Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"We're developing a new citizenry. One that will b every selective about cereals and automobiles, but won't be able to think."

– Rod Serling

"Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one's country which is not part of one's love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship."

– Erich Fromm

“Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing’ it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one who cannot understand.”

– Simone Weil

1. Pacific Allies Need U.S. Support

2. Why is China funding the Russian War Machine?

3. Has Japan Found Its Margaret Thatcher?

4. After Two Years of War, Israel Is Stronger—and More Isolated—Than Ever

5. It’s Time to Rewire the Pentagon for Modern Warfare

6. Japan Gets New Kind of Leader

7. The AI Arms Race Gets Even Hotter

8. Trump Calls Off Diplomatic Outreach to Venezuela

9. It’s time to rethink development assistance as a useful soft power tool

10. SOF News – Countering the Drone Swarm – Oct 7, 2025

11. The war you don’t see: Inside the battle for Australia’s mind

12. Pentagon Relaxes Press Access Rules

13. This Century’s “Billy Mitchell Moment”

14. The Global Pressure Gauge: The Doomsday Clock Revisited

15. Examining Thresholds in an East-West War

16. Government shutdown forces Army to cancel ‘Best Squad’ competition

17. A Wargame to Take Taiwan, from China’s Perspective

18. Israel’s Irregular Warfare Paradox: Reconciling Precision Abroad and a “Killing Field” Next Door

19. A Defining Choice for Israel

20. A Snapback Solution for Ukraine

21. If Trump convinces China to abandon force against Taiwan he deserves Nobel prize, Taiwan president says

22. Palantir’s $1.3B ‘Maven’ AI Platform Goes Tactical With Picogrid Integration

23. Former PEO, Ships, Retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Tom Anderson Joins Hanwha Defense USA as President of U.S. Shipbuilding

24. China Is Joining Russia’s Shadow War on Europe

25. No coup – yet – as corruption and protests roil Philippines

26. Opinion | By giving up WTO privileges, China gains more than it loses

27. Exclusive: Classified Justice Department opinion authorizes strikes on secret list of cartels, sources say

1. Pacific Allies Need U.S. Support

We must effectively manage our "silk web" of friends, partners, and allies - our bilateral alliances, and multilateral and unilateral organizations and groupings. They are key to US national security.

But how could these Senators overlook Korea?

This omission will likely be interpreted in the Korean press as a form of "Korea passing."

Pacific Allies Need U.S. Support

What we learned in the Philippines, Taiwan and Palau.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/pacific-allies-need-u-s-support-acdc32fc

By Roger Wicker and Deb Fischer

Oct. 6, 2025 4:19 pm ET

Soldiers in Hsinchu, Taiwan, July 10. Photo: ann wang/Reuters

We set out across the Indo-Pacific in August to assess U.S. military readiness and consult with allies. In the Philippines, Palau and Taiwan, we found partners determined to resist Chinese coercion and willing to share the burden.

In Taiwan we spoke with President Lai Ching-tse and senior officials. They understand the gravity of the threat and are responding with urgency to meet it. Mr. Lai has committed to increasing defense spending and mobilizing the public behind a resilience plan.

In Manila, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has placed restoring the alliance with the U.S. at the center of his foreign policy and deepened cooperation with Japan, Australia and Taiwan. With a fleet that dwarfs the Philippine navy, China has tried to use its muscle to dominate the South China Sea. Manila has stood firm.

In Palau, China is working to undermine the government of President Surangel Whipps Jr. by exporting criminal elements and applying economic pressure. Palau is allied with the U.S., and Mr. Whipps refuses to switch diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to Beijing.

Our allies are resolute and determined to resist China, and the U.S. is indispensable to that mission. Our military presence in Guam, Palau, Hawaii and the Philippines forms the kind of logistics chain that wins wars. Tougher infrastructure, backup communication cables and stockpiled supplies are crucial to victory.

Over the past few years, we have worked closely with Adm. Samuel Paparo, who commands U.S. forces in the Pacific. We have sought to understand his requirements and cut through the bureaucracy that has for years prevented key investments in the Western Pacific. The defense investments in this year’s reconciliation law are designed to deliver capabilities relevant to the China fight, focusing on space capabilities, logistics systems, and low-cost weapons. The legislation expands munitions lines and will lead to more than a dozen new weapons production lines.

The new law also strengthens our ability to operate from Guam and accelerates construction projects in Palau and at the Filipino military bases from which U.S. forces operate. These investments are complemented by historic new funding for strategic economic competition with China, including the creation of an Economic Defense Unit and supercharging the Office of Strategic Capital.

A strategy based on peace through strength is the best approach for deterring China, Russia and Iran—the axis of aggression. It requires sustained defense spending that equals 5% of gross domestic product.

Some have said this is too costly—but we can’t afford an underresourced military. We don’t get to pick the threats we face, only how to respond. The axis requires a comprehensive strategy that accounts for the contributions of our partners and is backed by the resources necessary to execute it.

Mr. Wicker, a Mississippi Republican, is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Ms. Fischer, a Republican, is a U.S. senator from Nebraska.

Appeared in the October 7, 2025, print edition as 'Pacific Allies Need U.S. Support'.

Because it can? Because of Russian energy? Because it wants to see Russia not lose in Ukraine? Because it creates dilemmas for the US and the rest? It distracts the US and the rest?

Excerpts:

In many ways the Russia-Chinese relationship is symbiotic - Russia provides natural resources like minerals, oil and gas, and China, the world’s largest manufacturer, turns these resources into sophisticated modern products. Of course, the finished product is much more valuable than the raw materials.

So, what does China get out of this uneven relationship?

Some pundits believe that China wants to take territory from Russia, in the Far-East when the Putin regime ends. This is highly unlikely. Whoever gains power in Russia also inherits their nuclear arsenal. China has no territorial ambitions in Siberia.

Nevertheless, both China and Russia explore new economic opportunities in the Arctic. China defiantly buys liquefied natural gas from the sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 project in northern Siberia.

China really needs Russia, and its new ally North Korea, to confront its great economic and political rival, the United States. In part America’s increasing isolationism, and trade war against China, exacerbates this divide.

China’s focus is to the East and the Pacific.

It wants to retake Taiwan and a recent leaked report indicates that Russia is allegedly training China’s airborne troops for this purpose.

Why is China funding the Russian War Machine?

By Patrick Drennan

October 06, 2025

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/10/06/why_is_china_funding_the_russian_war_machine_1139040.html

For the first two years of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, China presented itself as an independent arbiter. In 2023 it even proposed a 12-point peace plan that was mainly commerce-orientated. Practical goals such as protecting civilians and prisoners of war were included, although notably it does not criticize Russia’s unreasonable rationale for the invasion.

Now that plan is missing from official Chinese government websites and China unequivocally supports Russia economically, and with millions of dollars of military aid.

One example is Silva a Russian shell company, headquartered in Buryatia, Siberia. According to Politico it filed declarations in January 2025 detailing orders for 100,000 bulletproof vests and 100,000 helmets from manufacturer Shanghai H Win.

Chinese manufacturers providing Russia with dual-use (military and commercial) components has been critical in boosting Russia's military capabilities. In 2024, dual-use shipments from China to Russia surpassed US$4 billion according to Dr Daniel Balazs of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS). These included optics, transmitters, engines, microcircuits, antennas, control boards, software and navigation systems.

While there are no examples of China supplying heavy weaponry like artillery, they have certainly provided essential laser guidance systems, ball bearings, and gunpowder.

More significantly, drones are critical on the Ukraine battlefield. China is the major supplier to Russia of military surveillance and attack drones, initially the Mavic series from DJI. From 2022 to 2023 Chinese firms sold $12 million (U.S.) worth of drones and spare parts to Russia. Currently, the Russian V2U strike drones, which have artificial intelligence capabilities, are entirely made up of Chinese components.

In return, Russia shares its expertise with China in submarine technology, missile systems, and advanced radar. Ironically, China takes these systems, reverse-engineers them and produces jets and jet engines that are superior to their Russian counterparts. As Russian military equipment losses grow, and they no longer have the technology to replace them, they will be forced to buy more military materiel from China.

Moreover, as the Russian economy collapses, they increasingly rely on China to prop it up.

In July 2025, Russia sold China 8.71 million tonnes of crude oil, representing nearly a fifth of China's total crude imports. Nevertheless, Chinese industrial demand is declining, and they are wary of further U.S. sanctions. Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries are affecting Russian production and domestic supply.

The war in Ukraine has also resulted in severe manpower shortages. In 2024, Russia's industrial sector hired approximately 47,000 foreign workers, many from China. Furthermore, according to the BBC, over13,000 North Koreans are forced to work on construction sites in Russia in substandard conditions.

Everyday consumer items in Russia are now Chinese.

Chinese cars accounted for nearly 60% of the new car market in 2024. China's total exports to Russia reached a record $240 billion, with clothing being a significant component. Even their essential down jackets and fur coats are provided by Chinese companies. China dominates the Russian market in cell phones, refrigerators, televisions, furniture and bedding.

Russia is trying to limit this dependence and seeks to set up factories in Russia, with limited success to date.

In many ways the Russia-Chinese relationship is symbiotic - Russia provides natural resources like minerals, oil and gas, and China, the world’s largest manufacturer, turns these resources into sophisticated modern products. Of course, the finished product is much more valuable than the raw materials.

So, what does China get out of this uneven relationship?

Some pundits believe that China wants to take territory from Russia, in the Far-East when the Putin regime ends. This is highly unlikely. Whoever gains power in Russia also inherits their nuclear arsenal. China has no territorial ambitions in Siberia.

Nevertheless, both China and Russia explore new economic opportunities in the Arctic. China defiantly buys liquefied natural gas from the sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 project in northern Siberia.

China really needs Russia, and its new ally North Korea, to confront its great economic and political rival, the United States. In part America’s increasing isolationism, and trade war against China, exacerbates this divide.

China’s focus is to the East and the Pacific.

It wants to retake Taiwan and a recent leaked report indicates that Russia is allegedly training China’s airborne troops for this purpose.

China wants to construct a military base in the South Pacific where France and America have long-established bases - hence the one-sided financial agreements with the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and the Cook Islands. When Australia attempted to seek a security deal with its closest neighbour Papua New Guinea, China objected to its exclusivity. The small Melanesian nation is over 3,400 miles (6300 kilometers) from China.

China also seeks to separate America from its traditional allies, South Korea, The Philippines and Japan. As a result of American tariffs, Japan, China and South Korea are laying the basis for free trade deals, something that was previously inconceivable.

In 2023, China obtained the use of the Russian port of Vladivostok for its domestic commercial traffic. On the other hand, Russia wants unfettered sea access for its covert (and hazardous) oil tankers through the Indian Ocean and along the Chinese Coast.

In the end China will support Russia for as long as it can leverage these advantages

The traditional Chinese parable of The Fight between Snipe and the Clam, teaches that when two parties are locked in a prolonged conflict, a third party will often exploit their weakened state to their own advantage.

So, China is playing a long game. Millions of Ukrainians and Russians are suffering as China seeks one-upmanship in a geo-political game.

Patrick Drennan is a journalist based in New Zealand, with a degree in American history and economics.

3. Has Japan Found Its Margaret Thatcher?

Excerpt:

For now Ms. Takaichi promises some respite from the LDP’s political crisis, given her strong popularity among younger voters and others who have recently fled to other parties. Japan has never been short of the optimism that comes with a new Prime Minister. It’s short of economic revival, and now Ms. Takaichi gets a chance to deliver.

Has Japan Found Its Margaret Thatcher?

Sanae Takaichi is a hawk on China but a muddle on economics.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/japan-sanae-takaichi-liberal-democratic-party-944b1c56

By The Editorial Board

Oct. 6, 2025 6:01 pm ET

Sanae Takaich Photo: Yuichi Yamazaki/Associated Press

Japan may soon have another Prime Minister after Sanae Takaichi this weekend won the race to lead the (barely) ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). There are reasons to be modestly hopeful, but also reason to curb your enthusiasm.

Ms. Takaichi, who would become Japan’s first female leader, defeated Shinjiro Koizumi in a runoff in an intraparty campaign centered on whether the LDP can get its mojo back. The party hasn’t had compelling leadership since Shinzo Abe’s retirement and then assassination. It’s been buffeted by election losses as voters flee to upstart parties, especially on the right.

To become Prime Minister Ms. Takaichi must survive a vote of lawmakers later this month in a parliament where the LDP now leads a minority government. This is an indignity for a party that has governed Japan more or less uncontested for decades.

The list of voter complaints against the LDP will sound familiar. One is immigration, which in Japan refers as much to an onslaught of foreign tourists—read: Chinese—as to economic migrants or asylum seekers. Ms. Takaichi promises to crack down on this perceived problem, although how remains unclear.

On foreign policy Ms. Takaichi is a hawk in the mold of her mentor Abe. She says she’d ramp up defense spending and support closer military cooperation with the United States. She says she’ll abide by the current U.S.-Japan trade deal, but President Trump should expect a tough negotiator in the woman who says she wants to make Japan great again.

But Ms. Takaichi will rise or fall on the economy, and here the outlook is cloudy. Inflation is the main voter worry by a wide margin, and Ms. Takaichi’s mandate is to improve living standards. She cites Margaret Thatcher as an inspiration and said during the leadership campaign that “the important thing is growth.” Yet her policy plans are a mishmash.

She’s generally described as a “fiscal dove” in the Abe mode, meaning she’s not afraid of deficit spending in pursuit of economic growth. This has failed every time it’s been tried when Tokyo threw borrowed cash at industrial-policy subsidies or public works—and Ms. Takaichi promises both.

That may explains why bond traders reacted poorly, with yields on 20- and 30-year government bonds jumping. The yen fell against the dollar and euro. Japan can’t afford to waste money on no-growth gimmicks when debt is above 200% of GDP and debt service and old-age pensions consume a combined 58% of the budget. But Keynesian economists and Ministry of Finance scolds will oppose supply-side tax reform. Ms. Takaichi has to pick a door.

Stocks surged because she also wants to pressure the Bank of Japan to halt its monetary normalization and perhaps even cut interest rates, which would push up asset prices. Whether she can bring pressure to bear on the independent central bank is unclear, and this isn’t a good idea when voters are vexed by inflation. If rate increases trigger a mild yen appreciation in contrast, that could help restore purchasing power.

For now Ms. Takaichi promises some respite from the LDP’s political crisis, given her strong popularity among younger voters and others who have recently fled to other parties. Japan has never been short of the optimism that comes with a new Prime Minister. It’s short of economic revival, and now Ms. Takaichi gets a chance to deliver.

Appeared in the October 7, 2025, print edition as 'Has Japan Found Its Margaret Thatcher?'.

4. After Two Years of War, Israel Is Stronger—and More Isolated—Than Ever

Excerpts:

While President Trump has remained supportive, Israel’s new isolation has given him unusual leverage—a power that he has already exercised to block plans for annexing the West Bank, to make Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologize for a strike on Qatar, and to make Israel acquiesce to the latest Gaza cease-fire plan.

This alienation of Israel’s erstwhile friends around the world stands to erode, in a potentially lasting way, not only the standing of Netanyahu and his successors but also the long-term viability of Israel’s founding project.

From American university campuses to European high schools, solidarity with the Palestinian cause—and hostility to Zionism—have become the political markers of a new generation.

“Ordinary Jewish and Israeli people, not soldiers and politicians, are going to bear the brunt of that for years to come,” said Mairav Zonszein, senior Israel analyst at the International Crisis Group.

After Two Years of War, Israel Is Stronger—and More Isolated—Than Ever

War in Gaza spurs global backlash that threatens Israel’s long-term prospects

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/after-two-years-of-war-israel-is-strongerand-more-isolatedthan-ever-dc500e33

By Yaroslav Trofimov

Oct. 6, 2025 9:00 pm ET

An explosion in Gaza recently. Photo: amir cohen/Reuters

Quick Summary

Israel has achieved military victories against regional foes like Hamas and Hezbollah, reducing immediate threats compared with two years ago.View more

Two years after deadly Hamas attacks triggered wars across the Middle East, negotiators are gathering in Egypt to try to end the bloodshed with a hostage deal and an Israeli pullback from the devastated Gaza Strip.

Israel is emerging from the carnage as the regional hegemon with a string of military victories. But the country’s fight against Palestinian militant group Hamas also has left it increasingly politically isolated and at risk of losing long-term Western support that has been vital to its survival.

The deaths of more than 67,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local authorities, have revived global calls for Palestinian statehood and put Israel at odds with a solidifying international consensus.

Once recovered from the initial shock of the Hamas breakthrough and murderous spree on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel’s military has delivered a succession of crippling blows to the entire constellation of its strategic foes.

Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah have been decapitated, the Assad regime in Syria has collapsed, and Iran’s military leadership, missile and nuclear programs have been badly damaged.

A funeral outside a hospital in Gaza City. Photo: Omar Ashtawy/Zuma Press

“Regionally, Israel is under less threat than it was two years ago,” said Shalom Lipner, a fellow at the Atlantic Council who served as an adviser to several Israeli prime ministers. “But internationally, it’s between a rock and a hard place, and the long-term trends are not working in its favor.”

Anger at Israel has spread from the Muslim world to Europe and increasingly the U.S., where large parts of the Democratic Party and a growing part of the MAGA movement have now turned against American assistance to Israel.

While President Trump has remained supportive, Israel’s new isolation has given him unusual leverage—a power that he has already exercised to block plans for annexing the West Bank, to make Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologize for a strike on Qatar, and to make Israel acquiesce to the latest Gaza cease-fire plan.

This alienation of Israel’s erstwhile friends around the world stands to erode, in a potentially lasting way, not only the standing of Netanyahu and his successors but also the long-term viability of Israel’s founding project.

From American university campuses to European high schools, solidarity with the Palestinian cause—and hostility to Zionism—have become the political markers of a new generation.

“Ordinary Jewish and Israeli people, not soldiers and politicians, are going to bear the brunt of that for years to come,” said Mairav Zonszein, senior Israel analyst at the International Crisis Group.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the United Nations last month that many world leaders have praised him privately. Photo: charly triballeau/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Netanyahu, in last month’s speech at the United Nations, said that many “weak-kneed world leaders who appease evil” by blasting Israel publicly thank him privately, saying they buckle under fear of “biased media, radical Islamic constituencies, and antisemitic mobs.”

Elements of antisemitism and Islamist radicalism are present in the anti-Israel protests that have swept Western nations—with protesters in some cases carrying Hamas and Hezbollah flags and engaging in anti-Jewish chants.

But this mass mobilization—as seen with Italy’s general strike on Friday—is driven above all by broad anger at the treatment of Palestinians and Western governments’ support for Israel, said Nathalie Tocci, director of the Institute of International Affairs in Rome and a former senior foreign-policy adviser at the European Commission.

“Israel has gone over the top because it has been allowed to do so by the West. Its friends were not very friendly in a sense, because they didn’t stop it from committing suicide in the long term,” she said.

While the damage to Israel’s global standing is real, allies argue that it could quickly bounce back.

“I don’t think it is permanent. Israel has survived lots of different assaults, campaigns of delegitimization in the past,” said Jonathan Schanzer, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank that supports Israel. “When the war ends, the channel will change and people will go back to business as usual, more or less.”

An Israeli tank in Gaza. Photo: Ariel Schalit/Associated Press

Others, however, say a return to business as usual—at least in the near term—would be unlikely, especially if Netanyahu remains in power.

To repair Israel’s standing in the world, “first the war needs to end and quite possibly a new Israeli leadership needs to emerge for it to be a viable project,” said Daniel Shapiro, who served as U.S. ambassador to Israel in the Obama administration and as deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East in the Biden administration. “The climb will be steep and it will take time.”

When Hamas invaded Israel two years ago, killing some 1,200 civilians and soldiers, and taking another 251 hostage, it was betting on a military blow weakening the Jewish state—perhaps with Hezbollah’s and Iran’s help—and on a renewed global focus on Palestinian aspirations that would scuttle Israel’s growing acceptance in the region.

Hamas leaders in Gaza failed on the first count, and most of them have been killed. Cease-fire plans pushed forward by Trump with the backing of Arab nations aim to replace the Hamas government in Gaza with a new technocratic authority.

Netanyahu, in a speech Saturday, trumpeted the military victories of the past two years as “historic achievements that will be recorded in the annals of Israel and also in the annals of nations.”

Netanyahu has long held up the power of Hamas, which wants to wipe out Israel, as a reason why any movement toward a Palestinian state is impossible. That would be less of a compelling argument if the cease-fire in Gaza takes effect and the new authority there becomes functional.

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President Trump released a video statement after Hamas said it was ready to release the remaining hostages in Gaza, if certain conditions were met first. Photo: Andrew Leyden/ZUMA Press

In recent weeks, major Western nations led by France, the U.K. and Canada have already moved to recognize a Palestinian state, ignoring protests from Netanyahu.

“The issue of Palestine is regionally and internationally on the center stage again, after it was almost forgotten until two years ago,” said Mkhaimar Abusada, a professor at Al Azhar University of Gaza who now lives in Cairo. “So there is a political gain—but the Palestinian people have paid a very high price for it, the price that they never paid before.”

Israel’s demonstration of military superiority in the Middle East, while weakening its enemies, has also triggered a long-term reassessment among its potential partners. Much of the logic behind the 2020 Abraham Accords that Israel and the Trump administration had hoped would be extended to Saudi Arabia was meant to contain Iranian influence.

But now that Israel bombed not just Iran, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen but also a Hamas compound in Qatar, many governments in the Middle East have come to see Israel’s unbridled might as a greater concern than Iran’s weakened theocracy.

Saudi Arabia’s recent security pact with nuclear-armed Pakistan, as well as tighter cooperation between Arab nations and Turkey are all part of that regional response to the Israeli military strength, said retired British Air Marshal Martin Sampson, who heads the Middle East office of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and served as the U.K. government defense adviser to the Middle East.

“You see the development of beginnings of relationships with Iran and of sympathy for Iran over Israel,” he said. “The region never wanted a single dominant power in the region. They always thought it was going to be Iran, and now they’ve got one and it’s Israel. And Israel is a regional dominant power that freely exercises its hard-power capabilities.”

Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com

5. It’s Time to Rewire the Pentagon for Modern Warfare

"Smart contracting."

Excerpts:

One particularly promising company is MetroStar, which through a contract vehicle called Rapid Task Order Response (RAPTOR), is showing how this smart contracting reduces time to field and close capability gaps. The RAPTOR vehicle streamlines the deployment of technology into the field, while still maintaining the oversight and budgetary control the DoD needs to maximize the monies appropriated by Congress.

Whether the traditional vehicle contracting officers within the DoD, or the mega-contractors who’ve built corporate empires hovering around those contracting officers like so many Mandarins in an ancient Chinese warlord movie, like it or not, this is the nature of today’s national security environment. We are now in an era where digital warfare, autonomous systems, and artificial intelligence define who wins and who falls behind.

Against this backdrop, the Pentagon must move with clarity and conviction. That means embracing firms that innovate, cutting ties with those that can’t, and rebuilding an acquisition culture that prioritizes agility and outcomes.

It’s Time to Rewire the Pentagon for Modern Warfare

By Bob Carey

October 06, 2025

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/10/06/its_time_to_rewire_the_pentagon_for_modern_warfare_1139037.html

The United States has been fighting tomorrow’s battles with yesterday’s playbook for decades. While America has long been accused of “planning to fight the last war,” nowhere is that seen more than in the arcane policies of military procurement and the ever-changing landscape of artificial intelligence (AI).

With the rapid development of AI the U.S. must prioritize modernizing its outdated systems more than ever.

In July, President Trump released an Executive Order that outlines a plan for strengthening America’s position in the AI race. The Executive Order will require technology companies to develop AI models that are unbiased and consistently produce reliable results. I agree with President Trump and believe this is an important step toward ensuring AI platforms operate at the highest possible level, particular in the defense world.

While we observe warfare revolutionized with drones, precise electronic warfare, and 3D printing, the Pentagon bureaucracy clings desperately to an old procurement system which takes the military decades to deploy new weapon systems. Specifically, this is seen in the Pentagon’s decades-old “requirements approval” process, “lovingly” referred to in the Pentagon as the JCIDS process, upon which tens of thousands of military positions and civil service jobs are dependent to feed the monster of the acquisition bureaucracy, and like most long-term bureaucratic structures, is now simply a chokepoint for innovation rather than a process to fully vet military procurement requirements.

Take the example of the F-35 Lightning II jet, with a first prototype flown in October 2002, the first production airplane flown more than six years later in December 2006, but still not entering operational service until 2015 for the Marines, 2016 for the Air Force, and 2019 for the Navy, fifteen to nineteen years after first flight. Even in 2006, the Government Accountability Office warned about this byzantine procurement process: “the JSF program continues to be risky… [it] has already encountered increases to estimated development costs, delays to planned deliveries, and reductions in the planned number of JSF to be procured that have eroded DOD’s buying power.” Meanwhile, the cost of the F-35 skyrocketed from $89 million per copy in 2010 to $304 million per copy, a 366% increase for a system that took 15 years to field.

Too many private sector defense contractors make bags of money on such traditional contracts, purchased by DoD through conventional and decades-old contract vehicles weighed down by the incredibly complex Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) process that was developed to prevent challenges to contract awards, but not to deliver what the military needs quickly and inexpensively. But when someone raises the specter that such traditional contracting vehicles delay the delivery of what the warfighter needs, the traditional defense contractors breathlessly warn that such contract cancellations will hamstring the military’s ability to operate, when in fact the only things hamstrung are those contractors end of year bonuses.

Enter two key reforms which can transform this process: First, is the development of new procurement methods known as “Other Transaction Agreements” (OTAs), which allows DoD to fast-track emerging research and development systems and prototypes, and “give DoD the flexibility necessary to adopt and incorporate business practices that reflect commercial industry standards and…provide the Government with access to state-of-the-art technology solutions from traditional and non-traditional defense contractors.”

Second, President Trump issued a DoD Acquisition Reform Executive Order on April 9^th of this year which directs a wholesale reform of the lethargic Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS, as referenced above), as well as sets down a marker for DoD procurement officials to “prioritized us of…Other Transaction Authority” (OTA) agreements discussed above. Together, these two reforms have the potential to completely transform DoD acquisition into support of military lethality and support for the warrior. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth followed the President’s Executive Order up the next day with directive to terminate another $5 billion in unnecessary IT contracts which were more a product of the legacy contracting process than a met need of the military’s IT requirements.

And the industry’s been waiting for DoD and its procurement corps to catch up, especially in taking advantage of what artificial intelligence and large-language model systems can provide the military.

Companies have emerged, like Distributed Systems, which specializes in producing advanced AI-powered sensors to detect incoming threats through radio signals. Another is Shield AI, featured on CNBC’s Disruptor 50 list as a leading company in the next generation of artificial intelligence, developing drones and integrating A.I. and automation.

One particularly promising company is MetroStar, which through a contract vehicle called Rapid Task Order Response (RAPTOR), is showing how this smart contracting reduces time to field and close capability gaps. The RAPTOR vehicle streamlines the deployment of technology into the field, while still maintaining the oversight and budgetary control the DoD needs to maximize the monies appropriated by Congress.

Whether the traditional vehicle contracting officers within the DoD, or the mega-contractors who’ve built corporate empires hovering around those contracting officers like so many Mandarins in an ancient Chinese warlord movie, like it or not, this is the nature of today’s national security environment. We are now in an era where digital warfare, autonomous systems, and artificial intelligence define who wins and who falls behind.

Against this backdrop, the Pentagon must move with clarity and conviction. That means embracing firms that innovate, cutting ties with those that can’t, and rebuilding an acquisition culture that prioritizes agility and outcomes.

Captain Bob “Shoebob” Carey, U.S. Navy (Retired) is the Executive Director of the National Defense Committee, a military and veterans advocacy organization dedicated to military and veterans civil and legal rights. He served as a member of the Senior Executive Service in both the Departments of Defense and Energy and served as the national security advisor to two U.S. Senators.

6. Japan Gets New Kind of Leader

“military Keynesianism?”

Excerpts:

At a time when Japan’s national debt, sclerotic economy, demographic decline and stagnant living standards have eroded the country’s international position and alienated many Japanese from the ruling party, Ms. Takaichi has her work cut out for her. Her divided party has lost its majority in both houses of Parliament. The Komeito, the LDP’s longtime coalition partner, hates Ms. Takaichi’s hawkishness and hints at leaving the coalition. Newly influential and feisty right-wing parties criticize the LDP for not being nationalist enough. Powerful forces in the LDP will fight any efforts at reform. This political disarray could complicate Ms. Takaichi’s path to the Kotei, the prime minister’s official residence. It will certainly complicate the job of governing Japan.

Meanwhile, much of Japan’s entrenched bureaucracy will fight change with all the resources and ingenuity at its command. Along with many party elders, the bureaucracy likes its prime ministers weak and conformist. Ms. Takaichi isn’t the bureaucrats’ cup of tea, and whether she can bend them to her will remains unclear.

But time may be running out for policy as usual in Japan. Except for Ukraine and Taiwan, no country is more endangered by the world’s growing disorder. The Chinese Communist Party relies on anti-Japanese propaganda as one of its favorite tools for mobilizing the masses. The growing threats to Taiwan endanger Japan’s access to the sea routes on which it depends for fuel and food. An empowered North Korea hurls harsh words and occasional missiles toward Tokyo. Russia’s deepening links with North Korea and China are destabilizing an already shaky regional balance of power.

Meanwhile, although leaders throughout the Indo-Pacific marvel at Mr. Trump’s ability to dominate the American political scene and fear his trade diplomacy, doubts about U.S. policy competence and long-term commitments are rising. American protectionism, many believe, not only will dim the economic prospects of American partners; it will enhance the appeal of China as a partner for investment and trade. The arrest of Hyundai employees last month in Georgia outraged South Korea and shocked businesses and governments. An acute crisis in U.S.-India relations has spooked observers across the region.

Ms. Takaichi’s best course under these circumstances may be to embrace a modified 21st-century version of what American lefties used to call “military Keynesianism.” The idea was that large defense expenditures would stimulate demand in the economy, promoting growth. With a high-tech twist, those policies could help Japan address both its domestic and international problems today.

Japan Gets New Kind of Leader

Sanae Takaichi, a hawkish nationalist, wants to make her country great again.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/japan-gets-new-kind-of-leader-bb4b10ca?mod=hp_opin_pos_6

By Walter Russell Mead

Oct. 6, 2025 5:00 pm ET

Sanae Takaichi in Tokyo, Oct. 4. Photo: Yuichi Yamazaki/Associated Press

Something important just happened in Japan. Usually, the leaders of Japan’s long-dominant party look for conformity and continuity when selecting prime ministers. This time they have done something different.

Sanae Takaichi, 64, is a former heavy-metal drummer and the first woman to lead Japan’s ruling party. She is a hawkish nationalist politician who has frequently visited the controversial Yasukuni Shrine where the spirits of Japan’s World War II dead, including war criminals, are enshrined. She invokes the ideas and the priorities of the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. She wants to make Japan great again.

To succeed, Ms. Takaichi must accomplish three things. She must unite her fractious Liberal Democratic Party and find coalition partners that give her a solid majority in Parliament. She must rekindle the economic and technical dynamism that once made Japan the wonder of the world. And she must work with Japan’s regional partners and a mercurial President Trump to build a robust Indo-Pacific coalition that can resist Chinese Communist power across the region.

At a time when Japan’s national debt, sclerotic economy, demographic decline and stagnant living standards have eroded the country’s international position and alienated many Japanese from the ruling party, Ms. Takaichi has her work cut out for her. Her divided party has lost its majority in both houses of Parliament. The Komeito, the LDP’s longtime coalition partner, hates Ms. Takaichi’s hawkishness and hints at leaving the coalition. Newly influential and feisty right-wing parties criticize the LDP for not being nationalist enough. Powerful forces in the LDP will fight any efforts at reform. This political disarray could complicate Ms. Takaichi’s path to the Kotei, the prime minister’s official residence. It will certainly complicate the job of governing Japan.

Meanwhile, much of Japan’s entrenched bureaucracy will fight change with all the resources and ingenuity at its command. Along with many party elders, the bureaucracy likes its prime ministers weak and conformist. Ms. Takaichi isn’t the bureaucrats’ cup of tea, and whether she can bend them to her will remains unclear.

But time may be running out for policy as usual in Japan. Except for Ukraine and Taiwan, no country is more endangered by the world’s growing disorder. The Chinese Communist Party relies on anti-Japanese propaganda as one of its favorite tools for mobilizing the masses. The growing threats to Taiwan endanger Japan’s access to the sea routes on which it depends for fuel and food. An empowered North Korea hurls harsh words and occasional missiles toward Tokyo. Russia’s deepening links with North Korea and China are destabilizing an already shaky regional balance of power.

Meanwhile, although leaders throughout the Indo-Pacific marvel at Mr. Trump’s ability to dominate the American political scene and fear his trade diplomacy, doubts about U.S. policy competence and long-term commitments are rising. American protectionism, many believe, not only will dim the economic prospects of American partners; it will enhance the appeal of China as a partner for investment and trade. The arrest of Hyundai employees last month in Georgia outraged South Korea and shocked businesses and governments. An acute crisis in U.S.-India relations has spooked observers across the region.

Ms. Takaichi’s best course under these circumstances may be to embrace a modified 21st-century version of what American lefties used to call “military Keynesianism.” The idea was that large defense expenditures would stimulate demand in the economy, promoting growth. With a high-tech twist, those policies could help Japan address both its domestic and international problems today.

Budget hawks can squawk all they like, but sooner or later Japan’s defense needs will force higher military spending. Done wisely and at scale, much of that spending can support the reinvigoration of the technological basis of the Japanese economy. Defense technologies in our era are frequently dual-use. In both Israel and the U.S., defense-related research and development has created powerful technologies that, transferred into the civilian economy, boosted productivity and profit and drove investment and innovation.

Japan’s aging population and its resistance to immigration are driving the country to automate as much routine work as possible everywhere from automobile factories to retirement homes. Put that trend together with the capabilities a tech-driven defense sector can generate, and Japan could again stun the world with new products, as it did during the 1970s and ’80s.

Twice before in modern history—the Meiji Restoration in 1868 and again the long boom after World War II—Japan has achieved rapid transformations and almost-miraculous levels of growth. The country needs another such miracle today. We should all hope that Ms. Takaichi can deliver.

Appeared in the October 7, 2025, print edition as 'Japan Gets New Kind of Leader'.

7. The AI Arms Race Gets Even Hotter

The AI Arms Race Gets Even Hotter

OpenAI bets on AMD chips as an alternative to Nvidia. That’s good news for competition.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/artificial-intelligence-advanced-micro-devices-openai-nvidia-0bb0fac3

By The Editorial Board

Oct. 6, 2025 6:02 pm ET

Photo: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg News

Investment in artificial intelligence continues to astonish amid a technological arms race. Behold OpenAI’s multibillion-dollar deal on Monday to buy chips from Advanced Micro Devices to power its data centers.

AMD’s share price soared 24% on the news of its partnership with OpenAI, which is scrambling to build data centers to train and operate its models. It needs many more advanced chips, as do its competitors. AI chipmaking powerhouse Nvidia is struggling to keep up with demand.

Thus OpenAI’s deal with AMD, which is better known for designing video-gaming chips. OpenAI has also signed a $10 billion deal with Broadcom to produce chips.

Nvidia commands a $4.55 trillion market valuation, but competition is growing as more chipmakers seek a slice of the gigantic pie. Morgan Stanley has projected some $3 trillion will be invested in the AI buildout in the next three years. By some estimates, AI investment was the biggest contributor to U.S. GDP growth in the first two quarters of this year.

Jeff Bezos made headlines on Friday when he heralded an AI “industrial bubble.” There’s no question valuations are stretched, reminiscent of the dot-com days. Who knows if OpenAI and other developers will be able to generate the revenue to pay for their massive investments. And some companies might fail.

But as the Amazon founder noted, “when the dust settles and you see who are the winners, society benefits from those inventions.” It’s far better that private markets drive investment than government, as was the case with the electric-vehicle bubble created during the Biden years.

Appeared in the October 7, 2025, print edition as 'The AI Arms Race Gets Even Hotter'.

8. Trump Calls Off Diplomatic Outreach to Venezuela

Are we telegraphing our punches?

Trump Calls Off Diplomatic Outreach to Venezuela

The move paves the way for a possible military escalation against drug traffickers or the government of Nicolás Maduro.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/us/politics/trump-venezuela-maduro.html

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Richard Grenell, a special presidential envoy and executive director of the Kennedy Center, had been leading negotiations with Venezuela’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, and other top Venezuelan officials. Credit...Eric Lee/The New York Times

By Julian E. Barnes Tyler Pager and Maria Abi-Habib

Julian Barnes and Tyler Pager reported from Washington, and Maria Abi-Habib from Mexico City.

Oct. 6, 2025,

6:14 p.m. ET

President Trump has called off efforts to reach a diplomatic agreement with Venezuela, according to U.S. officials, paving the way for a potential military escalation against drug traffickers or the government of Nicolás Maduro.

Richard Grenell, a special presidential envoy and executive director of the Kennedy Center, had been leading negotiations with Mr. Maduro and other top Venezuelan officials. But during a meeting with senior military leaders on Thursday, Mr. Trump called Mr. Grenell and instructed him that all diplomatic outreach, including his talks with Mr. Maduro, was to stop, the officials said on Monday.

Mr. Trump has grown frustrated with Mr. Maduro’s failure to accede to American demands to give up power voluntarily and the continued insistence by Venezuelan officials that they have no part in drug trafficking.

American officials have said that the Trump administration has drawn up multiple military plans for an escalation. Those operations could also include plans designed to force Mr. Maduro from power. Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and national security adviser, has called Mr. Maduro an “illegitimate” leader and repeatedly cited a U.S. indictment of him on drug trafficking charges.

Mr. Rubio had described Mr. Maduro as a “fugitive from American justice,” and the United States increased the reward for Mr. Maduro to $50 million.

A White House official said Mr. Trump was prepared to use “every element of American power” to stop drugs from entering the United States and had been clear in his messages to Mr. Maduro to end Venezuelan narcotics trafficking.

Mr. Grenell declined to comment, as did a senior Venezuelan official.

Mr. Rubio and his allies in the Trump administration have been pushing a strategy to drive Mr. Maduro from power. American officials say Mr. Maduro directs drug cartels operating in Venezuela, a charge the Venezuelan government denies.

On Friday, the U.S. military struck another boat in international waters near Venezuela, killing four men, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced. It was the fourth known attack by American military forces against vessels the administration has claimed were trafficking narcotics.

Mr. Grenell has been negotiating with Mr. Maduro for months, though those talks intensified in recent weeks as the U.S. military began striking the boats.

Last month, Mr. Maduro wrote a letter to Mr. Trump denying his country trafficked in drugs and offering to conduct further negotiations with the United States through Mr. Grenell.

Mr. Grenell has tried to fashion a deal that would avoid a larger conflict and give American companies access to Venezuelan oil.

But Mr. Rubio and his allies have come to believe Mr. Grenell’s efforts were unhelpful and creating confusion, according to a person briefed on the matter.

In a notice to Congress last week, the Trump administration said the United States was engaged in a formal “armed conflict” with drug cartels. The drug cartels, the notice said, were terrorist organizations, and cartel members smuggling drugs were considered “unlawful combatants.”

Taken with the decision to call off diplomacy, the notice appeared to be a signal that the United States planned to escalate the military operations. Some current and former officials said Mr. Trump could authorize strikes against drug cartel targets inside Mexico, though it is not clear if the president has done so or what military plan he might approve.

The U.S. military has claimed that its strikes against boats carrying narcotics have taken place in international waters. Advocates of diplomacy within the Trump administration worry that any further expansion of the anti-narcotics campaign into Venezuela itself, or any direct effort to force Mr. Maduro from power, would risk entangling the United States in a wider war.

Supporters of diplomacy have said expanding the campaign against Venezuela into a regime-change operation risks putting the United States into the kind of extended war Mr. Trump promised to avoid.

But Mr. Grenell has been at odds with Mr. Rubio over various issues in this administration, including how to get Mr. Maduro to release Americans held in Venezuela.

Julie Turkewitz in Bogotá contributed reporting.

Julian E. Barnes covers the U.S. intelligence agencies and international security matters for The Times. He has written about security issues for more than two decades.

Tyler Pager is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.

Maria Abi-Habib is an investigative correspondent reporting on Latin America and is based in Mexico City.

9. It’s time to rethink development assistance as a useful soft power tool

A thoughtful essay from a development professional. I knew Ms. Keyvanshad when she was a student at the National War College. She provides important context and asks critical questions.

Does an organization like Spirit of America (https://spiritofamerica.org/ - which is one of a kind organization) provide a model for soft power and development support to national security objectives?

Excerpts:

Within this new and rapidly evolving context, our development assistance no longer carries the same leverage, does not have the same power, and is not delivering the same level of results for our partners or for ourselves. As an instrument of soft power, its evolution has not kept up with the changes in America’s power and global standing.

That leads us to new questions, the most basic of which are: Does U.S. development assistance broadly remain an effective tool of soft power? Can the U.S. still rely on it as a tool to achieve our national and foreign policy goals? And if so, how does it need to be most effectively practiced within the current and evolving context?

For as long as many of us have been working in development, we have anticipated, with some apprehension, a potential merger of USAID into the State Department. It has finally happened.

However, the way this merger is playing out, where one organization, currently in the midst of a restructuring and in disarray, is swallowing the programs and funding of another that has been haphazardly dismantled, is not one that is conducive to developing responses to these critical questions.

Yet, these are questions that deserve thoughtful and creative responses; answers that don’t just tweak the deficiencies and the bureaucratic challenges of the present, nor try to recreate a past that no longer exists.

For the U.S. to continue to claim its place in this new world order from a position of strength, we need new definitions and tools of soft power, and we need to shift how we view our relationships, moving away from development assistance that is based on an unequal power relationship between a donor and a recipient, and toward one that is rooted in mutual respect, mutual benefit, and equal partnership.

It’s time to rethink development assistance as a useful soft power tool

Opinion: The U.S. is in a very different global position to when its aid agency, USAID, was founded in 1961.

By Sepideh Keyvanshad // 06 October 2025

https://www.devex.com/news/it-s-time-to-rethink-development-assistance-as-a-useful-soft-power-tool-110969?skip_optional_steps=true

By the time I arrived in Afghanistan in the summer of 2014 for my third tour as a foreign service officer with USAID, I had already spent a decade working in the country with different U.S. government organizations. Something that particularly struck me during that tour was the contrast in how the United States engaged with Afghanistan compared to some other countries.

Our goal in Afghanistan was to create conditions for the country to benefit from its own natural resources and to advance on a path to increased stability and prosperity. Yet, at times, it seemed that our security and civilian assistance created conditions for others to profit from our investment of dollars and lives. While the U.S. Agency for International Development, as the largest donor of development and security assistance, provided billions toward building Afghan institutions, worked with our allies and our Afghan partners to create jobs, and deployed thousands of soldiers to work with the Afghan army to stabilize the country, China was negotiating deals for copper, lithium, and other valuable minerals.

Several years later, I arrived in Nepal to lead USAID’s mission there in the midst of strict COVID-19 lockdowns and difficult negotiations over a $500 million Millennium Challenge Corporation compact to expand electricity access, as well as our own $659 million development agreement. The goal of our assistance, as one of Nepal’s oldest bilateral partners, was to help build a more prosperous future for all of its people, within the context of high unemployment, weak economic growth, and a fragile natural environment. Disinformation, however, often fueled by external groups, spread widely during the negotiations. Our motives were questioned. Some accused us of providing aid only to build military bases. And the government seemed less interested in our projects than it was in our funding, to be channeled through their national budget. When I spoke at different forums about our work, I was asked what benefit the U.S. sought and why we would want to help Nepal at all.

Those were all very good questions, which many of us have had to answer as we represented our country at embassies across the world: What are the objectives of our development assistance? Who benefits? Who pays the costs? And to what extent does it support our national and foreign policy objectives?

With the dismantling of USAID and its aftermath, much is being written about the history of foreign assistance, often pointing back to when President John F. Kennedy created the agency, declaring a “Decade of Development.” Now six decades later, the contents of his address to the U.S. Congress, and the objectives and principles he set forth for their implementation, sound both current and far away.

The principles — a single agency with unified administration and operation, long-term planning and financing, special emphasis on loans and domestic resource mobilization, attracting the highest quality staff from all parts of the nation — were aspirations that felt current until recently, many of which we have been able to meet only partially. The context, however, echoes from a very different time, when U.S. power and influence were on the ascent, when we were setting the agenda and the rules of the world order, comfortably in a position of global leadership.

The U.S. has often supported other nations and their people in times of need, as part of its perceived leadership responsibility, based on aspirational values of compassion, generosity, and fairness. However, at its core, foreign assistance has always been a tool of soft power, rooted in American national interest, reflecting the principles emanating from our own system of government and domestic context.

In the 1960s, the setting was a bipolar world in the midst of the Cold War, alongside a domestic struggle to reach our own ideals of equity and fairness. For the two decades following the 9/11 attacks, our focus was dominated by the Global War on Terrorism and countering violent extremism, with growing portions of our national budget devoted to external efforts and reduced relative investment in domestic health and welfare.

Today, the country is engaged in a global competition within an increasingly multipolar world, with the rise of China’s military power and soft influence, and shifting and increasingly transactional alliances.

This evolution is taking place amid uneven but significant global development fueled by expanded trade, advancing technologies, and increased investments by foundations, philanthropic organizations, and foreign direct investment, and where former aid recipients are becoming donors themselves. Domestically, the context is one of deepening polarization, inward focus, and fragmented decision-making.

Within this new and rapidly evolving context, our development assistance no longer carries the same leverage, does not have the same power, and is not delivering the same level of results for our partners or for ourselves. As an instrument of soft power, its evolution has not kept up with the changes in America’s power and global standing.

That leads us to new questions, the most basic of which are: Does U.S. development assistance broadly remain an effective tool of soft power? Can the U.S. still rely on it as a tool to achieve our national and foreign policy goals? And if so, how does it need to be most effectively practiced within the current and evolving context?

For as long as many of us have been working in development, we have anticipated, with some apprehension, a potential merger of USAID into the State Department. It has finally happened.

However, the way this merger is playing out, where one organization, currently in the midst of a restructuring and in disarray, is swallowing the programs and funding of another that has been haphazardly dismantled, is not one that is conducive to developing responses to these critical questions.

Yet, these are questions that deserve thoughtful and creative responses; answers that don’t just tweak the deficiencies and the bureaucratic challenges of the present, nor try to recreate a past that no longer exists.

For the U.S. to continue to claim its place in this new world order from a position of strength, we need new definitions and tools of soft power, and we need to shift how we view our relationships, moving away from development assistance that is based on an unequal power relationship between a donor and a recipient, and toward one that is rooted in mutual respect, mutual benefit, and equal partnership.

Editor’s note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of any affiliated organizations, past or present.

About the author

Sepideh Keyvanshad

Sepideh Keyvanshad is senior adviser at Cambridge Global Advisors. Until recently, she was a foreign service officer at USAID holding leadership positions, including chief human capital officer, mission director to Nepal, and deputy mission director to Afghanistan. Her career spans over two decades at the intersection of diplomacy, development, and security.

10. SOF News – Countering the Drone Swarm – Oct 7, 2025

Countering the Drone Swarm – Oct 7, 2025

https://sof.news/drones/20251007/

October 7, 2025 SOF News Drones 0

Below the reader will find recent news about unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that are used in conflicts (Ukraine, Africa, etc.), new developments in drone use, and training by militaries for using drones during combat operations. Curated articles on the topics below are provided:

Countering the Drone Swarm
SOCOM’s Bullfrog – Drone Defense
1st Cav and Switchblade 600
Small Engines for Drones
Report: Foreign Components in Russian Drones
Ukrainian Drones for U.S.
Mavic Drones in Russia-Ukraine War
Ukraine’s Interceptor Drones
Report: Multilateral Policy on Autonomous Weapon Systems
Best Defense: Lasers or Mobile Gun Trucks?
Europe Gray Zone Fight in the Skies
Europe’s Drone Wall
Drones, Cartels, and West Africa
Hitler’s ‘Flying Bomb’

Featured Topic

This article’s featured topic is about countering the drone swarm. Drones make up 70 per cent of the casualties in the Ukraine – Russian war. The war has evolved over the past three years and a big part of the change has been the growth of importance of drones in the conflict. The next wave of innovations by both Ukraine and Russia will be the development of swarms of drones guided by artificial intelligence. The U.S. needs to take note of this new aspect of offensive drone warfare and quickly develop systems to counter AI-guided drone swarms.

The most dangerous adversary that the U.S. could face in the future will likely be China. A conflict could certainly take place if the PRC makes a military move to invade Taiwan – some national security analysts say that could happen as early as 2027. China is investing heavily in autonomous systems – and swarms of drones could overwhelm Taiwan’s (and U.S.) defenses. These swarms, coupled with artificial intelligence (AI), can adapt to battlefield conditions and coordinate mass attacks without human interaction.

To prepare for a potential future conflict with China over Taiwan the Department of Defense needs to invest in emerging technologies such as high-power microwaves and AI-enabled command and control systems. These technologies need to be integrated into an overall drone defense plan that starts at the infantryman level and goes all the way up to the protection of strategic targets. In addition, the U.S. must quickly update its doctrine, tactics, and training to be able to effectively implement these technologies into a comprehensive, layered counter drone defense.

Stacie Pettyjohn and Molly Campbell of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) have wrote a 61-page report entitled Countering the Swarm: Protecting the Joint Force in the Drone Age, PDF, September 2025. https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/countering-the-swarm

The report has six chapters:

Closing the Counter-Drone Kill Chain
Equipping the Force for Drone Defense
The Army Under Fire, October 2023-February 2024
The Battle of the Red Sea, November 2023-May 2025
The Future Threat: Defending Against Chinese Drone Attacks
Conclusion and Recommendations for DoD

U.S. and Drones

SOCOM’s Bullfrog – Drone Defense. U.S. Special Operations Command has awarded a contract for Allen Control Systems’s (ACS) Bullfrog autonomous turret. This system is equipped with sensors and AI to spot and engage incoming drones. The turret can be armed with M240, M2, M230, and M134 guns or lasers. “SOCOM to get robotic anti-drone turret for maritime platforms”, Defense One, September 26, 2025.

1st Cav and Switchblade 600. A tube-launched, unmanned aircraft system has already seen extensive use by Special Operations Forces, light infantry units, and foreign partners. The 1st Cavalry Division is one of the first armored units to field the system. Adopting the Switchblade is part of a push by the Army to integrate new technologies – especially drones and advanced communications. The Switchblade is about 5 feet long and weighs 75 pounds. It has a flight time of 40-45 minutes and a range up to 27 miles. “Army’s 1st Cavalry Division Conducts First Switchblade 600 Live-Fire Exercise”, DoD, September 29, 2025.

Small Engines for Drones. U.S. industrial firms are gearing up to be able to enter the competition for defense contracts providing small engines for the thousands and thousands of drones that the U.S. military will be buying in the future. The demand for propulsion engines for drones and missiles is going to be huge over the next 10 years. “Industry Races to Develop Small Engines for Drones, CCAs”, by Greg Hadley, Air and Space Forces Magazine, October 2, 2025.

Drones and the Ukraine – Russia Conflict

Report – Foreign Components in Russian Drones. The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) has issued a research paper that details how Russia is relying on foreign commercial parts for its drone manufacturing process. It does this despite international sanctions that are in place to prevent it from acquiring these vital drone components. The authors of the report have traced the international procurement routes of foreign components and discuss the failures of multilateral efforts to prevent such procurement. The paper concludes with a proposed framework for stronger end-use controls to address the weaknesses of the current technology-control regime. Tracking the Components of Missiles and UAVs by Russia in Ukraine: What Lessons for Control Regimes?, September 2025, PDF, 27 pages.

Mavic Drones in Russia-Ukraine War. Mavic drones were not designed for military use but their competitive price and ease of modification make them very popular. “The Evolution of Mavic drones in the Russia-Ukraine war”, Counteroffensive.pro, September 30, 2025. (subscription)

Ukraine Drone Boat Found by Turkish Fishermen. An explosive-packed sea drone was found 900 miles away in Turkey. The Magura V5 unmanned surface vessel (USV) was a floating bomb that went way off course. Its likely intended target was a surface ship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet (BSF). The War Zone, September 30, 2025.

Ukraine’s Interceptor Drones. The nightly onslaught of Russian attack drones on Ukrainian civilian and military targets continue – sometimes 500-600 drones a night. Ukraine is now mass-producing interceptor drones to counter the Russian Shahed and Gerbera drones. One such interceptor drone is called “The Sting”. It is bullet-shaped and costs about $2,000. The aim is for the country to put up over 1,000 interceptor drones a night to take down the Russian attack drones before they can hit their targets.

Ukrainian Drones for the U.S. The technological experience and production capacity of Ukraine to manufacture drones is leading to a possible deal where the country could provide millions of drones to the United States at some point in the future. “Ukraine Deep in Talks to Sell U.S. Millions of Drones”, The War Zone, October 2, 2025. See also “Trump’s Drone Deal With Ukraine to Give U.S. Access to Battlefield Tech”, The Wall Street Journal, October 2, 2025.

Drones Around the World

Report – Multilateral Policy on Autonomous Weapons Systems. Dr. Alexander Blanchard and Netta Goussac have authored a report that examines the possible directions for future policy on AWS. The report aims to inform policymakers with an overview of the next steps for policy efforts. September 2025, PDF, 41 pages.

Hitler’s ‘Flying Bomb’. Unmanned attack aircraft have been around for a long time. Zita Ballinger Fletcher explains in this article about the appearance of a strange new aircraft in England’s skies on June 13, 1944. This new “pilotless plane” had wings, a jet engine, and a warhead of explosives. The V-1 was cheap to make and easy to manufacture. It could cause a lot of damage and inflicted terror among the English population. The V-1 had a built-in barometric altimeter, magnetic compass, and rangefinder. The warhead had 1,800 pounds of explosives. Over 30,000 V-1s were built and 10,000 were targeted against London. Read more about the V-1 in “How Hitler’s fear-inducing ‘flying bomb’ ushered in drone warfare”, Military Times, September 26, 2025.

Europe Gray Zone Fight in the Skies. Numerous drone sightings across western Europe – suspected to be coming from Russia, Belarus, or ships at sea – are putting EU nations into the alert mode. Drones have appeared over military sites and have shut down airports. Europe is now entering into a new era – where drones are changing warfare on the battlefield but also as a method of ‘hybrid air denial’. The cheap drones are causing significant financial stress and havoc but are also providing plausible denial to the operators as they are unmanned commercial off-the-shelf variants. “Hybrid air denial: The new gray zone battlefield raging above Europe”, Defense News, October 2, 2025.

Europe’s Drone Wall. Russian drone incursions across Europe has prompted the European Union (EU) to construct a ‘drone wall’. This will entail a series or network of sensors, AI software, jammers, inexpensive missiles, hunter drones, and more. The Baltic States appear to be taking the lead in this initiative. “Inside Europe’s crash effort to create a drone wall”, Defense One, October 2, 2025.

Drones, Cartels, and West Africa. The Policy Center for the New South has published a 13-page paper on how the convergence of armed group drone warfare and cartel expansion in the Sahel is a global problem with direct consequences for the United States. Drone Warfare and Cartel Convergence in West Africa, September 2025.

https://www.policycenter.ma/publications/drone-warfare-and-cartel-convergence-west-africa-risks-american-safety-security-and

Best Defense: Lasers or Mobile Gun Trucks? Video on Which Technology offers the best defense against drones? Lasers or mobile gun trucks?”, DW News, YouTube, October 1, 2025, 17 minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKYFqWiuFh0&t=102s

**********

Image. Quadrotor Drone Swarm by ChatGPT.

11. The war you don’t see: Inside the battle for Australia’s mind

This is the modern battlefield and "Australia is Beijing's wind tunnel."

Recognize, understand, expose and attack the enemy's strategy.

Attack with cyber and a superior political warfare strategy. The US and our allies must prevail defend ourselves against and prevail against cognitive warfare.

Cognitive warfare degrades the capacity to know, produce, or thwart knowledge. Cognitive sciences cover all the sciences that concern knowledge and its processes (psychology, linguistics, neurobiology, logic, and more).
Cognitive warfare is, therefore, the way of using knowledge for a conflicting purpose. In its broadest sense, cognitive warfare is not limited to the military or institutional world. Since the early 1990s, this capability has tended to be applied to the political, economic, cultural, and societal fields.
Any user of modern information technologies is a potential target. It targets the whole of a nation’s human capital.

https://www.ndu.edu/News/Article-View/Article/3856627/cognitive-warfare-the-fight-for-gray-matter-in-the-digital-gray-zone/

Excerpts:

Australia’s challenge is not isolated – it is the front line of a wider experiment. Across continents, Beijing applies similar cognitive-warfare frameworks, tailored to local contexts. In Taiwan, its 2020 election interference weaponised conspiracies to erode trust. In the Philippines, South China Sea narratives blend economic pressure with emotional appeal, selling a “shared Asian destiny” while weakening Western ties.

In Africa and Latin America, Beijing fuses media investment with diplomacy to embed its worldview as common sense. Tactics vary; the aim is constant: wherever China’s interests meet democratic discourse, the first battle is for meaning.

Turkey offers a parallel model of state-managed “truth”. Through its Dezenformasyonla Mücadele Merkezi (DMM) and a 2022 law, Ankara fused regulation, media capture and prosecution into an exportable governance tool. The DMM’s multilingual “fact checks”, like Beijing’s rebuttals, enforce perception rather than verify reality. In the Eastern Mediterranean, this model now reaches Greece, Cyprus, Israel and Azerbaijan – proof that controlled “truth architecture” is an instrument of modern power. Beijing and Ankara differ in scale yet share a logic: information control as a sovereign function wrapped in transparency.

The template is spreading. Authoritarian governments across Asia, the Middle East and Africa borrow Beijing’s methods – combining cyber tools, cultural outreach and co-opted diaspora media to project soft power. The aim is not silence but saturation: flooding the information space with orchestrated coherence until consensus becomes illusion.

Australia is Beijing’s wind tunnel – a testbed where industrial, social and cyber fronts converge into a single hybrid battlespace. The answer is not louder outrage but quiet mastery: pre-empt before persuasion, measure systemic risk, surface truth in real time and unite data and narrative security. In the 21st century, deterrence rests not only on submarines or satellites but on the integrity of the facts that guide them.

The war you don’t see: Inside the battle for Australia’s mind

https://www.defenceconnect.com.au/geopolitics-and-policy/16941-the-war-you-don-t-see-inside-the-battle-for-australia-s-mind-2?utm

Geopolitics & Policy

07 October 2025

By: Shay Gal

Opinion: China’s hybrid operations against Australia fuse industrial disinformation, cyber infiltration and narrative warfare to reshape markets, weaken alliances like AUKUS and erode public trust, making Australia a testbed for Beijing’s global strategy of cognitive and informational control, explains strategic policy expert Shay Gal.

China’s operations against Australia are not Cold War–style propaganda – they are strategic manoeuvres to reshape markets, regulation and alliances. The Dragonbridge campaign, exposed by Mandiant and Google Cloud, targeted Lynas with coordinated false narratives casting rare-earth processing as toxic.

Not random noise – industrial disinformation engineered to disrupt supply chains, investment and confidence in Australia’s critical minerals sector.

Beyond economics, Beijing’s narrative warfare targets AUKUS. State-linked outlets claim the pact makes Australia a “nuclear target” and breaches the Treaty of Rarotonga. The goal is to weaken deterrence, fuel regional anxiety and slow defence industrialisation.

Global Times sets the tone; echo chambers amplify it. Australian studies show these claims are fabricated – aimed at delegitimising, not debating, AUKUS. Canberra has strengthened strategic communications but lacks a dedicated Indo-Pacific information cell.

Inside Australia, the main battleground is linguistic and digital. The 2022 takeover of then Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s WeChat account showed many Chinese-speaking Australians operate in a media space governed by Beijing’s laws, not Australia’s.

United Front research shows pipelines from state media to diaspora outlets, subtly aligning local discourse. Non-state voices exist, but platform moderation under Beijing ensures its messages dominate. Thus communities inhabit an information sphere where democratic sovereignty is partial.

Online, China’s “Spamouflage” – synthetic personas, recycled content and deepfakes – has entered an AI-driven phase. Microsoft found campaigns using synthetic voices and visuals to seed polarisation across democracies. Meta dismantled a fake Sikh-rights network that sought to trigger protests in Australia and New Zealand. The method: hijack local tensions to erode civic trust.

The deeper front is cognitive-cyber synchronisation. As Volt Typhoon infiltrates critical infrastructure using “living-off-the-land” tactics, narrative teams ready cover stories to explain outages, muddy attribution and sap institutional trust during crises.

Joint CISA–ASD–Five Eyes advisories confirm the groundwork is well under way. The threat is not only sabotage but perceived chaos – disinformation as the smokescreen for cyber war.

Since 2018, Australia has built an impressive defence: the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme, ASIO–AFP taskforces, university integrity codes, election rapid-response units and ACMA’s voluntary Disinformation Code – a layered legal and cognitive shield.

Yet gaps remain. Shelving the 2024 Misinformation Bill left no DSA-style systemic-risk duties – no requirement to assess election risks, share data or undergo audits. Nor is there a unified Chinese-language government protocol despite past hijackings. Even AUKUS lacks a coordinated strategic-narrative team.

Globally, effective counter-measures are evidence-based and politically neutral. “Pre-bunking” videos – brief inoculations developed by Cambridge University and Google Jigsaw – reduce susceptibility by up to 20 per cent. The EU’s DSA mandates transparency and third-party audits, not censorship. National rumour-control portals such as CISA’s Rumour Control inject verified facts in real time.

Rapid public attribution and takedowns, used by Meta and Graphika, deter adversaries faster than quiet removals. These tools rely on behavioural science and transparency – hence their resilience.

Australia’s defence sector can apply these lessons tactically. Add narrative-risk management to cyber and supply-chain logs for every major program. Add early warning to flag market manipulation around critical minerals tenders. Make cognitive red-teaming routine – per the UK handbook: simulate scenarios, test counter-messages and drill three-hour responses.

Each flagship project should host a rumour control page. Extend FITS compliance to all communications and influence vendors. These steps turn abstract information security into board-level resilience.

Australia’s challenge is not isolated – it is the front line of a wider experiment. Across continents, Beijing applies similar cognitive-warfare frameworks, tailored to local contexts. In Taiwan, its 2020 election interference weaponised conspiracies to erode trust. In the Philippines, South China Sea narratives blend economic pressure with emotional appeal, selling a “shared Asian destiny” while weakening Western ties.

In Africa and Latin America, Beijing fuses media investment with diplomacy to embed its worldview as common sense. Tactics vary; the aim is constant: wherever China’s interests meet democratic discourse, the first battle is for meaning.

Turkey offers a parallel model of state-managed “truth”. Through its Dezenformasyonla Mücadele Merkezi (DMM) and a 2022 law, Ankara fused regulation, media capture and prosecution into an exportable governance tool. The DMM’s multilingual “fact checks”, like Beijing’s rebuttals, enforce perception rather than verify reality. In the Eastern Mediterranean, this model now reaches Greece, Cyprus, Israel and Azerbaijan – proof that controlled “truth architecture” is an instrument of modern power. Beijing and Ankara differ in scale yet share a logic: information control as a sovereign function wrapped in transparency.

The template is spreading. Authoritarian governments across Asia, the Middle East and Africa borrow Beijing’s methods – combining cyber tools, cultural outreach and co-opted diaspora media to project soft power. The aim is not silence but saturation: flooding the information space with orchestrated coherence until consensus becomes illusion.

Australia is Beijing’s wind tunnel – a testbed where industrial, social and cyber fronts converge into a single hybrid battlespace. The answer is not louder outrage but quiet mastery: pre-empt before persuasion, measure systemic risk, surface truth in real time and unite data and narrative security. In the 21st century, deterrence rests not only on submarines or satellites but on the integrity of the facts that guide them.

Shay Gal is a senior strategic adviser specialising in international security, defence policy, crisis management and strategic communications, focused on countering disinformation. Formerly vice-president for external relations at Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), he has advised senior government officials on crisis response, policy and influence strategy.

His work connects geopolitics, information strategy and leadership, helping governments and defence institutions build resilience to disinformation and shape coherent security narratives in complex environments.

12. Pentagon Relaxes Press Access Rules

I suspect the Pentagon would have lost in court. And I suspect this clarification and "relaxation" is insufficient and will likely still be challenged in court and the Pentagon will probably lose.

We should also consider how these actions support the Dark Quad's political warfare strategy and propaganda campaigns. This is an "own goal" - The Dark Quad will use this to point out the "hypocrisy" of "American values" and that the Pentagon only pays lip service to the FIrst Amendment.

Pentagon Relaxes Press Access Rules

Under new guidelines, journalists will not need approval from the Defense Department before publishing articles containing information not officially released.

By Erik Wemple

Reporting from Washington

Oct. 6, 2025

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/business/media/trump-pentagon-reporters-press.html

NY Times · Erik Wemple ·

Under new guidelines, journalists will not need approval from the Defense Department before publishing articles containing information not officially released.

Pentagon reporters have had access to the building’s corridors for decades.Credit...Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times

Under new guidelines, journalists will not need approval from the Defense Department before publishing articles containing information not officially released.

Pentagon reporters have had access to the building’s corridors for decades.Credit...Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times

Listen to this article · 5:51 min Learn more

Reporting from Washington

Oct. 6, 2025

The Defense Department on Monday loosened and clarified its new restrictions for press access to the Pentagon, after more than two weeks of negotiations with national news organizations.

Under the rules, journalists requiring credentials to the Pentagon will not need approval from the department before publishing articles with information not officially released. News organizations widely interpreted an earlier draft as requiring that approval, drawing their condemnation.

“Members of the news media are not required to submit their writings” to the department before publication, the new draft says. The draft does, however, outline rules under which journalists could be deemed “security risks” and have their credentials revoked.

News outlets that want access to the Pentagon will have a week to review the policy and decide whether to sign. Failure to sign could leave them without press credentials to enter the Pentagon. By signing the policy, a reporter acknowledges the enclosed policies and procedures, “even if I do not necessarily agree with such policies and procedures.”

The Pentagon Press Association, the group that lobbied for access for news organizations at the Pentagon, did not have an immediate comment on the policy.

The Pentagon’s original draft restrictions added to a list of attacks and reprisals by the Trump administration against the news media. In February, the White House excluded The Associated Press from certain White House events because it had declined to adopt the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America. President Trump himself sued The Wall Street Journal in July over its coverage of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, and sued The New York Times in September, accusing the organization of disparaging his reputation as a businessman. (The case against The Times was dismissed four days after it was filed, though Mr. Trump can file a new suit against the newspaper.)

Pentagon reporters have had access to the building’s corridors for decades, but Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has curtailed the privilege in the eight months since taking office. In late January, the department removed four outlets — The Times, NBC News, Politico and National Public Radio — from their Pentagon workspaces, though their journalists can still work in the building.

After the news organizations objected, the Pentagon doubled down, removing workspaces for four additional news organizations. Those measures were part of what the department called a “rotation” plan that involved granting space to other news outlets. Many of the outlets offered space are friendly to the Trump administration, including Breitbart, The Daily Caller, Newsmax, One America News Network and The Washington Examiner.

In May, a memo from Mr. Hegseth barred reporters from important areas, including around the secretary’s office, without an official escort. The measure, the board of the Pentagon Press Association said in a statement at the time, “appears to be a direct attack on the freedom of the press and America’s right to know what its military is doing.”

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, center, during President Trump’s remarks to U.S. military officers last week in Quantico, Va.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

In a social media post last month, Mr. Hegseth described the changes as a populist transformation for the 84-year-old structure. “The ‘press’ does not run the Pentagon — the people do,” he wrote. “The press is no longer allowed to roam the halls of a secure facility. Wear a badge and follow the rules — or go home.”

Those changes troubled media lawyers. In a Sept. 22 letter to the Pentagon, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press argued that the rules contained ambiguous language about journalists’ obligations, particularly the apparent requirement to seek approval from the government for articles that contained even unclassified information.

Another concern with the initial draft was how the Pentagon would determine whether a journalist constituted a security or safety risk — a classification that could lead to a revocation of credentials. That concern is likely to carry over after the release of the revised draft on Monday.

The new rules say that when journalists receive and publish unsolicited classified information or a basket of less sensitive information from government sources, the First Amendment “generally” protects their activities. The draft says there is no prohibition on “constitutionally protected journalistic activities, such as investigating, reporting or publishing stories.”

However, solicitation or encouragement of government officials to “violate the laws and policies concerning the disclosure of such information” could lead to a determination that the journalist is a security risk. In recent weeks, media lawyers have expressed concerns about just what sort of journalistic activity that provision could end up punishing.

Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, argued in a Sept. 24 social post that the “mainstream media” was “misrepresenting” the procedures. He attached a letter indicating that the approval requirement for the release of information applied to government employees, not to journalists, among other clarifications.

“I trust that these clarifications address your concerns and confirm that the in-brief does not infringe upon First Amendment protections,” Mr. Parnell wrote in the letter.

It is unclear how the Pentagon might enforce what it has called “collective business rules” for reporters on the military beat. The negotiations between the department and news organizations have left correspondents reflecting on how they would respond.

Nancy Youssef, a staff writer at The Atlantic and a longtime Pentagon correspondent, said that if she lost her credentials, she would just plow ahead.

“I would stay on the beat,” Ms. Youssef said. “I think this work is important, and I would do everything I can to find a way to keep doing my job.”

13. This Century’s “Billy Mitchell Moment”

"Billy Mtichell of the sea?"

Excerpts:

The Future Navy

The long-term solution is to expand the presence of autonomous, unmanned systems in the Navy. Regardless of the protections and weapons installed, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer costs more than $2 billion to build and requires a crew of more than 300. The Navy can protect both ship and crew—but it would be better not to risk the crew at all.

Unmanned systems in the future will replicate the capabilities of these vessels and be capable of carrying out their missions. A networked armada of small, cheap drones could carry radar system components and missiles. Some unmanned drones could act as missiles themselves. A small drone carrier protected by a flotilla of drones could reach closer to shore with less detection than any current CSG afloat. Combat losses would inevitably occur, but in a large, networked group of oceangoing drones, the loss of a few platforms would have a minor effect, with no loss of human life.

This evolution beyond AEGIS to an expansive, modern array of unmanned and autonomous capabilities would guarantee the Navy’s future defensive prowess at sea. It would increase the systems available to address traditional threats and simultaneously enable defense against attacks by drones.

Modern ships are too valuable to risk in tough, contested environments. Cruisers and destroyers are especially vulnerable to drone attacks, which puts carriers at risk by extension. These critical vulnerabilities can be mitigated for now with shipboard modifications. The longer-term fix is to integrate unmanned systems into CSGs so they can continue to project power with less risk of attack, damage, and failure.

This Century’s “Billy Mitchell Moment”

By Captain Daniel Breeden, U.S. Navy Reserve

https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2025/october/centurys-billy-mitchell-moment

October 2025 Proceedings Vol. 151/10/1,472

When U.S. Navy, Army, and Marine Corps aircraft attacked and sank the former German battleship Ostfreisland in 1921, it was the first time aircraft put a battleship under the waves. Although it was a test on a stationary target, it revealed a serious vulnerability; large armored ships could succumb to numerous small aircraft. General Billy Mitchell, who devised the test, often pointed out that the money spent on one battleship could purchase a thousand bombers.

Some 80 years later, another Billy Mitchell moment has arrived—this time with unmanned systems. Even more numerous and lethal, unmanned drones present a new category of threat to surface vessels. The U.S. Navy must adapt by developing defenses against drone attacks and implementing drones into naval forces.

Navies will always be needed for control of the sea lines of communication; power projection ashore; transport of combat brigades and their equipment; and support of amphibious operations on a hostile shore. Further, 80 percent of international trade is conducted via maritime routes. Ships will continue to sail the seas for the foreseeable future, and they will require protection.

History of Vulnerability

However, history has shown how vulnerable ships are at sea. The USS Forrestal (CV-59) was nearly destroyed after a bomb inadvertently detonated in 1967. The USS Stark (FFG-31) was crippled and nearly sunk in 1987 after receiving two Exocet missile strikes. The first was a dud and impacted the bridge, while the second detonated on her port side. Similarly, the USS Samuel B. Roberts nearly sank in 1988 after hitting a mine.

During conflict, a ship at sea is always at risk. During the Falklands War, for example, HMS Conqueror fired three torpedoes and sent the ARA General Belgrano to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean with 323 sailors. Argentina responded by pulling every remaining naval ship to port, where they stayed for the remainder of the conflict.1 A similar dynamic played out in 2023: After two Ukrainian missiles sent the Black Sea Fleet’s flagship, the Moskva, to the depths, every Russian naval ship was pulled into safe harbor. Naval leaders chose to withdraw rather than risk more of the fleet to enemy attack.

Modern Ship Defense

The best defense against enemy attacks is to not get hit. Aircraft carriers use the airwing and supporting AEGIS cruiser/destroyer escorts for protection. Overlapping bubbles of fighter engagement zones, missile engagement zones, and close engagement zones protect the high-value unit.

The AEGIS ships are a critical requirement for carrier-based power projection. Severely disabling the AEGIS shield would leave the carrier vulnerable. But the AEGIS system was originally designed to fight large numbers of Soviet fighters and missiles to protect aircraft carrier battle groups. This defense model was designed during and for an era when air threats were manned fighter jets and expensive missiles. It is increasingly outdated as sophisticated unmanned systems become the main threat.

Each Arleigh Burke-class destroyer has 90 vertical launch system (VLS) missile tubes, and each Ticonderoga-class cruiser has 122. Assuming each tube carried an air defense missile, a nominal carrier strike group (CSG) with one cruiser and three destroyers would contain 392 such projectiles. In most cases, however, there would be a variety of Tomahawks, antisubmarine rockets, and other items in the tubes, reducing the number of missiles available for air defense. These numbers are far short of what is required to protect against an aggressive long-range drone strike.

The Problem with Modern Ships

The Russian military launches drones and missiles at Ukraine every night, often launching more than 700 attacks during a strike. If an attack of this scale were launched at a U.S. CSG, the fighter air wing could eliminate some threats. Chaff and electronic countermeasures would neutralize others, while missiles would destroy more still. But the strike group would likely sustain damage within days, and ships would not need to be sunk for the CSG to cease operations. Damage to the AEGIS SPY radar or missile bays in the deck would neutralize a destroyer or cruiser. If four escort ships were neutralized, the carrier would be left without air defense protection.

The U.S. response to such a threat might resemble those of Argentina and Russia during previous conflicts, with the U.S. Navy withdrawing its assets to safer waters until conditions changed. Since Russia’s Shahed drones can travel up to 1,500 kilometers, safe ranges from Crimean launch sites would place CSGs as far away as Egypt and Italy.

Missiles are expensive, and there are too few of them onboard to effectively stop a massed drone attack. Standard Missile 2s (SM-2s) cost more than $2 million each, and SM-3s may exceed $27 million, compared to $30,000 per Shahed drone. Building and hosting more missiles is not a practical solution.

Clearly, retreating from enemy action is not a sustainable course of action. The Navy needs better tools and weapons to defend its CSGs against drone attacks.

Short-Term Imperatives

More Guns are Needed

A standard Arleigh Burke-class destroyer carries one five-inch gun; one or two close-in weapon systems (CIWSs) for antiship missile defense; two 25-mm guns, and various mounts for crew-serve weapons. The CIWS can take out only a few threats before depleting munitions. Crew-serve weapons are not accurate enough, nor do they have the range to destroy threats. Twenty-five-mm guns are available and capable of destroying Shahed-type drone threats, and 30-mm guns could be installed for drone defense. More guns like the 25mm are needed, along with computer-aided fire control, to combat drones. Larger magazines also are required for a sustained fight.

Exploit New Technology

The Navy is currently testing the High Energy Laser and Integrated Optical Dazzler and Surveillance system, while Coherent Aerospace is developing laser weaponry for the Navy as part of the Songbow project. Such weapon systems could destroy enemy drones from long range and eliminate worries about munition stocks. Electromagnetic pulse weapons also should be tested.

More Decoys

Towed decoys that float along the ocean surface could have a significant effect on autonomous drone systems. The Navy already employs various decoys, such as the SLQ-25 Nixie towed decoy that protects against torpedo threats. Effective use of abundant and cheap decoys would trim the numbers of unmanned systems targeting Navy ships.

Upgrade Electronic Warfare Systems

The standard electronic warfare system onboard cruisers and destroyers is the SLQ-32. This system should be augmented with additional jamming capability for protection. Every drone stopped by electronic warfare saves a munition from being expended.

The Future Navy

The long-term solution is to expand the presence of autonomous, unmanned systems in the Navy. Regardless of the protections and weapons installed, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer costs more than $2 billion to build and requires a crew of more than 300. The Navy can protect both ship and crew—but it would be better not to risk the crew at all.

Unmanned systems in the future will replicate the capabilities of these vessels and be capable of carrying out their missions. A networked armada of small, cheap drones could carry radar system components and missiles. Some unmanned drones could act as missiles themselves. A small drone carrier protected by a flotilla of drones could reach closer to shore with less detection than any current CSG afloat. Combat losses would inevitably occur, but in a large, networked group of oceangoing drones, the loss of a few platforms would have a minor effect, with no loss of human life.

This evolution beyond AEGIS to an expansive, modern array of unmanned and autonomous capabilities would guarantee the Navy’s future defensive prowess at sea. It would increase the systems available to address traditional threats and simultaneously enable defense against attacks by drones.

Modern ships are too valuable to risk in tough, contested environments. Cruisers and destroyers are especially vulnerable to drone attacks, which puts carriers at risk by extension. These critical vulnerabilities can be mitigated for now with shipboard modifications. The longer-term fix is to integrate unmanned systems into CSGs so they can continue to project power with less risk of attack, damage, and failure.

1.Martin Middlebrook, The Argentine Fight for the Falklands (Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Military), 2009.

14. The Global Pressure Gauge: The Doomsday Clock Revisited

Excerpts:

Today’s struggle to keep the pressure from multiple vectors at a minimum is far more complicated than holding back the nuclear second hand of the Cold War Doomsday Clock. Instead of focusing on one existential threat and two superpowers, a countless array of actors with access to a variety of technologies must be monitored, persuaded, sanctioned, or even destroyed to keep threats in check. As pressure from one vector is reduced, the increase from another may prevent a net reduction in risk. Diplomacy and negotiation skills must be at an all-time high to solve the toughest challenges of our history.

Just as the ticking of a clock is far more predictable than the stability of a variable input system, the defense against a nuclear doomsday was less complicated than mankind’s current efforts to maintain worldwide stability. A black swan event has never caused species-wide disaster, but with the world so interconnected, the combination of current threats could easily rise to the point that ruptures the interconnected system. “Doomsday” will not likely come about through a singular catastrophe from one particular threat vector, but from an aggregation of mounting threats in the system that pushes the Global Pressure Gauge to its limits.

The Global Pressure Gauge: The Doomsday Clock Revisited

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/10/07/the-global-pressure-gauge-the-doomsday-clock-revisited/

by Stephen Messenger, by Loris Lepri

10.07.2025 at 06:00am

Abstract: The Doomsday Clock analogy is antiquated and should be replaced by The Global Pressure Gauge. Instead of nuclear war being the countdown to Earth’s destruction, multiple destabilizing inputs to the strategic environment are the real threat. These combined events are more likely to increase pressure within the system, leading to a rupture in global stability and, potentially, global war. Military professionals must understand these multiple threats to deter conflict.

Today, the Doomsday Clock seems like a relic of a bygone era. Even Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Vladimir Putin’s atomic saber rattling did not raise the level of societal angst over a nuclear holocaust at Cold War levels. The security landscape has changed, and the primary existential threat to humanity is no longer the brinksmanship of two great powers threatening mutually assured destruction. Instead, an aggregation of threats from emerging or improving technologies—many accessible to various actors at low costs of entry—adds strain to the international system. Like gas filling a sealed container, the cumulative pressure from these threats could cause a rupture, tearing apart mankind’s globalized society. The metaphor of a Global Pressure Gauge is a more accurate representation of the current risk to civilization than the Doomsday Clock. Military planners should consider nuclear, cyber, biological, artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, and others as destabilizing inputs to the strategic environment. While each could independently cause a catastrophic event, they are more likely to combine to increase pressure within the system, leading to a rupture in global stability and a potential global war.

Consider the recent headlines riddled with recurring Chinese military exercises near Taiwan, continued Russian aggression in Ukraine, a civil war in South Sudan, the Israel-Hamas War, a humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, and 703 million people lacking access to clean water. These issues are not necessarily nuclear in nature but continue to increase tension in a system already under intense pressure. Each added challenge creates tension in volatile diplomacy, competing narratives, military aggression and posturing exercises, and economic instability. Imagine then the addition of disruptions such as cyber-attacks, famines, natural disasters, displaced civilians, and bioterrorism across war-torn regions that create pressure the system cannot contain. It will not likely be one independent threat that leads to systems’ collapse and global conflict, but the aggregation of multiple security dilemmas over time. This is why the Doomsday Clock is no longer relevant and should be reevaluated as a multi-variable system in constant fluctuation.

Beyond the Clock

While today’s concept of the Doomsday Clock has expanded beyond nuclear to maintain relevancy, its origins were firmly rooted in the Cold War. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, whose founders worked on the Manhattan Project, created the Doomsday Clock in 1947 and continues to keep its time. Gravely concerned over the strategic environment that threatened world annihilation, this symbolic timepiece was meant to convey urgency and mobilize civic engagement so that nuclear war and its horrendous aftermath could be averted. Often thought of as an ominous countdown to Armageddon, the clock represented an approximation of how close mankind was to atomic disaster.

In modern times, the Doomsday Clock has drifted from its original conception. The amount of time left before midnight indicates “the world’s vulnerability to global catastrophe” caused by man-made technologies. The Doomsday Clock is now too simplistic to represent the world’s vulnerabilities to global catastrophe and must be reimagined to reflect the complex, multifaceted nature of today’s security threats. Several different paths could take mankind down the road of destruction. To fully understand the “doomsday” that the world faces, one must consider the aggregate of all threats instead of a singular danger. Like a giant pressure tank inside a power plant, it must be carefully monitored and regulated to avert an explosive catastrophe. Once the aggregate of the Global Pressure Gauge is too great, the world loses.

The Nuclear Tension

The threat of nuclear attack remains a clear and present danger amidst a veiled background since the Cold War, but the proliferation of such weapons has changed the balance of atomic power. As states like Iran and North Korea continue developing their programs, the possibility of nuclear attacks grows. Limited nuclear exchanges like those possible between Pakistan and India, or Iran and Israel, would cause massive devastation, and the effects of such a conflict would have global ramifications, but such struggles would not necessarily bring about the atomic apocalypse that a U.S.-Soviet Union unlimited exchange would have guaranteed. And while the possibility of exchanges between countries with large nuclear arsenals like Russia, China, and the United States still exists, such an outcome seems more remote today, given the other tools major powers have at their disposal. A potentially more feasible scenario is “small-yield” nuclear weapons of 0.3 kilotons and below, causing devastating physical effects and fallout. If the use of atomic weapons was the only civilizational threat, then the Doomsday Clock may still be appropriate; however, there are more dangers that could lead to global over-pressurization.

The Cyber Stress

Cyber-attacks are another possible destabilizing force with the potential to cause extensive chaos and suffering. Cyber-vulnerabilities are extremely prevalent, with 94% of businesses of 100 or more employees experiencing such malicious activity in 2022. While the risks posed by such attacks are numerous, widespread threats to critical infrastructure are particularly troublesome. Infrastructure like the electric grid, transportation networks, and banking and finance systems has all become increasingly complex, intertwined, and vulnerable. Simply watch the opener to Zero Day on Netflix to observe how even a limited attack on a nation’s transportation grid has the potential to destroy the status quo. The interdependence of critical infrastructure sectors creates the risk of cascading effects from attacks on one sector rolling into others. In the nightmarish scenario that essential services like electricity are shut down for millions of people over an extended period, the death toll could be catastrophic, especially in the winter. What makes cyber threats even more terrifying is that they are not limited to a small group of countries, as the low cost of entry makes cyber weapons available to all actors, from the state to the individual.

The Biological Strain

Disease poses another possibly existential risk to mankind. As COVID-19 illustrated, a pandemic can cause massive global disruption, even with an average death rate of 61.3 per 100,000 persons, which is relatively tame compared to the case-fatality ratio of bubonic plague, estimated at 30-60%. While nature has introduced devastating diseases into society, the current environment is made more dangerous because of mankind’s enhanced genetic manipulation capabilities. Introduced in 2012, Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) is a ground-breaking technology that enables gene editing at the highest precision and usability at the lowest cost. Compounding the risk is the expanding number of high-containment biological laboratories worldwide, indicating a growth in high-risk biological research. Increased ease of genetic manipulation, plus an expansion of high-risk experimentation, raises the risk of a pandemic caused by a virus that has been created to inflict maximum damage. Like cyber technologies, states do not have a monopoly on biological technologies, and nefarious activity or an accidental lab leak could yield a major catastrophe.

The Technology Force

Artificial Intelligence is both a direct threat and an enabler to other disruptive technologies. While seemingly far-fetched at present, AI could pose an existential danger to humanity (think The Matrix and Terminator); however, its ability to enhance other existing capabilities is significant. On the battlefield, AI enhances autonomous systems, improving lethality and destructive capabilities. Teamed with CRISPR, machine learning can create medical breakthroughs that could help millions, but it can also facilitate the creation of deadly pathogens and chemical agents. AI can also enable hackers seeking to attack critical infrastructure by rapidly mapping systems and identifying vulnerabilities that can be targeted. The ways in which AI can boost other technologies that could create devastation and make a multi-vector global systems collapse more tangible than the subjugation of humanity by killer robots.

The Pressure Builds

This limited discussion about only four major dangers demonstrates that atomic weapons are not necessarily the greatest existential threat to humanity. Instead, the cumulative pressures of multiple forces could lead to the collapse of mankind’s global society. The various threats that the human species face will most likely stay below critical mass as independent variables, but the Global Pressure Gauge depicts the aggregate stress on the system that could lead to catastrophic collapse. This potential is made more likely by the interdependence that each system has on the others. This has enabled threat systems to act in concert with one another, leading to an intertwined network where increased pressure in one area will lead to stress on others. Enhanced by the digitization and integration of the world’s economies and infrastructure, every formerly isolated danger is now magnified within the lens of its adjacent threats.

The interconnectedness and interdependence of the world have reached a historic high point in the 21st century, and thus far, the system has been resilient enough to survive. Even in the face of increasing stressors with global impacts such as the 1998 Asian Financial Crisis, 9/11, the 2000 Dot-Com Crash, and the 2008 Great Recession, the system has always bounced back. However, increasing pressures, nefarious actors, nation-state aggression, and biohazards all have the combined power to rewrite the system as we know it, which is not as resilient as one would hope. Surprises such as a global pandemic can cause massive, worldwide disruptions in isolation, but an aggregation of devastating events could weaken the system. In this book, The End of the World Is Just the Beginning, Author Peter Ziehan equates this to de-civilization, which he defines as “a cascade of reinforcing breakdowns that do not simply damage, but destroy, the bedrock of what makes the modern world function.” Such a breakdown will create extreme chaos, and mankind will have to go through a painful process to establish a new equilibrium.

The social upheaval would be devastating as supply chains break down and economic connections are severed. The Sudanese Civil War is a microcosm of what could happen. Imagine this occurring on mainland Europe or in North America with famine, disease, drought, countless displaced persons, and confusion, all resulting in unimaginable death. Nefarious actors use cyber-attacks to cause chaos, resulting in massive social upheaval. Private citizens who were living affluent lives yesterday are now in competition with neighbors for food, water, and heat. A system breakdown would globalize these conditions, spreading far beyond the birth of the crisis and impacting countless regions. This is the future against which the Global Pressure Gauge warns.

The Global Pressure Gauge

Today’s struggle to keep the pressure from multiple vectors at a minimum is far more complicated than holding back the nuclear second hand of the Cold War Doomsday Clock. Instead of focusing on one existential threat and two superpowers, a countless array of actors with access to a variety of technologies must be monitored, persuaded, sanctioned, or even destroyed to keep threats in check. As pressure from one vector is reduced, the increase from another may prevent a net reduction in risk. Diplomacy and negotiation skills must be at an all-time high to solve the toughest challenges of our history.

Just as the ticking of a clock is far more predictable than the stability of a variable input system, the defense against a nuclear doomsday was less complicated than mankind’s current efforts to maintain worldwide stability. A black swan event has never caused species-wide disaster, but with the world so interconnected, the combination of current threats could easily rise to the point that ruptures the interconnected system. “Doomsday” will not likely come about through a singular catastrophe from one particular threat vector, but from an aggregation of mounting threats in the system that pushes the Global Pressure Gauge to its limits.

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

Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Biological Weapons, cyber security, emerging technology, Geopolitics, irregular warfare, national security, nuclear weapons

About The Authors

Stephen Messenger
Stephen T. Messenger is a faculty instructor at the U.S. Army War College and a 25-year member of the U.S. Army as an infantry officer turned multi-functional logistician. He earned his Doctorate Degree in Strategic Leadership from Liberty University, is a SAMS grad, and served at the United States Transportation Command.
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Loris Lepri
Loris F. Lepri is the Resident Course Director of the U.S. Army War College Distance Program and a 16-year member of the U.S. Army as an armor officer turned strategist. He earned his Master’s Degree in Security Studies from Georgetown University and served at United States Army North.

15. Examining Thresholds in an East-West War

I agree with Shawn that we must have a clear understanding of the nature, objectives, and strategies of our adversaries. Our failure to understand is one of our major strategic weaknesses.

I would add two remaining questions to examining the thresholds of east-west war.

What deters our adversaries? Of course we cannot enver read the minds of our adversary leaders but we must try to understand the decision makers.

And another way to look at this is to look at what are the red lines that if crossed will cause the adversaries to go to war.

And I would add these comments about the American Paradox: Strength and Vulnerability. Our ability to deter war has provided motivation and opportunity for our adversaries to exploit the "gray zone."

•While the United States has maintained its relative conventional and nuclear superiority, it has adopted a largely defensive and reactive stance in the gray zone. This approach stems from the assumption that forces optimized for high-intensity conflict can easily "scale down" to address asymmetric threats. However, this perspective has left America vulnerable to adversaries who are actively and offensively competing in this ambiguous space.

•The "Dark Quad" of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea (CRInK) – collectively described as the axis of upheaval, chaos, or tyranny – have been creating dilemmas and attempting to disrupt and undermine U.S. national security strengths. In contrast, the U.S. has struggled to develop an agile, flexible, and offensive capability for operations in the gray zone.

•The U.S. must work to maintain its conventional and nuclear military superiority because this offers the best chance of avoiding war. By doing so it neutralizes these threats which then can allow the U.S. to make very modest investments in its national security apparatus to be able to offensively and proactively compete and win in the gray zone.

Excerpts:

In sum, preparing for the possibility of a large-scale East-West war demands that the United States and its allies move beyond outdated assumptions and embrace a clear-eyed realism about the nature of their potential adversaries. Traditional Western conceptions of thresholds in warfare are unlikely to be honored by Eastern autocratic regimes that reject these norms. Therefore, the West must reimagine how thresholds are conceptualized, communicated, and enforced—not merely through rhetoric, but through credible deterrent capabilities and a deeper understanding of the cultural and strategic worldviews of their adversaries.

The next National Defense Strategy must go further than past iterations by prioritizing warfighting readiness over peacetime optimization, returning to a resourced multi-theater war strategy, and treating the defense of the homeland as an operational theater, not an assumption. It must also confront the uncomfortable realities of war in the third nuclear age, where firebreaks are neither reliable nor symmetrical. Only through deliberate planning, accelerated force reconstitution, and hard-nosed strategic clarity can the West preserve any measure of restraint and control in what could otherwise become an unbounded and catastrophic conflict.

Examining Thresholds in an East-West War

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/10/07/examining-thresholds-in-an-east-west-war/

by Shawn P. Creamer

10.07.2025 at 06:00am

The world has not witnessed a great power general war in nearly 80 years, and for most of the last 35 years, the prospect of such a war has been considered remote by most government officials. Today, however, there is a growing unease over the trajectory of global peace and security. A broad consensus is emerging in the United States and among other free world capitals that the revisionist ambitions of autocratic states—China, Russia, North Korea, a weakened but still dangerous Iran, Pakistan, and others—through their armament programs, coercive diplomacy, and aggression, may eventually compel Western powers, including Western-aligned Asian states such as Japan and South Korea, into a large-scale war.

The next National Defense Strategy must acknowledge the existential nature of this threat and commit to the aggressive rearmament of American military power—both qualitatively and quantitatively—to deter, and if necessary, win a multi-theater large-scale war against one or more of the authoritarian powers. This will require more than marginal force adjustments; it demands a systemic shift in U.S. defense posture, planning assumptions, strategic priorities, and allied interoperability.

Reciprocal Limits and the East-West Divide

Time will tell whether the free world’s rhetoric on rearmament and preparedness translates into a resurrection of Western military power. Regardless of how far the West progresses in rearmament and in reestablishing deterrence, the United States and its allies must revisit and modernize their thinking on thresholds in warfare. All wars, even the most violent and brutish, contain some reciprocal firebreaks, limits, or restraints on belligerent behavior. For example, all major powers during World War II refrained from using poison gas on the battlefield, despite its widespread use in World War I.

While some thresholds in warfare are broadly respected, others are unevenly observed or rejected by non-Western states. Examples of such uneven application include differing interpretations of Western-centric international humanitarian law jus ad bellum principles—such as initiating hostilities prior to a formal declaration of war and the employment of proxy forces, or jus in bello principles—including the treatment of prisoners and the subordination of collateral damage concerns in warfare. These inconsistencies are not exclusive to East-West conflicts; however, the divergence between Western values-based thresholds and the belief systems of Eastern powers is a matter of fact.

In the context of a potential East-West war, Western nations must confront the reality that their current threshold frameworks are largely Occidental in nature. The threshold assumptions developed during the Soviet-American Cold War are unlikely to be representative of today’s authoritarian powers, all of which follow an eastern strategic culture. While Russia historically straddled the East-West divide, it has increasingly aligned with the East in its multi-decade effort to reject the West.

Many Western officials continue to exhibit cultural naiveté toward non-Western nations, displaying an ineradicable flaw in their thinking by relying on outdated paradigms or mirror imaging their more culturally similar, post-modern normed cousins.

Two post-1990 examples illustrate the phenomenon on how the West has attempted to impose its thresholds on the broader international community: the Olso Convention banning cluster munitions and the Ottawa Convention banning antipersonnel landmines. The overwhelming majority of non-signatories to these arms control protocols—China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, India, Pakistan, etc.—are non-Western powers. The lone Western exceptions—the United States, South Korea and Israel—retained vestiges of realism that accepted large-scale conventional wars remain possible and that total battlefield sanitization is an unrealistic aspiration.

However, some European nations have recently woken up to the truism that hope is not a strategy and international protocols will not save them from large-scale war against authoritarian powers. Six European nations that share a border with Russia—Ukraine, Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—are abrogating, or have already withdrawn their involvement in the Ottawa Convention. Lithuania has taken the additional step by withdrawing from the Oslo Convention.

American attempts to promote mutual guardrails, such as hotlines and transparency mechanisms, often fail due to fundamental differences in values. Despite years of effort, Chinese leaders have shown little interest in reciprocating, reflecting their divergent strategic culture.

As the West considers how to approach thresholds in a future large-scale war with Eastern authoritarian powers, it must approach the issue through the lens of its potential adversaries. Only by understanding what those regimes believe and value can there be any hope of reaching even minimal accommodations on limiting escalation.

It is unlikely that any formal or even tacit agreement on wartime thresholds will emerge prior to conflict. Instead, thresholds will likely be established ad hoc, shaped by pre-war declaratory statements and self-imposed constraints after hostilities begin.

The credibility of Western declaratory statements has suffered from overuse of euphemisms and hollow red lines. Going forward, Western powers must clearly articulate where they intend to selectively impose limits—particularly in keeping a large-scale war conventional and primarily within the military domain—and back those limits with hard power and action, including robust escalation capabilities that are held in reserve to deter adversaries from breaching them.

Two thresholds demand the most serious attention: (1) the 80-year firebreak in nuclear weapon use, and (2) how the belligerents will conduct operations within each other’s homelands. If both sides do not reach some understanding about these domains, the risk increases for uncontrollable escalation that escapes the bounds of strategic management.

Preserving the Nuclear Firebreak

The West should anticipate Eastern authoritarian powers to employ hyperbolic rhetoric and threats to instill fear and hesitation among Western leaders and populations. Western states must be prepared ahead of conflict against authoritarian information warfare by better educating their citizens and by reestablishing effective emergency management and civil defense programs.

For over a generation, Western discourse on nuclear warfare has atrophied. Policy, doctrine, research, and training on nuclear conflict have been neglected under the assumption that nuclear warfare is obsolete. Feelings on nuclear weapons have led the United States and the West down the road of denial for too long. The nuclear landscape of 2025 is shaped by a coalition of Eastern autocracies with significant arsenals and lower thresholds for use, especially tactical nuclear weapons used coercively or in battle.

Much work is required to regenerate experience lost, develop and evaluate new strategic concepts, and to generate viable wartime nuclear options to carry peacetime nuclear deterrence into a large-scale war. The West should not make the mistake of limiting itself to dusting off first nuclear age materials on nuclear strategy and conventional-nuclear integration. Conditions have changed. Therefore, new thinking is required on conventional-nuclear-chemical-biological-space-cyber integration to not only deliver a more comprehensive deterrence package, but also create the underpinnings for Western military forces, particularly land forces, to fight to and through the opposing side’s defenses in order to reclaim lost territory or to seize key terrain deep in the theater of war. While the priority remains deterring nuclear use into and through an East-West war, the United States and its allies must also prepare for how it will re-establish the no-nuclear threshold if one of the authoritarian powers breach it.

American and other Western leaders must be trained and ready to manage escalation deliberately, developing scenarios to study alternatives tailored to the Eastern adversaries and their regime elites. If nuclear use occurs, the response must not only match but exceed the provocation, communicating clearly that it is in the adversary’s best interest to return to the pre-conflict nuclear taboo and perhaps open a pathway for war termination negotiations to begin.

Importantly, Western powers, led by the United States, will need to politically bind Beijing and Moscow to control their lesser and likely more risk prone allies (e.g. North Korea, Pakistan and possibly Iran in the future) by openly declaring that they will be held responsible for their fellow confederate’s nuclear breaches in time of war. The United States and the rest of the West must also be prepared to fight on a nuclear battlefield if one or more authoritarian powers end up operationalizing tactical nuclear weapons into their military campaigns.

Limiting War-making in Homelands

Beyond nuclear thresholds, how homelands will be treated in warfare is perhaps the second-most important consideration to examine in a large-scale war involving the great powers as belligerents. Certain types of war-making, especially non-nuclear counter-value targeting that causes mass civilian harm, carry a significantly heightened risk of uncontrollable escalation. These include: kinetic strikes on civilian infrastructure, mass terrorism, cyber-attacks on critical systems, biological warfare, and the use of electromagnetic tools.

The West will need to make clear to the autocrats that crossing such thresholds will trigger proportional or greater retaliatory actions, and must back this up with credible escalatory capabilities. To be believable, the West will need to develop a full suite of nuclear and non-nuclear retaliatory response capabilities that it could use in extreme situations.

In terms of nuclear capabilities, the U.S. nuclear triad must be modernized, diversified, and modestly expanded to reflect the emerging multipolar nuclear landscape. This includes air and ground delivered tactical weapons in quantities that are compelling to authoritarian powers that the United States is prepared and postured for battlefield nuclear warfare.

Non-nuclear capabilities are equally important for deterrence to be credible. Lacking credible non-nuclear retaliatory options risks leaving nuclear weapons as the only viable response, which is inherently destabilizing considering that the Eastern authoritarian powers have proven remarkably astute at operating inside the decision space of Western leaders. This may include developing more potent offensive artificial intelligence-enhanced cyber tools and electromagnetic weapon capabilities, fielding but not deploying space weapons such as fractional orbital bombardment systems, development of clandestine capabilities to infiltrate autonomous strike systems, researching and developing tectonic weapons, deploying area incendiary systems, and possibly resurrecting dormant biological and chemical programs.

It is in the interest of all the great powers to reach an accommodation on limiting where and how war-making will occur on each other’s respective homelands. The central challenge to such an accommodation is the complicated geographic realities of an East-West war. Some homelands will be adjacent to the theater of war, while others will not. It is unrealistic to expect homelands, particularly in the West, to remain sanctuaries, but that does not preclude establishing some constraints.

Subjugation or occupation of nuclear powers is not a plausible outcome; these wars will most probably end or temporarily pause through exhaustion or political accommodation. Therefore, it is possible to imagine limits on homeland targeting, at least among the great powers with the ability to greatly escalate to general war.

A practical approach may involve adopting a theater-of-war, counter-force model by restricting homeland strikes to military targets directly involved in combat operations, and avoiding civilian or dual-use infrastructure. Such a strategy should include geographically demarcated limitations to maintain clarity and reduce misunderstanding.

For instance, in a Chinese campaign to subjugate Taiwan, the U.S. might consider limiting combat operations to military forces in specific provinces in China (e.g., Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Hainan) directly involved in the campaign, while understanding that China would target U.S. military sites in allied countries, Guam, the Hawaiian Islands, Alaska and along the Pacific Coast. Both parties would refrain from strikes deeper in each other’s interiors, except under a modified “hot pursuit” doctrine—whereby forces operating from interior bases directly participating in the war could be targeted. As an example of how the hot-pursuit doctrine might be executed: China’s conventional rocket forces, airbases and naval ports (including air defense assets) taking active part in the war from bases in the Northern, Central and Western theater commands would be targetable, while U.S. bomber bases, naval bases and the air defense sites protecting them, etc. in the Continental interior of the United States taking active part in hostilities would similarly be targetable sites.

The West must remain clear-eyed about the reality that, while some reciprocal limits on warfare within homelands may be possible, the seizure of key and decisive terrain by land forces will likely be necessary for one side to compel war termination through political accommodation. This could include the occupation of homeland territory adjacent to the theater of war, outside the theater but integral to the war effort, or within its littorals. The integrated suite of Western capabilities required to deter unrestrained warfare in the homeland is the same set of capabilities needed to deter nuclear use, enable Western forces to penetrate the theater, seize critical terrain, and ultimately end the war on favorable terms.

Ultimately, thresholds around homeland targeting will be highly dependent on the scope of the war and how it begins. A deliberately localized conflict or one sparked by tensions and before it escalates may allow for the emergence of tacit limits. However, a war initiated by a sudden, wide-ranging strike—a coup de main—will likely preclude any meaningful constraint on homeland attacks unless the initiator does clearly introduce limits in the scope of its attack.

Conclusion

In sum, preparing for the possibility of a large-scale East-West war demands that the United States and its allies move beyond outdated assumptions and embrace a clear-eyed realism about the nature of their potential adversaries. Traditional Western conceptions of thresholds in warfare are unlikely to be honored by Eastern autocratic regimes that reject these norms. Therefore, the West must reimagine how thresholds are conceptualized, communicated, and enforced—not merely through rhetoric, but through credible deterrent capabilities and a deeper understanding of the cultural and strategic worldviews of their adversaries.

The next National Defense Strategy must go further than past iterations by prioritizing warfighting readiness over peacetime optimization, returning to a resourced multi-theater war strategy, and treating the defense of the homeland as an operational theater, not an assumption. It must also confront the uncomfortable realities of war in the third nuclear age, where firebreaks are neither reliable nor symmetrical. Only through deliberate planning, accelerated force reconstitution, and hard-nosed strategic clarity can the West preserve any measure of restraint and control in what could otherwise become an unbounded and catastrophic conflict.

Tags: conventional warfare, doctrine, Great Power Conflict, nuclear policy, readiness

About The Author

Shawn P. Creamer
Shawn P. Creamer is a retired U.S. Army Colonel. He served as an infantry officer for more than 29 years, with more than fourteen years assigned to or directly working on Indo-Pacific security issues and more than five years working large scale mobilization. In retirement, Shawn Creamer is serving as a fellow with the Institute for Corean-American Studies, and as a non-resident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Strategy Initiative, the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative, and the GeoStrategy Initiative in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

16. Government shutdown forces Army to cancel ‘Best Squad’ competition

Second and third order effects. The sad irony is this is exactly the type of event the SECWAR desires for our soldiers - to demonstrate their superior strength and warrior skills.

And of course it is not a simple task to just "reschedule" the event for when the government re-opens.

Excerpts:

The event was slated to begin at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, according to the Army, and include fitness and combat tests, a 12-mile foot march and “individual warrior tasks and squad battle drills.”

From there, participants were expected to travel to Washington and interview with top Army leaders in a test of their knowledge.

The Army launched the competition in 2022. At the time, then-Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Grinston said it measured the service’s goal “of building a cohesive team that is highly trained, disciplined and fit.”

The 2024 “Best Squad of the Year” was awarded to a squad from the U.S. Army Pacific.

Government shutdown forces Army to cancel ‘Best Squad’ competition

https://www.defensenews.com/news/pentagon-congress/2025/10/06/government-shutdown-forces-army-to-cancel-best-squad-competition/?utm

By Riley Ceder

Oct 6, 2025, 01:32 PM

The Army's Best Squad Competition, which was canceled due to the government shutdown, sees soldiers take part in physical challenges like this one pictured in Savannah, Georgia, on Sept. 30, 2023. (Spc. Noah Martin/Army)

As a result of the ongoing government shutdown, the U.S. Army canceled an annual, service-wide competition that rewards military teamwork.

The service said its 2025 “Best Squad” competition would not take place “due to a lapse in appropriations.”

The competition, which assesses squads based on their technical and tactical proficiency and ability to work together as a unit, was slated to begin Oct. 3 and last until Oct. 12.

Squads comprise five soldiers: a squad leader, either a sergeant first class or staff sergeant; a team leader, either a sergeant or corporal; and three other members at the rank of specialist or below.

The event was slated to begin at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, according to the Army, and include fitness and combat tests, a 12-mile foot march and “individual warrior tasks and squad battle drills.”

From there, participants were expected to travel to Washington and interview with top Army leaders in a test of their knowledge.

The Army launched the competition in 2022. At the time, then-Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Grinston said it measured the service’s goal “of building a cohesive team that is highly trained, disciplined and fit.”

The 2024 “Best Squad of the Year” was awarded to a squad from the U.S. Army Pacific.

Shutdown halts funding for military spouse tuition assistance program

The U.S. government shut down in the early morning hours of Oct. 1, after Congress was unable to pass appropriations legislation for fiscal 2026.

Senate Democrats voted down a Republican bill to continue funding the government, marking the first time in seven years the government has shut down. Democrats accused Republicans of being unwilling to negotiate on extending Affordable Care Act tax credits that expired at the end of fiscal 2025.

Hundreds of thousands of federal workers are now in danger of being laid off, and military troops and their families are already seeing the effects.

Officials are expected to furlough about half of the 741,477 Defense Department civilian employees, according to DOD guidance.

While family centers and child development centers remain open at some bases, several have closed.

And military pay for active-duty troops and reserve personnel is in danger, with Oct. 15 paychecks in limbo unless House and Senate lawmakers either find an avenue to reach a short-term funding agreement or push through specific legislation to guarantee military pay during the shutdown.

About Riley Ceder

Riley Ceder is a reporter at Military Times, where he covers breaking news, criminal justice, investigations, and cyber. He previously worked as an investigative practicum student at The Washington Post, where he contributed to the Abused by the Badge investigation.

17. A Wargame to Take Taiwan, from China’s Perspective

Excerpts:

In August 2025, 25 international experts gathered at Syracuse University to do something unusual: plan China’s invasion of Taiwan. For two days, academics, policy analysts, and current and former U.S. officials abandoned their typical defensive postures and attempted to inhabit Beijing’s offensive strategic mindset in a wargame. They debated not how America should respond to Chinese aggression, but how China might overcome the obstacles that have so far kept it from attacking the island nation.

...

The Syracuse exercise represents just one attempt to understand Chinese strategic thinking. Its participants brought their own biases and blind spots. They may have overcorrected for perceived American misunderstandings. They certainly lacked access to classified Chinese planning documents.

Yet the exercise’s value lies not in perfect prediction but in expanding imagination. By forcing Americans to try and think like Chinese planners, it revealed possibilities that U.S. planning overlooks. It showed that the most dangerous scenarios might not be the most dramatic ones. And it demonstrated that effective deterrence requires understanding not just China’s capabilities, but also its images of future war, the doubts of its leaders, and the difficulties of its planners to confidently provide winning options.

The next step is translating these insights into policy. This means wargaming not just military scenarios but political ones. It means understanding Beijing’s conceptions of what a war over Taiwan looks like and the content of Chinese war planning. It means testing assumptions about alliance cohesion and domestic resolve. It means preparing for the many types of wars China is developing options to wage, not just the one we’re comfortable planning against.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. Taiwan’s future, regional stability, and the U.S.-led rules-based order in Asia all hang in the balance. We can’t afford to misunderstand Beijing’s thinking. The Syracuse exercise offers a start — thinking like the adversary to avoid becoming its victim.

A Wargame to Take Taiwan, from China’s Perspective

Jeffrey Michaels and Michael John Williams

October 7, 2025

warontherocks.com · October 7, 2025

In August 2025, 25 international experts gathered at Syracuse University to do something unusual: plan China’s invasion of Taiwan. For two days, academics, policy analysts, and current and former U.S. officials abandoned their typical defensive postures and attempted to inhabit Beijing’s offensive strategic mindset in a wargame. They debated not how America should respond to Chinese aggression, but how China might overcome the obstacles that have so far kept it from attacking the island nation.

This role reversal yielded an uncomfortable insight. The invasion scenarios that dominate U.S. military planning — involving massive amphibious assaults on Taiwan and preemptive strikes on American bases — may fundamentally misread Beijing’s calculus. As the wargame revealed, analysts seeking to understand China’s intentions should pay greater attention to plausible alternative military pathways to reunification that involve far less force and far more political calculation.

BECOME A MEMBER

Thinking Like Beijing

Our intention in designing the wargame in this way was motivated by concern that insufficient attention has been given to understanding how China’s leadership and war planners may conceptually approach the problem of bringing Taiwan to heel. This was particularly important given our participant composition: while predominantly U.S.-based, the group included a few international players. Participants brought diverse high-level experience, including former U.S. officials from the State Department, Department of Defense, and CIA, as well as the UK Cabinet Office. Several participants had military backgrounds, having served in the U.S. Army or Navy, and a few were established scholars in international relations. Around half the participants had expertise in the Chinese military or the Chinese Communist Party. Therefore, we deliberately designed the game to force participants to confront practical questions Chinese strategists would face when they draft and update their war plans, such as: How much force is enough to compel surrender without triggering U.S. intervention? What surrender terms would Taipei accept? How does Beijing transition from military action to political control of Taiwan to a favorable post-war status quo in the region and beyond?

These types of questions expose a gap in American strategic thinking. Most U.S. wargames focus on operational and tactical military interactions — ship movements, missile salvos, casualty counts, what percentage of Chinese troops land in the north of Taiwan vs. the south. The focus is overwhelmingly on the invasion scenario. They rarely examine the political context that shapes military decisions. This narrow focus produces a dangerous blind spot: the United States prepares for the war it can fight or prefers to fight, not the one China expects to win.

The exercise revealed three scenarios that generated the most debate among participants. First, a limited missile barrage followed by diplomatic ultimatum — essentially, coercion without invasion. Second, a graduated escalation that stops short of attacking U.S. forces. Third, an assault designed to cripple U.S. forces at the outset and present Taipei with a new reality of isolation. Each path reflected different risk tolerances and assumptions about American resolve.

Calculated Restraint

Participants quickly discovered that when confronted with the decision to attack U.S. forces, this seemed to make little strategic sense when they attempted to look at it from Beijing’s perspective. A typical assumption held by many analysts, including most participants prior to the game, and one that features prominently in American wargames, is that China will simply launch a preemptive surprise strike against U.S. forces in a manner somewhat analogous to Pearl Harbor. But why start a war with America when you might avoid one? As the game participants soon found, there is no guarantee of U.S. military involvement, nor Japan’s, nor other countries‘, if China refrains from attacking them in an opening round. By placing themselves in the shoes of Chinese planners — who in real life are presumably familiar with the contemporary American political scene and the historical record of how Washington reacts to unprovoked attacks — participants recognized there would almost certainly be a natural hesitancy to initiate a war against the United States. In other words, rather than assume Chinese planners simply ignore the difficulties any U.S. administration would face in starting a war with China if American forces are not attacked first, they might instead use these difficulties to Beijing’s advantage and design their war plans accordingly. Indeed, it is precisely because of these difficulties that most U.S. wargame designers wanting to get a war going between Chinese and American forces begin with the Chinese attacking American forces rather than the other way around.

This logic shaped the exercise’s most plausible hypothetical scenario. China launches precision strikes against Taiwan’s military infrastructure while simultaneously offering generous surrender terms: local autonomy, preservation of democratic institutions, and minimal mainland administrative presence. The message to Taipei is clear: accept reunification on favorable terms or face devastation. The message to Washington and the American public is equally clear: this is a Chinese civil matter, not worth American lives.

The comparison to Hong Kong’s former autonomy arrangements, once seemingly reasonable, now rings hollow given Beijing’s crackdown there. Participants struggled with this credibility gap. Would Taiwan believe any Chinese promises after Hong Kong? Even if the Taiwanese don’t believe them, do they have a better alternative to accepting them? The debate highlighted a crucial uncertainty: China’s ability to make its threats credible while keeping its surrender terms sufficiently enticing.

A Military Reality Check

The exercise forced participants to confront an uncomfortable truth about China’s military capabilities. Despite decades of modernization, the People’s Liberation Army has not fought a major conflict since 1979. It has never conducted an amphibious assault on a major scale. Its logistics remain untested. Its command structure is riddled with political interference. In contrast to most wargames that portray the Chinese military as a competent machine operating at maximum efficiency, the perspective from Beijing is likely more sobering.

These limitations don’t make China weak — they make it cautious. Why attempt a Normandy-style invasion when missile strikes and economic strangulation might achieve the same goal? Why risk military humiliation when political victory remains possible? Participants found themselves naturally gravitating toward strategies that minimized operational complexity and maximized the potential to de-escalate if things went badly wrong and then re-escalate later at a more favorable time.

This caution extends to the timeline. Any major amphibious operation requires weeks, if not months, of visible preparations. Participants recognized this transparency as China’s greatest vulnerability but also noted the world’s failure to deter Russia in 2021–2022 despite similar warning signs. International condemnation means little without credible threats of military intervention.

What Successful Deterrence Requires

The wargame’s insights challenge conventional deterrence thinking in three ways.

First, deterrence can’t focus solely on defeating an invasion. If China’s theoretically preferred strategy involves limited strikes and political coercion, Taiwan needs resilience against pressure campaigns, not just beach defenses. This means hardening critical infrastructure, preparing the population psychologically, and maintaining political unity under extreme stress. It also means understanding the dynamics of how China will attempt to lure Taiwan into an early surrender and then taking steps to undermine these.

Second, the exercise showed that uncertainty about U.S. intervention shapes every Chinese decision. But credibility isn’t just about presidential statements or forward deployments. It’s about Chinese assumptions about the circumstances in which the president would authorize force, Congress would support military action, whether the American public would accept casualties, and whether allies would provide meaningful support. A key takeaway from the game was that Chinese strategists will be focusing at least as much on these basic issues about whether the United States will use force as opposed to what forces they will use.

Third, deterrence requires denying China easy political victories, not just military ones. If Beijing believes it can achieve reunification through limited force and favorable terms, traditional military deterrence fails. Therefore, arguably more important than Taiwan’s military vulnerabilities are its political vulnerabilities. While Taiwan has so far remained steadfast in maintaining its independence, the combined effects of China finally crossing the military threshold, limited prospects of outside military help, and Beijing offering favorable surrender terms (backed by threats of massive escalation for refusal), might prove sufficient to undermine the will to fight.

The Unresolved Questions

Several critical debates remained unsettled when the exercise ended. Participants disagreed sharply on whether China would choose to blockade Taiwan — some saw it as perfect graduated pressure, others as an invitation for U.S. naval intervention, an opportunity for Taiwan to bring its forces to maximum readiness, or prone to rapidly escalate to a full-blown confrontation if attempts are made to break through it.

Most revealing was the disagreement over timing. Some participants argued China must move within this decade while it maintains a favorable military balance. Others speculated the timing might be tied to the 72-year-old Xi Jinping wanting to achieve reunification before his death. Alternatively, it was contended that time favors Beijing — Taiwan’s economy increasingly depends on the mainland, younger generations lack their parents’ anti-communist fervor, and the conventional and nuclear balance may become even more lopsided in China’s favor.

These unresolved debates matter because they reflect legitimate uncertainties about Beijing’s decision calculus. American planners who assume they know China’s timeline or red lines are deceiving themselves.

Next Steps

The Syracuse exercise represents just one attempt to understand Chinese strategic thinking. Its participants brought their own biases and blind spots. They may have overcorrected for perceived American misunderstandings. They certainly lacked access to classified Chinese planning documents.

Yet the exercise’s value lies not in perfect prediction but in expanding imagination. By forcing Americans to try and think like Chinese planners, it revealed possibilities that U.S. planning overlooks. It showed that the most dangerous scenarios might not be the most dramatic ones. And it demonstrated that effective deterrence requires understanding not just China’s capabilities, but also its images of future war, the doubts of its leaders, and the difficulties of its planners to confidently provide winning options.

The next step is translating these insights into policy. This means wargaming not just military scenarios but political ones. It means understanding Beijing’s conceptions of what a war over Taiwan looks like and the content of Chinese war planning. It means testing assumptions about alliance cohesion and domestic resolve. It means preparing for the many types of wars China is developing options to wage, not just the one we’re comfortable planning against.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. Taiwan’s future, regional stability, and the U.S.-led rules-based order in Asia all hang in the balance. We can’t afford to misunderstand Beijing’s thinking. The Syracuse exercise offers a start — thinking like the adversary to avoid becoming its victim.

BECOME A MEMBER

Jeffrey Michaels is an associate of RAND Europe and a strategic adviser at the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies. He is the co-editor with Tim Sweijs of Beyond Ukraine: Debating the Future of War (2024), and co-author with Lawrence Freedman of The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, 4th Edition (2019).

Michael John Williams is director of the Carnegie-Maxwell Policy Planning Lab and associate professor of international affairs at Syracuse University. He is the coauthor of International Security: Theory and Practice (2025) and of Science, Law, and Liberalism in the American Way of War (2015).

Image: Midjourney

warontherocks.com · October 7, 2025

18. Israel’s Irregular Warfare Paradox: Reconciling Precision Abroad and a “Killing Field” Next Door

Excerpts:

Israel’s irregular warfare paradox appears to have at least four causes. First, the differences between Israeli intelligence agencies’ success in infiltrating Iranian security services and Hamas appear to be staggering. In the wake of Israel’s strikes in Iran, the latter has executed several suspects accused of spying for the enemy, arresting 700 others. One Israeli official bragged that “our intelligence penetration is 100 percent.”

...

Secondly, Israel’s failures in Gaza testify to a complete mismatch between strategy and tactics. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly shifted the goalposts of his campaign, variously claiming “There is no solution besides total victory” while prioritizing the lesser goal of ensuring the release of all remaining hostages at other times.

...

Thirdly, Israel’s reluctance to employ its Gaza tactics in Iran is likely due to its concerns about escalation and alliances. Iran has developed closer relationships with Russia, for instance, and an overly punishing strategy against Tehran might risk an intervention from the Kremlin. Palestine, on the other hand, is diplomatically isolated, with many Arab states just as reluctant to guarantee security and prosperity among Gazans as Israel.

...

The final possibility is a more damning one. Israel’s stunning tactical success in Iran points to a country that has tremendous intelligence penetration and sabotage capabilities that it chooses to use in some contexts and neglects to use in others—with thousands of Gazans now paying the ultimate price.

It remains to be seen whether the latest war with Iran will prove strategically successful for Israel. For instance, some estimates suggest the recent strike set Iran’s nuclear program back by only months. What is certain, however, is that Israel’s approach to Hamas and the Gaza Strip will lead to new waves of extremist radicalization and violence, both within the Strip and beyond. The United States-led “War on Terror” taught us that an approach to countering violent and deeply ideological actors centered on kinetic action does not work. To be sure, it has certainly never worked during the Arab-Israeli conflict. On the second anniversary of the October 7 attacks, Israel ignores those lessons at its own peril.

Israel’s Irregular Warfare Paradox: Reconciling Precision Abroad and a “Killing Field” Next Door

irregularwarfare.org · Jacob Ware

On June 24, two equally striking news stories underscored the notably different approaches Israel has taken to its wars with Iran and Hamas. The first, a Washington Post front page story, detailed recorded conversations between Israeli intelligence operatives and senior military figures in Iran, wherein the Israelis warned the Iranians that their personal identifiers were known and that they were next on Israel’s target list. One operative warned his interlocutor that “we’re closer to you than your own neck vein.” Meanwhile, in a separate story, the Associated Press reported from Deir al-Balah in the Gaza Strip that 44 Palestinians were killed in separate incidents while waiting for aid handouts.

Since its establishment in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust, the Israeli state has relied on strong U.S. and Western support to pursue its foreign and national security policy. Recent indications, however, suggest that the sands of U.S. and Western support may be shifting. A New York Times/Siena poll taken in late September found that “40 percent of voters said Israel was intentionally killing civilians in Gaza,” a remarkable percentage in a country that has typically resolutely supported the Israeli cause.

Accordingly, as Israel mourns the second anniversary of the October 7 attacks amid the backdrop of accelerating peace talks between Israel and Gaza, it is worth taking stock of Israel’s prosecution of its multi-front wars over the past two years, which perhaps offers some insights on changing public opinion. This article assesses Israel’s widely divergent approaches to its conflicts next door and further afield, and finds that Israel’s irregular warfare doctrine is suffering from a dangerous paradox—a scorched-earth approach in Gaza, and a more surgical war against Iran—that is sure to lead to further violence and terrorism against Israeli civilians, not to mention a failure to meet its broader, strategic objectives.

Gaza: Precision Abandoned

In the wake of repeated killings at food distribution sites in Gaza, Haaretz in late June released a major exposé in which Israeli soldiers reported widespread abuses and indiscriminate violence, directed and organized by IDF commanders.

“It’s a killing field,” one soldier explained, adding “Our form of communication is gunfire.”

“This thing called killing innocent people – it’s been normalized” another senior IDF reservist lamented. “We were constantly told there are no noncombatants in Gaza, and apparently that message sank in among the troops.”

Killings during food relief distribution have led to condemnation from the Red Cross and United Nations (UN), with one UN spokesman calling the locations “death traps.” The United Nations’ Human Rights Office recently reported that over 400 Palestinians had been killed in the vicinity of aid sites. Prominent American political scientist Robert Pape goes as far as to call the war in Gaza “the worst campaign of civilian punishment ever performed by a Western democracy,” while Daniel Byman notes in Foreign Affairs that “[b]y trying to stave off its adversaries and protect itself from terrorist attacks, Israel will in fact be entering a state of permanent war.”

The latest mass killings in Gaza barely registered a blip in the Western media, in part because Israel has already killed over 65,000 people in Gaza, according to local, Hamas-linked authorities. Israel’s military has repeatedly shifted blame to Hamas, claiming its habitual use of human shields has driven disproportionate suffering among civilians. Last December, however, the New York Times reported that Israel had loosened its rules of engagement in the immediate aftermath of October 7, including allowing some strikes to kill up to 100 civilians. The Times’ investigation found that Israel weakened its system of safeguards meant to protect civilians; adopted flawed methods to assess risk of civilian casualties; routinely failed to conduct post-strike reviews or punish officers for wrongdoing; and ignored warnings about these failings.

Furthermore, in contrast to Israeli assertions of precision targeting, Reuters in September released a report finding that Israel had killed several journalists and health workers in a “double tap” strike on a video camera in Khan Younis initially claimed to feed footage to Hamas (the video camera in fact belonged to a journalist and sat on the outer stairwell of a hospital). Even if the camera was a legitimate military target, Wes J. Bryant, a former advisor to the Pentagon’s Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, insists the tank rounds employed were a “disproportionate munition, for sure.” The Times and Reuters reports followed CNN findings in 2023 that nearly half of the ordnance dropped on the Gaza Strip in the first two months of the war had been unguided “dumb bombs.”

Eventually, Israel’s widespread killing of Gazans in the name of counterterrorism has led many Western observers to deride the campaign as “genocide” and even “ethnic cleansing.” Indeed, regardless of whether such accusations are accurate, it is difficult to justify the death toll in Gaza as anything other than disregard for human life, that at times has been accentuated by overt racism (as well as what Daniel Byman terms an “expansionist ideological agenda”) permeating the highest ranks of the Israeli government. A more charitable assessment might point to incompetence: U.S. Joint Special Operations Command has repeatedly warned its Israeli counterparts that their targeting calculations were leading to “catastrophically imprecise assessments.”

The Twelve-Day War: Precision Restored

Yet the Gaza campaign stands in stark contrast to Israel’s efforts to neutralize the Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile threat. Deploying what my Council on Foreign Relations colleague Steven Cook called “a combination of derring-do, spectacular intelligence, and technological wizardry—complemented with a display of the extraordinary skills of their pilots,” Israel launched a stunning and broadly successful effort in June to decapitate Iran’s military leadership and nuclear expertise. As part of what is now deemed the Twelve-Day War, Mossad, Israel’s primary intelligence agency, embedded commandos and drone squads deep behind enemy lines, activating them as part of Operation Rising Lion. Operation Narnia, a coordinated attack against nine nuclear scientists, involved near-simultaneous killings of the targets to avoid them scattering into the darkness.

The success of this latest salvo follows a longer history of spectacular and highly precise operations orchestrated by Israeli intelligence within enemy borders. In July 2024, Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in a Tehran guesthouse by an explosive hidden there two months earlier. Israel’s notorious pager attack on Hezbollah that September relied upon Israeli shell companies established with the specific reason of creating pagers rigged with PETN (pentaerythritol tetranitrate) explosives that are powerful, compact, and difficult to detect. But arguably the most high-tech killing occurred in 2020, when a leading Iranian nuclear scientist was assassinated by a remotely-controlled, self-destructing gun, after the operatives who placed it had already left the country.

Israel’s Irregular Warfare Paradox

Israel’s irregular warfare paradox appears to have at least four causes. First, the differences between Israeli intelligence agencies’ success in infiltrating Iranian security services and Hamas appear to be staggering. In the wake of Israel’s strikes in Iran, the latter has executed several suspects accused of spying for the enemy, arresting 700 others. One Israeli official bragged that “our intelligence penetration is 100 percent.” In contrast, the Israeli security services were forced to face a national—and global—reckoning after October 7. A Shin Bet investigation into the failures of October 7 for instance indicated that Israel had “a poor network of spies in Gaza.” One must also recognize the insurgent tactics displayed by Hamas, particularly at the subterranean level, which has drawn Israel into a “counterinsurgency trap” from which it cannot easily extricate itself.

Secondly, Israel’s failures in Gaza testify to a complete mismatch between strategy and tactics. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly shifted the goalposts of his campaign, variously claiming “There is no solution besides total victory” while prioritizing the lesser goal of ensuring the release of all remaining hostages at other times. After almost two years of war, the strategy has failed on both counts. Equally important, Israel has failed to convincingly defend its actions amid an “inability to articulate the endgame of this war,” leading one analyst to claim that “This absence of Israel from the information space has been Hamas’s most important advantage in this war.” On the other hand, Israeli goals in Iran are more clear-cut—an end to the Iranian nuclear program and proxy network—and therefore more measurable and palatable.

Thirdly, Israel’s reluctance to employ its Gaza tactics in Iran is likely due to its concerns about escalation and alliances. Iran has developed closer relationships with Russia, for instance, and an overly punishing strategy against Tehran might risk an intervention from the Kremlin. Palestine, on the other hand, is diplomatically isolated, with many Arab states just as reluctant to guarantee security and prosperity among Gazans as Israel. Here, though, lies the Netanyahu administration’s ultimate miscalculation: that a high death toll in Gaza would be acceptable to the world’s publics if they were periodically reminded of the horrors of October 7. Instead, Israel’s relationships with its own allies, including the United States, are facing unprecedented strain, with even some far-right American politicians calling the war in Gaza a “genocide.” The aforementioned New York Times/Siena poll found slightly more respondents now “siding with Palestinians over Israelis for the first time since The Times began asking voters about their sympathies in 1998.”

The final possibility is a more damning one. Israel’s stunning tactical success in Iran points to a country that has tremendous intelligence penetration and sabotage capabilities that it chooses to use in some contexts and neglects to use in others—with thousands of Gazans now paying the ultimate price. Whether racism is indeed the driving factor, Israel’s refusal to adopt a more surgical approach in Gaza will inevitably lead to further waves of violence that threaten the safety of Israeli civilians, empower clamors of “genocide,” and undermine peace and stability in the region. Indeed, as former deputy national security advisor Chuck Freilich noted in Haaretz, “The country that defeated Iran in just days, through unerring strategic and operational planning, could have certainly put together an effective humanitarian mechanism right on our border.”

It remains to be seen whether the latest war with Iran will prove strategically successful for Israel. For instance, some estimates suggest the recent strike set Iran’s nuclear program back by only months. What is certain, however, is that Israel’s approach to Hamas and the Gaza Strip will lead to new waves of extremist radicalization and violence, both within the Strip and beyond. The United States-led “War on Terror” taught us that an approach to countering violent and deeply ideological actors centered on kinetic action does not work. To be sure, it has certainly never worked during the Arab-Israeli conflict. On the second anniversary of the October 7 attacks, Israel ignores those lessons at its own peril.

Jacob Ware is a research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he studies domestic terrorism and counterterrorism, and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. He also serves as a Survivor Fellow at Everytown for Gun Safety. Together with Bruce Hoffman, he is the co-author of God, Guns, and Sedition: Far-Right Terrorism in America, winner of the 2025 Airey Neave Book Prize.

Main Image: By Mehr News Agency, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=167595554

The views expressed are those of the author 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.

If you value reading the Irregular Warfare Initiative, please consider supporting our work. And for the best gear, check out the IWI store for mugs, coasters, apparel, and other items.

19. A Defining Choice for Israel

Conclusion:

Israel’s future will be determined neither by its enemies nor by its current government. It will be determined by its citizens. After two of the most traumatic years in our existence, a clear majority of Israelis want a new direction. The world looks at Israel and sees a country in crisis. I look at it and see a country holding its breath. It is waiting for a new leadership to lead it down a different path. Israel’s future rests on the political decisions that Israelis will make in the coming year. Should the current government stay in power, Israelis may instead find themselves condemned to international isolation, poverty, and increasing social rifts. If Israelis choose courage over cowardice, openness over isolation, prosperity over religious zealotry, the country’s best days will yet lie ahead.

A Defining Choice for Israel

Foreign Affairs · More by Yair Lapid · October 6, 2025

After Two Years of Growing Isolation and Endless War, an Alternative Future Is Possible

Yair Lapid

October 6, 2025

An Israeli flag fluttering in Gaza, August 2025 Amir Cohen / Reuters

YAIR LAPID is the leader of the opposition in Israel’s Knesset and served as Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Israel in 2022.

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Two years after the worst attack on Israel in its history, the country stands at a crossroads. Israel is not a failed state. It is a great state with a failed government. Its foundations remain strong. Israel is undeniably in crisis, but the source of the crisis is not structural. It is political. In many ways, that makes the crisis more dangerous, but that also makes it easier to resolve. The solution comes from replacing the top rather than rebuilding from the bottom.

Consider the situation just three years ago, before the current government came to power. This was before it undertook the judicial overhaul that sought to dismantle Israel’s democratic foundations and before Hamas’s butchery on October 7, 2023. Then, Israel was known for its innovative tech-driven economy, its strong and vibrant democracy, and its resolutely independent judicial system. It was a country with more Nobel Prize winners than all 22 Arab countries put together; diplomatic and economic agreements spanning the globe from Washington to Abu Dhabi; durable peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan; extensive scientific and commercial collaborations with Europe; Oscar nominees; and Eurovision winners. Israel was a country that blended a profound philosophical and historical depth with the best of modernity. Back then, our enemies sought to kill us—they were just unsuccessful. Then, too, there were anti-Semites, but nobody listened to them. Then, too, Israel had its share of extremists, but they didn’t lead the country.

The crisis is the result of an extremist and failed government, led by a prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is implicated in criminal cases and has lost the support of the Israeli public. His years in power have corrupted him and those around him. This government is openly contemptuous of the principle of a democratic State of Israel committed to Western liberal values. In its place, it seeks to install a theocratic and illiberal regime, one that is exempt from media scrutiny and free of the nuisance of concepts such as the rule of law and the constant threat of free and fair elections.

Now, with U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan for the end of the war in Gaza and elections that must take place in the next 12 months, Israel has a chance to reinvent itself. Bringing the country back from the brink requires, first and foremost, getting the hostages home, but it also requires getting the extremists out of power. At stake is the future of Israel itself.

FAILURE AT THE TOP

Nothing better encapsulates the disconnect between Israel’s government and its people than the October 7 disaster. Panicked and paralyzed, the government failed to deal with both the security situation and the subsequent domestic repercussions: addressing the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Israelis, both from towns around Gaza and along the northern border with Lebanon, which was under continual assault by Hezbollah; undertaking the dramatic rebuilding that is still required in southern and northern Israel; and crucially, healing a traumatized nation. Israelis talk of the failures not only of October 7 but of October 8, as well.

By contrast, Israeli civil society quickly mobilized and rushed to fill the vacuum. Within a day, the Israeli tech industry took command of the situation, supporting victims and using its world-renowned creativity to prevent economic collapse. Reserve soldiers turned out in record numbers, and young Israelis took to social media to explain to the world what Hamas is and why the terrorist group attacked us. The opposition I lead stepped up to support the political and organizational effort, and the Jewish people in the diaspora stood by Israel’s side in the struggle to bring the hostages back home. Where the government demonstrated contemptible weakness in its disarray and failure to marshal government resources, the Israeli public showed resilience, grit, and the determination to do what was needed.

Israel’s crisis is the result of an extremist and failed government.

Two years later, Israel is at a . There is a real risk of international sanctions, a brain drain, and endless war. But Israel also has the opportunity to reinvent itself and build on its solid foundations. It is one of the only countries in the world that was founded as a democracy, and that democratic spirit runs deep through the majority of its citizens. The Israeli people will not relinquish the country’s unique identity as a Jewish and democratic state without a fight. Israel’s judicial institutions remain strong; its military and security services understand their role is to serve the state, not the government; and its economy remains a remarkable success story—even now. Although all these crucial institutions are being willfully degraded by the government, Israel is not yet at the point of no return. Israelis will have the opportunity to change the trajectory—and all it will take is one piece of paper in one ballot box on election day. “Jewish faith,” wrote Jonathan Sacks, the late chief rabbi of the United Kingdom and one of the foremost thinkers and philosophers in modern Jewish history, “is written in the future tense.”

None of that takes away from the depths of the national and international crisis in which Israel finds itself. October 7 exposed some ugly cracks. In the two years since then, the gap between the government and the people has only grown. The country is more polarized and divided than ever, a situation exacerbated by the government continuously ignoring the will of the people and dragging on a war that no longer serves Israel’s national security interests. Israel’s international standing has never been worse. At the United Nations in September, 142 countries voted for the establishment of a Palestinian state and only ten voted against.

The world has turned on Israel. The Abraham Accords are at risk of being frozen or reversed. Israel has lost its long-standing bipartisan support in Washington. The cries of “from the river to the sea” on college campuses are an open call for the genocidal destruction of the Jewish state. When students at Columbia University and the University of Tehran scream the same slogans, Jews are right to be concerned.

Misguided statements by the government’s extremist ministers are at the top of news broadcasts around the world, and Netanyahu and those around him react by accusing anyone who expresses criticism of anti-Semitism. But a victim mentality will not make things better. Not everyone who disagrees with the government is an anti-Semite, and Israel accomplishes nothing by wallowing in its woe. None of this is what Israelis want. Every opinion poll conducted in Israel over the past two years tells the same story: Israeli voters want change. They want leaders who can present a proud and optimistic vision of their country’s future, rooted in its existing capabilities. That is the vision Israel should present to the world. Its citizens understand that the government has blundered from one crisis and failure to the next, and they believe there is an alternative.

A DIFFERENT ISRAEL

The alternative is a government led from the center, one that will drive systemic change in national security, foreign relations, the economy, government institutions, and our relationships with our neighbors. The depth of the crisis is precisely the reason Israel is readier than ever to enter the next stage of its life cycle. All it needs is the right leadership acting in pursuit of a clear vision.

The alternative is to end the war in Gaza. Israel must work with Trump, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and a coalition of international partners to implement the 20-point Trump plan—get the hostages back, stop the fighting, and ensure that enough food and medicine enter Gaza to end the humanitarian crisis. Israel must establish a secure perimeter around Gaza from which it can protect its borders against further terrorist attacks. As the plan foresees, instead of being controlled by Hamas, the territory must be placed under the supervision of a transitional authority, which will manage daily life in Gaza and oversee its reconstruction. This coalition would include Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as a civil arm of the Palestinian Authority. If the Trump plan is not implemented, the break in Israeli society will be dramatic and the damage hard to imagine. Israelis need their hostages home; they need the process of rebuilding to begin.

The alternative is also a reworked understanding of Israel’s national security doctrine. The October 7 massacre taught Israelis that we cannot afford to let our guard down even for a moment when it comes to murderous Islamist terrorist organizations. But that is not the only lesson. National security rests above all on a strong military, and that requires more than just targeting a nuclear facility at Natanz or launching rockets at central Doha. Security also requires nurturing the regional and global alliances necessary to bolster deterrence, establishing and maintaining strategic depth and international legitimacy, and building a united front against the threat of radical Islam, as well as the hegemonic ambitions of Iran and concerning trends in Turkey.

A clear majority of Israelis want a new direction.

To do this, Israel should expand the Abraham Accords to include additional countries, including Saudi Arabia and Indonesia. It should take advantage of the opportunities that exist with Lebanon and Syria and strengthen the accords and initiatives that I launched as foreign minister in 2022 through the Negev Forum, which brought Israel together with Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States. Revitalizing these relationships, however, cannot happen until the war is over and Gaza is put under new leadership.

The alternative is also a far-reaching national investment in artificial intelligence and new energy infrastructure such as small module nuclear reactors, which are the future of energy and will transform the global market as it struggles to meet growing demand. In the coming years, Israel will need to transition from being the “startup nation” to being the “scale-up nation”—leveraging its innovation capabilities to upgrade vital national systems such as education, health care, and transportation. These are fundamental to Israel’s future security and prosperity, yet they have been allowed to languish. To bring Israel back to its rightful place among leading Western liberal democracies, the next government will need to invest in fostering the sources of Israel’s soft power—its productive middle class and successful tech sector.

The alternative is an Israeli society that addresses the structural problems that have plagued it for three generations, and especially now. A functioning and effective government will require the ultra-Orthodox community to enlist in the army and enter the job market. A functioning and effective government must help boost employment among Arab women, draft a constitution to formalize once and for all the balance of powers between the judicial and executive branches, invest in housing for young people, and tackle the skyrocketing cost of living.

THE CHOICE

The alternative is for Israelis to remind themselves, and others, that Israel’s vaunted status as the only democracy in the Middle East cannot be taken for granted. It is a commitment that the country’s leaders must constantly uphold. Israel’s greatest ally has always been, and will continue to be, the United States. But to retain its place in the democratic family, Israel must also reset its relations with the European Union, as well as with Australia, Japan, India, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and all the other great democracies of the world. These relationships should be based on shared values and a shared struggle against increasing illiberal and theocratic tendencies around the world and the dangers posed by toxic social media and unhindered populism. That is why Israel should also strengthen its bonds with sympathetic countries that share our vision for the future, such as the United Arab Emirates and Singapore.

The alternative may not include a Palestinian state in the first instance—not after what was done to Israelis on October 7. But unlike the current government, most Israelis recognize that the Palestinians exist and that we must one day separate from them. That process will be long and arduous. And it must begin with the Palestinians demonstrating their ability to effectively govern themselves. The burden of proof is now on the Palestinians, not on Israel. They must prove that they can effectively fight terrorism and ensure that an organization such as Hamas cannot seize power again.

The Palestinian Authority must not only commit to fighting incitement but act; it must not only promise governance reforms but implement them; it must not only pay lip service to tackling corruption but root out its causes. The people of Israel have a right to live in peace and security, without the threat of a failed terror state on their borders. The Palestinians must prove to the Israelis that it is possible before any process can begin. Israel, for its part, must take annexation off the table and fight far more effectively to end the scourge of violence inflicted on Palestinians by extremist Israeli settlers. The former risks sacrificing Israel’s regional integration with no strategic benefit; the latter is a moral stain on the country.

Israel’s future will be determined neither by its enemies nor by its current government. It will be determined by its citizens. After two of the most traumatic years in our existence, a clear majority of Israelis want a new direction. The world looks at Israel and sees a country in crisis. I look at it and see a country holding its breath. It is waiting for a new leadership to lead it down a different path. Israel’s future rests on the political decisions that Israelis will make in the coming year. Should the current government stay in power, Israelis may instead find themselves condemned to international isolation, poverty, and increasing social rifts. If Israelis choose courage over cowardice, openness over isolation, prosperity over religious zealotry, the country’s best days will yet lie ahead.

Foreign Affairs · More by Yair Lapid · October 6, 2025

20. A Snapback Solution for Ukraine

Excerpts:

A security guarantee based on snapback of sanctions, financing, and weapons may not have the grandeur of NATO’s Article 5 or the bravado of deploying European forces to Ukraine. But for Kyiv, those are illusions, not real options. Ukrainians should not rely on the United States and Europe to do something in the future that they have repeatedly refused to do for the last ten-plus years.

These measures, by contrast, are credible precisely because NATO has already demonstrated its willingness to take them. They can, in other words, give Ukraine confidence that it will not be abandoned—without inspiring false hope. They can make clear to Russia that an attack will bring automatic punishment. And together with Ukraine’s own formidable armed forces (and peacetime provisions of military aid), they can deter the Kremlin and ensure an enduring peace.

A Snapback Solution for Ukraine

Foreign Affairs · More by Samuel Charap · October 7, 2025

How to Craft Security Guarantees That Kyiv—and Moscow—Will Find Credible

October 7, 2025

A man standing on the roof of a building destroyed by Russian attacks in Kyiv, September 2025 Thomas Peter / Reuters

SAMUEL CHARAP is Distinguished Chair in Russia and Eurasia Policy and a Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation.

JEREMY SHAPIRO is Research Director of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

More by Jeremy Shapiro

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In their discussions about ending the war in Ukraine, Americans and Europeans are increasingly focused on providing Kyiv with security guarantees. After over a decade of conflict with Russia, including four years of all-out war, Ukraine understandably does not trust Moscow to abide by any cease-fire. Before Kyiv signs one, it wants assurances from its key partners that if Russia attacks again, Ukraine will not be left to fend for itself.

To meet this demand, some allies have suggested giving Ukraine assurances modeled on NATO’s Article 5, which declares that an attack on one NATO country is an attack on all. Others have recommended stationing European troops in the country as a way to give such assurances teeth. But these proposals lack credibility. NATO allies have steadfastly refused to intervene directly in the current war, so any promise they make to fight Russia in a new one is simply not believable. The Kremlin knows this better than anyone, and such bluffs will not deter it.

American and European leaders can provide Ukraine with a real postwar guarantee. But to do so, they will have to stick to promises that are credible. And that means committing to a more intense version of their current behavior in the event that Russia violates a cease-fire deal. In other words, should Moscow attack Ukraine again, the country’s allies would reimpose sanctions on Russia, provide new financial support to Kyiv, and offer Ukraine military assistance that goes beyond what they would offer in peacetime. The United States and its allies would codify these pledges into law and create mechanisms that activate them if Russia attacks.

These guarantees, of course, fall short of an Article 5-like pledge. But if combined with peacetime measures that strengthen the Ukrainian military (which will remain Kyiv’s primary source of deterrence), they will still affect the Kremlin’s calculus. The United States and Europe, in other words, can help ensure that any renewed aggression is prohibitively costly for Russia, even without directly intervening.

CREDIBILITY AND CREDULITY

NATO countries have made enormous efforts to help Kyiv resist Moscow’s invasion since it began February 2022. Among many other steps, they have levied progressively harsher sanctions on Russia, supplied Ukraine with vital intelligence, and given it sophisticated weapons (including air defenses). But they have consistently declared that they are not willing to go to war with a nuclear power over Ukraine and have refused to send troops. They have also declined to offer Kyiv membership in NATO. And they will not let Ukraine use their weapons in ways that they believe might drag them directly into the fight.

New pledges by a few European countries to deploy troops to Ukraine after a cease-fire agreement might suggest that this approach is shifting. But any “reassurance forces,” as the continent’s leaders call them, are unlikely to amount to much. Europe has refused to fight Moscow on Kyiv’s behalf in this war, because it is not in the continent’s core national security interests to do so. European publics also consistently oppose direct intervention. A deployment of forces after a cease-fire will not alter these realities. If France, the United Kingdom, or any other countries send troops and they come under Russian attack, they might well catch the next train out.

The United States and Europe are not prepared to fight on Ukraine’s behalf. Yet they are clearly willing to slap sanctions on Russia and provide Kyiv with offensive arms, financial support, and intelligence. The bilateral security agreements signed in 2024 between Ukraine and its key international partners have already committed multiple NATO members (including Washington) to consistently supply such assistance, both during the war and after it ends. But Ukraine also needs a promise that its partners will dramatically surge support in the event of future Russian aggression, and a structured process to ensure they make good on that pledge. The country’s guarantors must signal to Moscow that renewed aggression will be met not just with Ukrainian resistance but with a massive intensification of external support.

NATO allies are not willing to go to war with Russia on behalf of Ukraine.

Sanctions are the most immediate instrument. As part of any negotiated settlement with Moscow, the United States and Europe will likely agree to relieve some of their economic restrictions. But if Moscow violates the deal, they must again kick Russian banks out of SWIFT (the Europe-based international banking transfer messaging system). They must also reimpose full export controls on dual-use and high-tech goods, renewed bans on its sovereign debt and energy investments, and strict price caps on its oil exports. Ukraine’s allies could also pile on sanctions in escalating tiers should Russia continue its aggression. The first tier might freeze any Russian assets held abroad; the second could extend sanctions to shipping, insurance, and commodity trading; and another could impose secondary sanctions on entities in third countries, particularly those enabling Russia’s war economy through oil and gas purchases (something that Washington and Europe have not been willing to do in the current war).

Sanctions alone, of course, cannot stop Russia’s tanks. For that, Ukraine will need more weaponry. If Moscow agrees to a cease-fire, the United States and Europe would shift away from flooding Ukraine with offensive arms and provide it with weapons that enable a porcupine-type of defense-oriented strategy that incorporates air defenses, antitank systems, and drones. If Russia violates the settlement, however, Kyiv’s partners would quickly increase the flow of offensive assistance. They will need to pump the country full of longer-range missiles, such as army tactical missile system (ATACMS) from the United States and Storm Shadows from France and the United Kingdom. They will have to accelerate deliveries of combat aircraft, armor, long-range strike drones, and artillery. And they will need to remove current range restrictions and authorize Kyiv to use donated systems against military targets inside Russia, provided those targets are directly linked to the invasion. The sharing of intelligence for targeting Russian forces, suspended in peacetime, would resume.

The last instrument of a credible security guarantee is financial help. War, after all, is as much a test of economic stamina as it is of battlefield performance, and Ukraine will need monetary assistance to stay afloat while fighting. The G-7 states should thus set up a standing Ukraine stabilization fund that can surge aid to Kyiv. If Russia and Ukraine are at peace, the fund would pay for Ukraine’s reconstruction and offer macroeconomic assistance. But if Russia resumes its attacks, the fund would disperse large-scale budgetary support and finance military production, allowing Ukraine to keep fighting as long as necessary.

MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE

After Russia’s full-scale invasion, outside aid to Ukraine was discretionary and often delayed, subject to long political debates. To be effective, these security guarantees cannot be similarly unstable. Instead, they must be applied quickly and automatically. Ukraine’s guarantors should therefore set up a clear framework, agreed-on triggers, and financial and legal mechanisms that ensure each state meets its commitments.

Ukraine’s allies can accomplish this by codifying some of their commitments into law. Washington, for example, could pass legislation that triggers automatic sanctions against Russia and provides funds for Ukraine in case of renewed Russian aggression. The European Council should enact a similar mechanism. The EU usually requires unanimity to impose sanctions. But there are workarounds—namely, the body’s qualified majority clauses—that EU member states can use to reimpose restrictions.

The process of triggering these guarantees should be fast and direct. If Kyiv charges Moscow with violating the cease-fire, the guarantors’ foreign ministers should meet within 48 hours to examine Ukraine’s claims and pore over intelligence from a variety of sources. Yet unless a majority of the guaranteeing states decide Ukraine is wrong, the snapback must take effect. This system may afford substantial power to Kyiv, but flipping the burden of proof is essential to deterring the Kremlin. Otherwise, Russia might salami-slice its way across the cease-fire line without triggering consequences.

To make sure that Ukraine quickly receives the military support it will need in the event of a renewed Russian assault, the United States and Europe should sign standing contracts with their defense industries to produce the long-range missiles, advanced aircraft, artillery systems, and other weapons necessary to support Kyiv. Ukraine’s partners should also pre-position munitions in designated stockpiles in bordering states’ territory. Likewise, NATO should make sure training centers in Germany, Poland, and the United Kingdom always have room for Ukrainian troops, in case the war resumes and Kyiv needs to get its reserves into fighting shape.

Finally, the United States and Europe must review this system regularly. They should publish a joint report on the state of Ukraine’s security, the health of the guarantees, and the readiness of snapback mechanisms once each year. Parliamentary committees in the U.S. Congress, the European Parliament, and various national European legislatures should hold hearings of their own, too. Doing so will help ensure that this system retains its democratic legitimacy—and thus its support.

WHAT IS AND WHAT WILL NEVER BE

A security guarantee based on snapback of sanctions, financing, and weapons may not have the grandeur of NATO’s Article 5 or the bravado of deploying European forces to Ukraine. But for Kyiv, those are illusions, not real options. Ukrainians should not rely on the United States and Europe to do something in the future that they have repeatedly refused to do for the last ten-plus years.

These measures, by contrast, are credible precisely because NATO has already demonstrated its willingness to take them. They can, in other words, give Ukraine confidence that it will not be abandoned—without inspiring false hope. They can make clear to Russia that an attack will bring automatic punishment. And together with Ukraine’s own formidable armed forces (and peacetime provisions of military aid), they can deter the Kremlin and ensure an enduring peace.

Foreign Affairs · More by Samuel Charap · October 7, 2025

21. If Trump convinces China to abandon force against Taiwan he deserves Nobel prize, Taiwan president says

How would we ever know that China has abandoned the use of force against Taiwan?

Perhaps as Sir Lawrence Freedman says, "Deterrence works, until it doesn't," this would be a case of China abandoning force against Taiwan until it no longer does.

And if China does eventually use force, would President Trump have to give back the Nobel? (note sarcasm).

If Trump convinces China to abandon force against Taiwan he deserves Nobel prize, Taiwan president says

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TAIPEI: US President Donald Trump should get the Nobel Peace Prize should he be able to convince Chinese President Xi Jinping to abandon the use of force against Taiwan, President Lai Ching-te told a conservative US radio show and podcast in an interview.

The United States is Chinese-claimed Taiwan's most important international backer, despite the absence of formal ties, but since President Donald Trump took office earlier this year, he has not announced any new arms sales to the island.

Trump could meet Xi at a meeting of Asia-Pacific leaders in South Korea later this month.

Lai, speaking this week on The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, which is carried on more than 400 talk radio stations, referred to comments Trump made in August in which he said Xi told him China would not invade Taiwan while he was US president.

HOPE FOR TRUMP SUPPORT

"We hope to continue receiving President Trump's support. Should President Trump persuade Xi Jinping to permanently abandon any military aggression against Taiwan, President Trump would undoubtedly be a Nobel Peace Prize laureate," Lai said.

Trump has said he deserves the accolade given to four of his White House predecessors. This year's prize will be announced in Norway on Friday.

Asked what he would tell the US president if he were to meet him, Lai said he would advise Trump to pay attention to Xi's actions.

"I would advise him to pay particular attention to the fact that Xi Jinping is not only conducting increasingly large-scale military exercises in the Taiwan Strait, but is also expanding military forces in the East China Sea and South China Sea," Lai said, according to a transcript of his remarks released by the presidential office on Tuesday.

A few hours after the transcript's release, Taiwan's defence ministry reported it had spotted another spike in Chinese military movements, with 23 military aircraft and drones carrying out a "joint combat readiness patrol" around the island with Chinese warships.

China's increasing military activities further and further from its own shores are not only a challenge for Taiwan, Lai said.

"The challenge extends beyond merely annexing Taiwan. Once Taiwan is annexed, China will gain greater strength to compete with the United States on the international stage, undermining the rules-based international order," he said.

"Ultimately, this will also impact US homeland interests. Therefore, I hope President Trump will continue to uphold peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific."

China's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Lai's remarks.

INCREASED DEFENCE SPENDING

Given the lack of formal ties, Taiwanese presidents do not speak directly to or meet US presidents.

Taiwan, along with major Western allies, has worked to address Washington's concerns that it is not spending enough on its own defence – Lai has set a target of defence spending to reach 5 per cent of gross domestic product by 2030.

"I will tell them that Taiwan is absolutely determined to safeguard its national security," Lai told the show, when asked about how he would show the United States the island's resolve to defend itself.

"When Taiwan protects itself, it is also committing to maintaining regional peace and stability," he added.

The United States, which is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, has long stuck to a policy of "strategic ambiguity," not making clear whether it would respond militarily to a Chinese attack on Taiwan.

Lai rejects Beijing's sovereignty claims, saying only the island's people can decide their future. China calls Lai a "separatist" and has repeatedly rebuffed his offers of talks.

Source: Reuters/lh

Newsletter

22. Palantir’s $1.3B ‘Maven’ AI Platform Goes Tactical With Picogrid Integration

Palantir’s $1.3B ‘Maven’ AI Platform Goes Tactical With Picogrid Integration

Maven Smart System is a US $1.3-billion AI platform, now linked to the battlefield through Picogrid’s Legion software, connecting sensors, drones, and command centers in real time.

nextgendefense.com · Akhsan Erido Elezhar

American tech firm Picogrid has integrated its Legion software with Palantir’s Maven Smart System (MSS), a $1.3-billion artificial intelligence platform powering US military operations.

The integration creates a live data bridge between the tactical edge and command centers, streaming real-time data from sensors, drones, and other field systems directly into operational networks.

Modern combat generates massive amounts of data from diverse systems, often isolated in silos that slow decision-making. The Legion–MSS integration aims to close that gap, giving commanders access to a unified, real-time view of the battlefield.

(Representative only.) US Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Oliver Lavenson, left, a fire support Marine with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit. Photo: Sgt. Trent A. Henry/US Army

“Our focus has always been on breaking down data silos to give our warfighters a decisive advantage,” said Zane Mountcastle, CEO of Picogrid.

“By connecting Legion’s rich, real-time data streams directly into Maven’s powerful analytics engine, we’re giving commanders the fastest, most complete picture of the battlefield. It’s about empowering decision-makers with the best information at speed.”

The collaboration aligns with the Pentagon’s shift toward autonomous and connected operations, ensuring tactical units and decision-makers can act on the same live data feed.

Field-Proven Integration

The integration was validated during the XVIII Airborne Corps’ Scarlet Dragon exercise at Fort Bragg, where the two companies demonstrated live data streaming from deployed sensors and drones directly into MSS.

The event marked the first operational connection between Palantir’s AI-driven platform and command systems at the tactical edge.

Both firms plan to expand the collaboration, linking more sensors, drones, and field-deployed technologies to Maven in future exercises.

nextgendefense.com · Akhsan Erido Elezhar

23. Former PEO, Ships, Retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Tom Anderson Joins Hanwha Defense USA as President of U.S. Shipbuilding

Is Hanwha going all in on US shipbuilding?

Former PEO, Ships, Retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Tom Anderson Joins Hanwha Defense USA as President of U.S. Shipbuilding - Seapower

seapowermagazine.org · Seapower Staff

Release From Hanwha

ARLINGTON, Va., Oct. 6, 2025 – Retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral and former Program Executive Officer, Ships Tom Anderson has joined Hanwha Defense USA as President of U.S. Shipbuilding.

Anderson served in the U.S. Navy for 34 years, including leadership roles as PEO, Ships and acting Commander, Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), where he was responsible for acquiring, maintaining and modernizing the U.S. Navy’s ships.

Over the course of his career, he served in a variety of industrial, fleet, program office and headquarters assignments in ship design and construction, maintenance, budgeting and requirements for the Navy’s ships, submarines and systems.

Anderson will be responsible for the execution of Hanwha’s U.S. shipbuilding programs and shipyard operations, including developing the company’s strategy for future shipbuilding programs as well as building the company’s shipbuilding infrastructure and associated workforce to accommodate future growth.

“Tom has had a distinguished and impactful naval career, and we are delighted to bring his deep industry expertise, creative thinking, and demonstrated leadership to Hanwha,” said Mike Smith, President and CEO of Hanwha Defense USA. “This is a pivotal time for the Navy and U.S. shipbuilding writ large. Tom brings a wealth of experience and unique perspectives that will accelerate the delivery of novel solutions to our customers’ most elusive industrial base challenges.”

“Hanwha’s global defense strategy is focused on our evolution into a multi-domestic company that brings leading technology, deeper partnerships and sovereign capacity to each of the markets we serve,” said Michael Coulter, Hanwha Global Defense President and CEO. “I am excited to welcome Tom to our team as we continue to invest in capacity in the United States.”

Last December, Hanwha—a global conglomerate with a world-class shipbuilding arm—acquired the Philly Shipyard for $100 million. With the acquisition, Hanwha is focused on revitalizing the Hanwha Philly Shipyard as part of its wider goal of increasing U.S. maritime capacity and the U.S. maritime industrial base.

Drawing on its decades of shipbuilding expertise and know-how, Hanwha is making significant investments in expanding its Philadelphia shipyard’s capabilities with technological advancements, workforce training and smart systems, creating significantly more shipbuilding capacity and thousands of new skilled manufacturing jobs in the U.S.

24. China Is Joining Russia’s Shadow War on Europe

Unrestricted Warfare (China) meets New Generation or Non-Linear Warfare (Russia) and creates dilemmas for the EU, NATO, and democratic nations.

Again (and yes to beat the dead horse), we must recognize, understand, expose, and attack our enemies' strategies with a superior political warfare strategy.

Excerpts:

That struggle will continue, in one form or another, even after the war in Ukraine ends. It may even intensify, as China supports Russia’s below-the-threshold assault.

Chinese meddling in Europe isn’t nearly as aggressive as Putin’s. But Chinese ships have been involved in cable-cutting incidents in the Baltic. Chinese cyberattacks have become more ambitious and more common. Western officials allege a growing symbiosis between Russian and Chinese disinformation campaigns.

Beijing is also driving wedges in the transatlantic community by cultivating poorer countries in southeastern Europe that sometimes have illiberal governments. The goal is a “silk curtain” that runs from Greece to Hungary, effectively cutting Europe’s southern half in two.

Whatever their differences, both China and Russia want a weaker, more pliant Europe. The question is whether the US will help that continent maintain cohesion and strength.

The tendencies in US policy are ambiguous. Trump has pushed Europe to rearm. He is becoming, incrementally, friendlier to Ukraine and Europe as he gets more frustrated with Putin.

But Trump himself has undermined European sovereignty, by demanding control over Greenland: It wasn’t so long ago that Danish officials accused America of waging a hostile campaign. His continual mantra is that the US should bear less responsibility for the security of a continent an ocean away. Europe faces a long, perilous contest with a vengeful Russia. The fight will be even tougher if Europe must wage it alone.

China Is Joining Russia’s Shadow War on Europe

October 7, 2025 at 12:00 AM EDT

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-10-07/china-is-joining-russia-s-shadow-war-on-europe?sref=hhjZtX76

By Hal Brands

Hal Brands is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

Putin and his drone army. Photographer: Sergei Bobylyov/AFP/Getty Images

Takeaways by Bloomberg AI

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Europe is confronting an intensification of Russia's war on Ukraine and a dramatic upsurge in Russia's hybrid war against Europe itself.
Russian sabotage, assassination plots, and political interference have plagued much of the continent for years, with Putin aiming to debilitate and destabilize the eastern half of the transatlantic alliance.
The situation has led to rising tensions and an urgency for European rearmament, with some European defense ministries worrying that hybrid war could become hot war and the US's role in helping Europe maintain cohesion and strength being ambiguous.

For decades, Europe exemplified post-Cold War peace. Today, it confronts enduring, escalating war. The coda to President Donald Trump’s peace talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in August has been an intensification of Russia’s war on Ukraine — combined with a dramatic upsurge in Russia’s hybrid war against Europe itself.

That campaign of intimidation, coercion and subversion is now enveloping Europe, at nearly every point on the compass. It previews a future of tension and insecurity for a continent that long viewed tranquility as the norm.

BloombergOpinion

The indicators, just from the past few weeks, are legion. Persistent drone overflights have scrambled European air traffic. Russian warplanes violated Estonian airspace. Moscow’s agents reportedly tried , unsuccessfully, to tilt the outcome of Moldova’s recent elections. In August, Russia allegedly jammed the navigational systems of European Council President Ursula von der Leyen’s plane.

Then there is the larger pattern of cable-cutting in the Baltic, bids to inflame the Balkans, and menacing surveillance of crucial undersea fiber optics in the Atlantic. Russian sabotage, assassination plots and political interference have plagued much of the continent for years. Putin is chiseling away at Europe as he hammers away at Ukraine.

His motives are layered. Hybrid war is meant to punish Europe for supporting Ukrainian resistance. It warns European countries against deploying troops to Ukraine after a potential ceasefire. More fundamentally, the hybrid war is meant to debilitate and destabilize the eastern half of the transatlantic alliance that has long checked Russian influence, while also dividing it from its western half.

Moscow’s “dearest dream,” Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev once said, was to split the US from Europe. Ideologies change, but geopolitical imperatives remain.

With an ambivalent Atlanticist in the White House, Moscow aims for provocations that sow fear in Europe but elicit a ho-hum response from Washington. If Moscow increases the pressure, while the US pivots toward other priorities, an under-armed Europe will find itself on its own.

Putin has certainly gotten Europe’s attention. Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, has said the continent faces “the most difficult and dangerous situation” since World War II. French commandos recently boarded a Russian ship that may have launched drones over Denmark and Norway. European leaders are talking about a “drone wall” to defend their countries, while threatening to shoot down anything that violates their airspace.

Some European defense ministries worry that hybrid war could become hot war: Perhaps Russia will try to shatter the continent’s security by seizing a chunk of Estonia or some other exposed country in the east.

That’s possible, but unlikely, so long as Putin’s army is bogged down in Ukraine. The Russian ruler has typically been cautious about starting a full-blown brawl with a nuclear-armed alliance. Yet the risks of a violent incident — a tit-for-tat that occurs if Poland or Denmark were to shoot down a Russian aircraft, say — are rising. Russia’s subversive stunts are tremendously dangerous: Moscow’s agents apparently came close to bringing down a cargo plane over Germany, with potentially lethal results.

Rising tensions underscore the urgency of European rearmament, and of buying time for that process by keeping Ukraine in the fight. It would be beyond foolish to assume that Russia’s hybrid war will halt anytime soon.

Putin’s Russia is only getting nastier. The political system has become violent and quasi-fascist. The economy is thoroughly mobilized for war. Putin is forging deeper ties with other US adversaries, like China and North Korea. He believes his country is already locked in an existential conflict with “the collective west.”

That struggle will continue, in one form or another, even after the war in Ukraine ends. It may even intensify, as China supports Russia’s below-the-threshold assault.

Chinese meddling in Europe isn’t nearly as aggressive as Putin’s. But Chinese ships have been involved in cable-cutting incidents in the Baltic. Chinese cyberattacks have become more ambitious and more common. Western officials allege a growing symbiosis between Russian and Chinese disinformation campaigns.

Beijing is also driving wedges in the transatlantic community by cultivating poorer countries in southeastern Europe that sometimes have illiberal governments. The goal is a “silk curtain” that runs from Greece to Hungary, effectively cutting Europe’s southern half in two.

Whatever their differences, both China and Russia want a weaker, more pliant Europe. The question is whether the US will help that continent maintain cohesion and strength.

The tendencies in US policy are ambiguous. Trump has pushed Europe to rearm. He is becoming, incrementally, friendlier to Ukraine and Europe as he gets more frustrated with Putin.

But Trump himself has undermined European sovereignty, by demanding control over Greenland: It wasn’t so long ago that Danish officials accused America of waging a hostile campaign. His continual mantra is that the US should bear less responsibility for the security of a continent an ocean away. Europe faces a long, perilous contest with a vengeful Russia. The fight will be even tougher if Europe must wage it alone.

Brands is also a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, the co-author of “Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China,” and a senior adviser to Macro Advisory Partners.

25. No coup – yet – as corruption and protests roil Philippines

Dangerous times ahead?

Who will benefit from a coup? China? What is the United Front Work Department doing in the Philippines?

Excerpts:

A wary Filipino public is not necessarily impressed or swayed by Marcos Jr’s anti-corruption stand. After all, his father is known to have plundered billions of dollars from state coffers – much of which has never been recovered.

The Marcos family was exiled in Hawaii after the late dictator was toppled, but was later allowed to return. Marcos Jr’s resounding election win in 2022 took many by surprise, with many warning of a return to old-style corrupt politics.

Still, Marcos Jr has appeared to have taken the right steps so far. He had cut a political alliance with the family of his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, who is now being tried in the International Criminal Court for “crimes against humanity” over his drug war that caused thousands of deaths. He has also re-embraced the United States and adopted a stronger stand against China over territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

Protest leaders have said that they are gearing up for a bigger march in November; however, no details have yet been released. “This will be bigger, wider and fiercer than the September 21 rally,” Judy Ann Miranda of the Partido Maggagawa group vowed last week.

No coup – yet – as corruption and protests roil Philippines - Asia Times

Filipino military chief says he’s being lobbied to topple Marcos Jr’s corruption-ridden government but vows not to do it

asiatimes.com · Jason Gutierrez · October 6, 2025

MANILA – The Philippines is bracing for more street protests in the weeks ahead, with a political shakeup in the Senate over a corruption scandal and admission by the country’s military chief that he has rebuffed calls for the military to bring down the government of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

Military chief General Romeo Brawner told the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) on October 3 that retired military officials have recently tried to convince him to support an uprising and withdraw support for the popularly elected president, but that these calls have been rejected.

The calls came as Marcos’ government weathered a huge anti-corruption rally on September 21, triggered by allegations of rigged infrastructure projects allegedly involving some senators and congressmen, including Marcos’ cousin, who has since been removed as speaker of the House. The president did not try to stop the street protests, but the police have been criticized for rounding up dozens of demonstrators.

Brawner said his “battle staff” of senior commanders met with one group led by former general Romeo Poquiz, who has been leading criticism against Marcos, and allowed him to air his grievances, including alleged corruption in the government. While Poquiz’s group did not directly refer to a coup during their meeting, he was later reported to have said in public reports that he wanted Marcos’ downfall.

“Definitely, there are calls for the Armed Forces of the Philippines to intervene,” Brawner said. “Some of them were saying that we should withdraw our support for the president.”

“However, on the side of the AFP, we are very clear in our mandate. That is why I was telling members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines that that day, September 21, was also a litmus test (for us),” he said.

Some retired military officers had tried to reach out to ground commanders, “convincing us to intervene through several means, through a coup d’état, a military junta in order to come up with a reset for the entire Philippine society or withdrawal of support,” Brawner said.

But all the calls landed on deaf ears, Brawner said, because the modern military has been professionalized. Military adventurism is nothing new in the Philippines, which has survived previous attempts to unseat a sitting president as a means to change power.

Marcos’ dictator father and namesake, Ferdinand E Marcos, himself faced revolt after years of massive corruption. A faction of the defense forces split from him, triggering a “people power” revolt that ousted him from two decades of power.

His successor, Corazon Aquino, survived six coup attempts as she struggled to stabilize the Philippines. In 2001, a military-backed popular revolt forced Joseph Estrada to step down, while his successor, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, quelled an attempted rebellion by junior officers.

“We believe that a military intervention in any form is not the solution to..the things that we are now experiencing in our country, corruption, for instance, and other malpractices,” Brawner said. A coup, he said, “will set us back” as a country and scare investors away.

“And we know how devastating this [would be] for our country, not only for the armed forces, but for the entire country. So we will not allow that to happen. We believe that we have democratic processes and procedures working today,” he stressed.

On Monday (October 6), Marcos said he would end wasteful spending, vowing that “accountability and efficiency” in using public funds.

“We will not tolerate measurement without action, nor will we tolerate the wastage of public funds,” Marcos said during a forum with economic managers. “Our national budget serves as our moral and economic compass. It must always point toward making life better for our people. Every project, every policy, every program, every peso must move the needle for Filipino families.”

Filipinos have been glued to their television sets in the weeks leading up to September 21. Corrupt public works officials have testified in Congress about the anomalous implementation of billions of dollars’ worth of “ghost” infrastructure projects.

The scandal broke in the middle of the monsoon season here, which had submerged large portions of Manila as well as nearby suburbs despite huge funds spent on flood-control projects.

Amid public uproar, Marcos created an independent body to investigate corruption. On Sunday, he stressed that strong cases would be built against those involved. He said any public dissatisfaction with the results of the probe could lead to dire consequences.

He said individuals and politicians linked to the questionable projects are “not innocent,” and that the government must ensure that cases filed in court are backed by strong evidence.

“We know many of these people are not innocent, but if you’re going to bring them to court, you must have a very strong case,” Marcos said in a statement. “We have to follow the law. Otherwise, whatever we do is not legitimate. And we have to be very, very clear that we go after the guilty ones.”

His calculated statement appeared to aim to head off warnings from various groups of bigger protests in the coming weeks. The warnings have taken on more urgency, with many youth-led groups seen to follow the lead of other countries where Gen-Z rallies have sparked changes, including in Nepal, Indonesia and Madagascar.

A wary Filipino public is not necessarily impressed or swayed by Marcos Jr’s anti-corruption stand. After all, his father is known to have plundered billions of dollars from state coffers – much of which has never been recovered.

The Marcos family was exiled in Hawaii after the late dictator was toppled, but was later allowed to return. Marcos Jr’s resounding election win in 2022 took many by surprise, with many warning of a return to old-style corrupt politics.

Still, Marcos Jr has appeared to have taken the right steps so far. He had cut a political alliance with the family of his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, who is now being tried in the International Criminal Court for “crimes against humanity” over his drug war that caused thousands of deaths. He has also re-embraced the United States and adopted a stronger stand against China over territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

Protest leaders have said that they are gearing up for a bigger march in November; however, no details have yet been released. “This will be bigger, wider and fiercer than the September 21 rally,” Judy Ann Miranda of the Partido Maggagawa group vowed last week.

Jason Gutierrez was head of Philippine news at BenarNews, an online news service affiliated with Radio Free Asia (RFA), a Washington-based news organization that covered many under-reported countries in the region. A veteran foreign correspondent, he has also worked with The New York Times and Agence France-Presse (AFP).

asiatimes.com · Jason Gutierrez · October 6, 2025

26. Opinion | By giving up WTO privileges, China gains more than it loses

Dominik Mierzejewski

Opinion | By giving up WTO privileges, China gains more than it loses

In one move, Beijing gets to disarm Washington of a rhetorical weapon while maintaining the mantle of leadership within the Global South

https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3327951/giving-wto-privileges-china-gains-more-it-loses

Dominik Mierzejewski

Published: 5:30am, 7 Oct 2025Updated: 7:17am, 7 Oct 2025

When Beijing announced in September that it would no longer seek the special benefits that come with developing-country status at the World Trade Organization (WTO), some Western media outlets framed it as a concession. Meanwhile, to critics of China’s trade policy, it likely came across as a belated acknowledgement that the world’s second-largest economy should not be treated the same as, say, Cambodia or Ghana. However, China’s logic is far from being understood.

Through the lens of Mao Zedong’s protracted people’s war, this moment looks less like capitulation and more like the first stage of a longer campaign: strategic defensive. Mao’s theory of protracted war, which took shape during the second Sino-Japanese war, was a method of going from a position of weakness to eventual strength. The opening stage emphasised avoiding decisive battles, conserving resources and repositioning the political terrain to outlast a stronger adversary.

China has long worn the “developing country” badge at the WTO, a status that entitles members to special and differential treatment. These benefits include more extended implementation periods for trade commitments and, in some cases, exemptions from certain obligations.

In practice, China has already conceded some privileges. What it has done is use the label to align itself with the Global South. By claiming to be a developing country, Beijing has positioned itself as a peer and advocate of states that genuinely rely on special and differential treatment to protect fragile economies.

But in the realm of global trade politics, perceptions matter as much as material advantages. The United States and European Union have highlighted the supposed inconsistency of a hi-tech export powerhouse that still seeks the same benefits as far poorer states. US administrations under both Donald Trump and Joe Biden have chastised Beijing over the matter.

By giving up special and differential treatment benefits, China has executed a tactical retreat. It has removed one of Washington’s most effective talking points while conceding very little of substance. This is precisely the kind of manoeuvre Mao envisioned in strategic defence: avoid a direct clash you cannot win, yield ground where the loss is minimal and reframe the battlefield in terms that favour your long-term position.

An employee works on an assembly line in Chongqing on May 20. Photo: EPA-EFE

In the first stage of a people’s war, legitimacy and perception are more valuable than gun power. Mao’s guerrillas sought to mobilise the peasantry, cultivate allies and deny the enemy a decisive political victory. Similarly, China’s WTO announcement allows it to claim the mantle of a responsible great power. Beijing can argue that it is sacrificing perks for the sake of global fairness, even as it continues to insist that it remains a developing country in political and economic terms.

This dual approach is the essence of protracted war. By abandoning WTO benefits, China shores up its credibility in Geneva. By clinging to its status as a developing country in climate negotiations or international finance, it maintains solidarity with the Global South. Moreover, China still gets to benefit from its classification as a developing country by the United Nations. Beijing is choosing the battles it wants to fight on terrain it prefers.

Strategic defence is defined by prudence. You do not meet the stronger enemy head on; you manoeuvre around them, erode their narratives and wait for the balance of power to shift.

China knows that the real fights over global trade will centre on technology transfers, subsidies for state-owned enterprises and the architecture of digital commerce. Compared to these, special and differential treatment benefits are marginal. By yielding on this front, Beijing reduces pressure without exposing its core interests.

This is why interpreting China’s move as bowing to US tariffs misses the point. The announcement does not mean China is ready to accept all developed-country obligations, nor that it is abandoning its state-led industrial policy. Those battles will come later. What Beijing has done is remove a distraction, deprive Washington of a rhetorical weapon and buy time to prepare for the issues that really matter.

Why the US is worried about China’s growing influence in South America

Another feature of the strategic defensive is the careful cultivation of allies. Mao’s forces built broad coalitions. China, likewise, is not abandoning the Global South. On the contrary, by declaring that it “will be a developing country”, Beijing can keep claiming the leadership mantle for a diverse coalition in climate talks, development financing and UN diplomacy. It is a signal: we will give up some WTO perks, but we remain your advocate in the broader struggle for fairer globalisation.

Ultimately, China’s announcement is more about political signalling than economics. It reinforces the country’s chosen identity as both a responsible power and a developing country. That duality may seem contradictory in Western capitals, but it is highly functional for Beijing in multilateral arenas.

The lesson from protracted war is simple: early retreats are not defeats. They are manoeuvres to conserve strength and reset the terms of battle. China’s shift to WTO status does precisely that. It reduces external pressure, enhances legitimacy and maintains solidarity with the Global South, all while conceding little of substance.

If we take history as a guide, China is only in the first stage of a longer campaign. For now, it has retreated to a mode of survival and recalibration. The real contests over digital trade rules, industrial subsidies and the future of global supply chains still lie ahead.

Dominik Mierzejewski

Dominik Mierzejewski is head of the Centre for Asian Affairs and associate professor in the Department of Asian Studies at the Faculty of International and Political Studies at the

27. Exclusive: Classified Justice Department opinion authorizes strikes on secret list of cartels, sources say

How will a legal challenge to this turn out? Surely Congress will look into this. Is this Constitutional overreach by the administration?

Excerpt:

The opinion is significant, legal experts said, because it appears to justify an open-ended war against a secret list of groups, giving the president power to designate drug traffickers as enemy combatants and have them summarily killed without legal review. Historically, those involved in drug trafficking were considered criminals with due process rights, with the Coast Guard interdicting drug-trafficking vessels and arresting smugglers.

Exclusive: Classified Justice Department opinion authorizes strikes on secret list of cartels, sources say | CNN Politics

flip.it · Natasha Bertrand, Zachary Cohen ·

The Trump administration has produced a classified legal opinion that justifies lethal strikes against a secret and expansive list of cartels and suspected drug traffickers, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.

The opinion, which was produced by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel and has not been previously reported, argues that the president is allowed to authorize deadly force against a broad range of cartels because they pose an imminent threat to Americans. The list of cartels goes beyond those the administration has publicly designated as terrorist organizations, the people familiar with the opinion said.

The opinion is significant, legal experts said, because it appears to justify an open-ended war against a secret list of groups, giving the president power to designate drug traffickers as enemy combatants and have them summarily killed without legal review. Historically, those involved in drug trafficking were considered criminals with due process rights, with the Coast Guard interdicting drug-trafficking vessels and arresting smugglers.

“If the OLC opinion authorizing strikes on cartels is as broad as it seems, it would mean DOJ has interpreted the president to have such extraordinary powers that he alone can decide to prosecute a war far broader than what Congress authorized after the attacks on 9/11,” said Sarah Harrison, a former associate general counsel at the Defense Department who now works as a senior analyst at the Crisis Group.

“By this logic, any small, medium or big group that is trafficking drugs into the US — the administration could claim it amounts to an attack against the United States and respond with lethal force,” said Harrison, who had the outlines of the legal opinion described to her by CNN.

The Defense Department’s memo to lawmakers last week outlining the legal basis for a series of strikes against boats in the Caribbean — which argued that the US is in an “armed conflict” with the cartels, and said the president has determined that smugglers for the cartels are “unlawful combatants”— leaned heavily on the OLC opinion, sources said. Lawmakers have repeatedly asked DOJ and DoD for a copy of the legal opinion, including as recently as last week, but the agencies have thus far not provided it to Congress, the sources said.

The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment when asked about the OLC opinion. Attorney General Pam Bondi is scheduled to testify on Capitol Hill Tuesday where she will likely face questions from lawmakers about the Trump administration’s legal justification for conducting lethal strikes against alleged drug boats and alleged cartel members in the Caribbean.

To date, the US military has carried out at least four strikes on boats operating in the Caribbean, killing people the Trump administration claims are “affiliated” with drug cartels that have been designated as terrorist organizations in recent months.

The most recent strike was conducted last week, killing four people onboard the vessel, according to a social media post from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

At the Pentagon, some military lawyers, including international law experts within DoD’s Office of General Counsel, have raised concerns about the legality of the lethal strikes on suspected drug traffickers, sources familiar with the matter said.

Multiple current and former JAGs — military lawyers who are members of the judge advocate general’s corps —told CNN that the strikes do not appear lawful.

Pentagon lawyers, even if they have concerns, cannot overrule the OLC opinion, which is the prevailing legal interpretation of the executive branch. Many DoD lawyers are also reluctant to openly dissent, three current JAGs told CNN.

“The way forward is just to eat it and put your head down and act in accordance with [Secretary of Defense] Hegseth’s new policies,” said one. “No JAG is trying to rock the boat or get noticed.”

The Justice Department opinion forms a key part of the administration’s ramped up campaign against Latin American drug cartels, which also includes expanded authorities for the CIA to conduct lethal targeting and carry out covert action in the region, two people familiar with the matter told CNN. President Donald Trump updated CIA’s authorities around the same time he signed a secret directive ordering the military to begin striking Latin American drug cartels earlier this summer, the sources said.

CNN reported in April that the CIA had begun reviewing its authorities to use lethal force against drug cartels in Mexico and beyond, as the Trump administration moved to make taking on the cartels a major priority for the intelligence agency. The CIA is also already flying surveillance drones that are capable of being armed over Mexico.

A former senior intelligence official told CNN that there is a presidential directive, known as a “finding,” for CIA covert action related to the counternarcotics mission that dates back to the 1980s. That finding, however, is largely considered “open-ended” as far as defining actions the CIA can take, the former official added, noting it has been the subject of significant debate inside the administration since Trump’s second term began.

The administration had been working to update that finding to provide further clarity to CIA on the specific actions the agency needs to take in the region to further Trump’s counter-cartel campaign, the former official said.

The expansion of CIA’s authorities to include lethal targeting against cartel actors, however, is also fraught with risk. In Latin America, there are, comparatively, far more US-born citizens and green card holders — people who might have the standing to sue the US government if they are harmed. And that is a novel problem for the CIA, CNN has reported.

This story has been updated to clarify that CNN described the legal opinion to an expert.

flip.it · Natasha Bertrand, Zachary Cohen ·

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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Opinion | By giving up WTO privileges, China gains more than it loses

In one move, Beijing gets to disarm Washington of a rhetorical weapon while maintaining the mantle of leadership within the Global South

Exclusive: Classified Justice Department opinion authorizes strikes on secret list of cartels, sources say | CNN Politics

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