United States’ own version of a free and open Indo-Pacific framework. The August meeting between Trump and European leaders had a similar purpose, allowing Europe to stabilize U.S.-Ukrainian policy, keep Zelensky in the fight, and bolster Europe’s security in spite of Putin’s welcome in Alaska.

But without a skillful manager like Abe, the trajectory of Trump’s Asia approach remains uncertain. Some in the current administration share the first Trump administration’s alarm about Chinese hegemonic ambitions. Others—including, it appears, Trump—see diplomacy with China as an opportunity for trade deals in the near term and are willing to set aside other concerns. As key pillars in the U.S. security architecture built over the past 20 years are crumbling (such as the Quad), U.S. allies are urging greater American engagement with the Indo-Pacific, especially after major cuts to development assistance created openings for Chinese coercion in the region.

The second Trump administration is certainly more difficult to manage given the president’s love of tariffs and general unpredictability, and no current Asian leader can claim a mandate at home comparable to Abe’s. But although no Abe-like Trump whisperer currently exists among Asia’s leaders, that absence cannot be allowed to remain. Asian leaders have an even greater incentive to keep Washington in play than they did in 2017 because of China’s ambitions, and only the United States has the composite power Asia needs to maintain regional defenses and deter Beijing’s aggression. Despite Trump’s unpredictability, key members of his administration are ready to step up engagement with Asia. This time, however, the initiative will likely come only from the top. Thus, personal relationships with Trump are even more important for Asian powers than they were during Trump’s first term. Whatever combination of flattery, persuasion, and political alignment is required, Asian leaders should learn from their European counterparts and ensure that the United States stays in the game.

Foreign Affairs · More by Michael J. Green · October 17, 2025

24. A C.I.A. Secret Kept for 35 Years Is Found in the Smithsonian’s Vault

A C.I.A. Secret Kept for 35 Years Is Found in the Smithsonian’s Vault

Jim Sanborn is auctioning off the solution to Kryptos, the puzzle he sculpted for the intelligence agency’s headquarters. Two fans of the work then discovered the key.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/science/kryptos-cia-solution-sanborn-auction.html

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The solution to the final passage of the Kryptos artwork had been unsolved since its unveiling in 1990.Credit...Drew Angerer/The New York Times

By John Schwartz

John Schwartz, a retired Times reporter, has been reporting on the quest to solve the code in the Kryptos sculpture at the C.I.A. headquarters since 1999.

Oct. 16, 2025

The sculptor Jim Sanborn opened his email account one day last month expecting the usual messages from people claiming to have solved his famous, decades-old puzzle.

Mr. Sanborn’s best known artwork, Kryptos, sits in a courtyard at the C.I.A. headquarters in Virginia. A sculpture that evokes and incorporates secrets, Kryptos displays four encrypted messages in letters cut through its curving copper sheet. Since the agency dedicated it in 1990, cryptographers both professional and amateur had solved three of the passages, known as K1, K2 and K3.

But the fourth, K4, remained stubbornly uncracked.

Tap to flip.

Mr. Sanborn, who is 79, was in the final stages of auctioning off the puzzle’s solution. The auction house had estimated that the text of that passage, along with other papers and artifacts related to the sculpture, would bring between $300,000 and $500,000. He has said he intends to use the proceeds to help manage medical expenses for possible health crises, and to fund programs for people with disabilities.

But the email he received on Sept. 3 threatened that plan. Its subject line contained the first words of the final passage of K4. The body of the email showed the rest of the solved text.

Image

Mr. Sanborn said he had mistakenly included the paper scraps that led Mr. Byrne and Mr. Kobek to the Kryptos solution in the Smithsonian folders.Credit...Craig Hudson/The Washington Post, via Getty Images

What led to that moment is a blend of mishandled paperwork and nerdy spycraft. An amateur cryptographer and his friend had found the solution in plain view for anyone willing to dig through the archives of the Smithsonian Institution.

The hidden text had been uncovered, with potentially damaging effects for the sale — what is the value of a secret that someone else knows?

The person who tracked down the solution, Jarett Kobek, is a journalist and novelist long fascinated by Mr. Sanborn’s work. In the announcement from RR Auction, the company running the sale, he saw a reference to copies of the “coding charts” used to encrypt the message; the originals, it said, were at the Smithsonian.

Mr. Kobek lives in California, so he asked a friend in the Washington area, Richard Byrne, a journalist and playwright, to request the Sanborn papers at the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art.

Mr. Byrne spent hours photographing documents at the archives on Sept. 2. Mr. Kobek that evening, while reviewing the images his friend sent, saw scraps of paper, some held together by yellowed tape, and got a shock: “Hey — that says ‘BERLIN CLOCK’!”

Those two words were clues to K4 that Mr. Sanborn released in 2010 and 2014. Another scrap had more of what looked like the original, uncoded message, known in cryptography as the plaintext, including the words “EAST NORTHEAST” — two clues released in 2020. Together, there were 97 characters, the number of characters in K4, that he assembled into a readable passage.

“This is a problem everybody has been attacking as a STEM problem,” Mr. Kobek said in an interview, referring to the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics that underlie cryptography. Cryptographic science, he argued, could not solve Kryptos — “but library science could.”

Mr. Byrne compared their find to open-source intelligence.

On Sept. 3, the men sent their email to Mr. Sanborn, including an assurance that their “primary concern” was “moving forward without imperiling your forthcoming auction.” They had a half-hour telephone call in which Mr. Sanborn confirmed that they had the solution.

Mr. Kobek recalled it as “a perfectly lovely conversation.”

But later that evening, a second conversation took a sobering turn, Mr. Kobek recalled. He said Mr. Sanborn proposed they should both sign NDAs and, they could then receive a portion of the auction’s proceeds.

Both Mr. Kobek and Mr. Byrne said they had to reject the offer, in part out of fear that it would make them “party to fraud” in the auction, Mr. Kobek said.

Mr. Kobek and Mr. Byrne suggested to him that there should be a way to disclose the fact that the last panel’s solution had been discovered while still holding the auction.

Image

Novelist Jarett Kobek saw a reference to the Sanborn papers at the Smithsonian and asked his friend in Washington to request them, leading to their finding the solution.Credit...Getty Images

The call ended at an impasse: Mr. Sanborn did not want them to talk, and they were offended by his suggestion that they sign an agreement to stay silent. The offer of money also rankled.

“It’s a complete red line,” Mr. Byrne said. “Nonstarter. Not happening.”

Mr. Sanborn explained in an interview that he created the paper scraps the men had found to share the text with the C.I.A. He had mistakenly included them in the folders he gathered about 10 years ago.

This happened during his treatment for metastatic cancer. “I was not sure how long I would be around and I hastily gathered all of my papers together” for the archives, he said. He was stunned to realize, years later, that the scraps had ended up in the collection.

Mr. Sanborn has since exchanged messages with Mr. Kobek and Mr. Byrne, but they have not broken through to a solution.

In parallel, on the largest internet forum for Kryptos enthusiasts, the auction catalog had incited a discussion of the Smithsonian trove. On Sept. 5, a member noted that the documents had been sealed and were no longer accessible. That was the work of Mr. Sanborn, who after talking with Mr. Kobek and Mr. Byrne had gotten the institution to block access to the materials until 2075.

Mr. Sanborn said that his initial reaction to the email, and calls from Mr. Kobek and Mr. Byrne, was frazzled. “I didn’t know their motives,” he said. He recalled telling them, “If you release that thing, the auction is over.”

Mr. Kobek, long a fan of Mr. Sanborn’s work, said he was devastated by the events of recent weeks.

“If I had known, my God! I never would have sent Rich to this library,” he said.

Mr. Kobek and Mr. Byrne initially told Mr. Sanborn that they were willing to keep the text private to avoid disrupting the auction. But in interviews, they said the weight of keeping the secret in the superheated world of Kryptos fans is too great, and worried they could be compelled to release the plaintext.

Mr. Sanborn acknowledged that keeping the secret could be a strain: His computer has been hacked repeatedly over the years, he said, and obsessive fans of the work have threatened him. “I sleep with a shotgun,” he said.

If the two men reveal the text, he warned, that “is going to be far worse,” he said. “The world of Kryptos is going to attack” them, he said. “They are going to be pariahs for releasing it.”

The auction house is not sitting idly by.

Last week, Mr. Kobek and Mr. Byrne received an email from lawyers for RR Auction that threatened legal action if they published the text, citing copyright infringement and interference with contracts.

In a very different tone, the letter also stated that if the two didn’t publish the text, “you will be looked upon as heroes to the cipher and intelligence communities,” a “story line” their client “would happily help you promote.”

Both men find the legal reasoning dubious and have hired lawyers. But they also acknowledge the crushing cost of defending themselves.

They say they do not plan to release the solution. But they are also not inclined to sign a legally binding document promising not to do so.

Image

Mr. Kobek and Mr. Byrne received an email from lawyers for RR Auction that threatened legal action if they published the text.Credit...Drew Angerer/The New York Times

Bidding is to begin on Thursday, and close on Nov. 20. The auction house has disclosed the discovery of the solution on their website.

Thomas C. Danziger, a lawyer who represents clients in the art market, said that as long as the message remained a secret, such a disclosure is “the best practice.” And while “presumably, that would have an impact on the value” of the sale, “that still should be cheaper than facing litigation from a disgruntled buyer down the line.”

Mr. Danziger said that revealing the plaintext could have a profound impact on the auction. But while revealing the plaintext could dampen bidders’ enthusiasm, he said, “the auction room is a strange place.”

He cited a famous example: an artwork by Banksy that destroyed itself after being initially sold for $1.4 million at Sotheby’s in London, which “only served to increase its value substantially.”

In the case of Kryptos, “the secret is being shredded before the eyes of the world,” he said. “Does that mean it has less value? Or more value? I don’t know.”

Elonka Dunin, a game designer who helps lead the most active online discussion about Kryptos, said in an interview that she hoped the text didn’t get out. But for true lovers of cryptographic skill, she said, the real challenge is not having the answer but knowing how to get there. “That’s the exciting part for me,” and, she proposed, “the real value” at auction.

“If they don’t have the method,” she said, “it’s not solved.”

John Schwartz on the C.I.A.’s Kryptos Sculpture

You Can Buy One of the C.I.A.’s Greatest Mysteries at an Auction House

Aug. 14, 2025

This Sculpture Holds a Decades-Old C.I.A. Mystery. And Now, Another Clue.

A version of this article appears in print on Oct. 17, 2025, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Long-Sought C.I.A. Secret Is Found in a Library. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

25. Poems About The Pentagon

"And now for something completely different" as my Monty Python friends would say.

But on a serious note, there has been a lot of poetry written about war and the military going back to Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.

Poems About The Pentagon - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · Zachary Griffiths · October 17, 2025

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Who publishes poems about the Pentagon? Colonel Anthony Wermuth did.

From my time in the building, I recognize the twenty-nine caricatures in his Portraits from Pentagonia, or Six Laps Around the A Ring—and you would too. The new lieutenant, a “tree enthusiast, assigned too young, to see the forest.” Or the eager beaver: “Immediately one recognizes, a man on a quest, a man, making his mark.” Then, more darkly, the dynamo. He’s constantly at work, and Wermuth explains why: “Why doesn’t he go home? Ask a simple question; get a simple answer: He hates his family.” Twenty-six others follow, paired with sketches that look like a large-language model’s fever dream of staff officer life.

Half a century later, his caricatures still sting because they’re portraits of us. Outlook inboxes have replaced physical ones, but the types endure.

Portraits from Pentagonia is a deep cut today. If you’re at West Point or the Army War College, you might find it on a dusty shelf. Otherwise, you’ll have to scour eBay like I did. But the book still lands. In Wermuth’s full body of work, I found not just two lasting contributions to Army writing, but a larger lesson. His strength was range—choosing the right form, focus, and forum to hook readers and make an impact.

A Soldier and Writer

Wermuth’s varied approach to writing matches his varied career. He enlisted before commissioning as an infantry officer in 1940, led a battalion assaulting Kiska in the Aleutians, commanded in Korea, served in Vietnam, and finished commanding a brigade in Germany. He also taught English at West Point and later served as a special assistant to Chief of Staff of the Army General Harold K. Johnson—who sent him Christmas cards for years afterward. After retiring in the late 1960s, Wermuth completed a PhD and continued writing, first for the Westinghouse Corporation and later for the Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute, before passing in 2001.

Across the twenty-four years between 1955 and 1979, he published at least thirty-five pieces in outlets ranging from Military Review and Army to Harper’s and Proceedings. His first credit came as editor of West Point’s satire magazine The Pointer in 1939, and his last as a scholar of civil-military relations. Few Army authors wrote more, and fewer wrote in so many ways.

Remarkable Range

Wermuth’s remarkable range showed in his command of focus, form, and forum: what he wrote, how he wrote it, and where he published it.

Just the four pieces published in 1955—his first year writing for publication since his days at The Pointer—show his broad range in topics and approach. In January, he published Portraits from Pentagonia (with illustrations from his friend Robert Rigg). This slim book of poems and sketches lampooned Pentagon archetypes. Two months later, Military Review published “Mass Man and the Military Officer,” his essay on the postwar Army’s cultural changes. By summer he had turned his Columbia master’s thesis into a review of World War II novels, concluding that “the best war novels of World War II are yet to be written.” Before the year was out, he weighed in on language itself with “The Split Infinitive Is Here to Stay,” closing with Flaubert’s dictum: “The first principle of good writing is clarity. The second is clarity. The third is clarity.” In that single year, Wermuth wrote a book and three articles with poetry, criticism, analysis, and plainspoken argument to reach broadly.

1955 set the pattern for the rest of his career. Wermuth’s range lay not in chasing new interests but in revisiting familiar focus areas with new forms. He returned again and again to nuclear weapons, the infantry’s place on the modern battlefield, and above all, the Army’s people. Each time he brought a fresh approach for readers who might not have heard him the first time. His first and last pieces show he shifted forms. Portraits from Pentagonia lampooned Pentagon archetypes in verse and sketch, while An Armored Convertible?, published in 1979, critiqued the influx of civilians into the defense establishment in a 178-page academic study. In all, he wrote at least eight pieces on personnel policy, bringing along new audiences by switching between academic analysis, criticism, and humor.

Playful, satirical dissent was one of Wermuth’s key forms. He managed to critique the US military’s nuclear posture in a Harper’s article—no small feat for an Army colonel—while still working for the chief of staff of the Army on good terms. His start editing West Point’s The Pointer may have provided early lessons in satire that resurfaced in Portraits from Pentagonia and later in “The Professional Automaton.” That later piece was my introduction to Wermuth. As cartoons are rare in Military Review, you can understand my surprise at the sketch of a toy soldier pegged to double-time. Careful selection of the right form and tone for each audience allowed him to dissent responsibly and remain credible both inside and outside the Army.

Over the next twenty years, Wermuth spoke almost exclusively on Army issues to Army audiences in Army forums. He seemed to think carefully about where a piece belonged and who needed to read it. Of his Army-focused articles, ten ran in Military Review, six in Army, three in the Army War College’s Parameters, and two in Infantry.

That range alone would be unusual today. My 2023 Military Review analysis of military journals found that nearly all recent Army authors published only once—and those who published more than once almost always did so in a single forum. Wermuth did the opposite. His ideas moved between branch journals, professional reviews, and public magazines, proving that good writing can travel farther than its home audience.

And when the debate spilled beyond the Army, he followed it. In the 1950s, he published “Ready—but Not Eager” in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and “Dollars and Sons” in the US Naval Institute’s Proceedings, both expressing his unease with nuclear war and arguing for the Army’s enduring role. His 1956 essay in Harper’s took that argument to a broader audience, challenging the idea that airpower alone could win wars. Later, as his writing grew more academic, he contributed to Armed Forces & Society and The Bureaucrat, exploring the boundaries between soldiers, civilians, and policymakers. Across these non-Army forums, Wermuth wrote to influence how both the Army and the nation thought about war.

Wermuth’s career shows what range looks like in practice: matching form to focus, then choosing the forum that fits. The next question is how today’s writers can do the same.

Improve Your Range

The Pentagon’s poems that opened this piece still explain Wermuth’s appeal: Humor and range made his ideas stick. I could find no evidence that Wermuth ever met Forrest Harding, but they would have seen eye to eye on the value of variety. In his first issue of the Mailing List, Harding urged military writers to escape monotony by experimenting with “the intimate personal letter, the dialogue, and the narrative.” Wermuth lived that advice. His cartoons, commentary, criticism, poetry, and analysis show how range can make military ideas memorable.

As today’s writers seek impact, they can borrow from his playbook. First, try a new form. Stories, dialogues, and profiles are rare today and may hook your reader. Second, explore a new focus. Connect with your audience by exploring a human theme, or write on a less sexy issue in your branch. Third, publish in a new forum. If you’ve written for your branch journal, try a new outlet like MWI or Military Review. Wermuth’s 1955 burst showed what one author could accomplish in a single year.

Wermuth’s lesson extends to the journals themselves. The commentary article must remain our mainstay, but our journals also need the occasional surprise—a dialogue, a cartoon, a short narrative that keeps readers coming back. Most professional writing is broccoli: good for you, rarely craved. The Army needs both nutrition and flavor if its ideas are to spread.

Give your readers a treat once in a while. Wermuth did.

Lieutenant Colonel Zachary Griffiths commands 4th Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne). He previously directed the Harding Project, an Army initiative to renew professional military writing.

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

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mwi.westpoint.edu · Zachary Griffiths · October 17, 2025

26. I resigned from the military because of Trump

I believe Technically he submitted his retirement request (and probably at least some months ago )wwso that he could retire with full benefits. I believe if he actually resigned his commission he would forfeit all retirement benefits.

Opinion

I resigned from the military because of Trump

I could not swear to follow a commander in chief who seems so willing to disregard the Constitution.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/10/16/marine-resign-trump-oath-constitution/

October 16, 2025 at 7:00 a.m. EDTYesterday at 7:00 a.m. EDT

5 min

2,156

U.S. Marines (in khaki uniforms) and Army (light gray) soldiers take reenlistment oaths in Baghdad on July 4, 2008. (Ali Al-Saadi/AFP via Getty Images)

By Doug Krugman

Doug Krugman served for 24 years in the United States Marine Corps.

On Sept. 30, at an unprecedented gathering of senior military leadership, President Donald Trump said, “If you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room — of course, there goes your rank, there goes your future.” I wasn’t invited to be in the room that day, and I had decided months earlier that I had to leave. By coincidence, Sept. 30 was my last day as a colonel in the United States Marine Corps. I gave up my career out of concern for our country’s future.

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United States military officers take an oath to defend the Constitution without mental reservation or purpose of evasion. I swore or repeated that oath under five presidents, starting with former president Bill Clinton. I risked my life for it, serving as an infantry officer in two wars. I watched Marines die for it.

No commander in chief is perfect. President Clinton’s moral failures are well known. President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq might be one of the worst errors in U.S. history. All recent presidents share responsibility for our failure in Afghanistan. I continued to serve despite all that because I believed the Constitution brought the country more success than failure, and I believed our presidents took their oaths to it seriously.

Follow Trump’s second term

With President Trump, I no longer believe that. During his first term, his actions became increasingly difficult for me to justify, culminating with the Jan. 6 attack on Congress as it tried to execute its duties. I hoped he had learned from those errors, but it only took a few days of his second term for me to realize he had not. I could not swear without reservation to follow a commander in chief who seemed so willing to disregard the Constitution.

My departure was not about policy disagreements, which exist in every administration. President Trump won in 2024 and has the right to implement his policies within the law.

My first reservations were about promises and actions that I thought were morally wrong even if they were possibly legal. The Constitution gives the president the power to pardon, but pardoning roughly 1,600 of those who tried to violently overthrow the results of an election didn’t help defend the Constitution. Likewise, I didn’t see it as moral to deny refuge to Afghans who risked their lives to support us, which he did on Jan. 22. Ignoring reality to take advantage of vague laws to assume emergency powers is also immoral. For those who believe in honoring their word, breaking promises our country has made — including some trade agreements President Trump made himself — is not moral. These are not the kinds of actions that I’m willing to risk my life to defend.

Worse than immorality, however, has been President Trump’s willingness to disregard the law and Constitution to achieve his goals. When asked in May about the Fifth Amendment requirements for due process and if he needed to uphold the Constitution as president, the first words out of his mouth were “I don’t know.”

This month, National Guard officers received orders from the defense secretary that their governors opposed. A federal judge intervened, citing the lack of apparent emergency and the 10th Amendment. Those commanders and units were stuck between competing orders with no clear answer. When the president’s orders push or cross legal limits and put commanders in these situations, cohesion within our military is at risk.

President Trump’s description of Portland as a “war zone” is as fantastical as his belief that the June protests in a few blocks of Los Angeles would somehow “obliterate” the massive city of nearly 4 million. In both cases, his words had little connection to reality. Every dubious basis he gives for an order creates more room for doubt, more room for reservations and more threats to our unity.

The president said to military leadership on Sept. 30 of fighting domestic enemies: “And this is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room. That’s a war too. It’s a war from within.” It wasn’t clear if he was referring to actual crime or to political criticism of him. In either case, military force is not the answer.

Some of his voters likely dismiss President Trump’s seeming disregard for the Constitution — such as him saying that criticizing the president should be illegal, despite the First Amendment — as him exaggerating. Others apparently don’t care, believing that achieving their ends justifies any means. This president acts as though one election makes 236 years of constitutional order irrelevant. Instead of trying to work within the Constitution, or to amend it, President Trump is testing how far he can ignore it. If voters and legislators cannot close the gaps in our laws to clarify the limits to presidential power, those who serve our government will continue to struggle. The next president — of either party — may continue us down this path toward collapse.

I do not claim to speak for any other person or institution. I respect those who still serve, many of whom have service contracts and can’t simply retire like I did. But if they have doubts about their orders, they are not alone. They should be confident in questioning possibly immoral or illegal orders, remembering they are responsible for their own actions, and knowing others are asking the same questions.

I voluntarily gave up my rank as the president suggested, but the future of our country is more important than any individual’s career, wealth or power. I have no regrets about my decision. I have given up the service I loved for the freedom to do the right thing, the freedom to speak my mind and the freedom to speak in defense of our country.

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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

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

Access NSS HERE

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