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Quotes of the Day:
“We should care as much about well-doing as well-being. I want to live in a world that values purpose as much as pleasure, contribution as much as contentment, honesty as much as excitement, and justice as much as joy.”
– Adam Grant
"There is nothing that gives a man consequence, and renders him fit for command, like a support that renders him independent of everybody but the State he serves."
– George Washington
“A republic is not sustained by the strength of its laws but by the virtue of those entrusted to carry them out; without moral leadership, the finest constitution becomes a hollow shell.”
– Unknown
1. Army officer with Indo-Pacific experience emerges as potential Cyber Command, NSA pick
2. SOF News: RAND Study: TBI and SOF
3. Opinion | The CIA’s Battle With Truth
4. Xi Joins Trump in Skipping G-20 Summit in Blow to South Africa
5. Japan spoke up; S Korea must, too (on Taiwan)
6. Here are the Easter Eggs built into West Point's latest Army-Navy football uniform
7. China’s moment: When Washington and Moscow both bow to Beijing
8. Opinion | The Heritage Foundation Loses Its Way
9. Operational Errors and Civilian Casualties
10. ASIO boss sounds alarm on ‘devastating, disruptive’ Chinese hacking threat
11. Pentagon formalizes conventional forces' role in irregular warfare, but will it stick?
12. What Did We Get for $38 Trillion in Debt?
13. Assessing the Pentagon’s Mission to Rebuild the ‘Arsenal of Freedom'
14. Pentagon contract awards new combat knives for troops
15. When Trust Becomes Strategy: Rethinking America's Innovation Posture
16. From Relic to Relevance: Why Obsolete Weapons Still Win Modern Wars
17. Can Democracy Still Make a Comeback?
18. SOCOM solicits industry to train commandos to build and fly FPV drones
19. US Army tests latest missile defense equipment on Guam and in South Korea
20. US forces launch relief effort in the Philippines after 2 typhoons batter islands
21. The Pentagon chooses learning over losing
1. Army officer with Indo-Pacific experience emerges as potential Cyber Command, NSA pick
Summary:
The Trump administration is considering Lt. Gen. Joshua Rudd, an Indo-Pacific strategist with special operations experience but no cyber background, to lead U.S. Cyber Command and the NSA. The dual-hat posts have remained vacant for seven months amid chaotic selection efforts. Support from INDOPACOM’s commander and the DNI boosts Rudd’s chances, aligning with priorities for China-focused readiness. Potential deputies include Maj. Gen. Lorna Mahlock, a groundbreaking former NSA leader, and Brig. Gen. Matthew Lennox, a seasoned cyber operations officer. Their appointments would shape Cyber Command’s leadership as the U.S. prepares for cyber threats tied to future conflict, especially a Taiwan contingency.
Comment: The Cyber-SOF-Space triad exemplified here? Has this triad become mainstream?
Army officer with Indo-Pacific experience emerges as potential Cyber Command, NSA pick
therecord.media
Martin Matishak
November 12th, 2025
https://therecord.media/cyber-command-nsa-potential-pick-lt-gen-joshua-rudd
A senior U.S. military officer with no digital warfare experience has emerged as a top contender to lead U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, Recorded Future News has learned.
President Donald Trump is considering Army Lt. Gen. Joshua Rudd — the No. 2 at U.S. Indo-Pacific Command — for the “dual-hat” leadership role atop the two entities, according to multiple people familiar with the administration’s search.
These people, who were granted anonymity to speak more freely about the process, stressed that Rudd could easily fall out of contention, given the already drawn-out, chaotic process that has seen two candidates — including the current acting Cyber Command and NSA chief — ultimately not receive the nomination.
The military’s top cyberwarfare organization and the world’s most powerful electronic spying agency have been without a permanent leader for more than seven months now, since Trump fired Air Force Gen. Timothy Haugh, along with his top NSA deputy.
The moves, for which far-right activist Laura Loomer later claimed credit, have shaken both Cyber Command and the NSA, though key leadership posts have begun to be filled at the spy agency.
The command has two other positions that will be filled once the top spot is settled.
Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Lorna Mahlock, the head of the Cyber National Mission Force (CNMF), would be named the next deputy chief, according to sources.
Brig. Gen. Matthew Lennox, a senior leader at Army Cyber Command, would then succeed Mahlock to lead the command’s premiere force and receive his second star.
Special ops experience
Unlike other potential picks, such as Army Lt. Gen. Paul Stanton, the leader of Cyber Command’s network defense arm, Rudd, according to his official biography, has no experience in cybersecurity or signals intelligence — the sensitive work performed by the NSA to collect and analyze foreign electronic communications.
In his current job, Rudd helps to oversee the command's strategic objectives in the vast Indo-Pacific theater, such as deterrence and cooperation with partners and allies. For example, he has represented INDOPACOM in diplomatic engagements with Japan and Brunei.
Prior to becoming the command’s deputy last year, he served as its chief of staff. He previously was the head of Special Operations Command Pacific. Among other leadership positions within special forces, he deployed multiple times to Iraq and Afghanistan.
While Rudd’s resume may not boast the same background as Stanton or other contenders, like Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas Hensley, the head of his service’s information warfare command, there are several factors working in his favor.
His boss, INDOPACOM chief Adm. Samuel Papparo, is pushing his candidacy with Pentagon brass, according to two sources. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is also supportive of his bid, another source told Recorded Future News.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Rudd’s background aligns with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s desire to see someone who has led combat forces as the next Cyber Command chief.
His various roles in the Pacific also dovetail with the administration’s desire to improve U.S. posture in the region for a potential future conflict with China, particularly if Beijing were to invade Taiwan.
The U.S. intelligence community and cybersecurity officials have long warned that if an invasion happens, China would likely try to hobble critical U.S. systems with cyberattacks on military transport systems and key civilian services, like water and electricity.
Below the dual-hat
If Mahlock is tapped to be Cyber Command’s deputy, it would be somewhat of a surprise.
Her personal background — she was born in Jamaica and immigrated to the U.S as a teenager before enlisting in the military just three months after arriving in the country — is counter to narratives pushed by Hegseth and other administration officials against so-called “diversity, equity, and inclusion” efforts.
In addition, Hegseth has dismissed, or stopped the promotion of, several female military officers with no explanation.
Mahlock was the first Black woman to achieve the rank of brigadier general in the Marine Corps and was the service’s first female chief information officer. Before taking the reins of CNMF, she was the first military deputy director for combat support for the NSA’s Cybersecurity Directorate.
As for Lennox, he previously served as the CNMF’s deputy commander for operations. The digital warfighting corps is at the forefront of U.S. efforts against foreign adversaries online, including “hunt forward” missions around the globe to glean the tactics of malicious actors and acquire new malware samples.
In his role at Army Cyber Command, Lennox leads a team that provides cyberspace support to U.S. Central, Africa and Northern Commands.
For example, he was in the chain-of-command earlier this year for Operation Midnight Hammer, which saw U.S. bombers hit multiple Iranian nuclear sites.
“The strike package was supported by U.S. Strategic Command, U.S. Transportation Command, U.S. Cyber Command, U.S. Space Command, U.S. Space Force and U.S. European command,” Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters in a briefing at the Pentagon after the mission.
No further details about Cyber Command’s efforts have been disclosed.
therecord.media
2. SOF News: RAND Study: TBI and SOF
Excerpt:
The RAND study provides a road map for researchers, funders, and policymakers for further TBI research that will close the knowledge gaps.
RAND Study: TBI and SOF
November 13, 2025 John Friberg SOF 0
https://sof.news/sof/tbi-sof-study/
A new publication has been issued that maps the progress of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) research from January 2015 through June 2025. The pub identifies overlaps and gaps in specific areas as well as highlights areas that received the most-focused investment. TBI is a signature wound of war that has affected more than 500,000 service members since 2000.
Special Operations Forces (SOF) personnel have been particularly at high risk because of frequent blast exposures and repetitive neurological stresses. However, there has been a distinct difference on the number TBI studies done on SOF personnel when compared to other populations within the military services. SOF has been under represented in the TBI research despite facing a higher risk of blast exposure and TBI.
Many TBIs go undiagnosed and are mild – but they often occur along with posttraumatic stress disorder and depression. This can lead to long-term health conditions. The study finds that despite significant funding from federal and private sources, the TBI research is fragmented and siloed.
The RAND study provides a road map for researchers, funders, and policymakers for further TBI research that will close the knowledge gaps. It calls for a more coordinated research agenda that will lead to better prevention, diagnosis, care, and long-term recovery.
The Invisible Wounds Foundation, an organization dedicated to supporting meaningful service-related TBI research, commissioned RAND to conduct a review of the TBI studies from the past ten years with an emphasis on the special operations community.
Read more in A Review of U.S. Military Traumatic Brain Injury Studies: Trends, Gaps, and Opportunities, RAND Corporation, 2025. (PDF, 56 pages)
**********
Invisible Woulds Foundation
https://invisiblewounds.org/
3. Opinion | The CIA’s Battle With Truth
Summary:
True “truth and reconciliation” in U.S. politics is impossible because media and intelligence figures remain unwilling to admit past errors. It criticizes the CIA, FBI, and press for spreading or accepting falsehoods during the Trump-Russia era, claiming their deceit backfired, strengthening Trump and corroding public trust.
Comment: An interesting argument. "Incompetence counts" and matters (in obvious negative ways). I do not offer this from a partisan perspective andI am not taking a partisan side. We do need to know what happened but can we ever know? As an aside, I think part of the problem is that we need to understand intent. Some actors certainly had very partisan and malign intent. Others likely believed they were doing the right thing. And some of both and others appear to have been incompetent. And I think problems are further compounded because there seems to be such a mixture of truths and falsehoods at various levels but factions on each side of the issue paint it as black and white - arguing it is all true or all a lie when in fact there appears to be a mixture of lies, half truths, and truth.
Opinion | The CIA’s Battle With Truth
WSJ
Reconciliation might come if lies could be admitted without fear of prosecution.
Nov. 11, 2025 5:24 pm ET
President Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021. Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press
When journalists of the British Broadcasting Corp., in a 2024 video, snipped Donald Trump’s speech before the Jan. 6 riot to remove his call for peaceful protest, then linked the remaining passage to words he spoke an hour later calling on followers to fight, they had to have known what they were doing.
Next they showed the Proud Boys marching on the Capitol as if in response to Mr. Trump’s instruction, though the Proud Boys march had taken place before Mr. Trump spoke.
“Mistakes are made,” a BBC official admits. Uh huh. The British public wasn’t watching closely enough to notice or be fooled. These were lies by journalists to please themselves.
I got a sense in late 2016 watching a network panel show: To on-air personalities, Mr. Trump was a gift they had been waiting for, a Republican so disreputable they could put words in his mouth with impunity, allowing them to strike triumphant gotcha poses.
This week two senior leaders of the British broadcaster stepped down over the actions described above and a question naturally occurs: Isn’t this pattern getting awfully old?
If Trump enemies like former Obama CIA chief John Brennan are now to be criminally prosecuted in the collusion hoax, at least it will be over events that actually happened. If some are charged with “process” crimes, such as lying to investigators, at least it won’t be the direct result, as it was for Trump associates, of investigations spawned by manufactured evidence.
And it’s already clear today’s defendants will get a much more sympathetic version of due process from the courts and judges than Trump defendants got.
But criminal prosecutions also won’t produce “truth and reconciliation”—to borrow the title other countries have used for air-clearing inquiries designed to allow the truth to be acknowledged by exactly those with the least personal, reputational and institutional incentive to acknowledge it.
This approach is liberating. It solves what I might call the Brennan problem, which afflicts officials who might otherwise have to spend their natural lives ducking and weaving about what they did in office. Indeed, because disinformation is part of Mr. Brennan’s profession, he might have been expected already to have obliquely acknowledged the CIA’s contribution to spreading false claims about Mr. Trump while still hanging onto a belief in the righteousness of its motives.
Except for a problem. It’s not the disinformation he and allies may find hard to admit, it’s the incompetence—the BBC-like incompetence. Like the BBC, in fact, their acts look competent only if their goal was to serve up a big win for Mr. Trump—to validate him and to discredit themselves. Then their method makes sense: attaching themselves repeatedly to fake evidence destined to be exposed as fake. The Steele dossier. The fabricated evidence of FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith. The lies about Hunter Biden’s laptop. At the start of it all, the flimsy Russian “intelligence” that FBI chief James Comey seized upon to justify improper acts in the Hillary Clinton email case, which likely ended up causing Mr. Trump’s victory in 2016.
Mr. Trump, I’m guessing, sees criminal prosecutions as counterprogramming for the impeachments to come. For the rest of us, the results can only be bad. “Truth and reconciliation” aims to make it no longer socially acceptable or personally necessary to lie about events everyone knows took place. Unfortunately this doesn’t work when the press itself is party to the coverup. Indeed, somewhere in his mind, Mr. Brennan must be thinking: If not for so willing and compliant and credulous a media, we would never have ventured as far and disastrously down this road as we did, which only worked to Mr. Trump’s benefit.
It’s an argument I’ve been making since May 2017, when the real premise for Mr. Comey’s actions in the Clinton case became known. Trumpers and anti-Trumpers should be united in pursuit of the truth. Mr. Trump and his supporters are rightly angry over government-sponsored lies. But anti-Trumpers should see that the results have only been perverse. The re-election of Mr. Trump? The untrammeled and retributive presidency he now exercises? Hard to imagine if not for the serial lies, and then their exposure, of the Clinton, Obama and Biden cabals, helped along by a compromised news media.
The absurdity only compounds itself. The need to protect past lies begets new lies. There can’t be reconciliation when large interests are invested in not facing the truth. The biggest and longest-lasting cost of this episode? Media figures and establishment media institutions who now go forward zombie-like, lying about what happened after 2016. Who knows what damage our country may yet suffer from this? Our generation has redefined the old slur “yellow journalism.” Its new meaning: journalism by journalists who, in their personal cowardice and cravenness, deny their audiences the truths that their audiences are owed.
Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the November 12, 2025, print edition as 'The CIA’s Battle With Truth'.
WSJ
4. Xi Joins Trump in Skipping G-20 Summit in Blow to South Africa
Summary:
Xi and Trump will both skip the G-20 summit in South Africa, leaving the event without leaders of the world’s top economies; China will send Premier Li instead.
Comment: The G2 is snubbing the G20. (note sarcasm) Who are we sending? Who is our equivalent to Premier Li - the VP?
Xi Joins Trump in Skipping G-20 Summit in Blow to South Africa
By Bloomberg News
November 13, 2025 at 4:16 AM EST
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-13/xi-joins-trump-in-skipping-g-20-summit-in-blow-to-south-africa?sref=hhjZtX76
Takeaways by Bloomberg AI
Hide
- Chinese President Xi Jinping will not join the Group of 20 summit later this month, with Premier Li Qiang representing China instead.
- Xi's decision means the summit will lack the leaders of the world's two largest economies and fellow member Russia, as US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will also be absent.
- Xi's absence at the G-20 meeting doesn't indicate a downgrade in the importance of the event to Beijing, according to Scott Kennedy, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Chinese President Xi Jinping will not join the Group of 20 summit later this month, a move that will be a blow to host South Africa that’s already facing a boycott from US President Donald Trump.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced Thursday that Premier Li Qiang would represent the Asian nation at the leaders’ summit, which kicks off in Johannesburg on Nov. 22. The statement didn’t explain why Xi, who attended the event last year, will be absent this time.
Xi’s decision means the summit, created to address global economic issues and typically attended by heads of state, will lack the leaders of the world’s two largest economies and fellow member Russia. Trump earlier said no US officials would attend, following his attacks on South Africa for allegedly mistreating White Afrikaners. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s travel remains curtailed by an International Criminal Court arrest warrant.
Read More: South Africa G-20 Looks Short on World Leaders: Balance of Power
The Chinese leader has pulled back extensively on international travel since the pandemic except for major summits packed with power meetings on the sidelines, like the one he had with Trump in South Korea last month before the APEC summit.
He instead has carried out what Beijing calls “home-court diplomacy.” He hosted Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un earlier this year, as the Chinese leader seeks closer ties with regional nations amid intensifying rivalry with the US. Xi visited South Africa in 2023 for the BRICS summit, and hosted African leaders in Beijing last year.
Scott Kennedy, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said Xi’s absence at the G-20 meeting doesn’t indicate a downgrade in the importance of the event to Beijing.
“I don’t see any drop off in their view that those global governance institutions are important avenues for China to communicate its message,” he said.
Lin Jian, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said at a regular briefing on Thursday that the Johannesburg gathering “carries significant historical importance” as it’s the first G-20 summit on the African continent and expressed support for South Africa as the chair.
Li, China’s No. 2 official, has represented Xi at some major international events in recent years. He filled in for his boss at the G-20 summit in India in 2023 and a gathering of BRICS leaders in Brazil in July.
5. Japan spoke up; S Korea must, too (on Taiwan)
Summary:
Japan warns a Taiwan attack threatens its survival; South Korea stays ambiguous. Geography, trade, and economic risk mean a Taiwan conflict would be existential for Seoul, demanding clearer deterrence.
Comment: It is imperative that Seoul describes how a Taiwan contingency will affect Seoul's national security and national prosperity. Staying silent doesn't prevent war. Being strong in word and deed and united with allies does.
Thu, Nov 13, 2025 page8
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2025/11/13/2003847107
Japan spoke up; S Korea must, too
- By Alan Jeong 鄭勳燦
- Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Friday last week became the first leader in Japan’s postwar history to publicly declare that a Chinese attack on Taiwan would threaten Japan’s survival. Based on that statement, Japan could justify exercising its right to self-defense in providing direct support to Taiwan in the event of a Taiwan contingency.
- In South Korea, the tone is strikingly different. In a Time magazine interview published on May 29, then-South Korean presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung was asked whether he would help defend Taiwan if China invaded. He gave what Time called a “cryptic” response: “I will think about that answer when aliens are about to invade the Earth.”
- Now as president, Lee continues to emphasize national-interest-centered pragmatic diplomacy, prioritizing maneuverability amid US-China strategic rivalry.
- Some attribute Seoul’s reticence to its preoccupation with the North Korean threat. Yet Lee’s progressive government favors engagement over confrontation with Pyongyang, making the North Korea factor less decisive than many assume.
- Seoul’s restraint runs deeper, rooted in a reluctance, and perhaps a willful blindness, to take sides. It avoids asking how a Taiwan conflict might pull it in — or how US forces in South Korea would respond. That silence is not prudence; it is denial, and denial in this region breeds miscalculation.
- Not just Japan, but also South Korea, needs absolute deterrence in the Taiwan Strait. A Taiwan contingency would be existential for South Korea. Geographically, the capital, Seoul, lies closer to Taiwan than Tokyo. Economically, South Korea’s prosperity is inseparable from the maritime stability surrounding Taiwan. More than 90 percent of South Korea’s maritime trade volume transits the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.
- A Bloomberg Economics analysis released in January last year forecast that a war in the Taiwan Strait would slash global GDP by 10 percent — with Taiwan facing a 40 percent drop, China 16.7 percent, Japan 13.5 percent, the US 6.7 percent and South Korea 23.3 percent, the second-worst after Taiwan. Simply put, a conflict in the Strait would devastate South Korea’s economy even if it did not fire a single shot.
- South Korea cannot afford to treat stability in the Taiwan Strait as a distant concern. If Seoul stays silent, it might lead Beijing to believe it could invade Taiwan without facing any response from South Korea — a contrast to Japan’s growing resolve.
- Japan has drawn its line; South Korea hesitates behind ambiguity. However, geography and economics leave Seoul no room for illusion: A Taiwan contingency would be a South Korea contingency. The choice is between preparedness and peril.
- Alan Jeong is a student at Georgetown University in Washington.
6. Here are the Easter Eggs built into West Point's latest Army-Navy football uniform
Comment: Sometimes there is nothing better than history, custom, and tradition. Photos at the link.
Here are the Easter Eggs built into West Point's latest Army-Navy football uniform
A little-known ceremonial weapon is one of several hidden details in the uniforms that will be worn by the U.S. Military Academy in next month's Army-Navy game.
Matt White
Published Nov 12, 2025 2:05 PM EST
taskandpurpose.com · Matt White
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/hidden-details-army-football-uniform/?utm
If you’ve never heard of a soldier armed with an “espontoon,” that might be because there’s only one in the entire U.S. Army, and it’s held for strictly ceremonial use in the service’s most hallowed infantry unit.
But the little-known ceremonial weapon will be front and center for next month’s Army-Navy game, depicted on the top of the football helmets that players from the U.S. Military Academy will wear in their annual showdown with the U.S. Naval Academy.
The espontoon blade will be among the most prominent of several hidden-in-plain-sight details included on the uniforms worn by West Point’s football team, which the school made public on Wednesday.
Over the last decade, both Army and Navy have worn distinctive, one-time-only uniforms that celebrate elements of their service for the annual game. A Navy official told Task & Purpose they would announce their specialized uniforms closer to the game.
The Army uniform honors the service’s 250th anniversary and the Continental Army, keeping with recent uniform themes that honored fighting units or particular campaigns.
Left, the espontoon carried by the Drum Major of the Fife and Drum Corps, 3d U.S. Infantry Regiment. Right, the 2025 Army-Navy football helmet with the espontoon blade depicted on the crown. Department of Defense photo by U.S. Army Sgt. Amber I. Smith; Helmet photo from Army West Point Football Facebook page.
The mostly-white uniforms “pay tribute to 250 years of service since the Army was founded as the Continental Army in 1775 ahead of the Revolutionary War,” according to a website for the uniforms.
Most notably, the uniform numbers and names use a distinctive script that mirrors that in the Constitution.
“Written in the same style as the United States Constitution, it showcases the importance of having an Army that swears loyalty to a set of ideas rather than a monarch,” the release said.
The black script is on a uniform that appears white but is actually a print of white marble, a callback to wartime memorials and headstones. “From the beaches of Normandy to the rolling hills of Arlington National Cemetery, marble headstones represent the sacrifice of generations of soldiers who have upheld the army’s values and given their last full measure of devotion to their nation.”
Both academies have worn special, one-time uniforms for the Army-Navy game for several years, as has the Air Force Academy for its games with the rival academies. As the home team in 2024 — the designated host/visitor roles switch each year — the Army wore an all-black uniform dedicated to the 101st Airborne, and one for the 3rd Infantry Division in 2023. The 2021 uniform focused on Special Forces soldiers of Task Force Dagger, who routed Taliban forces in Afghanistan in 2001 — though the website created to celebrate those uniforms and the Green Berets behind them inadvertently featured several Air Force operators in prominent spots.
Continental Army ‘Easter eggs’ in West Point’s 2025 Army-Navy football uniform, from left: the Drum and Fife espontoon depicted on the helmet; purple stitching symbolic of the Purple Heart, first awarded to Continental Army soldiers; typeface taken from the U.S. Constitution; a chain logo, emblematic of the 75-ton chain used to blockade the Hudson River.
The 2025 Army uniform includes several other Revolutionary War-era details. Near the collar is a chain that calls back to a 75-ton chain strung across the Hudson River near West Point to blockade British ships. Stitching and highlights are purple, the color of sacrifice associated with the Purple Heart medal, which was first awarded to Continental Army soldiers in 1783.
But at the top of the helmet is perhaps the deepest symbolic cut, a pointed blade that mirrors the ceremonial espontoon — a lance-like pole with a pointed blade — carried exclusively by the drum major of the Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps.
The Fife and Drum Corps is embedded in the 3rd Infantry Regiment, known as The Old Guard, the unit that performs all ceremonies at Arlington Cemetery. Unlike other military bands, the Fife and Drum perform as Continental Army, wearing period-correct Continental Army uniforms and playing only fifes, bugles, snare drums, and bass drums, the same instruments that George Washington’s soldiers marched under.
Rather than a traditional mace, the leader of the Fife and Drum carries the espontoon, a lance-like weapon common in 17th and 18th-century infantry, which traces its use to the polearms and other spear weapons of pre-modern warfare.
The Army-Navy game is Dec. 13 in Baltimore, Maryland.
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Matt White is a senior editor at Task & Purpose. He was a pararescueman in the Air Force and the Alaska Air National Guard for eight years and has more than a decade of experience in daily and magazine journalism.
taskandpurpose.com · Matt White
7. China’s moment: When Washington and Moscow both bow to Beijing
Summary:
China has reached unprecedented global influence, with both Washington and Moscow increasingly constrained by Beijing’s economic power and strategic leverage. Russia, weakened by sanctions and the Ukraine war, is now heavily dependent on Chinese trade, technology, and dual-use supplies. The U.S., once the unilateral enforcer in the relationship, now finds itself forced back to negotiations after China weaponized its dominance in rare earths and critical supply chains. Recent trade confrontations and the Xi–Trump summit underscore this shift: China can now inflict real economic pain on the U.S. while maintaining decisive leverage over Russia, placing Beijing at the center of global power politics.
Comment: Accurate assessment? How vulnerable are we to China? And what about the reverse? How vulnerable is China to the US? How will this strategic competition play out?
China’s moment: When Washington and Moscow both bow to Beijing - Asia Times
After Trump’s latest climbdown, China today stands at a height of international influence it has never known before
by Linggong Kong
November 12, 2025
asiatimes.com · Linggong Kong
https://asiatimes.com/2025/11/chinas-moment-when-washington-and-moscow-both-bow-to-beijing/
Recently, the Xi–Trump summit in South Korea drew significant attention. While there’s been much debate over who came out on top, one thing is clear: China’s influence on the global stage has reached an unprecedented level.
Decades ago, China was a country caught between the two poles of the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, forced to survive by playing a delicate balancing act. Today, times have changed. China now holds critical leverage over both Washington and Moscow, with the power to make each side take its cues from Beijing.
During the Soviet era, China looked up to its “Big Brother,” admiring and respecting the Soviet Union as the powerful leader of the socialist camp. Blocked by the United States and the West, China relied heavily on Soviet economic and military assistance, and Moscow wielded significant influence over Beijing’s politics.
Even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia, still regarded as the world’s second-strongest military power, continued to wield considerable influence over China, particularly through Beijing’s reliance on Russian arms imports to modernize its military.
However, as Russia’s economy continues to deteriorate under long-term Western sanctions and its national power declines, especially since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the country has suffered an unprecedented blow to both its economy and military. As a result, Russia has become increasingly dependent on China to keep its system running.
China has since become an indispensable partner, serving as Russia’s largest trading counterpart for both imports and exports. In 2024, bilateral trade hit a record high of US$237 billion, with China now a crucial buyer of Russian oil and gas. Moreover, China’s supply of dual-use goods has become a vital lifeline for Russia’s defense industry amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
With the West stepping up military aid to Kyiv and tightening sanctions on Moscow, a Russia unwilling to relinquish its claims over Ukrainian territory has been left with no choice but to lean ever more heavily on Beijing.
This shifting power dynamic was on full display during China’s military parade in September, where Vladimir Putin, long seen as a political strongman, stood beside Xi Jinping with a deferential demeanor, appearing almost like a subordinate to the Chinese leader.
From unilateral enforcer to reluctant negotiator
It’s well known that a major reason behind the establishment of US–China diplomatic relations was Beijing’s desire to rely on Washington to counterbalance its once-ally, the Soviet Union, which had grown increasingly hostile and threatening.
After the Soviet Union collapsed, the United States emerged as the world’s sole superpower, and its influence on China became undeniable. China’s reform and opening were, in many ways, built on its engagement with the US, which helped it integrate into the global economy.
For years, Washington has imposed a range of sanctions on China, citing issues such as human rights, Hong Kong, and national security, through measures like trade restrictions, export controls, and military embargoes. In response, Beijing has largely confined itself to diplomatic protests and limited visa bans on certain US officials, measures that are largely symbolic and have inflicted little real damage on Washington.
In short, America has long been the unilateral enforcer of sanctions, while China has been the unilateral recipient. During Donald Trump’s second term, Washington launched a new round of trade warfare against China. But this time, Beijing broke from its past role as a passive recipient of sanctions.
Leveraging its dominant position in global supply chains, especially in critical rare earth materials and its influence over key exports like soybeans, on which the US heavily depends, China struck back with a series of targeted measures. These counteractions dealt real damage to the US economy, forcing Washington back to the negotiating table.
The shift in power dynamics became even more evident during the renewed trade turbulence in October. Despite both sides reaching a truce over the summer after multiple rounds of talks, tensions flared up again in the fall. At the end of September, the Trump administration expanded export control measures—extending the Entity List and Military End User (MEU) restrictions to non-US entities that are 50% or more owned, directly or indirectly, by listed parties—and imposed new port fees on Chinese vessels.
Beijing responded swiftly and decisively. In addition to mirroring the port fees on US ships, China introduced new export controls with extraterritorial reach on rare earth materials, catching Washington off guard and leaving the White House visibly frustrated.
Yet, faced with China’s overwhelming dominance in the rare earth supply chain, the US had little choice but to step back and seek de-escalation. Before long, both sides again returned to the negotiating table in Malaysia, announcing another temporary ceasefire in their trade war.
Although the Xi–Trump summit on October 30 appeared to bring greater stability to the latest US–China trade truce, it also revealed a critical truth: In this ongoing contest, Beijing holds a powerful card in its leverage over rare earths.
Washington’s eagerness to re-engage with Beijing over this issue underscores how the US is no longer the dominant player capable of imposing unilateral sanctions, but rather a reactive negotiator constrained by China’s control over essential resources.
While the United States has reached agreements with Australia and Japan to jointly strengthen control over the rare earth supply chain, achieving that goal will take years. China, for its part, has no intention of passively watching its “rare earth advantage” erode.
Instead, Beijing is expected to make full use of this strategic window to maximize its national interests through its monopoly on these critical materials.
As economic and security frictions between the two powers continue to intensify, one can expect China to repeatedly play the rare earth card whenever Washington attempts to exert pressure, forcing the US back to the negotiating table as the less powerful side.
On top of the world
Just as Vladimir Putin walked beside Xi Jinping with a deferential air during China’s military parade on September 3, and as Donald Trump warmly welcomed Xi at their October 30 summit and saw him off with unusual courtesy afterward, China today stands at a height of international influence it has never known before.
Once a nation struggling to survive between the competing power of the US and the Soviet Union, China has now reached a point where both of those former pillars of global power — Washington and Moscow — find themselves constrained by Beijing’s power and influence.
Whether this situation can be broken depends in part on Moscow’s willingness to continue the war in Ukraine, and on how quickly Washington and its allies can reduce their dependence on China in critical supply chains.
Linggong Kong is a PhD candidate in political science at Auburn University, where his research focuses on international relations, China’s grand strategy and Northeast Asian security. His commentaries have been published or republished in The Conversation, The Diplomat, Asia Times, China Factor and Newsweek Japan, among others.
asiatimes.com · Linggong Kong
8. Opinion | The Heritage Foundation Loses Its Way
Comment: What does the future hold for Heritage? I have known so many good people who have worked there.
Opinion | The Heritage Foundation Loses Its Way
WSJ
By Jason L. Riley
Updated Nov. 12, 2025 9:32 am ET
The think tank gave up its independence and became partisan. That explains why it’s been struggling.
Nov. 11, 2025 4:48 pm ET
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-heritage-foundation-loses-its-way-5f958d03
The Heritage Foundation in Washington, Oct. 21, 2024. kevin mohatt/Reuters
Vice President JD Vance said in the wake of last week’s election and the Heritage Foundation fiasco that “infighting” among Republicans is “stupid.” But sometimes infighting can be constructive.
In the 1960s, William F. Buckley famously shunned conspiracy-minded Birchers, to the lasting benefit of the conservative movement. The current effort to marginalize figures such as Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon and Nick Fuentes is evidence that the political right is still capable of policing itself.
Probably no one who read Kate Odell’s interview with Heritage President Kevin Roberts in these pages two years ago was surprised by his recent behavior. The organization isn’t what it used to be. Not long ago, Heritage stood for defending America’s democratic allies against aggression from bad actors. Mr. Roberts spent most of the Journal interview explaining why we should abandon Ukraine in its fight against Russia and focus on domestic issues—as if we can’t do both. The U.S. is “a lot weaker” than it used to be, he said, and it “can’t be as active and interventionist as we might otherwise be.”
Heritage’s positions on free markets, immigration and other domestic issues have also evolved. The changes predate Mr. Roberts but have accelerated on his watch. These days the organization’s leadership seems most interested in staying in the good graces of Trump populists and social-media superstars—even if that means defending Mr. Carlson’s appalling decision to humor racist cranks.
In a recent interview on “The Dispatch Podcast,” conservative activist Tim Chapman contrasted Mr. Roberts’s priorities with those of Ed Feulner (1941-2025), who co-founded Heritage in 1973 as a counterweight to the Brookings Institution and other liberal think tanks. It was right-leaning but existed outside of the GOP, a place where conservative ideas could develop, incubate and ultimately inform Republican policy initiatives.
“The Republican Party and the conservative movement have never been the exact same thing,” said Mr. Chapman, who worked at Heritage for more than 10 years. “The politicians have benefited by having a conservative movement that was outside of them and called them to higher standards. Historically, that’s what Heritage did.”
Mr. Chapman recalled a story about Feulner’s opposition to George H.W. Bush’s plan to raise taxes. After a meeting where Feulner aired his misgivings, the U.S. president told the Heritage president, “You’ll never be invited back to this White House.” Feulner responded, “With all due respect, Mr. President, Heritage will be here a long time after you’re gone.”
According to Mr. Chapman, Heritage consciously decided to alter its mission. It is becoming the “enforcer” of the party leadership. What the White House proposes, Heritage advocates, regardless of the policy’s merit or the organization’s past positions. The rationalization is that the country faces an existential crisis and the Trump movement is the only way to save it from the political left.
Mr. Chapman’s assessment may be correct. Unfortunately, too many people on the left and right now traffic in apocalyptic scenarios should their political opponents prevail. The reality is that the country remains divided, but democracy isn’t under mortal threat, as evidenced by the robust turnout in last week’s off-year elections.
Think tanks can still play a positive role in our political debates, and many of them do. But Heritage would do better to change course and return to its roots. Conservatism needs organizations like Heritage far more than the left does. The political right, perhaps more than ever, needs the type of guidance that Heritage provided in its heyday. Liberals already control most universities, nonprofits and mainstream news outlets. Think tanks on the right—the Hoover Institution, the Cato Institute, the Manhattan Institute, the American Enterprise Institute—have long been a haven for scholars who aren’t welcome in the faculty lounge.
The value-added of these organizations isn’t political advocacy. It’s data-driven policy analysis based on empirical research. Heritage serves as a cautionary tale for what can happen when telling politicians what they want to hear becomes your North Star.
Like many conservative journalists who write about politics, I’ve had a long and fruitful relationship with Heritage. Over the decades I’ve cited their scholars and spoken at their events. I considered Ed Feulner, whom I first met in the 1990s at a Heritage holiday party, a friend. I’d like to see the organization succeed, but that will require making difficult decisions about which people should be welcome in the conservative movement, and which ones should be shown the door.
Tucker Carlson's interview with white supremacist Nick Fuentes--and Heritage Foundation President Kevin Robert's initial defense of it--is highlighting a rift in the conservative movement. Kim Strassel looks to that future with Tim Chapman, president of conservative advocacy group Advancing American Freedom. The two discuss the recent rise of the New Right/National Conservative movement under Donald Trump, its abandonment of longstanding free-market principles, and some of its more toxic cultural elements.
Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the November 12, 2025, print edition as 'How the Heritage Foundation Lost Its Way'.
WSJ
9. Operational Errors and Civilian Casualties
Summary:
Flawed intelligence, operational errors, and limited transparency in U.S. strategy, especially after the 2014 shift to airpower and CIA-backed night raids, caused significant civilian casualties in Afghanistan. Reliance on pattern-based targeting, inadequate investigations, and covert operations fueled insurgent propaganda and eroded legitimacy. The author urges stronger safeguards, independent reviews, and accountable use of emerging technologies like AI to reduce civilian harm in future conflicts.
Excerpts:
Department of Defense’s 2022 Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan (CHMRAP), prompted by the 2021 drone strike in Kabul, was a step in the right direction. The plan reads: “Protecting civilians from harm is not only a moral imperative, it is also critical to achieving long-term success on the battlefield.” However, CHMRAP was not applied retroactively, leaving the victims of airstrikes before 2022 without the opportunity to have their cases re-examined for credibility. Also, its future remains uncertain, and concerns persist over efforts to scale it back. In addition, the United Nations’ Political Declaration on Strengthening the Protection of Civilians from the Humanitarian Consequences Arising from the Use of Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas offers additional pathways for reform.
The Afghanistan War Commission and SIGAR’s Lessons Learned Program should provide specific guidelines and statutory measures that outline how their findings will be used to ensure accountability and justice for victims as well, and how they will help the U.S. government avoid repeating similar errors in other contexts.
Finally, civilian protection remains a concern in the age of artificial intelligence and autonomous drones, particularly as the laws of war were originally designed for conventional conflicts. A critical question arises: how can an autonomous drone reliably distinguish between a civilian and a combatant without sufficient or unbiased data? Until now, the U.S. Department of Defense Directive 3000.09, which governs the development and use of autonomous weapons systems, mandates human in-the-loop to ensure accountability, ethical judgment, and compliance with international law. However, the effectiveness of such policies ultimately depends on how they are implemented, especially in complex urban settings where limited transparency and weak data inputs continue to contribute to civilian harm.
Operational Errors and Civilian Casualties
by Fatima Airan
|
11.13.2025 at 06:00am
https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/11/13/operational-errors-and-civilian-causalities/
Abstract
This article examines how inadequate intelligence gathering, operational errors, and a lack of transparency in U.S. military strategy during the Afghanistan war contributed to civilian casualties. Focusing on the transition to aerial warfare after 2014 and covert night raids, it highlights how reliance on pattern-based targeting, limited accountability, and covert operations undermined civilian protection, fueled insurgent propaganda, and eroded legitimacy. The piece advocates for stronger safeguards, independent review mechanisms, and clearer accountability frameworks to mitigate civilian harm in future conflicts, particularly as artificial intelligence and autonomous systems increasingly shape modern warfare.
Two Decades of War
In the wake of the September 11 attacks, the United States launched the Global War on Terror to dismantle al-Qaeda. Central to this campaign was toppling the Taliban regime (1996-2001), which had provided sanctuary to al-Qaeda, leading to a 20-year-long military engagement in Afghanistan. By the time the U.S. forces withdrew in 2021, the conflict had cost approximately $2.3 trillion. The human cost has been as staggering, with an estimated 174,000 people killed. Despite the massive investments of resources and human life, the Taliban returned to power in 2021, and al-Qaeda remains active in Afghanistan, rebuilding quietly while maintaining close ties with the Taliban.
In response to the conflict’s outcome, numerous studies have been conducted on the war, citing factors such as inconsistent decision-making, corruption, strategic miscalculations, and the inability to disrupt insurgents’ financial networks, particularly through flawed counternarcotic programs. To consolidate insights from the war, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) launched the Lessons Learned Program. Congress later expanded this effort by establishing the Afghanistan War Commission to examine the full scope of U.S. military, diplomatic, and intelligence involvement.
Building on these assessments, this article examines two key missteps in the war’s execution: first, lethal operational errors resulting from inadequate intelligence gathering and insufficient analysis; and second, a lack of transparency. These missteps are analyzed in the context of the 2014 transition from ground operations to aerial warfare and the conduct of covert night raids. These failures had severe consequences for civilians, shaping public perception and the war’s trajectory. While some argue that fewer operational constraints might have brought the conflict to a quicker end, they often result in civilian harm, alienating local populations and enabling insurgent propaganda.
The Promise and Peril of Precision Warfare
In 2014, the United States declared the end of its ground combat operations and shifted to primarily providing air support and advisory assistance to Afghanistan forces battling the Taliban, while continuing covert operations. Two years later, in 2016, the use of airstrikes was authorized against the Taliban, expanding beyond prior limitations that allowed strikes only in cases of self-defense when U.S. troops came under attack. This transition marked a broader transformation in the U.S. military’s approach to warfare; one increasingly characterized by the use of remote-controlled aircraft and drones operated by people thousands of miles from the battlefield, relying on suspicion-driven targeting. This model of high-tech warfare has since become a defining feature of military engagement in war zones, and it is poised to shape future conflicts.
However, this strategy proves deeply problematic in an asymmetric conflict where non-state armed actors easily blend in and operate within civilian areas, blurring the boundaries between military and civilians. In such environments, infrastructures often turn into dual-use objects. Under such conditions, accurately identifying and striking targets becomes increasingly difficult, particularly in urban centers.
The Taliban in Afghanistan exploited this operational ambiguity, often using civilians and their homes as shields. Their frequent use of Lower-Case Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) – including roadside bombs and suicide attacks – indiscriminately killed civilians and military personnel alike. In some cases, they used children as young as 13 to carry out these attacks – further complicating the distinction. ISIS-K emerged in 2015 in eastern Afghanistan, adding to the already existing toll of civilian casualties through the same tactics. Between 2011 and 2016, IEDs accounted for approximately 81% of all civilian casualties. International humanitarian law requires strict adherence to the principles of distinction and proportionality. Nonetheless, the Taliban and ISIS-K routinely violated these principles.
The United States increased its reliance on aerial operations after transitioning away from ground combat in 2014. Airstrikes became the centerpiece of the U.S. strategy. In this transition, minimum civilian harm was a hoped-for outcome. However, in practice, according to an investigation, in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, strikes were often dependent on the quality of surveillance, behavioral cues, and pattern-based targeting, such as vehicle movement or location patterns, rather than reliable, human-sourced intelligence. This approach increased the risk of error, especially in urban environments where civilian presence was unavoidable. As a result, 70–90% of those killed or injured by air-dropped munitions in these settings are civilians.
The scale of air operations was extensive. The U.S. Air Force Central Command conducted 26,227 airstrikes between 2014 to 2021 in Afghanistan. However, these figures have been contested, which has since raised concerns about transparency in the conduct of war. For instance, in 2016, at least 456 airstrikes were not recorded as part of the open-source database maintained by the U.S. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) released monthly airstrike data until 2015, but reports grew increasingly inconsistent, with significant discrepancies between the U.S. government, United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), and independent media. In addition to the number of airstrikes, the ones that resulted in civilian casualties have not been adequately assessed.
Several high-profile incidents illustrate the human cost of these operations. In 2015, a U.S. airstrike struck a Doctors Without Borders trauma center, killing at least 42 medical staff, patients, and caretakers. The center was not considered a dual-use facility and had no military function. A subsequent U.S. investigation acknowledged that 30 civilians had been killed and 37 injured, citing “avoidable human error” as the cause. Contributing factors included operational fatigue, inadequate planning, equipment failure, and the absence of effective safeguards.
In 2017, another controversial joint operation led by Afghan and US-led NATO forces in Kunduz province resulted in airstrikes that reportedly killed scores of civilians. While UNAMA reported 10 civilian casualties, local sources estimated as many as 55. Conflicting accounts have emerged about how civilians came under fire, ranging from claims that they were forced by the Taliban to retrieve bodies to reports that they were returning to assess damage or evacuate casualties. The U.S. military declared the result of its investigation and concluded that “no evidence of civilian casualties has been found.”
In targeting ISIS-K strongholds in eastern Nangarhar province, U.S. forces conducted heavy bombardment, including the use of GBU-43/B, the U.S.’s most powerful non-nuclear bomb, in 2017. For numerous other air operations in the area, Human Rights Watch interviewed local residents who reported that at least nine civilians fleeing ISIS-K-controlled territory were killed in their private vehicle, and that an airstrike on a funeral killed nine and injured eight people, including women. No formal post-strike investigation was conducted. Due to security reasons, the U.S. forces mostly did not conduct on-site investigations after the strikes and mostly relied on satellite imagery and reports provided by the Afghanistan security forces.
After a deadly ISIS-K suicide bombing at Kabul’s airport during the 2021 U.S. withdrawal, which killed more than 100 civilians and 13 U.S. service members near the Abbey Gate entrance, a retaliatory drone strike intended to prevent further attacks instead killed ten civilians, including seven children and a humanitarian worker. The strike was based on an eight-hour pattern-of-life analysis, surveillance, and threat assessments, but ultimately misinterpreted the target’s behavior, which underscored the limitations of the strike in high-stakes environments. The U.S. officials claimed that poor visibility and misinterpretation of the target’s driving behavior contributed to the mistaken identity.
The cases are not unique to Afghanistan. Similar patterns have occurred in Iraq and Syria. In Ramadi, Iraq, a child was unintentionally killed after being perceived as “an unknown heavy object.” And in Raqqa, Syria, at least seven civilians were killed after the Coalition forces incorrectly assessed that the individuals were carrying weapons and wearing tactical vests, even after six hours of observation.
These patterns of error reveal a critical gap between the technological promise of precision warfare and its operational reality. While proponents argue that modern surveillance and targeting systems uphold humanitarian standards, evidence suggests that civilian safety remains highly vulnerable. Furthermore, the Department of Defense’s insufficient efforts to strengthen its capabilities to assess civilian risk through improved intelligence, battlespace awareness, and analysis of strike outcomes, undermine opportunities to learn from past mistakes.
There is growing enthusiasm about the use of artificial intelligence in military targeting, as it can quickly analyze large volumes of data from satellites, signals, human intelligence, and open sources to support precise decision-making. However, the effectiveness of AI is contingent on the quality of data it processes. If the data are biased or flawed, such as the example provided above, it can result in targeting errors and increased civilian casualties, particularly in dual-use facilities and densely populated urban areas.
CIA Raids and the Erosion of Accountability
Beyond airstrikes, CIA-led paramilitary operations further blurred the lines between combatants and civilians. In the war’s early days, the U.S. detained many individuals suspected of al-Qaeda links, with some subjected to torture or held without due process. As the Taliban regrouped in Pakistan, they began recruiting fighters from border areas and sending them back into Afghanistan. These insurgents blended into civilian communities, planting roadside bombs and conducting suicide attacks.
The U.S. adopted more covert methods of engagement, turning to nighttime “kill or capture” raids, operations trained and supported by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which expanded significantly following the major withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2014. A set of elite Units, known as 01, 02, 03, and 04, were created under the Special Forces of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), Afghanistan’s intelligence agency.
These raids were often conducted at night in residential neighborhoods suspected of harboring the Taliban. Because of the covert nature of these missions, limited formal information exists regarding the Units’ structure and operations. Most of what is known comes from investigative journalists and human rights organizations. Over time, these operations became notorious for causing civilian harm and unlawful detentions, leading to widespread public backlash. Individuals were frequently targeted based on tenuous or presumed ties to insurgents or due to their proximity to known suspects. The Taliban capitalized on these incidents, producing and circulating videos that highlighted civilian casualties from night raids to bolster their narrative and gain local support.
Investigations by the United Nations and human rights organizations documented serious abuses, including extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, and potential summary executions. A 2019 UNAMA report recorded multiple incidents of civilian harm during such operations, while Human Rights Watch identified 14 cases of grave human rights violations by the Units between 2017 and 2019.
Victims and their families were often left without any recourse. There was no official contact point to seek accountability when missions went wrong. Because the Units operated under CIA oversight and not as conventional military forces, they fell outside the legal frameworks that govern international military operations. Subjecting them to Afghan jurisdiction would have conflicted with the CIA’s covert mandate, leaving a legal and accountability vacuum.
These practices not only potentially breached international humanitarian law but also undermined the legitimacy of the Afghanistan government and alienated local communities in areas targeted by the raids. Throughout the 20-year conflict, CIA-sponsored operations, particularly the night raids carried out by Afghan paramilitary Units, remained shielded from public oversight.
Toward a More Accountable and Humane Warfare Framework
Moving forward, it is essential for the United States to enhance the accuracy of its intelligence-gathering with a stronger emphasis on civilian protection. To foster accountability and learn from operational mistakes, an independent post-strike review board should be established to investigate incidents involving civilian harm, evaluate targeting decisions, and recommend improvements. Ultimately, military engagements must be guided by transparency, oversight, and a clear commitment to minimizing civilian casualties, especially in an era where advanced technologies promise precision but too often yield unintended destruction.
Department of Defense’s 2022 Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan (CHMRAP), prompted by the 2021 drone strike in Kabul, was a step in the right direction. The plan reads: “Protecting civilians from harm is not only a moral imperative, it is also critical to achieving long-term success on the battlefield.” However, CHMRAP was not applied retroactively, leaving the victims of airstrikes before 2022 without the opportunity to have their cases re-examined for credibility. Also, its future remains uncertain, and concerns persist over efforts to scale it back. In addition, the United Nations’ Political Declaration on Strengthening the Protection of Civilians from the Humanitarian Consequences Arising from the Use of Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas offers additional pathways for reform.
The Afghanistan War Commission and SIGAR’s Lessons Learned Program should provide specific guidelines and statutory measures that outline how their findings will be used to ensure accountability and justice for victims as well, and how they will help the U.S. government avoid repeating similar errors in other contexts.
Finally, civilian protection remains a concern in the age of artificial intelligence and autonomous drones, particularly as the laws of war were originally designed for conventional conflicts. A critical question arises: how can an autonomous drone reliably distinguish between a civilian and a combatant without sufficient or unbiased data? Until now, the U.S. Department of Defense Directive 3000.09, which governs the development and use of autonomous weapons systems, mandates human in-the-loop to ensure accountability, ethical judgment, and compliance with international law. However, the effectiveness of such policies ultimately depends on how they are implemented, especially in complex urban settings where limited transparency and weak data inputs continue to contribute to civilian harm.
Tags: Afghanistan War, Al-Qaeda, civilian harm, Taliban, US military strategy
About The Author
- Fatima Airan
- Fatima Airan is an International Strategy Forum Fellow at the Special Competitive Studies Project. She holds a master’s degree from the University of Oxford, where she studied as a Weidenfeld Hoffmann Trust Scholar.
10. ASIO boss sounds alarm on ‘devastating, disruptive’ Chinese hacking threat
Summary:
Australia’s ASIO chief warns Chinese state-backed hackers are probing critical infrastructure such as energy, water, telecoms, transport with capability to cause “devastating” sabotage. Groups like Volt Typhoon already infiltrated U.S. networks; similar reconnaissance is occurring in Australia. Burgess says high-impact cyber sabotage is now a real, imminent threat requiring urgent national and private-sector action.
Comment: Cyber: The modern battlefield. China is at war whether we think we are or not.
ASIO boss sounds alarm on ‘devastating, disruptive’ Chinese hacking threat
‘Down under’ isn’t that far away from trouble
The Sydney Morning Herald · Matthew Knott · November 11, 2025
November 12, 2025 — 9.37am
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/asio-boss-sounds-alarm-on-devastating-disruptive-chinese-hacking-threat-20251111-p5n9am.html
The nation’s spy boss has sounded the alarm on the threat of sophisticated Chinese government hackers launching attacks on Australian critical infrastructure assets such as airports, telecommunications networks and the energy grid.
ASIO director-general Mike Burgess said that authoritarian regimes such as Russia and China are increasingly willing to target critical infrastructure assets to cause economic damage, undermine rivals’ military capabilities and sow social discord.
ASIO boss Mike Burgess says Australia faces a serious risk of sabotage.Credit: Edwina Pickles
He raised the prospect of recent telecommunications outages – such as the Optus Triple Zero fiasco in October that caused three deaths – being repeated with malevolent intent by foreign actors seeking to cause chaos in Australian society.
“I have previously said we’re getting closer to the threshold for high-impact sabotage,” Burgess told an Australian Securities and Investments Commission forum in Melbourne on Wednesday.
“Well, I regret to inform you, we’re there now.”
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In a clear reference to China, Burgess said: “ASIO is aware of one nation state – no prizes for guessing which one – conducting multiple attempts to scan and penetrate critical infrastructure in Australia and other Five Eyes countries, targeting water, transport, telecommunications, and energy networks.
“The reconnaissance is highly sophisticated, using top-notch tradecraft to find your networks, test for vulnerabilities, knock on digital doors and check the digital locks.
“And when they have penetrated your networks, they actively and aggressively map your systems, and seek to maintain persistent undetected access that enables them to conduct sabotage at a time and moment of their choosing.”
Burgess said that Chinese hacking groups Salt Typhoon and Volt Typhoon had probed telecommunications networks in Australia, as well as the United States.
Salt Typhoon, believed to be operated by China’s Ministry of State Security, launched major telecommunications cyberattacks against US companies in 2023 and 2024, while Volt Typhoon targeted US military facilities in Guam and other sensitive assets.
“I do not think we – and I mean all of us – truly appreciate how disruptive, how devastating, this could be.”
ASIO boss Mike Burgess
Referring to the Volt Typhoon hacking group, which is believed to operate on behalf of the Chinese government, Burgess said: “The hackers compromised American critical infrastructure networks to pre-position for potential sabotage.
“The penetrations gave China the ability to turn off telecommunications and other critical infrastructure.
“And yes, we have seen Chinese hackers probing our critical infrastructure as well.”
He continued: “I do not think we – and I mean all of us – truly appreciate how disruptive, how devastating, this could be.”
Referring to recent isolated and accidental telecommunications outages, Burgess said: “Imagine the implications if a nation state took down all the networks, or turned off the power during a heatwave, or polluted our drinking water, or crippled our financial system.
“I assure you these are not hypotheticals – foreign governments have elite teams investigating these possibilities right now.”
Burgess said cyber espionage attacks were “more than foreseeable, they are inevitable, literally happening every day”.
“And as I said earlier, we have now reached the threshold for high-impact sabotage,” he said.
“Nation states have been building capability for decades, but their intent has been to commit espionage and foreign interference, to steal and meddle.
“With global tensions rising, some are more likely to pull the trigger on the higher-harm activities.”
His rhetoric marks an escalation from his annual threat assessment in February, when he said the nation was “getting closer to the threshold for high-impact sabotage”.
Burgess said a recent plot in which Russian intelligence operatives planned to put explosive devices in packages on cargo planes headed from Europe to North America showed the growing risk of sabotage to democratic societies.
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While physical sabotage remains possible, he said that cyber-enabled sabotage presented a more pressing concern for Australia because it is low-cost and deniable while still capable of causing significant damage.
Burgess last week gave a major speech in which he warned that at least three foreign governments were willing to try to murder dissidents in Australia.
He urged business leaders and boards to take the threat of cyberattacks more seriously, saying: “Complexity is not an excuse; it must be dealt with.”
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Matthew Knott is the foreign affairs and national security correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via Twitter or Facebook.
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The Sydney Morning Herald · Matthew Knott · November 11, 2025
11. Pentagon formalizes conventional forces' role in irregular warfare, but will it stick?
Summary:
The Pentagon has formally expanded irregular warfare (IW) beyond special operations, directing that conventional forces share responsibility for gray-zone operations. Experts say this shift is significant but warn it will matter only if reflected in top strategies like the National Defense Strategy. The directive acknowledges China’s growing use of non-kinetic “three warfares” and highlights the need for U.S. multi-domain IW capabilities—including cyber, space, and information operations. Supporters believe the move could strengthen partner resilience, as seen in Ukraine, and free special operations forces for harder missions. Skeptics argue cultural resistance, weak incentives, and limited understanding of IW may impede real progress.
Excerpts:
“In the bureaucracy there, there still is likely to be what I’ll call in irregular warfare within the department to continue to make this a priority. I don’t necessarily believe that all senior service members within the Navy, the Air Force, the Marine Corps and the Army are suddenly going to gravitate towards the importance of irregular warfare,” Jones said. “I think it is a contested environment in how much service chiefs are going to be willing to cede terrain from their typical focus on conventional warfare and conventional capabilities.”
As such, Crowther said, the future of the irregular warfare in regular formations might come down to just who’s behind the push.
“Until you get the senior leaders of the military to buy into it, which is why you need to see it in the NDS and the NMS, you need to see the same message in all of the documentation that goes along, [it] should start with the National Security Strategy and go down into the service doctrine and everything in between,” Crowther said.
There’s no official release date for the National Defense Strategy, expected later this year, but previous reports indicated it’s expected to prioritize homeland defense.
Comment: The buried lede is: Where is the National Defense Strategy? Did all the 4 stars non-concur?
But let me restate (or re-ask) my key IW questions. Answer these and I will know Bridge and the DOD/DOW/SECDEF/SOW are serious about IW. I fear we are not really serious.
There are three important questions that I do not think it answers.
1) Who is the IW "champion" in the Pentagon? Of course that is not a doctrinal term and designation of such perhaps not appropriate for the DODI. But you can see the vast diffusion of responsibility among the services, JS and OSD/OSW staffs, agencies, centers, and COCOMs in the DODI. There is a little something for everyone. Sometimes when everything has something to do and there is no one ensuring that they do it, nothing might ever get done.
2) Who are the Irregular Warfare proficient campaign HQs? What organizations have and must sustain IW campaign planning and execution proficiency; and then related is;
3) How do we develop and sustain IW proficient campaign HQ? How do we man, train, educate, and equip them?
Pentagon formalizes conventional forces' role in irregular warfare, but will it stick? - Breaking Defense
“When I look at irregular warfare and its utility, for it to be effective ... it had to be much bigger than just a special operations activity," CSIS's Seth Jones told Breaking Defense.
By Mark Pomerleau on November 12, 2025 2:00 pm
breakingdefense.com · Mark Pomerleau · November 12, 2025
https://breakingdefense.com/2025/11/pentagon-formalizes-conventional-forces-role-in-irregular-warfare-but-will-it-stick/
WASHINGTON — A recent Pentagon directive officially broadens the responsibility of irregular warfare (IW) well beyond the remit of special operations forces, in a move that former practitioners and experts said could be a significant development for America’s posture in the gray zone — but only if there’s real-world follow through.
At the end of September, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby signed off on an updated Department of Defense Instruction for Irregular Warfare, stating that irregular warfare “is a joint force activity conducted by conventional forces and special operations forces.”
The dry language, experts told Breaking Defense, amounts to the formalization of a push the military has been attempting, with limited success, for years.
“It’s not like irregular warfare has been completely ignored by elements of the US [Defense] Department outside of the special operations community. But I think this is helpful as a directive in bringing the applicability of irregular warfare outside of just the special operations community and highlighting its importance in competition for the department at a much bigger level,” Seth Jones, president of the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Breaking Defense.
“When I look at irregular warfare and its utility, for it to be effective, including during the Cold War, it had to be much bigger than just a special operations activity,” said Jones, who previously served in special operations roles. “It really needs to leverage the full conventional might of the US military, as well as the capabilities across other government agencies.”
However, Jones and some former servicemembers with intelligence or irregular warfare experience warned that the “instruction” still may not be enough.
“It’s necessary, but not sufficient,” Alex Crowther, a retired Army colonel strategist who practices unconventional competition, said in an interview. Crowther said that DoD instructions don’t hold the same weight as other forcing functions in the department such as strategies, doctrine or even joint publications
“It’s really good to be talking about this stuff,” he said, “but … the place where we need to see it is the National Defense Strategy and then the National Military Strategy because those are the things that everybody, [from] all the planners at the Pentagon and the combatant commands and the services, all read those and pay attention to those.”
Meeting The Adversary In The Gray Zone
The instruction also updates the definition of irregular warfare to be more expansive, noting that it is used by state and non-state actors to assure or coerce others through “indirect, non-attributable, or asymmetric activities.”
“IW provides an important complement to other joint force activities, operations, and investments in both competition and conflict,” the instruction states. “IW strategies and tactics can involve the threat or use of force, including the use of non-lethal weapons, for purposes other than physical domination over an adversary … States and non-state actors can conduct IW when they cannot achieve their strategic objectives by non-warfare activities or conventional warfare.”
Those activities, which have traditionally been carried out primarily by special operations forces on the US military side, include unconventional warfare, counterinsurgency, psychological operations and civil affairs, among others. However, the involvement of conventional forces in irregular warfare, especially in a support role, is hardly a new concept, especially in the counterinsurgency context during the past 20 years of the war on terror.
In an annex to the 2020 National Defense Strategy, for example, the DoD said it “must institutionalize irregular warfare as a core competency for both conventional and special operations forces, sustaining the ability to impose costs and create dilemmas for our adversaries across the full spectrum of competition and conflict.”
Over the last few years, the services have been building their own information and irregular forces within the conventional units, like the Army’s Theater Information Advantage Detachments and the Marine Expeditionary Force Information Groups, among others.
But with the Global War on Terror in the rearview, and as the US settles in for a longterm “competition” with its primary rival China, experts said the role of irregular warfare has grown — including in Beijing, where historical attitudes toward irregular warfare have been different. Whereas the US has typically held a more binary view of conflict, the experts said adversaries like China have viewed it as more of a contiuum, in which irregular warfare is a gray middle ground.
“If one looks at the United States’ most notable challenger, the Chinese, they have long focused on this aspect of warfare,” Jones said. “This is more trying to bring up the US capabilities in areas that its adversaries are, some of its major adversaries, are spending resources, time and attention to.”
He pointed to China’s so-called three warfares strategy: public opinion warfare, psychological warfare and legal warfare or lawfare. None of those, he said, really involve kinetic activity, but rather, what he would term irregular warfare and the use of information to influence populations.
While irregular warfare operations are by design difficult to attribute, Jones noted that China is suspected, for instance, of having severed undersea cables linking Taiwan to the outside world. Short of a full military conflict over Taiwan, he said he expected the gray zone tactics to continue indefinitely in a region in which the US will be obligated to be more present.
One of the major policy implications of the new instruction, Jones said, involves support that could be lent to partners to help blunt the activity of mutual adversaries such as Russia or China. If the US wants to impose costs on China, especially seeking to blunt its activity in Taiwan, the US needs to work with the Taiwanese to ensure it is more equipped in the IW realm.
America’s successful training and equipping of Ukrainian forces ahead of Russia’s 2022 invasion, carried out by US special operators as well as some conventional forces, did not deter Russian aggression, but did help blunt it.
Moreover, the US could learn from Ukraine’s own asymmetric and irregular techniques, like its audacious Operation Spiderweb, in which the Ukrainians clandestinely shipped hundreds of drones to Russian territory that were then free to cause millions of dollars of damage to major Russian weapons platforms such as aircraft.
“There’s some massive policy implications in key areas that I think are big priorities of the department,” Jones said.
Brian Russell, a retired Marine colonel who served in cyber and information-related commands, said he’s also heartened by the new DoD instruction because it recognizes the role conventional forces can play in newer warfighting domains: cyber and space.
“What I think excites me about the new directive is it does highlight the importance of cyber and space as domains … it’s like a recognition that, military forces are applied, in fact, across a spectrum of conflict and this is just kind of the formal recognition of that reality,” he said in an interview. “The other thing that excites me about the directive is it does call out the need for operations in the information environment. … I’m pretty excited about the directive of putting those things, I’ll call it, you know, the multi-domain aspect, cyberspace is important, and then the importance of operating the information environment.”
Russell also said going forward, the instruction could help special operations forces focus on what are truly special operations missions and capabilities.
“It’s probably going to let SOF get back to doing some of those harder mission sets and why they’re designed the way they are,” he said.
‘Proof Will Be In The Pudding’
Still, it remains to be seen how the instruction is translated into real-world operations, if at all.
“I want to believe it will lead to progress, but I have seen this movie so many times before where there have been these bursts of interests … but I’ve seen this movie so many times before. I’ll believe it when I see it,” a former top defense official in this sphere told Breaking Defense on the condition of anonymity, echoing concerns of analysts. “The proof will be in the pudding.”
The ex-official and others said that irregular warfare isn’t well understood outside specialist circles, which could lead to the commanders of conventional forces taking a skeptical eye to particular missions. It’s often easier, they said, to get approval for a missile strike than an influence operation.
Crowther, the retried Army colonel, pointed out that historically it’s been difficult to integrate irregular warfare into the culture of conventional forces.
“It’s really important for everybody that isn’t in special operations to understand that they’re part of the solution in irregular warfare as well,” he said. “The name’s irregular. It says it all. They’re not irregular, they’re regular forces and they’re very conventional and hierarchical. Honestly, irregular warfare is neither conventional nor hierarchical.”
Another problem: There is no promotion structure, and thus, little incentive to conduct these types outside special operations, among conventional forces, the former official said.
“If someone were to ask me, how many general officers have been created, have been promoted, have been elevated to flag rank because of their skill proficiency and risk tolerance in the area of irregular warfare, my answer will be, I can’t think of a single one,” the ex-official said. “Which said a different way means there’s no professional incentive for a service member, officer, non-commissioned officer, flag officer to devote their careers to this because all they have to do is look around say, ‘Well, nobody’s ever been promoted for doing this, so why am I doing this?’”
Plus, the services have their own responsibilities, personnel and capabilities to fill, and irregular warfare typically isn’t on that list.
“In the bureaucracy there, there still is likely to be what I’ll call in irregular warfare within the department to continue to make this a priority. I don’t necessarily believe that all senior service members within the Navy, the Air Force, the Marine Corps and the Army are suddenly going to gravitate towards the importance of irregular warfare,” Jones said. “I think it is a contested environment in how much service chiefs are going to be willing to cede terrain from their typical focus on conventional warfare and conventional capabilities.”
As such, Crowther said, the future of the irregular warfare in regular formations might come down to just who’s behind the push.
“Until you get the senior leaders of the military to buy into it, which is why you need to see it in the NDS and the NMS, you need to see the same message in all of the documentation that goes along, [it] should start with the National Security Strategy and go down into the service doctrine and everything in between,” Crowther said.
There’s no official release date for the National Defense Strategy, expected later this year, but previous reports indicated it’s expected to prioritize homeland defense.
breakingdefense.com · Mark Pomerleau · November 12, 2025
12. What Did We Get for $38 Trillion in Debt?
Summary:
U.S. debt has exploded from $5.6 trillion in 1999 to more than $38 trillion today, with little benefit to ordinary Americans. Massive spending on wars, bailouts, and Covid programs failed to produce greater security or prosperity, while inflation, crumbling infrastructure, soaring living costs, and rising healthcare expenses worsened. Interest on the debt now exceeds spending on Medicare or defense, and entitlement costs continue climbing. The system is unsustainable: either leaders enact major reforms or the government will default on its promises. As foreign investors reduce Treasury holdings, many are turning to gold as a safer alternative.
Comment: The national security crisis of the 21st Century?
What Did We Get for $38 Trillion in Debt?
Voters expect a basic, functioning government to provide essential services. But the government simply doesn’t collect enough money to pay for all the things that it has promised.
By James Hickman
11.11.25 —
U.S. Politics
thefp.com
https://www.thefp.com/p/what-did-we-get-for-38-trillion-in-debt
Some of us are old enough to remember life in 1999.
That Prince song—party like it’s 1999—was constantly on the radio in anticipation of the year 2000. Plenty of doomsayers were predicting the end of the world because of the Y2K software bug. (Spoiler alert: It didn’t happen.)
And in general, it was an exciting time. The economy was doing great, the world was more or less at peace, and America was the undisputed global superpower. No one else was even close.
So, on a hot August day in the summer of 1999—The Sixth Sense (“I see dead people”) was the number one movie at the box office—the U.S. Department of the Treasury issued a rather mundane statement that its “net market borrowing” for the July through September quarter that year was estimated at minus $11 billion.
In other words, the Treasury Department was paying down a small portion of the U.S. national debt.
Fast-forward 26 years and such a statement is almost unimaginable.
The Treasury Department routinely makes these announcements; typically, once each quarter, Treasury estimates its total net borrowings, then updates those estimates throughout the year.
In April 2025, for example, the Treasury Department estimated that it expected to borrow a whopping $554 billion in the July–September quarter this year.
Five hundred fifty-four billion dollars is a ridiculous amount of money to borrow. And yet, just three months later, they revised their estimate and said the U.S. government would borrow $1.007 trillion for the July–September quarter. It’s a difference of more than 80 percent. . . in the wrong direction.
Now that the July–September quarter is over, we can see the actual amount that Treasury borrowed. And the answer is. . . $1.058 trillion. That’s 5 percent more debt than they estimated just three months ago, and nearly twice as much as they estimated in April.
America’s debt is growing so quickly that it’s hard to even keep up anymore. The national debt reached $37 trillion on August 11, just three months ago. Today, it’s already past $38 trillion. So that’ll be roughly $1 trillion in just about 70 days.
This is a fiscal abomination, plain and simple.
Going back to 1999, when the government was actually paying it down, the U.S. national debt was about $5.6 trillion. That’s an increase of more than $30 trillion in 26 years.
What exactly did America get for that $30 trillion? Well, there was a very, very long and expensive war in Iraq and Afghanistan. . . which ended abruptly when Joe Biden decided to abandon billions of dollars of military equipment to the Taliban.
There was an enormous bailout of the financial system in 2008. And then a historic series of bailouts and spending bonanzas during Covid.
But is the average American any better off? Is the U.S. more secure, more powerful, more free, more affordable, more prosperous, and safer as a result of all that debt? I think the answer is clearly no. In fact, quite the opposite.
Despite a more than $30 trillion increase in debt, crime is widespread. Critical infrastructure is crumbling. Long-term inflation has made life largely unaffordable for the middle class. Housing prices are astronomical. Food prices are unrecognizable. New cars cost nearly as much as a small house used to. University can cost six figures annually.
The U.S. government simply doesn’t collect enough money to pay for all the things that it has promised.
And while medical care was never a bargain, it is now prohibitively expensive. Plus, insurance costs continue rising.
Thirty trillion dollars should have been enough to do everything. And yet, there is realistically nothing positive to show for that money.
It also keeps getting worse.
Fiscal year 2025 ended on September 30. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) announced on November 10 that net interest on the debt in FY25 surpassed $1 trillion—more than Medicare ($992 billion), Medicaid ($668 billion), and defense spending ($868 billion).
Furthermore, the CBO found that interest payments on the national debt grew by 8 percent year-over-year, outpacing growth in tax revenue and the U.S. economy.
Social Security and Medicare spending—two of the other largest line items in the budget—are also growing at a nearly double-digit rate.
To say that this is all unsustainable is almost a joke at this point. It will come to an end, one way or another.
One option is that American voters elect representatives who understand the urgency and magnitude of this problem, and they work together to cut waste, substantially reduce the size and scope of government, and reform entitlement spending (especially Social Security and Medicare).
I’m not exactly holding my breath for that option. It’s incredible how some of the dumbest human beings alive manage to become congressmen. They can’t even spell deficit, let alone understand the fiscal emergency.
The other option is that there will be a default. Not necessarily that the U.S. defaults on its debt, but that it defaults on the promises—whether implied or explicit—that it made to voters.
Voters expect the U.S. military to be well-equipped and ready to fight. They expect Social Security to be there for them at retirement. They expect to pay a reasonable amount of tax. They expect a basic, functioning government to provide essential services.
Unfortunately, the math just doesn’t add up. The U.S. government simply doesn’t collect enough money to pay for all the things that it has promised.
For now, it makes up the difference by borrowing more money—roughly $2 trillion in fiscal year 2025. But sooner or later, that money is going to run out. In fact, it’s already happening.
Foreign investors—primarily governments and central banks—collectively used to be among the largest owners of U.S. government debt. They believed in America, and it was a no-brainer to buy Treasury bonds.
But foreign ownership as a percentage of the national debt is falling. Governments are diversifying rapidly, including selling their Treasury bonds (or redeeming them at maturity) and using the proceeds to buy gold.
It’s not because they’re “goldbugs.” It’s because gold is one of the only asset classes in the world that is universally accepted and has a truly global market. Plus, it’s a large enough market that it can absorb hundreds of billions of dollars in capital flows.
Gold has surged higher at an absurd pace over the past year, so, sure, there may be a temporary pullback.
But realistically, the only thing that can stop its long-term ascent is the United States government suddenly getting a case of fiscal responsibility. And you can make up your own mind whether or not that’s likely to happen.
This piece was originally published in Schiff Sovereign.
thefp.com
13. Assessing the Pentagon’s Mission to Rebuild the ‘Arsenal of Freedom'
Summary:
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s sweeping plan to break the Pentagon’s sluggish acquisition system and rebuild an “arsenal of freedom” built on speed and iteration. Replacing JCIDS with new boards and portfolio executives, the reforms push commercial-first, 85% “good enough” solutions, modular open systems, and continuous upgrades. Retired leaders Phil Breedlove and Mike Groen and innovator Steve Blank praise the urgency but warn that safety, bureaucracy, tribal service politics, legal constraints and defense-industry lobbying could stall change. Success hinges on cultural transformation, accountability, and sustaining reforms across administrations despite inevitable resistance from entrenched interests within the Pentagon.
Excerpt:
The core argument: if the U.S. wants to deter adversaries in today’s world of fast-moving threats that include gray-zone coercion, contested logistics and AI-enabled systems, it must accept more acquisition risk as a means to reduce operational risk later.
Comment: long read and deep dive.
Assessing the Pentagon’s Mission to Rebuild the ‘Arsenal of Freedom'
13 November, 2025
https://www.thecipherbrief.com/defense-acquisition-arsenal-freedom?utm_
(Original Caption) 9/5/1963-Washington, DC- Flying over the Virginia side of the Potomac River, the impressive site of the world's largest office building crops into view. The Pentagon, which covers 34 acres of land including a 5-acre pentagonal center court, houses personnel of the U.S. Department of Defense, which includes the Departments of Army, Navy and Air Force. This bird's eye view also shows part of the 67-acre parking space area.
By Brad Christian
Chief Operating Officer, The Cipher Brief
Brad Christian is COO and Executive Editor of The Cipher Brief's Open Source Report. Follow him on LinkedIn.
DEEP DIVE — The Pentagon is waging war against its own acquisition bureaucracy. In a sweeping speech on Friday, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth described the “adversary”, not as a foreign power but as a process: decades-old requirements and procurement rules that reward paperwork over outcomes.
The core argument: if the U.S. wants to deter adversaries in today’s world of fast-moving threats that include gray-zone coercion, contested logistics and AI-enabled systems, it must accept more acquisition risk as a means to reduce operational risk later.
The Pentagon’s new plan pairs rhetorical urgency with specific structural changes. It proposes killing the legacy Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) and replacing it with a tighter, more centralized alignment, pushing commercial-first solutions even if they deliver an “85% solution” initially and forcing a cultural shift across both DoD and industry toward speed, volume, and continuous iteration. The plan also signals tougher expectations for primes to invest private capital and for government to send longer demand signals. It’s a tall order.
related
Here’s a look at the key ideas:
- “Increase acquisition risk to decrease operational risk”: field good-enough capabilities faster, iterate in production, and stop chasing perfect specs that arrive too late.
- JCIDS → RRAB / MEIA / JAR: cancel the slow, document-heavy requirements process; stand up a Requirements & Resourcing Alignment Board (RRAB) to tie priorities to funds, a Mission Engineering & Integration Activity (MEIA) to co-design/experiment with industry early, and a Joint Acceleration Reserve (JAR) to bridge the “valley of death.”
- War-fighting Acquisition System & PAEs: rebrand and reorganize acquisition around Portfolio Acquisition Executives (PAEs) who have end-to-end authority to trade cost/schedule/performance for time-to-field, with embedded contracting and fixed delivery cycles.
- Modular Open Systems + multi-source: mandate modular architectures, maintain at least two qualified sources on critical components, and enable third-party integration to avoid vendor lock and accelerate upgrades.
- Commercial-first, 85% solution: accept non-perfect bids that meet the mission faster, then iterate software and components continuously.
- Wartime Production Unit (WPU): a deal-team model to negotiate across a contractor’s total DoD portfolio, create incentives for on-time delivery, and unlock surge capacity.
- Workforce & Culture shift: convert the Defense Acquisition University (DAU) into a “Warfighting Acquisition University,” lengthen leader tenures, and evaluate contracting/program teams on mission outcomes rather than compliance metrics.
- Foreign Military Sales realignment: move DSCA/DTSA under Acquisition & Sustainment to unify planning, contracting, and delivery so allies get kit faster without undercutting U.S. readiness.
Why this matters now
Adversaries are iterating faster, supply chains are brittle, and the U.S. military’s ability to produce and sustain at volume - will decide deterrence credibility. The proposal promises measurable gains in lead times, throughput, and availability, but it also raises hard questions about safety, governance, industry incentives, and the talent pipeline.
In the sections that follow, we pressure-test these claims with former commanders and acquisition leaders: how to set guardrails around “good-enough,” where the new risks are and the impact on the industry.
Cipher Brief Executive Editor Brad Christian spoke with General Phil Breedlove (Ret.), Lt. General Mike Groen (Ret) and Silicon Valley Entrepreneur and Stanford Professor Steve Blank, who has recently published a Department of War Program Executive Office directory to help companies better navigate the complicated system for selling to government.
Christian: What was your reaction to last week’s announcement that we heard from the secretary?
General Philip M. Breedlove
Gen. Breedlove retired as the Commander, Supreme Allied Command, Europe, SHAPE, Belgium and Headquarters, U.S. European Command, Stuttgart, Germany. He also served as Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force, Senior Military Assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force; and Vice Director for Strategic Plans and Policy on the Joint Staff.
General Breedlove: There are things that I really am looking forward to, and there are some things that are a bit worrisome, the way they were rolled out. But you never really know what's going to happen until you start seeing it in action and the changes to the rules for how we do our acquisition.
But make no mistake, our acquisition system to date is moribund. It's horrible. We laugh now about this “Valley of Death” between when something is created in the laboratory and when it gets to the field, six, seven, eight years or more sometimes. And people who are at war and doing this very differently, they're doing it in weeks, sometimes days, but not years. So we definitely have to change.
Part of the reason our acquisition system is so slow is because in our past, maybe even decades and decades ago, people took advantage of the system and they made money in a bad or almost illegal way. And so lawmakers do what lawmakers do, and technocrats and bureaucrats do what they do, and they created layers and layers of oversight to try to protect against some of those bad acts that happened decades ago. And the result is an acquisition system that is completely unresponsive to the needs of the warfighter. And I'm glad that we're starting to change it.
Lt. Gen. Michael Groen (US Marine Corps, Ret.)
Lt. Gen. Groen served over 36 years in the U.S. military, culminating his career as the senior executive for AI in the Department. Groen also served in the National Security Agency overseeing Computer Network Operations, and as the Director of Joint Staff Intelligence, working closely with the Chairman and Senior Leaders across the Department.
Lt. Gen. Groen: My immediate reaction, like everybody else, when somebody uses the word acquisition, you kind of cringe a little bit. And immediately you get the vent of, it takes too long, it's too expensive, the processes don't work, the people in the processes don't know what they're doing, the long litany of usual complaints. And most of them are actually true. What we have currently, I would articulate, is an unaccountable bureaucracy. It's a professional bureaucracy. They know the process. They build the process. They work the process. But the process doesn't necessarily meet our real war fighting objectives. And I think that is probably the most important thing here.
We'll talk about drones and technology and all these other things, but I think at its core, you actually do have to have a process for this. And just getting the credit cards out and buying stuff at Best Buy doesn't work either, right? So, I think it's a requirement for us. You can't just say, well, we're just gonna blow up all the rules and let people do whatever they want. Because as soon as you do that, you're gonna realize that if we didn't have a system, we wouldn't be able to do all these other things. How do you get to integration? How do you get to common standards? How do you get to the things that actually make weapon systems work effectively and with the caliber of ammunition that they use and the system that produces that and all of the other components? So it's easy, and I've done it probably more than anybody else, to just rant about the acquisition process.
But if you didn't have an acquisition process, you would need to invent one. So, our challenge really today is, okay, the one we have for a lot of reasons is not going to be the one that we will need tomorrow. It does okay on band-aids and making munitions for today. But it is certainly not a kind of process that enables war fighting flow. So I think we are very much at a transformation point, not just in the fact that the way we want to do acquisition must change, but more importantly, the way we do everything, the way we fight must change. And so naturally we have really an incredible opportunity. Let's build the system that enables the kind of fast moving, rapid innovation that we will want on the battlefield: AI driven, data driven. We know what the future looks like. Let's actually build to that and not let unaccountable bureaucracies get in the way.
Steve Blank
Steve Blank is an adjunct professor at Stanford and co-founder of the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation. His book, The Four Steps to the Epiphany is credited with launching the Lean Startup movement. He created the curriculum for the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps. At Stanford, he co-created the Department of Defense Hacking for Defense and Department of State Hacking for Diplomacy curriculums. He is co-author of The Startup Owner's Manual.
Blank: It was mind blowing - not because anything the Secretary said was new; they are things that people who are interested in acquisition reform have been asking for the last 10 years. But it was put in a single package and was clearly done by the infusion of people who have actually run large businesses and were used to all the language of organizations that already know how to deliver with speed and urgency.
The part that didn't get said is essentially the Department of War wants to adopt startup innovation techniques of lean iteration, pivots, incremental releases, good enough delivery, and that gets you what the Secretary asked for, which was speed of delivery. But all those are things that we lived with in Silicon Valley for the last 50 years, and it wasn't until we had people who worked outside of buildings with no windows inside the Pentagon to understand that those techniques could actually be applied. And it required blowing up the existing system. And they did that spectacularly well. Very few holes in those proposals.
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Christian: A central piece of the plan as it was explained on Friday is the idea of eliminating the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System, which has long been criticized for some of the slow processes and the overly bureaucratic results that we have. The new approach seeks to centralize procurement and funding under the DOD senior leadership. Are you comfortable that this is the right approach?
General Breedlove: So this is one of those, like I opened up with, some good, some bad. There are elements of JCIDS that I think we should hold on to. We shouldn't throw the whole thing out with the bath water. But there are a lot of elements of JCIDS that we need to get rid of.
Much like the rules we just talked about that were created because of people and bad acts for acquisition, the same sort of thing has happened in the process of moving an idea from the lab to the field in that now there are layers and layers of people who can hold up the process or say no. And when they do that, it adds time, schedule delays, more testing, and much more money to the program. And these people bear zero responsibility for their actions. The people that end up getting blamed for the delays and increased costs are the services or the primes. And the people that have this authority now but hold no responsibility for what they do, we've got to get rid of them. We have to ensure that people who have decision authority are held accountable for what they do, to the point of maybe even not charging this off to primes or to the folks who are developing these things. If someone else is out there slowing things down and they don't have to worry about it because they're not accountable to it, we're not in a good place.
Lt. Gen. Groen: One issue is there isn’t a cadre of professionals in DOD leadership that will be able to take this mission on full time. If you consider a broad sweep of what we build and acquire and how we do that, how we innovate, they will just run out of hours in the day and minds to engage in order to build a replacement for what we have today.
The impulse to change the way we do things is the right impulse. Our impulse to be disciplined about the way we go about things, that's also correct. So it's not enough to say “let’s blow it all up, we don't need any rules”. We actually do need rules. Regulation actually is an enabler. It helps you flow. It lets you know how things can be done. That's a really powerful thing.
The problem is with humans involved, there is always a tendency to distort a process through petty bureaucracies, tribalism, ignorance and bad temper. It is really important for leaders to actually lead in this space and create accountability for the people that are actually working. What we have today is a derivative of it. We don't need too many history lessons here, but this is like General Motors in the 1960s, where we started to really do modern industrial design at scale. So if you understand where we’ve come from, you can see how important things like industrial processes and quality checks.
In a digital environment, a transformational environment that is driven by artificial intelligence and data availability, all the notes change. The music changes. And you still need a process for things like money so you can pay people to build things. But we're not building things on a conveyor belt anymore. We're building code. We're building code that changes by the hour. We're building code that builds its own code. This is where we are. So you can't do that in a completely undisciplined way, that says “have at it team and we'll see what we get at the end of the process”. What we’re doing here is too important.
Christian: Part of the new approach will involve increasing acquisition risk, to decrease operational risk with a focus on increased use of commercial solutions and of even fielding 85 % solutions. Where's the red line that you would want as a commander before fielding an 85% solution?
Gen. Breedlove: This is a concept which is extremely hard to criticize. But we have to be pretty serious here because you're saying increasing acquisition risk to decrease operational risk. Well, if the product isn't operational yet and we have increased the purchasing and acquisition risk, and in between that costs us the life of a soldier, sailor, airman, marine or guardian, we have messed it up. So the rules are there for a reason. I completely understand. I absolutely, 100% agree with the fact that we've got to start taking more risk, but we can't do that in a way that is reckless and puts the lives of our troops on the line.
And an example where I think this concept is working well is Ukraine. They get a new drone that is designed to get past a certain capability of the Russian defenses. And why should we do a two-year testing on that thing? If the testing is to fire it into Russia where it's not going to kill any friendlies and see what happens, let's fire it into Russia and get the testing done on the battlefield, where we're less concerned with what happens. So there are ways to shorten and to change the way that we do tests and other things on the acquisition side that gets us faster to the operational side. And if we can do that, again, without raising the risk to our troops, let's go for it. And we're seeing that done well by the Ukrainians, and to some degree by the Israelis.
Lt. Gen. Groen: The first thing that pops in my mind is- What does an 85 % solution look like? What is 85% of a truck? What is 85% of a battleship or a carrier? Pick your system. If you're just doing software, you can do a lot of things in software, but still, software that's 15 % buggy and doesn't work, because you've chosen 85%, that's almost like going right back to the industrial age process flow for code. And I think that the real magic here at its core is transforming the way we do our war fighting. We need new thinking about how to integrate capabilities and new thinking about how to build artificial intelligence modalities and then the systems.
Warfare is changing under our feet right now. Ukraine and drones, I accept that example, but it's so much more than that. We need a complete transformation in the way we understand the enemy, the way we understand our mission, the way we can use autonomy to integrate with humans, the way that we can build robotics, the way that we can now start what I like to call putting the mind of a commander on a pedestal by taking all the data environment and revealing that to a commander and everybody else who is working with the commander so that you have common situational awareness.
The opportunity here is enormous to transform our war fighting to the same degree we're transforming our industries. And you see the transformation every day when you drive through DC or Austin or San Francisco. Transformation is real and it's driving our economy today. What we haven't done is purposefully mapped out how we're going to drive our war fighting capability through this technology. And this is so important because we have to have a plan for how we build operational workflows. Where do we build those? Who builds those? And so I think moving from monitoring a process of manufacturing to really considering war fighting as the core element that the technology springs from.
Christian: Obviously the Pentagon procurement system that we have today is a product of decades of bureaucracy and rules. Are you hopeful that you're going to be able to see the kind of change in the rapid timeline that they've laid forth here?
Blank: Number one, this is a pretty extensive reorganization. Right now the Department of War is siloed between requirements and system centers for testing and prototyping and acquisition, which was the acquisition with a small A with the PEOs and program managers, and then it went to contracts and then it went to sustainment, et cetera. Those were silos. Now we're putting it all underneath a single portfolio acquisition executive. So, instead of making their offices 10,000 people, it's actually a matrix organization, much like a combatant command is. Most of those people will stay in their existing orgs but now be tasked to work on specific portfolios. And instead, the portfolios will no longer be arranged by weapon system. They're going to be arranged, for example, by war fighting concepts or technology concepts, et cetera.
That said, boy, try moving an elephant and making it dance. And at the same time, they recognized - this was one of the genius parts - people won't just get a memo and know what to do. Historically, they've depended on the Defense Acquisition University, which taught them, contracting officers and the rest, how to work with the 5,000 pages of the DFAR and FAR, Federal Acquisition, Defense Acquisition Regulations. One of the unnoticed things was they basically told the Defense Acquisition University, stop teaching that today. You now need to teach people this new methodology. That's not going to happen by telepathy. First of all, we need to train the trainers, then we need to train all the people who've grown up in their career following the paperwork.
So, I predict six months or a year of chaos and confusion. And probably, there's always in a large scale reorganization saboteurs who are angry that their cheese has been moved or worse, their authority has been diminished or the head count went somewhere else. This is going to be no different except maybe at a bigger scale.
In the end, if we pull this off, and I'll explain the only possible reason not to do this, the country will be much better for it. The other obstacle will be if you're on the board of directors and the exec staff of a prime, you're going to go through the 12 stages of denial and grief and whatever because I don't know how many times both Feinberg and Hegseth made it clear that the primes weren't delivering and they weren't investing in the things the country needed and they got used to the system and we were kind of mutually dependent on a broken system - and that's over. Well, you're not going to let your stockholders say you just went home and packed up. Obviously, it's pretty clear that appealing to the Pentagon isn't going to work, but Congress is “coin operated”. This is now going to be a race of lobbying cash from the primes versus lobbying cash for the first time from private equity and venture capital. So it's going to be, who has the biggest pile of cash to influence Congress and the executive branch to keep these rules in place or modify them?
Remember what a disaster this is if you're an existing large company selling to the DOD. It says number one, we're going to buy commercial off the shelf. Number two, we're going to buy commercial off the shelf and then modify it. If and only if either one and two work, we do some bespoke contracting with the existing organization. It's never happened before. Pretty clear, pretty direct. So, the easy thing would be for primes to change their business model. But my prediction is they're going to double and triple down the amount of lobbying and dollars spent.
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Christian: Secretary Hegseth also had some words of warning to the major U.S. defense contractors, the primes, to speed up weapons development and production, invest their own capital to increase capacity, or risk becoming obsolete. This is a relatively complicated issue for these companies. What are your thoughts on this?
General Breedlove: I think that our senior leaders, maybe to include the Secretary of War and others, have sort of allowed the verbiage around this topic to get a little loosey goosey. What happened in the past was that some primes used money out of existing contracts to create excess capacity that then saved them money the next time they had to build new equipment. And our government, Congress and others got tired of that and wrote laws that limit how much money you can spend out of existing contracts to create excess capacity. And the way I understand the laws, most of them are zero. If we pay you to build 100 B-21s and you create a line that could do 120, you're going to jail or you're going to court. And so I think that there's some imprecise language running around and we need to give some of this time to sort out when the dust settles to understand what they're really asking of the primes, because they are limited on one side, fiducially and fiscally, and they're limited on the other side by laws and sometimes regulations that have been created by the regulatory agencies to correct past [behaviors].
I applaud the ideas and the initiative that the Secretary laid out. But to the defense of the primes, they're going to need some regulatory or legal relief to be able to do most of the things being talked about under the new plan. They just can't snap their fingers and say, OK, we're going to do this because then they'll end up in court.
Christian: It's not going to be an overnight process to reboot the Pentagon's procurement system. The Department of Defense is the largest single organization within the US Government. The amount of products and services that flow through that system is enormous. You've clearly laid out the tremendous opportunity that exists to rebuild the system. What are you most worried about? What's the biggest risk that can impede progress as the Pentagon starts this journey?
Lt. Gen. Groen: Tribalism. Tribalism will sink us. We are so horrifically tribal that we can't think like an extended entity. We can't think like a singular organism that is really effective through data and our systems flowing together. Tribalism kills that. And I see it every day. I'm not in the Pentagon every day anymore, but I see it: the tribalism among services, the tribalism among components of services and the tribalism within the department. And all of that tribalism is an afterglow of our industrial might in the 1960s. Now is the time for thinkers that are wearing a uniform, it's not about buying stuff without asking. It's about thinking through the flow that you want to achieve and then building the capabilities that you need to do that. It's a mindset thing, but that’s all about what transformation is. The form changes. And so when we transform, we transform ourselves into this place where we leave that tribalism behind because we have integrated effectiveness.
Working with broad autonomy is gonna help us think that way. I think that there's a broader awareness of what the technology is able to do and how it will facilitate. We just have to be careful to make sure that that's not the end state. Technology is not the end state. It's humans, war fighters who are winning on the battlefield because they understand and they can make the right calls. That's what we're after. And so all of the stuff about acquisition and the rules and why people don't follow the rules and why is it so tribal that we can't get anything to be, I think all of that merits some dynamite, but it also merits some thinking about how do we better integrate our thinking and flows and how do we do that on the battlefield?
Christian: How much of a risk is the next administration coming in and potentially changing everything? And then in particular, if you're one of those big primes, are you baking that into your long-term planning that this might shift in a measurable way in the future? Or do you think these changes are going to be something that is so overwhelmingly positive that future administrations have to stick with it?
Blank: Well, if you were asking me this three years ago, I would have said, well, you should get all this done now because it's going to be flipped back in three years. What's changed now is the amount of capital available for startups, scale-ups, and private equity firms that can match or overpower the lobbying efforts of the primes. So as I said, both the executive branch and Congress are coin operated, even more so now than ever. And for the first time ever, the insurgents have as much or more coin than the incumbents. That's what's going to change this game.
So yes, of course, a Democratic administration or another Republican one might have a different opinion. But in this case, we're talking about piles of money flooding the streets in Washington to try to change the game. Think about who are now sitting in the cabinet. And other places have commercial experience for the first time ever at scale, inside the executive branch for sure and inside the Department of War which changes the nature of the conversation and as we're seeing the types of things they're recommending.
Again, it wasn't that people didn't recognize this before. It was kind of hard to explain this to people who had never run a business or who have been career successful. I've said for years, we had world class organizations, world class people for a world that no longer existed. And finally, we have people who understand what that world should be like because they've been operating in it. Secretary Feinberg has been writing checks of tens of billions of dollars- buying an aircraft carrier, okay, he’s written those kinds of checks before. Tell me who else ever had that position.
And again, it's not that the DOW should run like a corporation or startup, but having that experience sets a bar for what you know is possible for doing extraordinary things. It's what this country knew how to do in World War II and during the Cold War, and we just kind of lost it when Robert McNamara, an ex-chief financial officer of Ford, put in the first version of the Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution System (PPBE) in 1962. We've been operating on that system for 63 years, or some variance of it. Basically, he imposed a chief financial officer's kind of strategy on budgeting and planning, which made sense at the time. It stopped making sense about 15 years ago, but no one inside the building knew what to do differently. That's changed.
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14. Pentagon contract awards new combat knives for troops
Summary:
The Pentagon has awarded contracts for upgraded combat knives, providing U.S. troops with more durable, versatile blades designed for modern battlefield requirements and close-quarters effectiveness.
Comment: $716 of lethality. Probably for some special organization in that quantity (only 489). "Knife, Combat." Military terminology is so formal. :-)
Pentagon contract awards new combat knives for troops
defence-blog.com · Colton Jones
https://defence-blog.com/pentagon-contract-awards-new-combat-knives-for-troops/
Key Points
- The U.S. military awarded Atlantic Diving Supply a contract worth up to $350,000 to provide combat knives through an indefinite-delivery arrangement.
- The estimated quantity is 489 units, implying an approximate unit cost of about $716 per knife.
The United States military has awarded Atlantic Diving Supply, Inc. a new indefinite-delivery contract to supply combat knives under a Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) procurement issued on November 10.
The award, listed under contract, authorizes up to $350,000 in total deliveries for knives classified under the weapons category, with an estimated quantity listed as 489 units.
According to the award notice, the contract was issued by DLA Land and Maritime, the component responsible for supplying equipment and sustainment items for U.S. armed forces across global operations. The notice states that the agreement is an open-delivery arrangement, allowing the military to order knives in required batches up to the contract’s ceiling value.
While the notice does not specify the exact knife model or configuration, the listing categorizes the item as “KNIFE, COMBAT,” indicating a military-grade blade designed for field use by U.S. personnel.
DLA officials recorded the award at a total contract value not to exceed $350,000. Based on the estimated quantity of 489 units provided in the documentation, the approximate implied unit cost is about $716 per knife. Final pricing may vary depending on delivery batches and configuration specifics as orders are placed.
Atlantic Diving Supply, headquartered in Virginia, is a long-standing supplier to U.S. and allied defense customers. The company provides a wide range of tactical gear, protective equipment, and weapons accessories to military and federal agencies. The award notice lists the contractor by its registered entity identifier and confirms that deliveries will be coordinated directly through DLA Land and Maritime channels.
The contract notice states that the opportunity remains listed as active, with an inactive date of November 25, 2025, which aligns with procurement record-keeping timelines rather than operational expiration. Individual task orders will be issued under the contract number as knives are requested for field units.
No additional public details were provided regarding which specific service branches or units will receive the equipment. Standard practice suggests that combat knives are used across infantry, reconnaissance, special operations, and conventional field units, where dependable close-use tools remain part of individual gear loadouts.
defence-blog.com · Colton Jones
15. When Trust Becomes Strategy: Rethinking America's Innovation Posture
Summary:
U.S. innovation leadership now depends less on spending and more on reliability. Allies admire American scale but increasingly hedge against its policy swings, leaks, and bureaucratic dysfunction, as seen in wobbling AI and quantum initiatives and inconsistent export controls. Trust, once Washington’s strategic advantage, is eroding, pushing partners to diversify toward China and others. The author urges institutional continuity that survives elections, alignment of domestic and foreign technology policy, and depoliticized science diplomacy. Allies, meanwhile, should treat America as a volatile but vital partner, shaping joint frameworks that embed predictability, shared governance, and long-term execution.
Excerpts:
A final word for America’s allies: engage the United States not as a source of stability, but as a system in motion. Continuity is not the absence of change. It is the disciplined management of it. The most credible alliances anticipate volatility and design for endurance. Waiting for Washington to “return to normal” is a strategic error. Normal is what allies build together through routine and continuous engagement. Using the same principles outlined above, partners can help define that new equilibrium by reinforcing the connectivity between science, technology, and diplomacy through structure, predictability, and shared stewardship.
America benefits as much from challenge as from support. Too often in negotiations and working groups, I have seen partners pause to ask, “What do the Americans want?” The better question is, “What do we want, and how do we shape it?” When allies see the gap, when they recognize their own capacity and advantage, they should set the agenda rather than wait for Washington to catch up. Conviction commands Washington’s attention: deference only fills the silence.
America’s partnerships will probably endure, but endurance is not the same thing as trust. Closing the gap between rhetoric and reliability demands courage, humility, and the unglamorous work of execution. That work should be steady and resistant to political cycles, the kind no administration can reset and no election can erase. Execution is not a talking point; it is a metric, measured in delivery, consistency, and the capacity to stay the course when politics shift. Allies notice. So do competitors. In the end, it is structure, not rhetorical statements, that determines who leads, and who follows.
When Trust Becomes Strategy: Rethinking America's Innovation Posture
warontherocks.com · November 13, 2025
Lawrence Pixa
November 13, 2025
https://warontherocks.com/2025/11/when-trust-becomes-strategy/
U.S. allies have long balanced between leaning on American leadership and resisting its immense gravitational pull: political, economic, and structural. Historically, the United States invests at a scale no other democracy can match, spending hundreds of billions annually on defense-linked research and tens of billions more on civilian science through agencies like the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. These budgets dwarf those of even its closest allies. Many nations, limited by population, fiscal constraints, or social priorities, maintain only modest research capacity. The result is a structural asymmetry: breakthroughs, standards, and even the vocabulary of “innovation” often originate in Washington, shaping global technology ecosystems that smaller partners must adapt to rather than direct.
Yet that same pull now risks collapsing under its own inconsistency. Power without predictability breeds hesitation, not alignment, and the nations once anchored by U.S. leadership are beginning to hedge, building new frameworks to protect themselves from American volatility. For allied policymakers, this moment demands less faith in U.S. correction and more preparation for prolonged instability. What was once a manageable imbalance of power has become a crisis of credibility. Allies no longer doubt America’s resources or ingenuity — they doubt its reliability.
U.S. innovation leadership now depends less on scale than on consistency and trust. Strategy dissonance, the domestic contradictions that undercut allied cooperation, has become America’s diplomatic blind spot. Restoring credibility requires institutional continuity, depoliticized science, and alignment between domestic and foreign policy so allies can invest with confidence rather than caution.
Three principles should guide U.S. policy. First, continuity should be institutional, not ideological: enduring frameworks such as the Atlantic Declaration and National Quantum Initiative Act should be insulated from partisan cycles. Second, domestic and foreign policy should be complementary. Washington cannot invite partners into shared technology ecosystems while restricting access through shifting export or regulatory policy. Finally, trust should be treated as a strategic asset: return competence and delivery to the center of governance, empower civil and foreign service professionals, stabilize science programs against political turbulence, and reward execution over spectacle. Dollars buy access, but only reliability sustains influence. Without renewed credibility through continuity, coherence, and disciplined execution, the United States risks turning allied unease into open strategic distance.
BECOME A MEMBER
Admiration and Resentment
I have seen America’s dominance from both sides of the table — first in corporate government relations and later in diplomatic service, where admiration for American innovation often coexists with frustration with its unpredictability. During George W. Bush’s second term, when America’s standing in Europe had fallen sharply, though not to today’s depths, the United States was often viewed as overbearing, its wars unjustified, and its moral authority diminished. Representing Microsoft in that climate, I managed European government relations on Windows Vista’s trust and security issues while navigating the paradox of officials who condemned U.S. technology dominance publicly but courted its benefits privately.
Later, as a U.S. consular officer in Canada, I interviewed former anti-American activists eager to retire in the very country they once decried. Those experiences taught me how admiration and resentment often coexist in America’s global relationships, and how fragile credibility becomes when trust is treated as expendable.
The Vanishing Reserve
Trust is the invisible bridge between uncertainty and cooperation. What has changed in the United States is that trust is no longer our default setting; too many actions now contradict our assurances.
In the past, irritation at U.S. dominance could be softened by humility and personal connection. But when policies swing, leaks emerge from senior officials, and commitments appear conditional, irritation turns to doubt. The “Signalgate” breach, in which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s strike plans were exposed, did more than embarrass Washington. It revived longstanding fears among partners that sensitive information shared with the United States may not remain secure. Following the disclosure, The Associated Press reported that allied defense officials initiated internal reviews of intelligence-sharing protocols and requested assurances from Washington regarding information-security procedures. The episode echoed earlier incidents, such as the 2023 Pentagon document leak, when European and Asian partners expressed unease and re-evaluated the scope of operational coordination with the United States. In national security, credibility is fragile. One lapse may not dissolve frameworks such as Five Eyes or nuclear cooperation, but it weakens the confidence that sustains them.
From my Microsoft years managing relationships with E.U. officials, I saw how the erosion of trust in U.S. integrity reverberated through the commercial ecosystem. For firms with global footprints, waning confidence in U.S. governance shapes procurement policies, influences purchasing decisions, and constrains market access. The blowback extends well beyond government contracts, distorting consumer perceptions and eroding reputations that took decades to build. Even brands once synonymous with innovation, like Tesla, have learned how quickly political posturing corrodes market trust. Credibility, once squandered, exacts a price that public relations campaigns struggle to repair.
That loss of confidence is measurable across sectors. Partners delay ventures, hedge with others, and treat U.S. commitments as provisional. Government buyers raise barriers, both overt and subtle. Even scientific collaboration now withers under the fear of carelessness or exploitation. America once thrived in a “trust economy” where credibility, not dominance, sustained alliances. That currency is now dangerously depleted.
Leadership and Trust in U.S.–U.K. Innovation
Nowhere is this tension clearer than in U.S.–U.K. science and technology cooperation, the oft-invoked “special relationship.” It is longstanding, resilient, and essential, yet it also exposes how contradictions in U.S. domestic policy reverberate outward, forcing even America’s closest allies to second-guess Washington’s reliability. Two threads illustrate the point: the evolving U.S.–U.K. technology frameworks of recent years and the stalled reauthorization of the National Quantum Initiative Act. Together they show how strategic dissonance weakens partnerships, undermines credibility, and erodes the competitive edge the United States claims to defend.
From radar in World War II to Cold War nuclear cooperation, Anglo-American scientific collaboration is as old as modern geopolitics. Few bilateral partnerships are so deeply institutionalized, spanning intelligence sharing, joint laboratories, research consortia, and workforce pipelines.
In my recent role as senior science and technology policy adviser to His Majesty’s Government, after retiring from the U.S. State Department, the scope of that cooperation often defied accounting. Counterparts at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy described the same vast landscape, an ecosystem so intricate that even cataloguing it was difficult.
In the 2020s, the relationship has refocused through emerging technologies such as AI, quantum computing, nuclear energy, and advanced telecommunications. The Atlantic Declaration (2023, Biden–Sunak) and the Technology Prosperity Deal (2025, Trump–Starmer) stand as the latest attempts to anchor this cooperation in durable frameworks. The Atlantic Declaration outlined a broad “21st-century economic partnership,” integrating technology with trade, energy transition, and climate policy. Its successor, the Technology Prosperity Deal, offered a more focused, technology-driven approach centered on bilateral projects, private-sector engagement, and standards coordination. Both, however, function more as statements of shared intent than as binding instruments.
I advised the British Embassy in leading the first bilateral joint committee meeting in London in 2024, and on research and development partnerships and expert working groups under the Atlantic Declaration. Through extensive interagency coordination through the State Department, we set clear bilateral commitments with delivery timelines. Yet those plans unraveled within weeks of President Donald Trump’s 2024 election victory.
The State Department’s science diplomacy capacity, already weakened by hiring freezes and attrition during the first Trump term, never fully recovered. In 2025, Trump’s second term has further hollowed out the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, the office responsible for leading international science and technology cooperation. This bureau was my final assignment before retirement, where I witnessed firsthand how decades of institutional expertise and global trust eroded through neglect, politicization, and the loss of qualified officers. The State Department’s inspector general and the Government Accountability Office confirmed the same pattern: chronic staffing shortfalls have left the State Department unable to deliver on the commitments it signs with the White House. Today that situation is dire. You can draft the grandest memorandum imaginable, but without professionals to execute it, every promise becomes performance art.
On paper, at least, the Biden administration and Trump’s second administration appear aligned. Both the Atlantic Declaration and the Technology Prosperity Deal cast shared innovation as essential to shared security, elevating AI and quantum technologies as priorities, and emphasizing workforce development and corporate collaboration. Yet that is where the resemblance ends. Between these frameworks sits America’s AI Action Plan (2025), a domestic strategy that upends the trans-Atlantic script and further muddles the terms of partnership.
Contradiction as Policy: The U.S. AI Action Plan
Released just months before the Technology Prosperity Deal, the AI Action Plan was meant to be America’s roadmap for leadership. Instead, it reads as contradiction codified: praising openness while tightening export controls, declaring neutrality while sidelining the climate and equity initiatives that once framed U.S. science diplomacy, promising to complement workers while mapping displacement schemes, and preaching deregulation while creating new bureaucracies.
For allies, this inconsistency is not theoretical. How can partners co-invest in shared AI infrastructure when U.S. policy simultaneously ring-fences the technology? To London, Washington often appears two-faced, professing openness abroad while imposing ideological limits at home. America’s allies need less rhetoric and more reliability. They cannot plan long-term investments when U.S. rules shift with each election or executive order. Credibility becomes a moving target.
This paradox of allied resilience runs deep. America’s partners, especially the United Kingdom, have long adapted to Washington’s oscillations between multilateralism and isolationism. But even resilience has limits. At what point do allies decide that hedging against U.S. incoherence is not only prudent but necessary? Washington insists its leadership rests on being indispensable, yet its contradictions drive allies to invest in redundancy, undermining that very indispensability.
The National Quantum Initiative: Continuity in Limbo
The same pattern appears in the stalled reauthorization of the National Quantum Initiative Act, a bipartisan effort spanning administrations. If AI is the technology of the present, quantum is the frontier that will enable, accelerate, and ultimately make its evolution possible. The original 2018 Act authorized $1.275 billion over five years to accelerate research and coordination, aiming to prevent the United States from falling behind China and Europe in quantum information science.
In 2023, Congress introduced the National Quantum Initiative Reauthorization Act (H.R. 6213) to continue that focus, but it has since languished in procedural limbo, yet another bipartisan idea left hanging.
Superficially, the Act remains exemplary, with funding for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, National Science Foundation, and Department of Energy quantum centers, new testbeds, and reskilling hubs, and an emphasis on international cooperation. In practice, funding is contingent, priorities politicized, and cooperation hedged. Washington invites allies to participate but seeks to retain control. Smaller partners see the same asymmetry they face in AI — cooperation is promised, but always on America’s terms.
Even well-intentioned congressional staffers often lack international context. In my advisory work for the United Kingdom, I joined discussions on the Act with aides who spoke of “retaining” foreign talent, unaware of how such language reads abroad. To Washington, it seemed benign; to partners, it sounded like predation. When we raised the concern, the staffers looked genuinely surprised. The problem was not malice, but provincialism.
The Price of Incoherence
Across initiatives, the pattern is the same: lofty declarations paired with unstable delivery. Washington invites allies as partners but treats them as dependencies. Strategy that seems coherent inside the Beltway reads as contradiction abroad. The result is predictable: partners hedge.
Diversification can strengthen the democratic technology base, but when allies coordinate around rather than with Washington, balance hardens into exclusion. America’s credibility gap becomes structural. The problem is not ambition but dependability. Allies can accommodate disagreement; what they cannot manage is volatility sold as leadership. America still has the money, but not the focus.
When credibility slips, others fill the space. Canada now labels the United States “no longer a reliable partner.” Australia quietly broadens its defense and trade ties. Across NATO and the Five Eyes, partners are adapting to the question that now shapes every conversation: not whether America will lead, but whether it will show up.
Rivals Reap Dividends
America’s rivals do not need to outspend Washington; they simply exploit its inconsistency. Beijing presents itself as the “reliable partner” precisely because America oscillates between engagement and isolation. Moscow, though weakened by its own missteps, still exploits trans-Atlantic contradictions for narrative gain. Even middle powers such as India, Brazil, and Turkey leverage U.S. volatility for advantage, balancing Washington against Beijing, extracting favorable trade or defense terms, or positioning themselves as indispensable intermediaries in shifting regional alignments.
Recent Five Eyes trade overtures to China also illustrate the shift. Australia’s 2025 accords with Beijing on agriculture and steel decarbonization signal pragmatic hedging. The United Kingdom’s revival of its Joint Economic and Trade Commission with China reflects the same instinct. These are not pivots but insurance policies, proof that when U.S. politics turn erratic, even its closest allies must diversify to preserve continuity.
Prescriptive Architecture
For U.S. policymakers, the task is clear: make sure America’s words survive the flight home. Strategic dissonance cannot be managed by slogans; it should be corrected through structure. From my years in the Foreign Service and in software development, I learned that credibility is built on discipline and architecture. Continuity should be institutional, not ideological, and embedded in law, not in executive order. Frameworks such as the Atlantic Declaration, the Technology Prosperity Deal, and the AI Action Plan should be built to outlast election cycles. Coherence depends on aligning domestic and foreign policy; Washington cannot invite partners into shared ecosystems while restricting access to the very tools they rely on.
Trust is not a talking point. It is a strategic asset that compounds over time, multiplying influence more effectively than funding ever could. Restoring trust means rebuilding predictable governance channels, letting technical experts and civil servants operate as trusted custodians of continuity rather than political adversaries. It means insulating science and technology programs from partisan turmoil so investors and allies can count on U.S. consistency. And it means rewarding competence and delivery over performance and outrage. Reliability, not rhetoric, is what restores confidence in American leadership.
From my own experience managing trade and intellectual property issues abroad, the most durable safeguard was never a clause; it was trust between institutions. The foundation of credibility is not charisma or volume — it is structure. America’s partners judge not what we promise, but what we build and deliver, and crucially, whether it endures when the next flight home departs.
Many of these ideas are not new. They are echoed across recent policy work on both sides of the Atlantic, from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s reflections on science and innovation governance to the U.S.–E.U. Trade and Technology Council’s joint statements, studies by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and strategies released by the European Commission and the U.K. Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. Across these efforts runs a consistent theme: Credibility in science and technology policy depends on continuity, coherence, and institutional trust that endure beyond any single administration or government.
Blueprint for Uncertainty
A final word for America’s allies: engage the United States not as a source of stability, but as a system in motion. Continuity is not the absence of change. It is the disciplined management of it. The most credible alliances anticipate volatility and design for endurance. Waiting for Washington to “return to normal” is a strategic error. Normal is what allies build together through routine and continuous engagement. Using the same principles outlined above, partners can help define that new equilibrium by reinforcing the connectivity between science, technology, and diplomacy through structure, predictability, and shared stewardship.
America benefits as much from challenge as from support. Too often in negotiations and working groups, I have seen partners pause to ask, “What do the Americans want?” The better question is, “What do we want, and how do we shape it?” When allies see the gap, when they recognize their own capacity and advantage, they should set the agenda rather than wait for Washington to catch up. Conviction commands Washington’s attention: deference only fills the silence.
America’s partnerships will probably endure, but endurance is not the same thing as trust. Closing the gap between rhetoric and reliability demands courage, humility, and the unglamorous work of execution. That work should be steady and resistant to political cycles, the kind no administration can reset and no election can erase. Execution is not a talking point; it is a metric, measured in delivery, consistency, and the capacity to stay the course when politics shift. Allies notice. So do competitors. In the end, it is structure, not rhetorical statements, that determines who leads, and who follows.
BECOME A MEMBER
Lawrence Pixa managed high-performance computing research programs at NASA Headquarters, Goddard Space Flight Center, and Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory before moving to the private sector, where he led Microsoft’s internal mobile and security technology integration and later its government relations in Europe during the Windows Vista security and data protection debates. He then joined the U.S. Foreign Service, with assignments in Canada, Ukraine, Uruguay, and Washington, focusing on trade, intellectual property, e-government, and science and technology policy. After retiring from the State Department, he served as senior adviser on science and technology policy to His Majesty’s Government at the British Embassy in Washington, DC. He now writes on technology strategy and advises partners on practical architectures for cooperation. The views expressed are his own.
Image: Midjourney
warontherocks.com · November 13, 2025
16. From Relic to Relevance: Why Obsolete Weapons Still Win Modern Wars
Summary:
So-called “obsolete” weapons often remain combat-relevant, as shown in Ukraine where legacy systems like Gepard guns, Soviet tanks, and Maxim machine guns still kill drones and support troops. Lukáš Dyčka distinguishes five overlapping types of obsolescence, paradigmatic, conceptual, technological, functional, and physical, each implying different options: retire, modernize, repurpose, or hold in reserve. Stockpiles, spare parts, adaptation, and conversion can turn outdated kit into useful mass, training tools, or niche capabilities. He urges planners to see obsolescence as a diagnosis, not a death sentence, preserving optionality and portfolios rather than betting everything on shiny new systems.
Comment: The author is exactly right. Often obsolete weapons are most appropriate after you conduct an assessment.
Assessment - must conduct continuous assessment to gain understanding - tactical, operational, and strategic. Assessments are key to developing strategy and campaign plans and anticipating potential conflict. Assessments allow you to challenge assumptions and determine if a rebalance of ways and means with the acceptable, durable, political arrangement is required. Understand the indigenous way of war and adapt to it. Do not force the US way of war upon indigenous forces if it is counter to their history, customs, traditions, and abilities.
https://maxoki161.blogspot.com/2018/07/eight-points-of-special-warfare.html
Providing advanced US weapons may not be appropriate and may be counter-productive especially if we are being true to our principles and trying to work ourselves out of a job and therefore need to leave self sustainable systems in place. . But does the Security Assistance process this kind of strategic thinking, assessment, planning and execution? SAOs usually demand that we provide all US equipment. Recall how difficult it was to obtain and provide AK-47s/74s to Afghan forces. In the Philippines we wanted to provide .45 pistols to their national counterterrorism force because they produced .45 ammo indigenously and they did not produce 9mm ammo. But the SAO tried to force us to provide US 9mm Berettas because that was the US standard pistol at the time. We did not want to (and fortunately did not) create a dependency on US support (which of course goes against other US principles such as keeping US production lines flowing and ensuring US business profits from FMS). We have to determine what is most important and this is the job of senior decision makers. And I would argue that this cannot be done by regulation as each situation is different. It requires strategic analysis and consideration.
From Relic to Relevance: Why Obsolete Weapons Still Win Modern Wars - Modern War Institute
mwi.westpoint.edu · Lukáš Dyčka · November 13, 2025
https://mwi.westpoint.edu/from-relic-to-relevance-why-obsolete-weapons-still-win-modern-wars/
On a frosty night in eastern Ukraine, a German-made Gepard antiaircraft gun built decades ago and long retired in Germany itself, suddenly fires a burst that shreds a Russian drone. Elsewhere on both sides of the front, Soviet-era tanks equipped with makeshift cages rumble forward, and even century-old Maxim M1910 machine guns bark from trenches. These scenes are not nostalgia; they are everyday reality on a battlefield that is reminding us that modern wars are often waged with obsolete weapons.
Unsurprisingly, the word “obsolete” has a seductive finality for army professionals. The most obvious response when a weapon becomes obsolete is to dispose of and replace it. But reality seems to be far messier. Taking into account particularly the lessons from war in Ukraine, we tend to ignore that it’s not just innovative uses of modern first-person-view (FPV) drones that dominate the battlefield, but that these very drones are being shot down by systems otherwise considered obsolete. None of this is an accident, and it’s not pure desperation either. Rather, it is a reminder that obsolescence is a spectrum, not a definite verdict. And globally there are more than few examples when yesterday’s weapons still solve today’s problems.
Defense institutions often define obsolescence as a logistics issue: When spare parts or ammunition productions stops, a system is obsolete. That matters for sustainment, but it misses the wider operational picture. An unsupported platform on paper may remain combat‑relevant if stockpiles exist or if production can be restarted, but perhaps more importantly it can often be used if it is adapted to a new role. Take an RKG-3 antitank grenade equipped with 3D printed fins and dropped from FPVs as one example among many. The same logic sustains elderly aircraft like the DC‑3/C‑47 family, kept flying for decades around the globe on the strength of vast wartime spares. Availability does not equal utility—but neither does unavailability equal irrelevance.
To make better choices and prevent hasty disposal and replacement, militaries need a clearer vocabulary. Yet the field of obsolescence is a messy one. To narrow it, we should consider five categories of obsolescence: paradigmatic, conceptual, technological, functional, and physical. They overlap in practice, but each captures a different reason why a system falls out of use—and consequently points to different options for what to do next.
What War Looks Like When Old Still Works
The idea that obsolete weapons still matter in modern militaries sounds counterintuitive, especially on the pages of the Modern War Institute. But the real question is not whether technology is obsolete and useless, but which category of obsolescence fits what role.
Paradigmatic Obsolescence
Paradigmatic obsolescence is a clear‑cut case: weapons that belong to a different era of warfare. They no longer figure in doctrine or training. When paradigmatic obsolescence applies, reversal is unrealistic and these tools migrate to museums and ceremonies. History offers few examples of attempts to resist this transition. During the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, for instance, Ethiopian forces commonly armed with spears faced Italian troops equipped with tanks and chemical weapons. Today, such cases are exceedingly rare. Outside of ceremonial traditions, like the presentation of swords to graduating officers, paradigmatically obsolete weapons have long since disappeared from active service.
Conceptual Obsolescence
Conceptual obsolescence is more common and fickler. Conceptual obsolescence arises when the strategic rationale for a weapon’s existence is no longer aligned with contemporary doctrine. This is caused by a shift in warfare doctrines or externally imposed through treaty obligations. Conceptual obsolescence labels are, however, highly risky. Discarding a weapon because we believe that the concept for which it was created will never return has far too often proved a costly mistake. Tanks were written off by some as poor fits for expeditionary counterinsurgency, left in storage as tankers were repurposed as light infantry, before quickly returning to center stage when large‑scale conventional combat reemerged, only to again gradually disappear from Ukrainian battlefield recently. Yet it is safe to expect that this is not the last stage of the cycle either.
In a sense, keeping systems designed for a war we believe will never come in reserve is not sensible. Nevertheless, concealing stocks of restricted armament is not unheard of. After World War I, Germany, Austria, and Hungary clandestinely kept some prohibited artillery stocks in defiance of treaty restrictions. And Iraq employed similar tactics after the Persian Gulf War, burying prohibited missiles to circumvent UN mandates.
Adaptation offers a more legitimate path. The A-10 aircraft, originally designed for antitank missions, was reoriented toward general close air support following the Cold War’s end and is discussed as an ideal antidrone platform nowadays. Historically the battleship ceded primacy to carriers in World War II and spent its final decades providing naval gunfire support and fleet air defense before the last one left service in 1992.
Arms control treaties sometimes also require formal conversion. The START agreement led to modifications to strategic bombers and missile launchers, rendering them incapable of nuclear deployment. The B-1 bomber, for instance, was restricted to conventional weapons, while the LGM-118 Peacekeeper ICBM was repurposed as the Minotaur IV space launch vehicle.
The hard truth is that our ability to predict future conflicts is limited and prematurely discarding conceptually obsolete weapons can backfire. Yet, in the face of budget cuts, such warnings are too often ignored.
Technological Obsolescence
Technological obsolescence happens when a successor does the same job better, or new technology neutralizes a system’s function. Surface‑to‑air missiles superseded gun‑based air defense; satellites took over SR‑71‑style high‑altitude strategic reconnaissance; self‑propelled howitzers eclipsed many towed systems in high‑tempo maneuver; and FPV drones are (as it seems) replacing antitank guided missiles right now. Sometimes technological obsolescence is intentional—export variants stripped of sensitive features, or treaty‑constrained capital ships built under tonnage limits.
One might naturally assume that using weapons that have been surpassed by newer models is not the first, go-to option. Yet in terms of operational viability, technologically obsolete systems are an economically rational way to generate mass when reserve crews already understand the platform. As an example, both Ukraine and Russia have pulled numerous variants of T‑72 and T‑80 tanks from reserves. And this is also evident in NATO states, such as the Czech Armed Forces, which maintain older vz. 58 assault rifles in mobilization reserves.
Training is generally the quiet workhorse of legacy employment. Slovakia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic have received Leopard 2A4 tanks—technologically obsolete in the sense that newer Leopard variants exist—and put them to use for training. This is obviously not a new approach. The rapid pace of World War II technological change pushed plenty of tanks that were considered too light for combat into training fleets; Bulgaria even requested German Panzer I tanks as late as 1943 for that purpose.
Generation of mass and training with obsolete weaponry, no matter how common, is still a stopgap measure. However, adaptation offers another avenue. Technologically obsolete weapons are often reassigned to roles where their limitations are less critical. Russian forces have redirected legacy P‑35 (3M44 Progress) antiship missiles against land targets, while Ukraine reactivated T‑12 100-millimeter antitank guns and even older 85-milimeter D‑44 and D‑48 guns for indirect fire support. Even in NATO countries, older vehicles like the French VAB—introduced in the 1970s—continue to serve in logistics and support roles, proving that obsolescence is context-dependent.
Modernization efforts, while not cure-all, further extend the lifespan of these systems. Enhancing lethality through improved ammunition, survivability upgrades, or interoperability adjustments can transform outdated platforms into viable assets. Ukrainian Leopard 2A4s fitted with Kontakt‑1 explosive reactive armor in 2023 illustrate the principle.
And beyond modernization there is conversion. Technologically obsolete tanks have historically been repurposed into recovery vehicles, artillery tractors, or armored personnel carriers. Sweden’s Stridsvagn m/41 tanks were transformed into Pbv 301 armored personnel carriers; Israel turned captured T‑55s into Achzarit armored personal carriers. A more extreme type of conversion is weaponization of previously unarmed systems. Ukraine has converted obsolete reconnaissance drones, including the Tu‑141 and Tu‑143, into improvised cruise missiles and used these to strike deep inside Russia.
All these approaches illustrate that technological obsolescence is not the end of usefulness; it is rather an invitation to move the old tool into a different role where its residual strengths still matter.
Functional Obsolescence
Functional obsolescence in weapon systems is inherently linked to the unavailability of spare parts or ammunition. Politics can accelerate the process: Suppliers redirect parts elsewhere or adversary‑made spares for captured gear become unobtainable. Yet functional obsolescence is often reversible if production lines can be restarted. More recently, additive manufacturing provides a solution. And, as always, large stockpiles can extend service lives. Finnish planners until recently still saw value in D‑30 towed 122-millimeter field guns for regionally oriented troops precisely because ammunition was abundant.
Without the ability to reopen production lines for spares or ammunition this category of obsolescence seems like a dead end—but there are workarounds such as modernization of conversion. Working examples of Ukraine’s modernized antiair “FrankenSAM” systems exist in several modified forms, such as Soviet-era Buk M1 launcher with American RIM-7 Sea Sparrow missiles.
However, in many cases the abundance of spare parts and ammunition allows functionally obsolete systems to remain viable for reserve formations for a considerable time. Russian T‑62s have been employed by lower‑quality units as self‑propelled artillery. Is that optimal? No. Is it rational when you need steel that can move a gun and lob shells from relative safety? Yes. At the tactical level, commanders make these trades constantly. Even NATO military personnel would have hundreds of stories of an old chassis used in a secondary role (e.g., a small number of V3S trucks produced since 1953 and still used by Czech Armed Forces), which is still more valuable than a paper requirement for a modern capability you do not have. The difference between unsupported and useless is measured in what you have on the shelf and what you can credibly make tomorrow.
Physical Obsolescence
Finally, physical obsolescence is the true end state of weaponry. Airframes corrode; propellants and explosives degrade; welds fail; heavily used vehicles become unsafe to operate. Sometimes, expiration is built in—fuses that render captured munitions inert, or short-lived energetic compounds. Unlike the previous categories, physical obsolescence is irreversible. Once a structure exceeds its fatigue limits or deteriorates beyond safety margins, the weapon’s military life is over. Only gate guardians stand as a quite testimony.
However, symbolic status does not always preclude combat reactivation. World War II legacy M18 Hellcat tank destroyers and T-34/85 tanks saw combat in Yugoslav wars—albeit often only as a static artillery. And in Ukraine, those Maxim M1910s, once a hobby of curators, were pulled from collections and mounted again. These cases are rare and usually born of necessity, but they illustrate a larger point: The line between obsolete and useful is thinner than we like to admit when survival is at stake.
What This Means for Planners
Modernization is essential, but the fetish for new can have real battlefield impacts—soldiers killed, units destroyed, engagements lost. Real wars are contests of mass, endurance, adaptation, and time. In that competition, properly understood, maintained, and employed obsolete weapons still punch above their weight. What does this mean for modern military forces?
First, treat obsolescence as a diagnosis, not a verdict. Ask which category applies. A physically exhausted airframe is done. But a functionally obsolete gun with ample ammunition is not. A conceptually obsolete platform may be one adversary or one type of terrain away from renewed relevance. It is very often precision that opens new options—replace, upgrade, repurpose, or retire—while imprecision turns obsolete into a thought‑terminating cliché.
Second, preserve optionality. Stockpiles matter more than glossy brochures. Long wars reward the ability to restart ammunition production, fabricate spares, and integrate substitutes. Map the obsolete calibers, components, and subsystems that underpin mass firepower, and invest in bridging them—especially across alliances, where a partner’s old system might be your best short‑term path to generating combat power.
Third, align training and sustainment with what you keep. Do you keep your obsolete weapon in reserve? Then you most likely need personnel and tooling to run it. African militaries during the Cold War Africa offer cautionary tales: States that were donated sophisticated kits by their American or Soviet benefactors without building maintenance ecosystems watched fleets wither when outside technicians left. The opposite is also true: Preserve critical human skills and institutional knowledge, and you can safely extend service lives while modernization catches up.
Fourth, design portfolio road maps, not single‑thread replacement plans. Some systems should be replaced outright, but for others upgrade will suffice. Some may be adapted to niche roles, while a few can be converted to different ones. This mix is cheaper, faster, and more shock‑resistant than an all‑or‑nothing bet on future procurement cycles. It also improves the politics of assistance: Donors can transfer legacy equipment that partners can absorb immediately while planning transitions to common platforms later.
Finally, none of this romanticizes obsolescence. Survivability gaps, interoperability challenges, and legal and ethical concerns are real. In a dense reconnaissance‑strike environment, these platforms are liabilities on the front line. But the same platforms might be exactly what you need in defense in depth, deception, logistics protection, or training. Stop calling them obsolete. Start asking what problems they can still solve.
Captain Lukáš Dyčka, Ph.D., currently serves as a senior staff officer at the Czech Armed Forces Training Command – Military Academy. His previous assignments include head of the Department of Courses Management at the Czech University of Defence, six years as a lecturer in strategic studies at the Baltic Defence College, and advisor to the Czech minister of defence.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.
Image credit: Суспільне Запоріжжя
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mwi.westpoint.edu · Lukáš Dyčka · November 13, 2025
17. Can Democracy Still Make a Comeback?
Summary:
Madeleine Albright’s predicted “democratic revival” has not materialized. Instead, democracy has retreated as autocrats from Iran to Cuba to Belarus crush dissent, weaponize technology, and consolidate power. The second Trump administration’s dismantling of U.S. democracy-promotion tools has further emboldened authoritarian regimes and weakened global civil society. Yet public demand for freedom remains strong: majorities across Africa, Latin America, and Europe still prefer democratic governance, and protest movements persist despite repression. Democratic renewal is possible but requires restored U.S. leadership, sustained international support, resilient institutions, and solidarity with activists whose aspirations endure even when progress stalls.
Excerpts:
The vision Albright put forward in 2021 was hopeful but not naive. She understood that democracy would not rebound on its own. What she believed, and what she challenged others to believe, was that the desire for dignity, freedom, and accountability remained universal. That is still true. What has faltered is the infrastructure, solidarity, and leadership needed to translate that desire into durable political gains.
Albright believed that supporting democracy is not just a moral imperative but a strategic one. Authoritarian regimes do not simply repress their own people; they export corruption, weaponize information, and erode the norms that underpin global stability. Democracies make better partners. They uphold the rule of law, respect borders, and are far less likely to provoke conflict. And in the long-term competition with China, the United States’ greatest advantage is the attractiveness of its ideals, which help it build international coalitions, bring talent and investment into the country, and confer a legitimacy on the U.S. government that coercion cannot buy.
Albright ended her essay with a call for democratic governments to “band together to deliver on their promise, to counter their adversaries, and to support their defenders.” The democratic project has since suffered serious blows, but it is far from dead. The foundations of a revival remain to be built on when the world’s democracies—most of all the United States—muster the will to prevail.
Comment: Democracy is only dead if we let it die. I remain bullish.
Can Democracy Still Make a Comeback?
Foreign Affairs · More by Jane Harman · November 13, 2025
Hope for a Freer Future Is Dimmed but Not Lost
November 13, 2025
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/can-democracy-still-make-comeback
Voting in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, October 2025 Luc Gnago / Reuters
JANE HARMAN was Chair of the bipartisan Commission on the National Defense Strategy and Co-Chair of the Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on Space Policy Management. She previously served nine terms as a U.S. Representative from California and is President Emerita of the Wilson Center.
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Six months before she died, in October 2021, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright published a memorable essay in Foreign Affairs, “The Coming Democratic Revival.” Amid rising pessimism about the future of democracy, Albright, who was a friend of mine, offered a hopeful counterpoint. Authoritarianism was brittle and self-defeating, she argued, whereas the desire for freedom and accountability remained universal. “Democracy is not a dying cause,” she wrote. “It is poised for a comeback.”
As Albright saw it, authoritarian regimes were faltering and alternative models—especially those offered by China and Russia—were losing credibility. With democracy retaining its appeal, young people increasingly engaged in politics and connected with the world, and democratic institutions and civil society organizations strong and widespread, the global balance would tilt back toward freedom, especially if the United States were to step up its support of pro-democracy movements.
Nearly four years later, the comeback has not happened. Democracy, instead of surging, has faltered. In many places, it is in sustained retreat. Protest movements from Tbilisi to Tunis have faced crackdowns. Autocratic leaders old and new have more brazenly consolidated power, often under the cover of law. And in Washington, the second Trump administration has reduced U.S. support for democracy abroad while backing away from the norms and institutions that foster democracy at home.
This change in the United States may be the most consequential development of all. Albright warned that if the country abandoned its commitment to democratic values, it would embolden autocrats, betray allies, and diminish its own global standing. Yet the inherent weakness of authoritarianism remains. The legitimacy of an autocratic government is shallow: it depends on coercion rather than consent. Meanwhile, democratic ideals rooted in human dignity, equality, and empowerment are visible in street protests, underground classrooms, and encrypted chat rooms. Democratic movements need more support if they are to turn their aspirations into reality. But as long as these ideals endure, Albright’s hope for a comeback remains alive.
NO ILLUSIONS
Autocrats “are now failing to deliver,” Albright wrote, “including in countries where people increasingly expect accountable leadership even in the absence of democratic rule.” She argued that discontent would eventually erode the foundations of authoritarian regimes and create space for democratic resurgence.
For a time, Iran and Cuba appeared to offer that possibility. Both were governed by aging leaders of revolutionary movements whose founding myths had long since lost their hold. In Iran, decades of economic crisis, repression, and moral policing culminated in 2022 with the death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman detained for violating the country’s dress code. Her killing ignited a nationwide uprising led by women and students who openly denounced the regime and its supreme leader. For a moment, it seemed that Albright’s prediction was coming true.
That hope proved misplaced. The Iranian government crushed the protests with Internet shutdowns, mass arrests, and public executions. Today, as Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei reaches his late 80s, hard-line figures from the security services—not reformers—appear most likely to inherit his system.
The legitimacy of an autocratic government is shallow.
Cuba once seemed just as close to a turning point. In July 2021, the island witnessed its largest demonstrations in decades, as thousands demanded not only food and medicine but freedom itself. Those protests, too, were swiftly silenced. The government restored control through arrests, intimidation, and digital surveillance; many activists remain in exile or in prison.
The experiences of Iran and Cuba showed that authoritarian fragility is not the same as democratic opening. Regimes that fail their citizens can still adapt, using fear, technology, and force to outlast popular movements.
In an earlier era, the United States might have amplified dissident voices, supported independent civil society organizations, or imposed costs on repressive governments through diplomatic isolation and targeted sanctions. Today, the U.S. government is itself attempting to chill dissent at home while dismantling or defunding the tools Washington once used to support democrats abroad—and often aligning with authoritarian leaders instead. Without international solidarity and sustained outside pressure, protest movements face steeper odds in turning moral courage into political change. So even as authoritarian regimes lose legitimacy, they remain entrenched.
LOSING APPEAL
In 2021, Albright also pointed out that the world’s leading authoritarian countries, China and Russia, had failed to offer a compelling model for others to follow. They had an opportunity to present themselves as credible alternatives to liberal democracy during the first Trump administration, but “they blew it.”
That assessment has held up, in part. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine shattered any remaining illusions of benevolent strongman rule. China, meanwhile, has struggled to present a convincing alternative. Its once vaunted economic miracle has slowed sharply, and across much of the developing world, Beijing is now viewed less as a partner than as a predator—a creditor wielding debt, infrastructure, and technology to entrench dependence. China’s surging youth unemployment and tighter political controls have further undermined its image as an efficient, technocratic autocracy. Surveys from Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, meanwhile, show that publics in regions most exposed to Chinese influence still express clear preferences for democratic governance over authoritarian rule.
The United States, however, is voluntarily ceding ground. The dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the defunding of Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Europe, the slashing of over $54 billion in foreign assistance, and the termination of more than 5,800 democracy-related programs have sent an unmistakable signal that Washington’s priorities have shifted.
This has given China an opportunity to portray itself as a more stable and pragmatic—and less judgmental—partner. Chinese officials now speak the language of “win-win cooperation” and “development without interference” as they engage governments around the world. In December 2023, Beijing eliminated tariffs on imports from the world’s 43 least-developed countries; this year, Washington has imposed steep tariffs on some of the same countries and suspended health, education, and food security programs there. Chinese firms have stepped into critical infrastructure projects, many of them in sub-Saharan Africa, that were once funded by the United States. Insisting on noninterference, Beijing offers foreign leaders capital and legitimacy without requiring transparency, human rights safeguards, or competitive elections—a model that strengthens incumbents and dulls democratic accountability.
ALIVE IN SPIRIT
“Despite the battering that democracy has endured,” Albright wrote, “most people want to strengthen, not discard, their democratic systems.” That remains true. In a 2025 survey conducted by Freedom House, 75 percent of respondents across 34 countries said they preferred democracy over other forms of government. This level of support has remained remarkably consistent despite years of democratic erosion. (I serve on the Freedom House board of trustees, which I formerly chaired.) Afrobarometer’s 2025 flagship report, drawing on surveys in 39 African countries, found that roughly seven in ten citizens still prefer democracy to any other form of government, and solid majorities support competitive elections, presidential term limits, and independent courts—even in countries that have experienced recent coups.
This democratic spirit is not confined to opinion polls. It has brought people to the streets. In Georgia, thousands of protesters—including students and civic leaders—have turned out in Tbilisi since the October 2024 parliamentary election, which international observer missions, including those from the European Parliament and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, determined was deeply flawed and had failed to meet democratic standards. In Israel in early 2023, before October 7, one of the largest protest movements in the country’s history saw hundreds of thousands take to the streets week after week to oppose a proposed judicial overhaul that would have severely weakened the independence of the Supreme Court. Israelis across ideological lines stood side by side to defend democratic norms.
In some places, resistance has come with high costs. In Myanmar, following a military coup in 2021, pro-democracy activists have endured relentless persecution. More than 4,000 people have been killed and over 25,000 imprisoned by the junta. In Tunisia, a country once hailed as the lone success story of the Arab Spring, President Kais Saied has dismantled a decade of democratic gains: dissolving Parliament, rewriting the constitution, and jailing his critics. In Belarus, the government has maintained a brutal campaign of repression. Nearly all leading opposition figures are in prison or exile, including the 2020 presidential challenger Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who was forced to flee Belarus after an election widely condemned as fraudulent.
THE PROMISE OF YOUTH?
Albright placed particular hope in the rising generation of globally connected youth. This cohort, she noted, was better educated and more demanding of accountability than any before it. Young people with “an ingrained belief in their own autonomy” would be more willing to disrupt the “traditional hierarchies” that prop up authoritarianism.
The energy of youth movements remains powerful, but it has been less transformative than Albright envisioned. In Chile and Colombia, youth movements were instrumental in electing reformist governments in 2021 and 2022, respectively. In India, young voters and digital activists have helped drive opposition organizing as the government grows increasingly repressive. But elsewhere, youthful idealism is colliding with institutional decay.
In Tunisia and Turkey, where checks and balances have eroded, courts have been politicized, and opposition parties face systematic harassment, young people are voting with their feet. A 2024 report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found a 12 percent increase in asylum applications by 15- to 29-year-olds across EU countries between 2021 and 2023, with notable surges from democracies in retreat—including Tunisia, Turkey, and Venezuela, whose increases were well above the continental average. In countries such as Egypt, Iran, and Myanmar, youth-led protest movements have been met with digital surveillance, online harassment, and mass arrests designed to intimidate, isolate, or drive out dissenters.
Even in relatively open societies, civic spaces are shrinking and democratic institutions are under pressure, leaving many young people excluded from meaningful participation. They are invited to vote but not to govern. Their expectations are rising, but their opportunities to shape outcomes are not. As the Arab Spring demonstrated, it is easier to topple a government than to build one, and the failure to convert protest energy into lasting democratic institutions has bred cynicism among the very generation Albright once saw as democracy’s best hope.
SUPPORT SYSTEM
Albright emphasized the enduring importance of democratic infrastructure—courts, legislatures, independent watchdogs, and electoral commissions—as tools for public accountability, even in illiberal environments. And she understood that democratic resilience does not happen in isolation. It depends on global networks that provide expertise, funding, and moral support, especially when local governments turn against their citizens.
For decades, that scaffolding has included both governmental and nongovernmental efforts. The National Endowment for Democracy, founded by the U.S. Congress in the 1980s with bipartisan backing, has supported civic actors, labor unions, journalists, and party-builders in more than 100 countries. Cross-border networks of pro-democracy political parties have offered not just ideological inspiration but real material and strategic assistance. The European Union and countries including Canada, the Nordic states, and others have helped train election observers, bolster media freedom, and sustain civil society watchdogs in environments where democratic space is closing or where activists operate under authoritarian pressure.
Democratic resilience does not happen in isolation.
These efforts have made a difference. In Poland, years of European pressure to uphold judicial integrity and electoral transparency helped enable the 2023 opposition victory over the illiberal Law and Justice party. Tunisian democracy thrived for nearly a decade—before its recent unraveling—in part because of consistent international investment in transitional justice, constitutional reform, and civil society.
But these successes are growing harder to sustain. According to Freedom House, nearly 60 countries experienced democratic backsliding in 2024 alone. That year, in Thailand, the Constitutional Court dissolved the leading opposition party. In El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele eliminated term limits and gutted judicial independence. Georgia’s new law targeting foreign-funded nongovernmental organizations, including many democracy-supporting organizations, imposes burdensome reporting requirements meant to silence dissent.
The Trump administration’s defunding of the United States’ democracy assistance architecture has made the work of activists around the world even more difficult. In addition to sweeping cuts to USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy, the administration has ordered the closure of the U.S. Institute of Peace and replaced the board and president of the Wilson Center (which I led for a decade), two institutions that convene policymakers and provide platforms for scholars and democratic civil society. Smaller donors and philanthropic networks have tried to fill the gap, but they lack the scale of U.S. government investment. Programs that once helped train election monitors, support investigative journalists, and connect grassroots organizers across borders are now running on fumes or shuttered entirely.
A REVIVAL DEFERRED
The vision Albright put forward in 2021 was hopeful but not naive. She understood that democracy would not rebound on its own. What she believed, and what she challenged others to believe, was that the desire for dignity, freedom, and accountability remained universal. That is still true. What has faltered is the infrastructure, solidarity, and leadership needed to translate that desire into durable political gains.
Albright believed that supporting democracy is not just a moral imperative but a strategic one. Authoritarian regimes do not simply repress their own people; they export corruption, weaponize information, and erode the norms that underpin global stability. Democracies make better partners. They uphold the rule of law, respect borders, and are far less likely to provoke conflict. And in the long-term competition with China, the United States’ greatest advantage is the attractiveness of its ideals, which help it build international coalitions, bring talent and investment into the country, and confer a legitimacy on the U.S. government that coercion cannot buy.
Albright ended her essay with a call for democratic governments to “band together to deliver on their promise, to counter their adversaries, and to support their defenders.” The democratic project has since suffered serious blows, but it is far from dead. The foundations of a revival remain to be built on when the world’s democracies—most of all the United States—muster the will to prevail.
Foreign Affairs · More by Jane Harman · November 13, 2025
18. SOCOM solicits industry to train commandos to build and fly FPV drones
Summary:
SOCOM is seeking a contractor to teach commandos how to build and fly FPV drones through a 10-day course covering assembly, troubleshooting, configuration software, and supervised flight training
SOCOM solicits industry to train commandos to build and fly FPV drones
defensescoop.com · Jon Harper · November 12, 2025
https://defensescoop.com/2025/11/12/socom-fpv-drone-small-uas-training-solicitation-naval-special-warfare-command/?utm
U.S. Special Operations Command issued a solicitation Wednesday as it looks for a contractor to train its forces to build and fly “first-person-view” drones.
Small unmanned aerial systems such as FPV platforms are playing a major role in the Ukraine-Russia war, among other conflicts, and SOCOM is looking to enhance its prowess in this area.
A performance work statement from Naval Special Warfare Command — which is responsible for preparing and equipping Navy SEALs to accomplish special warfare missions — noted that its UAS operators require initial qualification training in the fabrication and flying of these types of systems.
“The Contractor shall provide the personnel, management, materials, curriculum, and facilities necessary” to offer a 10-day course of instruction for up to six personnel that “encompass all requirements to source, assemble, troubleshoot, network, and operate FPV drones,” officials wrote.
The course is expected to involve 35 hours of “fundamental training” in FPV development, including “theory” of FPV systems; principles of system design and integration; limitations and performance characteristics; parts, circuitry, assembly, troubleshooting and networking; battery handling and storage; safe and efficient operation of aircraft; and advanced flight performance and techniques.
It must also entail five hours of “supervised build instruction” on things like basic soldering and wiring techniques and procedures, Betaflight, Ardupilot, or similar FPV configuration software, and basic repair and maintenance — as well as 40 hours of supervised flight instruction “in varying controlled environments to include both indoors and outdoors flight, as well as flight simulation,” per the performance work statement.
The training will culminate in a capstone exercise to demonstrate the combined skills that trainees have learned.
The base period of performance is expected to begin Jan. 15, 2026, at the contractor’s facility.
Officials plan to award a firm-fixed-price contract for the training services as a Service-Disabled Veteran Owned Small-Business set aside.
Responses to the solicitation are due Dec. 4.
Written by Jon Harper
Jon Harper is Editor-in-Chief of DefenseScoop. He leads an award-winning team of journalists in providing breaking news and in-depth analysis on military technology and the ways in which it is shaping how the Defense Department operates and modernizes. You can also follow him on X: @Jon_Harper_
defensescoop.com · Jon Harper · November 12, 2025
19. US Army tests latest missile defense equipment on Guam and in South Korea
Comment: Missiles defense is on our most critical capabilities. (A BFO I know). Does this continue to our strategic reassurance and strategic resolve? (the answer to my rhetorical question should be yes and I hope our Korean allies understand this).
US Army tests latest missile defense equipment on Guam and in South Korea
Stars and Stripes · Seth Robson · November 13, 2025
https://www.stripes.com/branches/army/2025-11-13/army-tests-guam-missile-defense-19751181.html?utm
A Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, launcher is displayed on Guam, Nov. 30, 2023. (Seth Robson/Stars and Stripes)
The Pentagon has already moved prototype gear to Guam ahead of the development of an updated missile defense system there, an Army official said this week.
The unspecified equipment was delivered last fiscal year to the U.S. island territory, Jeannie Sommer, a program director with the Army’s Program Executive Office Missiles and Space, said Monday during a Guam defense online forum run by the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance.
Similar equipment was also shipped to South Korea, she said.
U.S. officials see Guam’s defense as critical to deterring a Chinese attempt to invade Taiwan, which Chinese President Xi Jinping has vowed to reunify by force if necessary.
Construction of the $8 billion Enhanced Integrated Air and Missile Defense System is expected to begin on Guam next year. The project’s environmental impact statement is available for public comment until Jan. 8.
The system is expected to incorporate the Army’s Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System and the Navy’s Aegis Combat System found on Arleigh-Burke-class guided-missile destroyers.
The system will include radars, sensors, launchers, interceptors and support facilities at numerous sites on the island to provide continuous 360-degree protection against cruise, ballistic and hypersonic missile attacks.
Guam is home to major military installations, including Naval Base Guam, Andersen Air Force Base and the new Marine Corps Base Camp Blaz. The island has long been called the U.S. military’s “tip of the spear” in the Indo-Pacific, owing to its proximity to the South China Sea, North Korea and China.
Sommer didn’t identify the prototypes delivered to Guam but said capability expected on the island would include the Integrated Battle Command System, the Indirect Fire Protection Capability launcher, the Sentinel A4 and Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor radars and M903 launchers.
Soldiers have been rotating to the island and training with prototypes, Sommer said.
“These prototypes really under traditional acquisition would be sitting at White Sands Missile Range undergoing continuous testing there, but we’re getting them into the hands of soldiers early,” she said.
Feedback from the soldiers is being incorporated into the design process, which results in faster delivery, Sommer said.
“Learning in an operationally relevant environment versus a controlled test environment is paying enormous dividends already, even though the capability’s only been there a few months,” she said.
The project, Sommer said, aligns with a Nov. 7 message by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who said the Pentagon is revamping how the military buys weapons.
Hegseth, speaking to military leaders and defense contractors in Washington, said the “objective is simple: transform the entire acquisition system to operate on a wartime footing, to rapidly accelerate the fielding of capabilities and focus on results.”
The first capabilities of the missile defense system will be delivered in fiscal 2027, Sommer said.
“What we will do is deliver the initial capabilities and we will incrementally improve over time to realize the full operational capability just a few years later,” she said.
Guam already has some defenses, including the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, system, but those capabilities are often supplemented by guided-missile destroyers.
Completion of the missile defense project will alleviate the need for those destroyers to protect Guam, Riki Ellison, founder of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, said during the online forum.
Stars and Stripes · Seth Robson · November 13, 2025
20. US forces launch relief effort in the Philippines after 2 typhoons batter islands
Comment: Great Americans doing great things in support of our ally.
US forces launch relief effort in the Philippines after 2 typhoons batter islands
Stars and Stripes · Seth Robson · November 13, 2025
https://www.stripes.com/theaters/asia_pacific/2025-11-13/marines-typhoon-relief-philippines-19751467.html
Marine Brig. Gen. Robert Brodie visits the amphibious assault ship USS Boxer on March 13, 2025. (Omar Dominquez/U.S. Navy)
The American military has launched a disaster-relief operation in the Philippines alongside local forces in response to back-to-back typhoons, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command announced Thursday.
“At the request of the government of the Philippines, the U.S. military is working shoulder-to-shoulder with the Armed Forces of the Philippines to provide foreign disaster relief to communities affected by consecutive Typhoons Kalmaegi (Tino) and Fung-Wong (Uwan), which caused extensive damage and tragic loss of life,” the command said in a news release.
Over the weekend, Super Typhoon Fung-Wong pounded most of the Philippines’ main island of Luzon and parts of the Visayas islands, displacing thousands and killing 27, the state-run Philippine News Agency reported Thursday.
Before that deadly storm, Typhoon Kalmaegi pummeled Cebu and several portions of the Visayas and the southern island of Mindanao, causing massive flooding that killed 232, the agency reported.
The U.S. military has sent a variety of assets and personnel to the Philippines to support the relief operation, INDOPACOM said, without specifying how many troops and what equipment has traveled to the islands.
The American personnel are working with Philippine troops, disaster management and civil defense staff and the U.S. State Department, the release said.
“I have been thoroughly impressed by the preparedness and forward-leaning measures taken by the Philippine government during this situation, and we will support the lead of our Philippine counterparts as we carry out this relief mission together as a fully-aligned team,” U.S. Marine Brig. Gen. Robert Brodie, commander of the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, said in the release.
The U.S. Navy and State Department did not immediately respond to questions emailed Thursday about the relief operations.
This is the second time U.S. forces have responded to a disaster in the Philippines this year. In July, Marines and airmen flew supplies to northern Philippines communities affected by typhoons, tropical storms and monsoon rains.
Supporting America’s allies and their people in a time of need is non-negotiable, Brodie said in Thursday’s release.
“Together, we are overcoming distance, weather, and logistical challenges to save lives,” he said.
The U.S. military has been coordinating mission planning with the Philippine government and military since Nov. 5, the release said.
Seth Robson
Seth Robson
Seth Robson is a Tokyo-based reporter who has been with Stars and Stripes since 2003. He has been stationed in Japan, South Korea and Germany, with frequent assignments to Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, Australia and the Philippines.
21. The Pentagon chooses learning over losing
Summary:
Pentagon reforms shift from chasing perfect, long-cycle weapons to rapid adaptation. Hegseth’s plan emphasizes joint problem-driven requirements, empowered acquisition executives, and true modularity with open interfaces. Modern wars from Ukraine to the Red Sea show that timely, iterative upgrades beat exquisite systems. The priority is building a continuous adaptation pipeline to mobilize effectively for 21st-century conflict.
Comment: "Learning over losing" should be the new PME tagline (though I know that Bryan Clark or the headline editor) is applying this to acquisition and not PME).
The Pentagon chooses learning over losing
The secretary’s reforms reveal a revolution: the recognition that adaptability trumps performance.
defenseone.com · Bryan Clark
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2025/11/pentagon-chooses-learning-over-losing/409476/?oref=d1-featured-river-secondary&utm
The acquisition reforms announced last week by Secretary Pete Hegseth reflect a revolutionary shift in mindset: after decades of aspiring to remain the world’s most advanced force, the U.S. military has finally recognized that adaptability trumps performance.
Better late than never. The last few years of war in Ukraine, the Red Sea, and Israel have been screaming the lesson that better kit doesn’t guarantee success. In fact, “better” means something different than it did even a decade ago.
Rather than faster, bigger, or rangier, the better solution today is one that is already fielded and good enough for the current situation, as we noted in our work with the Pentagon in the runup to the reforms’ release. The only guarantee is that “good enough” will be different in a few weeks or months.
Build an adaptation pipeline
The Pentagon has long taken years to envision, specify, manufacture, and deliver systems to warfighters. The fundamental bet was that these exquisite products would remain superior to countermeasures at least as long as it would take to produce their replacements.
Hegseth’s Nov. 7 directive recognizes the futility of this approach in the modern era. Under the acquisition model announced last week, the pipeline is more important than the product. Any weapon, sensor, or drone will only be relevant for a short time in its current form, so the military needs a robust problem-to-product pipeline that will deliver the next version.
The secretary announced three transformations that will build his department’s new adaptation pipeline. First, he killed the toothless joint-requirements process that was a rubber stamp for service wishlists. In its place, he established a way to define and rank joint problems from combatant commanders, then tie them to dedicated funding for solutions.
Second, he ordered the department to give acquisition executives real authority and accountability. Portfolio Acquisition Executives, or PAEs, will own their programs entirely, including funding, development, specifications, contracting, and delivery. They will have the authority to make trade-offs between performance and schedule to field relevant capabilities when they are needed. And if PAEs cannot deliver, senior leaders will replace them.
And third, Pentagon acquisition will embrace real modularity, rather than the interoperability cosplay of static and proprietary “open architectures.” The new directive requires that systems have machine-readable interface specifications posted in government repositories. Any vendor will be able to build compatible software modules without asking for the system developer’s permission.
This matters because modern military systems are increasingly software-defined. A missile is basically a collection of computers with explosives. By separately competing modules for everything from seekers and guidance and navigation controls to propulsion, PAEs can swap in appropriate components as new technologies and needs emerge. Our adversaries already do this with commercial parts. We're finally catching up.
Like the commercial best practices, the new acquisition model will enable adaptation through a continuous integration and delivery pipeline. When interfaces are exposed and government-owned, innovation can happen at the edge, not just in the prime contractors’ labs.
Stop fighting yesterday’s wars
Some traditionalists worry that prioritizing timeliness over performance will lead to poor-quality products rushed to meet deadlines. This misunderstands modern military competition, which is about constant adaptation rather than generational, game-changing leaps.
For example, last month Ukrainian air defenders realized their U.S.-supplied Patriot interceptors were missing incoming ballistic missiles due to a combination of new Russian flight profiles and saturation attacks. U.S. and Ukrainian engineers and operators are now scrambling to reprogram decades-old Patriot software.
This wasn’t the first case of 20th-century U.S. designs failing in 21st-century conflict. Less than a year into the war, Ukrainian troops found that Excalibur GPS-guided artillery rounds were no longer hitting their targets. Despite costing more than $100,000 each, the U.S.-supplied rounds could not adapt to use other navigation methods in the face of Russian jamming. Today, Kyiv’s defenders rely on terrain-mapping drones alongside traditional artillery.
Ukrainian forces are keeping those drones relevant through an even more aggressive adaptation cycle. Every day, soldiers and technicians reprogram radios and control software and evolve tactics to counter the latest Russian jammers and counter-drone systems.
The U.S. military hasn’t been spared from the adaptation imperative. As Houthi attacks mounted in the Red Sea, U.S. Navy engineers and surface warriors recognized they needed to use shorter-range defenses to avoid burning through a lifetime of Standard missiles in a month. Now guns and jammers take out more drones than do surface-to-air missiles.
The lesson from these contemporary battlefields is that. Instead of attempting to manufacture weapons for a predicted future, militaries need to use what is available today to solve today’s problems.
The leap to 21st-century mobilization
As these contemporary battlefields suggest, the Pentagon needs this new acquisition model to prepare for 21st-century mobilization.
Within any realistic peacetime budgets, the defense industrial base will never have the capacity to build today’s weapons at the scale needed for sustained confrontations like those in the Red Sea or Ukraine, much less a great power war against China. The U.S. military will need the commercial sector.
That’s the same approach Secretary Hegseth’s predecessors took during World War II, but the industrial base and the military are very different now. Instead of bombers rolling out of Michigan auto plants, the Pentagon will need contract manufacturers that build everything from MRI machines to vehicle chargers to start assembling drones and missiles by the tens of thousands.
That only happens if the War Department follows through on modular designs, open interfaces, commercial-first procurement, and prioritizing speed over sophistication. If not, today’s weapon stockpile could be tomorrow’s junkpile.
Bryan Clark is a Senior Fellow at Hudson Institute.
defenseone.com · Bryan Clark
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
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