​Quotes of the Day:

"The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down."

– George Eliot

"It takes two years to learn to speak and sixty to learn to keep quiet."

– Ernest hemingway

"If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company."

– Jean-Paul Satre

I notice the services are making a lot of videos that talk about their organizations. Obviously my bias is with special operations so I provided this link. But there are many out there being produced and published on social media and not in the mainstream media. I hope they all inspire, inform, and educate our young people and motivate them to serve our country.

The World's Most Exclusive Club (and how to get in)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpw7bKJxqEo&list=WL&index=77

1. Trump Says Ukraine Peace Plan Isn’t Final After Criticism It Favors Russia

2. Seeking good relations with Xi’s CCP is a fool’s errand

3. Japan Blasts China’s UN Letter Claim as Baseless, Urges Dialogue

4. Japan’s export of lethal weapons to the US ‘extremely dangerous’: Chinese analysts

5. The Moment China Proved It Was America’s Equal

6. China's act of war against PM Takaichi and Japan

7. The Failed Crusade to Keep a Rare-Earths Mine Out of China’s Hands

8. China This Week: Strategic Moves and Messaging

9. Lawmakers say Rubio distanced US from peace plan

10. Even 10,000 missiles won’t be enough: China’s sprint toward Taiwan invasion

11. The future of war is the future of society

12. Taiwan Defense Report Highlights Area Denial Progress 

13. Civil Affairs, AI, and the Future of Army Readiness

14. How the Internet Rewired Work—and What That Tells Us About AI’s Likely Impact

15. More is needed to turn the Marine Corps' aspirations into reality

16. How wargaming can help us prepare for modern crises

17. Hung Cao and the new Pacific defense architecture

18. Trump’s Neville Chamberlain Prize

19. Ukraine's allies consider how to fill intelligence gaps if US backs out

1. Trump Says Ukraine Peace Plan Isn’t Final After Criticism It Favors Russia

​Summary: 

POTUS signaled his 28-point Ukraine peace plan is negotiable after backlash that it favors Russia. The proposal forces Kyiv to cede territory, renounce NATO and reduce forces in exchange for reconstruction aid and security assurances. European allies and US lawmakers criticize it; Kyiv is pressed to answer by Thursday.

Comment: Is the plan good for Ukraine, Europe, and the US? is it "fair and balanced?" Or does it favor Putin? (it appears to by some analyses).  

Trump Says Ukraine Peace Plan Isn’t Final After Criticism It Favors Russia

WSJ

The proposal’s detractors are trying to convince the White House that the 28-point plan should be a starting point for Moscow-Kyiv talks

By Robbie Gramer

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, Alexander Ward

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 and Thomas Grove

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Updated Nov. 22, 2025 10:22 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-says-ukraine-peace-plan-isnt-final-after-criticism-it-favors-russia-d0b1de5f?mod=hp_lead_pos3

President Trump at the White House. Aaron Schwartz/Reuters

• President Trump indicated openness to modifying his administration’s 28-point plan for ending the war in Ukraine.
• The proposal requires Ukraine to cede territory, cap its military’s size, and abandon NATO ambitions. Trump has given Ukraine a Thursday deadline.
• Kyiv, European leaders and some Republicans criticize the plan, stating it heavily favors Russia and could leave Ukraine vulnerable.

An artificial-intelligence tool created this summary, which was based on the text of the article and checked by an editor. Read more about how we use artificial intelligence in our journalism.

• President Trump indicated openness to modifying his administration’s 28-point plan for ending the war in Ukraine.

President Trump said Saturday he could be open to changes in the administration’s 28-point plan for ending the war in Ukraine after Kyiv, European governments and even some Republican lawmakers denounced it as far too heavily weighted in Moscow’s favor.

“No, not my final,” Trump said at the White House after he was asked if the terms were nonnegotiable. “We’d like to get to peace. It should’ve happened a long time ago.” He didn’t specify what changes were possible in the plan.

But administration officials were increasingly on the defensive over Russia’s role in shaping the proposal.

The administration has zigzagged repeatedly on aiding Ukraine or pressuring it to reach a deal with Moscow. Trump has previously mused about sending cruise missiles to Kyiv and predicted it might regain all the territory Russian forces occupy. But Trump’s ultimatum to Ukraine signals a sharp turn by the administration to try to force through a deal on a short timeline.

Trump has given Ukraine a Thursday deadline to respond to the proposal, which would require that Kyiv cede territory to Russia, block its ambitions to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and cap the size of its military amid other major economic and political concessions to Moscow.

Ukraine would receive funds for reconstruction and assurances from the U.S. that it would discuss with allies providing military assistance and other steps if Russia broke the agreement and attacked again. Those commitments would fall short of a European-led “reassurance force” stationed within the country to deter further Russian attacks.

Disclosure of the administration blueprint, drafted in secret by Ukraine envoy Steve Witkoff in consultation with Kremlin confidant Kirill Dmitriev, has roiled the trans-Atlantic relationship and sparked a flurry of diplomatic efforts to reshape it.

“If you ask me personally, I would rewrite everything,” said Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur, calling the plan “100 to zero” in Russia’s favor.

Some top Republicans condemned the proposal as appeasement to Russian President Vladimir Putin that, if realized, could lead to the collapse of Ukraine.

U.S. Sens. Peter Welch (D., Vt.), left, and Thom Tillis (R., N.C.) at a security conference in Canada on Saturday. Kelly Clark/Associated Press

“We should not do anything that makes him feel like he has a win here,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R., N.C.) said of Putin on Saturday at a security conference of top Western defense officials and lawmakers in Halifax, Canada.

Speaking to reporters at the conference, a bipartisan group of senators who spoke with Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he informed them the 28-point plan was a Russian wish list.

“He made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R., S.D.) said standing beside Democrats.

Rubio later said the administration had written the plan. “The peace proposal was authored by the U.S.,” he said in a social-media post. “It is based on input from the Russian side. But it is also based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”

Senior Trump administration officials say Ukraine is in a precarious position. Russian forces are making steady gains on the battlefield, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is embroiled in a growing corruption scandal.

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“There is a fantasy that if we just give more money, more weapons, or more sanctions, victory is at hand” for Ukraine, Vice President JD Vance posted on social media Friday night.

Since Trump’s return to office, the U.S. has limited the flow of weapons to Ukraine, how Kyiv could use them and, until October, hadn’t imposed any new sanctions on Russia.

European officials favor leaving the door open for Ukraine to join NATO and using frozen Russian assets in the West to fund Ukraine’s reconstruction. They also oppose limits on the size of Ukraine’s armed forces in any peace plan.

“Some degree of compromise is needed, but it must be a compromise that Ukrainians, after all the sacrifices they made, are able to accept and are able to carry,” said Ruben Brekelmans, the defense minister of the Netherlands.

Lawmakers said Kyiv’s reply had to be both conciliatory to Trump while charting a course for further talks.

“Zelensky and Europe’s answer has to be, ‘No, but,’ ” said Sen. Chris Coons (D., Del.). “Not this. Not yet.”

Coons recalled when the Trump administration earlier this year demanded Ukraine give the U.S. unprecedented access to its critical minerals in exchange for continued support against Russia. Kyiv politely but firmly pushed back and over several weeks negotiated more equitable terms.

“It is a reminder that the Trump administration’s style of negotiating is often an initial bluster,” the senator said, “but then it is actually a starting point.”

Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware Mattie Neretin/Zuma Press

The national-security advisers from France, Germany and the U.K. are slated to travel to Geneva on Sunday to meet with top U.S. and Ukrainian officials to discuss next steps on the proposal. Rubio and Witkoff are also expected to attend, according to three U.S. officials familiar with the matter. Also joining is Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who traveled to Ukraine on Nov. 19 to first kick-start discussions on the peace talks.

Fourteen European leaders, meeting at the Group of 20 summit in South Africa this weekend, said in a joint statement that the U.S. plan “includes important elements that will be essential for a just and lasting peace,” but that the plan as it stands “would leave Ukraine vulnerable to future attack” by Russia. The plan makes no mention of any caps on the size of Russia’s military.

Lawmakers from both parties renewed calls for Congress to pass legislation that imposes severe economic costs on countries that purchase Russian energy to squeeze Moscow’s coffers. They note the U.S. sanctions on Russia, including those on its oil companies, are biting and damaging.

Russia likely sees a broad win at hand but would also want to firm up some of the more ambiguous points in the document, said Thomas Graham, a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. But for now, he said, Moscow is likely happy to wait and watch the tensions this causes in Ukraine and Europe.

“I don’t think you’re going to see the Russians reach out to Washington at this point and say ‘we both need to sit down and go over a couple points.’ I think Putin is going to just sit back and wait to see what the Trump administration is prepared to do with Ukraine,” Graham said.

Write to Robbie Gramer at robbie.gramer@wsj.com, Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com and Thomas Grove at thomas.grove@wsj.com

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WSJ

2. Seeking good relations with Xi’s CCP is a fool’s errand

​Summary:

Beijing’s orchestrated fury at Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s measured Taiwan remarks exposes the futility of seeking “good relations” with Xi’s CCP. After a wolf-warrior consul’s threats and pressure channeled through Komeito failed to block her rise, Beijing turned to economic coercion, including reimposing a ban on Japanese seafood. Three possible overlapping motives: punishing an un-influenceable, Taiwan-friendly leader; deterring Japan’s defense buildup and regional networking; and diverting attention from China’s deepening economic and social woes. Given the CCP’s propaganda needs and bullying tactics, Japan should not chase friendship, but demand calm, mutual respect.

Comment: Any mention of Taiwan will bring the wrath of Xi and the CCP. Is this an indication of weakness and vulnerability? Who does this help in strategic competition between the US and the PRC? How can Xi and the CCP's sensitivities be exploited? 

Seeking good relations with Xi’s CCP is a fool’s errand

New PM faces coordinated campaign by Beijing of influence and intimidation

japantimes.co.jp · Edo Naito Contributing Writer

Nov 20, 2025

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/commentary/2025/11/20/japan/good-relations-with-communist-party-is-a-fools-errand/

Since the entirely contrived outrage coming out of Beijing over the comments by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, the liberal mass media have been all aflutter about how "infuriated" she made Beijing — as if bilateral relations are entirely up to one party always appeasing the other.

Takaichi's comments on the potential impact on Japan's security if Beijing militarily attacked or imposed a naval blockade on Taiwan were measured, qualified and conditional on the facts at the time.

While most western media just echoed Beijing, Philip Shetler-Jones at the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank, observed in a commentary: “The most catastrophic scenario in Asia today would be one where a leader in Beijing who is insulated from sound advice becomes tempted to launch an attack on the mistaken assessment that Taiwan is isolated.” He concluded that “everyone supporting the maintenance of the status quo on Taiwan and peace in Asia should be glad to hear.”

Beijing's reaction to her comments for the first 30 hours was muted and quite telling. China, of course, knows full well that what she said has been the Japanese government’s position since 2015.

The first uproar came from the self-anointed "wolf warrior" Xue Jian, China's consul general in the city of Osaka, on the evening of Nov. 8, when he suggested beheading the prime minister. Xue was already notorious for his undiplomatic threats against Japan and personal interference in the nation's elections for having endorsed the progressive Reiwa Shinsengumi party in the last election. While he deleted that violent post a day later, he doubled down on threats to the Japanese people, something even U.S. Ambassador to Japan George Glass called out on social media.

It took nearly three days for China to make its decision. Instead of just filing protests and moving on, it decided to fabricate a diplomatic incident. That decision was calculated and measured by Beijing to achieve certain objectives.

What objectives in this case could it hope to achieve? There are several theories.

First, China was surprised when Takaichi won the Liberal Democratic Party’s leadership election. They had expected another candidate similar to the previous two prime ministers, both of whom Beijing publicly complimented over Takaichi.

China has a history of favoring Japanese leaders, going back at least to Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka in the 1970s, who are inclined to comply with its "red lines" and rely heavily on politicians who have been extensively exposed to the Chinese Communist Party’s influence operations, such as leadership in one of seven Japan-China friendship groups. Both Fumio Kishida and Shigeru Ishiba employed such people in their Cabinets.

Once Takaichi was elected the LDP leader, it appears that China used its influence over Komeito to try to prevent her from becoming prime minister.

It is simply extraordinary that China's ambassador to Japan, Wu Jianghao, personally met the Komeito leader, Tetsuo Saito, one-on-one in the parliament building just 24 hours before he ambushed Takaichi at a meeting set up to confirm the continuation of the ruling coalition. Instead, Saito shocked the Japanese political world by walking out of that meeting and declaring the 26-year-old alliance was over. Perhaps this was just a happy coincidence for Wu, and whatever he exchanged with Saito had nothing to do with it.

But of course, China was surprised once again when Takaichi pivoted immediately to the Japan Innovation Party, which is stronger on national security than even many LDP members. For the CCP, Takaichi plus the JIP may be its worst nightmare. Are they out to attack her and damage the Japanese economy to cause her administration to fail? After lifting a two-year import ban on Japanese fish, allegedly due to Fukushima water discharge, it was reimposed this week solely to damage the nation's fishing industry.

Some see that as overly dramatic. They offer a more straightforward objective. As a notoriously misogynistic organization, the CCP perhaps sees the first female prime minister in Japanese history as weak and they believe they can coerce her into backing off.

The second theory is that this blowback has been building up for quite some time. Japan has been increasing its defense budgets over the past several years, providing military equipment to the Philippines, discussing the delivery of naval ships to Indonesia and Australia and even weighing the development of nuclear-powered submarines. Perhaps Beijing is fantasizing that Japan is rearming, returning to 1930s-era militarism. Some in China’s state-owned media asked whether Japan is "getting ready to attack Manchuria again."

The successful diplomatic launch of Takaichi at ASEAN and APEC, and the meeting with Donald Trump, may have caused their warning lights to start blinking red. Did Beijing grow alarmed that, like former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Takaichi would not be controllable and could become a Japanese leader around whom the countries in the "first island chain" and across a free and open Indo-Pacific would rally?

As an “Abe-protege” and a strong personal supporter of Taiwan, who in April of this year met President Lai Ching-tei and spoke about her desire to integrate Taiwan into global defense supply chains, perhaps Beijing was lying in wait for Takaichi’s first mention of the island.

The third theory is that this is less about Takaichi and more about the deteriorating economic situation and growing protests in China over President Xi Jinping's miscues. The most turbulent periods recently in Japan-China bilateral relations have coincided with times when China faced serious domestic challenges, economic issues or delicate leadership changes. During those periods, to distract people and divert their ire away from the CCP, Japan has been made a favored target.

In the fictional communist universe, the CCP must remain a one-party dictatorship. It has created the false narrative of it single-handedly defeating Imperial Japan in World War II — and that the Japan of today remains a perpetual threat. That theme worked exceptionally well this year, with the massive parade and events celebrating the 80th anniversary of the “victory over Japan.”

The covenant that the CCP implicitly entered into with the Chinese people was that if you allow us to control all politics, then we will make you rich. Yet its real estate market is imploding, depopulation is on the rise with rapid aging, youth unemployment is high while it lacks a social safety net. And with Xi's team shifting back to support of state-controlled enterprises and away from private companies, China's wealthy — and now its middle class — are fleeing with their money.

These theories are not mutually exclusive. All three could be in play. So far, we have seen a pretty ordinary list of moves that have been seen before, issuing threats and warnings, raising the specter of the 1930s, weaponizing tourism, canceling bilateral gatherings and suspending Japan-related concerts, movies and the like.

China is in a so-called trade war with the United States at a time when its domestic economy is teetering. Historically, the CCP generally prefers to fight one country at a time, so I would not be surprised that after a period of ratcheting up the pressure, they slowly back off. Unlike in 1989, 2010 and 2012, I do not expect that Xi will let his nationalist gangs off their leashes to attack Japanese car dealerships and department stores across China. Once off the leash, he may not be able to get them back on — and they could then turn against the party.

Xi and the CCP leadership never liked Abe and perhaps feared him a bit. But in the end, they learned to respect him for his calm, consistent, balanced manner of engagement. For any Japanese leader, having "good relations" with CCP-led China is a fool's errand. Aim instead for respect.

Edo Naito is a commentator on Japanese politics, law and history. He is a retired international business attorney and has held board of director and executive positions at several U.S. and Japanese multinational companies.

japantimes.co.jp · Edo Naito Contributing Writer

3. Japan Blasts China’s UN Letter Claim as Baseless, Urges Dialogue

Sum​mary:

Japan rejected China’s UN letter claiming Prime Minister Takaichi changed Tokyo’s Taiwan policy as baseless, urging dialogue to halt worsening ties. Beijing warned of “self-defense” if Japan intervenes over Taiwan and invoked obsolete UN “enemy state” clauses. Diplomacy has stalled as economic leverage, tourism cuts, and seafood curbs heighten tensions.

Comment: Xi and the CCP are executing a full court press against Japan.​ Will it work? Or will the responsible nations of the international community support Japan?

Japan Blasts China’s UN Letter Claim as Baseless, Urges Dialogue

Bloomberg · Sakura Murakami

By Sakura Murakami

November 22, 2025 at 10:26 AM EST

Updated on November 23, 2025 at 6:25 AM EST

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-22/japan-blasts-china-s-un-letter-claim-as-baseless-urges-dialogue?sref=hhjZtX76

A Japanese official blasted China’s claims that Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has altered Japan’s position on a Taiwan crisis as “entirely baseless,” calling for more dialogue to stop ties between Asia’s top economies spiraling.

China vowed to take resolute self-defense against Japan if it “dared to intervene militarily in the Taiwan Strait” in a letter delivered Friday to the United Nations. Beijing is seeking to rally international support for its position in a spat over the self-ruled chip hub it views as its territory.

“I’m aware of this letter,” Maki Kobayashi, a senior Japanese government spokeswoman, told Bloomberg News. “The claim our country has altered its position is entirely baseless,” she said, speaking Saturday on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Johannesburg.

China’s Foreign Ministry didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment made outside working hours.

A crucial sticking point is the fundamental mismatch between how both sides understand Takaichi’s remarks. For China, her comments publicly linking a Taiwan Strait crisis with the possible deployment of Japanese troops deviated from decades of strategic ambiguity. Tokyo maintains her response to a hypothetical question didn’t change its stance.

“We’ve repeatedly explained to the Chinese side the gist of the remarks and our consistent position,” Kobayashi said, adding Tokyo was “committed to dialogue” with its neighbor.

The G-20 won’t be a venue for that. China has said there are no plans for Takaichi to meet Premier Li Qiang, who is representing his country at the gathering, although on Saturday they were stood just three people apart for a group photo. Underscoring the acrimony, Chinese state media pointed out Takaichi was “about an hour late” to the summit, after she missed the red carpet arrivals.

G20 leaders during a family photo on Sunday.Photographer: Gianluigi Guercia/AFP/Getty Images

China has also reportedly canceled a trilateral meeting with the culture ministers of South Korea and Japan that was scheduled for this month.

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In the absence of diplomacy, a war of words is intensifying. On Friday, the Chinese embassy in Japan posted on X that China would have the right to carry out “direct military action” without needing authorization from the UN Security Council if Japan took any step toward renewed aggression. That post cited UN Charter clauses regarding “enemy states” during the Second World War, without further elaboration.

Japan refused to let this one slide. It pointed out that the UN “enemy state” clauses are now considered obsolete. “We’re hoping China will act and speak responsibly as a major power and permanent security council member of the UN,” Kobayashi said in a statement.

It’s unclear where the off-ramp lies in a fallout that’s already seen some Chinese tourists cancel trips to Japan, and Beijing impose curbs on seafood imports from its neighbor. While Takaichi has said she’s learned her lesson and will refrain from specifying a possible scenario in which Japan could deploy troops in future, she’s refused to recant.

Raising the stakes, China is Japan’s biggest trade partner, and a supplier of minerals crucial to its auto industry. Kobayashi declined to comment on the possible risks of China leveraging its rare earths dominance in the spat, but acknowledged her country’s dependence.

“China is an important source of importation of rare earths,” she said, while saying Tokyo had worked to decease that reliance.

Bloomberg · Sakura Murakami

4. Japan’s export of lethal weapons to the US ‘extremely dangerous’: Chinese analysts

​Summary:

Chinese analysts say Japan’s first export of domestically produced Patriot PAC-3 missile interceptors to the United States sends an extremely dangerous signal. It shows Tokyo moving beyond long standing arms export limits and its pacifist image, expanding military capabilities while relations with Beijing worsen. The missiles help Washington replenish Patriot stocks depleted by support to Ukraine, tightening US Japan defence industrial integration. Chinese commentary links the step to perceived remilitarisation and a growing US led containment network, warning it could fuel regional arms competition and heighten tensions over Taiwan and the East China Sea while making crisis management far harder.

Comment: Will PRC-Japan "competition" overshadow US-PRC strategic competition for a time? Why hasn't the CCP protested with such vigor against the ROK which is arguably shipping a larger number of defense articles to NATO and other allies as all was providing backfill of the 155mm artillery ammunition to the US?

As an aside, what kind of signal is being sent that the US has to import Patriot PAC-3s from Japan? What is wrong with the US defense industrial base? (rhetorical question that I know we all know the answer too)

Japan’s export of lethal weapons to the US ‘extremely dangerous’: Chinese analysts

Shipment of Patriot surface-to-air missile interceptors said to indicate Tokyo’s expanded military capabilities amid tense China-Japan ties

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3333583/japans-export-lethal-weapons-us-extremely-dangerous-chinese-analysts?module=perpetual_scroll_0&pgtype=article

Yuanyue Dangin Beijing

Published: 12:00pm, 21 Nov 2025

Japan’s export of lethal weapons sent an “extremely dangerous signal” indicating expanded military capabilities, Chinese observers and media said on Thursday as relations between the two countries continued to nosedive.

The assessment followed Japanese media reports on Wednesday that Japan had exported domestically produced Patriot surface-to-air missile interceptors to the United States.

The US would use the missiles to replenish its own stockpile as it provided military support to Ukraine in the war against Russia, Kyodo News reported.

Japan’s export of lethal weapons has been heavily constrained by its Three Principles on Transfer of Defence Equipment and Technology, guidelines for the country’s arms exports. In recent years, Tokyo has repeatedly sought to revise the principles.

The efforts included a 2023 amendment to the principles permitting the supply of Japanese-made Patriot missiles to the US.

Japan’s export of lethal weapons like these surface-to-air Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile interceptors has been heavily constrained by the country’s Three Principles on Transfer of Defence Equipment and Technology. Photo: AP

For years, Beijing has accused Japan’s political right-wing of whitewashing the nation’s wartime history and trying to amend its pacifist constitution, alter its non-nuclear policy and expand its military capabilities.

Global Times, a state-owned tabloid newspaper affiliated with the Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily, quoted Chinese military expert Zhang Xuefeng on Thursday as saying Japan “has no intention of exercising self-restraint in arms exports, which is an extremely dangerous signal that will trigger a series of chain reactions”.

Zhang argued that “Japan will use the export of Patriot missiles as a template to export more lethal weapons abroad, which will inevitably pose a threat to regional security”.

The recent weapons shipment comes in the midst of a diplomatic row between Beijing and Tokyo over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks on a Taiwan contingency.

Speaking to the Japanese parliament on November 7, Takaichi stated that the use of force against Taiwan could be deemed a “survival-threatening situation”, thereby enabling Tokyo to deploy its Self-Defence Forces.

The Japanese leader has refused to retract her comments, further infuriating Beijing.

Talks in Beijing on Tuesday involving senior diplomats failed to ease the tensions, with Beijing reportedly imposing a seafood import ban and suspending cultural exchange events as well as intergovernmental dialogue.

Takaichi’s comments suggesting Japan might intervene should Beijing use force against Taiwan signalled a shift from the long-standing policy of “strategic ambiguity” voiced by previous Japanese leaders.

Play

Beijing sees Taiwan as part of China to be reunited by force if necessary. Most countries, including Japan and the US, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington is opposed to any attempt to take the self-ruled island by force and is committed to supplying it with weapons.

Beijing has vowed to respond with “resolute” countermeasures if Tokyo were to resort to force in the Taiwan Strait.

Song Zhongping, a Chinese military commentator and former People’s Liberation Army instructor, said Japan wanted to leverage arms production for the US to advance its domestic military industry.

“It can replicate or even improve certain American weapons systems by introducing and acquiring intellectual property,” Song added.

Song said Japan hoped the shipment would create a “breach” in its strict arms export restrictions.

In addition, Japan was seeking to “exert political influence” by exporting arms to countries such as the Philippines and Australia, according to Song.

Tokyo’s ultimate objective, he said, was “to amend the Peace Constitution and normalise the nation” – terminology tied to improving Japan’s national defences.

Last month, Japan’s new defence minister, Shinjiro Koizumi, announced he would continue to promote the country’s arms exports.

Also last month, Takaichi said she intended to increase Japan’s defence spending to 2 per cent of GDP by the end of March next year, fully two years ahead of the deadline set by previous governments of her ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

Yuanyue Dang

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

5. The Moment China Proved It Was America’s Equal

​Summary:

POTUS' trade war with China exposed American vulnerability and marked Beijing’s arrival as a true peer power. POTUS imposed huge tariffs without first shoring up U.S. supply chains. Xi Jinping then weaponized China’s dominance in rare earths and global manufacturing, escalating to a sweeping licensing regime. Faced with severe economic coercion, POTUS retreated, slashing tariffs and easing export controls. The summit in Busan showed allies a United States that could not stand up for itself, emboldened China, and proved that bluster without planning, allied unity, and industrial strength surrenders leverage to Beijing in this decade.

​Comment: A scathing critique. Is it accurate and justified? 

The Moment China Proved It Was America’s Equal

Nov. 19, 2025

Credit...Photo illustration by Mr.Nelson design; Photographs by Getty Images

By Rush Doshi

Mr. Doshi was the deputy senior director for China and Taiwan affairs at the National Security Council under President Joe Biden.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/19/opinion/trump-china-xi-trade.html

阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版

There are moments in great-power politics when the tectonic plates seem to shift perceptibly beneath us. The recent summit between President Trump and President Xi Jinping of China was one of those inflection points.

The two leaders agreed during a meeting on Oct. 30 to pause the trade war that Mr. Trump launched this year. But the real story to emerge from the event was not the inconclusive truce they reached in the South Korean city of Busan but the unmistakable demonstration that China could now face America as a true peer.

China absorbed the full weight of American economic pressure and retaliated successfully with greater pressure of its own, weaponizing its dominance of global supply chains on which America relies, particularly rare earth minerals and magnets. After decades of deindustrialization, a poorly prepared United States would not — or could not — respond.

If historians someday try to identify exactly when China became America’s geopolitical equal, they might point to the outcome of Mr. Trump’s ill-considered trade war.

This reckoning comes at a critical time.

We are halfway through what strategists in both U.S. political parties believe will be a decisive decade that determines whether America can avoid falling behind China economically, technologically and militarily. Mr. Trump’s team is moving urgently to bring manufacturing back to the United States, rebalance trade and rebuild the defense industrial base.

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The outcome of the recent summit could undercut those important efforts.

Mr. Trump framed the meeting as a U.S.-China “G2,” diminishing the importance of allies whose help America needs to reindustrialize at home and balance China abroad. And by showing Beijing that its coercive tools work, Mr. Trump risks inviting more pressure, potentially giving China veto power over his America First agenda.

None of this had to happen. The road to Busan began with needless provocation by Mr. Trump. In February, he reignited the trade war that he started in his first term, levying tariffs on Chinese goods that eventually rose past 140 percent. But he failed to first assess America’s own vulnerabilities or shore up its supply chains. By contrast, Beijing had spent the years since 2018, when Mr. Trump first began imposing tariffs, preparing for exactly this moment.

Backed into a corner, Mr. Xi reached for his break-glass tool. In April, he halted exports to the United States of rare earths minerals and magnets — critical materials for everything from cars to missiles — an escalation beyond anything he had threatened under President Joe Biden. It was a calculated risk given the potential for more American retaliation. But Mr. Xi gambled that Mr. Trump would fold. He was right. In May, Mr. Trump radically reduced tariffs and pursued de-escalation.

Emboldened, China wielded rare earths again in October — and raised the stakes dramatically. Using the pretext of new U.S. export controls, Beijing responded with a sweeping licensing regime requiring companies anywhere in the world to obtain China’s approval not only to buy the country’s rare earths but also to sell any product made with even trace amounts of them.

It was an unthinkable escalation, well beyond anything Washington had ever attempted, and a gun to the head for U.S. and global manufacturing.

Mr. Trump’s team readied drastic countermeasures — from new chip controls to financial sanctions — that might have forced Beijing to question its coercive approach. Instead, Mr. Trump flinched, shelving those options and retreating to the familiar comfort of tariffs — by now an empty threat since he had lifted them in the spring after Beijing halted rare earths exports. By the time the leaders met in Busan, Mr. Trump’s earlier bravado was nowhere to be seen. He chose to de-escalate and cut tariffs again, among other concessions.

With the dust now settled, Mr. Trump has not only revealed the limits of America’s resolve to its greatest rival, but also has left the United States worse off than when he started this fight.

Beijing has resumed imports of U.S. soybeans — one of America’s major exports to China — but at lower volumes than before. China has postponed its new licensing regime on rare earths for a year, but fear that China might invoke it in the future has already caused the Trump administration to suspend export restrictions that would have tightened controls on Chinese-linked firms. China also received a 10 percent tariff reduction for pledging to crack down on production of fentanyl precursors. But that brings its tariff rate closer to that of American allies and partners, which reduces incentives for American businesses to diversify their suppliers to countries other than China.

The reverberations of Mr. Trump’s mishandling of China will echo far beyond trade. U.S. allies may now have reason to doubt America’s ability to stand with them when it cannot even stand up for itself. Beijing may feel emboldened to test U.S. resolve on Taiwan and other issues. China, after all, has other chokepoints it can weaponize, such as its dominance over the production of pharmaceutical ingredients for dozens of critical drugs, including antibiotics.

There is an old lesson that many generals learned too late: It is unwise to invade Russia in the winter. The economic corollary should now be equally clear. It is unwise to start a trade war with the main supplier of your most critical imports until you have mitigated your vulnerabilities. Mr. Trump, who mistook political theater for strategy, lost ground against China not solely because he misjudged Mr. Xi but because he underestimated America’s dependence on the supply chains it no longer controls and the allies that he too often ignores.

Building and wielding national power is deadly serious business. It takes more than bluster. It takes patience, endurance, planning and the discipline to know when to fight and when not to.

China understood that when it was weaker — steadily building its strength over the course of decades and avoiding premature tests of power. Mr. Trump, who blithely took American primacy for granted, is only now learning that lesson.

Rush Doshi was the deputy senior director for China and Taiwan affairs at the National Security Council under President Joe Biden. He is an assistant professor at Georgetown University and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author of “The Long Game: China’s Grand Strategy to Displace American Order.”

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6. China's act of war against PM Takaichi and Japan

​Summary:

China’s orchestrated fury at PM Sanae Takaichi’s Taiwan comments is a calculated campaign to intimidate Japan, topple her government, and test U.S. resolve. Beijing’s threats, economic coercion, and use of proxies expose its aim to dominate Japan; he urges a firmer Tokyo–Washington combined defense and economic response.

Comment: If Grant's analysis is correct, where do we go from here? How do we collectively (Japan and US and other allies) counter the PRC's unrestricted warfare and three warfares which are obviously at play here. Can we execute a superior form of political warfare?

China's act of war against PM Takaichi and Japan - Asia Times

asiatimes.com · Grant Newsham

An unprovoked and calculated attack on the main US ally in the region is a test of Japanese and American will

by Grant Newsham

November 22, 2025

https://asiatimes.com/2025/11/chinas-act-of-war-against-pm-takaichi-and-japan/

China is on the rampage after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said what was neither new nor surprising – that Taiwan is immensely important to Japan, and that Japan may consider coming to Taiwan’s defense if China attacks.

In response, China’s Consul General in Osaka said on social media that PM Takaichi should be beheaded.

Beijing presumably agreed with its consul general and has doubled and tripled down on the verbal assaults.

As well, China is banning Japanese seafood imports and threatening to prohibit Chinese tourism to Japan and Chinese students from studying there.

Concocted outrage

China’s outrage is largely concocted and an excuse to turn up the heat on Japan.

Beijing will claim they’ve been provoked, and it’s Japan’s fault that China is doing whatever it’s doing.

But it is all pretextual. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) doesn’t get “furious” and “angry.” No matter how many times the American press writes that it does. The CCP has about as much emotion as a great white shark. And a comparable appetite. Beijing is looking to isolate and destroy Takaichi by blaming her for pointing out Beijing’s aggressive designs and suggesting Japan should defend itself.

China’s objectives towards Japan have long been clear. Dominate Japan and take Japanese territory – while heaping humiliation on the Japanese in the process.

It’s “paying Japan back” for historical wrongs, Beijing will tell you. But even if Japan had never invaded China in the 1930s, the CCP would still be out for blood.

There is not enough room in the Asia-Pacific region for the PRC and a powerful, independent, democratic Japan. Like a fat man at a buffet, the Chinese Communists want it all.

How will Takaichi and Japan respond? Quietly seething (as is the Japanese nature) while continuing the defense buildup and moving even closer to the United States.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi at the House of Councillors Budget Committee on November 14. Photo: ©Sankei / Ataru Haruna

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. Photo: (©Sankei / Ataru Haruna

Fumbled first response

However, the Japanese fumbled the initial response to this Chinese attack.

China’s Osaka Consul General should have immediately been declared “persona non grata” and sent home.

Video: Weibo via Kyodo

Instead, Tokyo dispatched a foreign ministry envoy to Beijing to “explain” things.

He got creamed.

A video shared on Chinese SNS appeared to show Japan’s director-general of the Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau of the Japanese foreign ministry, bowing to his Chinese counterpart.

His kowtow just guarantees more abuse from China, and the assaults are continuing nonstop.

Takaichi should find the person(s) who advised this course of action and show them the curb.

Japan ought to know better.

But China does have plenty of proxies in Japan’s political and business classes – and parts of the government, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Indeed, the politician who raised the initial questions with Takaichi in the Diet, Katsuya Okada, has extensive family commercial interests in China. Back in 2012, while serving as deputy prime minister, he reportedly convinced the prime minister to cancel a tiny Japan Self-Defense Force amphibious exercise after China complained – and maybe to protect the family business?

Former Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada on November 20. Photo: ©Sankei / Shinpei Okuhara

Yet, China’s bullying behavior reinforces the dislike that a large majority of regular Japanese have toward China.

Public support for Takaichi

Indeed, public support for Takaichi has increased markedly. And the idea that Japan needs to defend itself is also regarded by most of the public as simple common sense.

One retired Japanese defense official commented:

“It feels like the cap on a bottle that has contained years of frustration among the Japanese people has suddenly popped. There’s been almost no criticism from the general public about Takaichi’s recent remarks.”

As for China’s threat to cut off tourists and students, most Japanese citizens will say “please do” and “thank you very much,” being glad to see fewer Chinese in their country.

The US reaction?

US Ambassador to Japan George Glass (©Sankei by Kotaro Hikono)

US Ambassador George Glass chided the PRC for its unseemly behavior.

US Ambassador to Japan George Glass. Phhoto: ©Sankei by Kotaro Hikono

That’s good, but Beijing doesn’t care. It will take more than that.

What it will take

For starters, make the defense of Japan and its southern islands a genuinely combined Japan-US affair.

It still isn’t, despite some recent progress.

Both nations’ militaries should have been conducting joint US-Japan naval and air patrols in the Nansei Shoto (southern islands, the Ryukyu chain) a decade ago so China would know it was taking on both the US and Japan ー and not Japan alone.

And Washington and other free nations need to provide total support to make up for Chinese economic pressure on Japan, while breaking economic dependencies on the PRC.

China perhaps figures Donald Trump will provide only lukewarm support for Japan since the president dearly wants a trade deal with PRC – and Beijing has also got the US over a “rare earths” barrel.

If Beijing is right, that’s dangerous.

What China is doing to Sanae Takaichi and Japan is an unprovoked and calculated attack on America’s main ally in the region, aiming to destroy Japan’s prime minister.

It’s also a test of American will.

If Japan and the US – individually or collectively – placate the PRC for what is in fact an act of war, Beijing will be emboldened. And we will eventually pay a high price for that – needing to “go kinetic” to defend ourselves, our friends and our interests, or else capitulate.

Grant Newsham is a retired US Marine officer and former US diplomat. He is the author of the book When China Attacks: A Warning To America.

This article was originally published by JAPAN Forward. It is republished with permission.

asiatimes.com · Grant Newsham

7. The Failed Crusade to Keep a Rare-Earths Mine Out of China’s Hands

​Summary:

An Australian firm’s plan to build a China-free rare-earths supply in Tanzania collapsed when China’s Shenghe bought Peak Rare Earths, securing a major deposit. The saga shows Beijing’s strategy and state-backed financing outbidding hesitant Western governments, tightening China’s grip on critical minerals and limiting legal tools to block such acquisitions.

Comment: Are rare earths the most important aspect of strategic competition with the PRC? Are we (the US and free countries) losing this battle?

The Failed Crusade to Keep a Rare-Earths Mine Out of China’s Hands

WSJ

Failure of one Western company to build China-free rare-earths supply is a glimpse at how Beijing has come to dominate the critical minerals

By Jon Emont

Follow

Nov. 22, 2025 11:00 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/business/the-failed-crusade-to-keep-a-rare-earths-mine-out-of-chinas-hands-0774e66a?mod=hp_lead_pos9

Mbeya, Tanzania, near where Peak Rare Earths had hoped to develop a rare-earth mine outside of China's orbit. De Agostini/Getty Images

For years, a mining project in Africa held the promise of helping free the West from its dependence on China for rare earths. Some weeks back, it fell into Chinese hands.

The failure of Peak Rare Earths, an Australian mining company, to build a China-free supply of rare-earth minerals offers a look at how Beijing came to dominate the global supply of critical minerals—a position it is now deftly leveraging for geopolitical gain. China has choked off the supply of rare earths to wring key concessions from President Trump in his trade war.

The sale of Peak to a Chinese rare-earth behemoth earlier this autumn is part of a pattern that means that, by 2029, Beijing will receive all the rare earths flowing from Tanzania, one of the world’s major emerging sources of the elements, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. Some liken it to the grip China enjoys today over cobalt production in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“This is a very strategic loss,” said Gracelin Baskaran, a critical-minerals expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “This increases [Chinese] market power and it increases their market capacity to destabilize an already very fragile market.”

Since China began restricting the supply of rare-earth minerals to the world earlier this year, Western countries have searched for critical-mineral deposits to quickly bring into production—only to find that Chinese companies have already bought up many of the most promising deposits of rare earths, lithium, nickel and others.

In 2010, Australian company Peak had discovered one of the world’s best rare-earth deposits in Tanzania. Instead of shipping the ore to China, it planned to refine it in the U.K., developing an integrated operation outside of Asia.

By then, China already controlled most of the world’s major rare-earth mines. Huge Chinese exports kept rare-earth prices low, making it difficult for Western companies to raise money to exploit new mines. Years went by.

By 2019, Rocky Smith, then CEO of Peak, asked foreign governments for help in developing the Tanzania mine. His timing was good. Trump was in the midst of a trade war against Beijing, and Chinese state media warned China could use rare earths as a weapon. “The United States risks losing the supply of materials that are vital to sustaining its technological strength,” a commentary in the People’s Daily said.

Smith secured a letter of interest from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, a U.S. government institute that funded projects in the developing world. However, Tanzania’s then-leader John Magufuli opposed foreign mining projects, and the U.S. government backed off from funding. Other governments also declined to put money forward.

Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan, left. greg baker/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

In 2021, Magufuli died in office, and was succeeded by Samia Suluhu Hassan, who looked more favorably on foreign mining projects.

But Peak’s backers were growing antsy. In 2022 a cornerstone investor, U.K. private-equity firm Appian Capital Advisory, sold its 20% share in Peak to Shenghe Resources, a partly state-owned Chinese rare-earths juggernaut that has steadily bought up stakes in promising rare-earth deposits in Tanzania from Western companies that controlled them.

Appian says that it had made repeated attempts to get U.K. government funding to push the project forward. “This would have provided a large part of the U.K. and Europe’s rare earths, but there was zero backing,” said Michael Scherb, Appian’s CEO.

Peak’s management insisted that even with a large Chinese shareholder, it would stick to its plan to supply buyers outside of China.

Tough choices

That commitment soon began to falter. In 2022 rare-earth prices started dropping as China jacked up production. That year, Peak made Bardin Davis, a banking veteran and Peak executive, its CEO, and appointed a new executive chairman. Shortly afterward, Peak announced an agreement with Shenghe whereby the Chinese company would receive between 75% to 100% of the mine’s output for seven years. Shenghe would also get a board seat.

Since Shenghe had bought its stake in the company, Western governments treated Peak as being part of the “nexus with China,” said Davis. That made it difficult to raise funds from Western funding agencies for its plans to develop the mine. Meanwhile, Peak risked losing its mining license in Tanzania if it didn’t make progress building the mine.

The company embarked on a global search for joint-venture partners or buyers, but only received one indicative offer—from Shenghe. In 2024, Peak announced a plan to enter a joint-venture arrangement with Shenghe under which the Chinese company would invest to develop the mine.

But then, in response to stiff tariffs Trump slapped on China in April, Beijing implemented a new export control regime on rare earths that strangled global supply and sent shock waves through Western industry, which relies on the minerals to make everything from cars to drones and jet engines.

Peak said it would formally scrap the planned joint venture with Shenghe, citing “recent geopolitical and regulatory developments.” A major problem, Davis said, were regulations Beijing had introduced in recent years restricting the export of Chinese rare-earth technology that would have made it difficult for the Australian and Chinese companies to work together.

This May, Shenghe moved in, offering to buy all of Peak for a premium roughly eight times that of average mining and metals acquisitions, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. The price, Shenghe said, was worth it for a mine it had long considered “the premier undeveloped rare earth project in the world.”

China has come to dominate the global supply of rare-earth elements, such as neodymium. Alex Kraus/Bloomberg News

A last-minute possibility of keeping the mine in Western hands emerged when a U.S. private-equity company, General Innovation Capital Partners, made a nonbinding offer that exceeded Shenghe’s. Mike Gallagher, a former Congressman known for his hawkish views on China, is a senior adviser to General Innovation.

But while General Innovation says on its website that one of its focuses is materials extraction, it appeared to have a limited track record in mining critical minerals, said Davis, a potential problem for Tanzanian regulators. Peak’s board said the firm hadn’t provided evidence it could fund the acquisition. Peak turned down the offer, concerned about the fee it would have to pay if it broke its exclusivity clause with Shenghe.

General Innovation didn’t respond to requests for comment.

In all, shareholders received roughly four times the pre-announcement share price from the Shenghe sale. In October, Peak was formally delisted from the Australian stock exchange. Shenghe now controls one of the world’s best rare-earth deposits.

The Chinese “have a long view on this stuff and the money part is not a big deal to them,” said Smith, who served as Peak’s CEO until 2020. Peak is “just one more piece, one more rare-earth deposit that they are going to be bringing into China.”

Stopping Chinese state-backed companies from buying up the world’s strategic mines has become an urgent priority for the West. After Shenghe’s purchase, the U.S. and Australia agreed to strengthen tools to review and deter “critical minerals and rare earths asset sales on national security grounds.”

But mining experts say there are few legal avenues to prevent Australian-listed companies, which do much of the world’s mineral exploration, from selling their mines abroad. Chinese companies are outbidding Western rivals, thanks to generous state support and their skill in navigating developing countries, where corruption is often rampant.

Earlier this month, the European Union opened an investigation into the proposed sale of Anglo-American’s nickel operations in Brazil to a subsidiary of a Chinese state-owned mining giant, citing the possibility that European steelmakers would lose access to a crucial supply source. In recent years, Canada has also strengthened investment laws to make it tougher for Chinese companies to buy mines and has forced some Chinese companies to divest from assets.

Write to Jon Emont at jonathan.emont@wsj.com

Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

WSJ

8. China This Week: Strategic Moves and Messaging

​Summary:

China is simultaneously strengthening hard power and expanding financial influence while growing diplomatically brittle. Amphibious drills using civilian shipping sharpen Taiwan invasion logistics; lending pivots into US/EU critical sectors, boosting leverage. Hypersensitive reactions to Japan and port scrutiny expose insecurity, raising escalation risks but creating exploitable openings for allied pressure.

Comment: I just came across this substack. I will be following it. We can see dangers, challenges, and opportunities.

China This Week: Strategic Moves and Messaging

xinanigans.com · Erika Lafrennie

November 14 - November 20, 2025

Erika Lafrennie

Nov 21, 2025

https://www.xinanigans.com/p/china-weekly-2025-11-21

Every Friday, Xinanigans analyzes China’s most consequential moves across geopolitics, military, economy, and propaganda, revealing Beijing’s evolving strategy and its impact on US national security.

Bottom Line: China advanced two hard-power priorities this week — amphibious logistics for a Taiwan contingency and a strategic pivot in lending toward US/EU sensitive sectors — while simultaneously displaying heightened diplomatic oversensitivity toward Japan’s Taiwan stance and US scrutiny of Chinese-controlled infrastructure. Together these signals show a China quietly strengthening its material leverage while growing more psychologically brittle abroad, a combination that increases both operational capability and escalation risk for the United States.

1. China’s “Civilian Shadow Navy” Practicing for a Taiwan Landing

A Reuters visual investigation reveals that China has been conducting amphibious landing drills using civilian ferries, roll-on/roll-off vessels, and commercial shipping assets as a shadow logistics network built to augment the PLA’s limited amphibious lift capacity. The drills simulate vehicle loading, rapid beach deployment, and cross-strait transit patterns designed to reduce detection windows and complicate Taiwan/US early warning.

Why it matters:

These exercises reveal deliberate progress on the PLA’s hardest problem: how to move vehicles and troops across the Taiwan Strait at scale. Civilian-military fusion expands lift capacity, shortens warning windows, and blurs indicators that US and Taiwanese analysts depend on to detect invasion staging.

Implications for US National Security:

• Shorter warning windows: US and Taiwan must now track civilian shipping as part of military readiness indicators.
• Higher ambiguity: Beijing can mask pre-invasion staging as “commercial activity.”
• Rehearsal indicates intent: These are not political signals; they are warfighting preparations.
• Risk to US forces: In a crisis, distinguishing commercial vs. military hulls may complicate targeting and escalation management.

2. China’s Lending Machine Enters the US and EU: AidData Reveals a Strategic Financial Pivot

A new AidData study reveals that China’s overseas lending portfolio is shifting away from developing countries and toward high-income nations, including the United States and European Union. Chinese state banks are quietly financing infrastructure, industrial facilities, and research-linked projects in sectors that overlap with US national-security priorities.

Why it matters:

This represents a major strategic pivot. China is seeking influence inside advanced economies, not just the Global South. Lending is concentrated in sensitive, dual-use industries (energy grids, telecom-adjacent infrastructure, manufacturing inputs). It opens the door to commercial leverage, intelligence access, and contractual dependencies.

Implications for US National Security:

• Regulatory blind spots: Chinese financing can enter the US through municipal bonds, PPPs, private-equity intermediaries, and university partnerships that fall outside CFIUS visibility.
• Data exposure risks: Infrastructure lending often comes with “technical cooperation,” a euphemism for embedded access.
• Strategic dependency: US entities may unknowingly rely on Chinese credit in critical supply chains.
• Norm collision: China’s lending terms mirror its governance model: opaque, centralized, and politically conditional.

3. Beijing’s Growing Oversensitivity: Japan–Taiwan Rhetoric and the Piraeus Blow-Up Signal Strategic Fragility

Two diplomatic clashes this week reveal a sharp increase in Chinese hypersensitivity abroad:

A. Japan–China Confrontation Over Taiwan

Japan’s new PM, Sanae Takaichi, declared that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could activate Japan’s self-defense clause. Beijing issued an immediate, aggressive diplomatic backlash, accusing Tokyo of destabilizing the region and “violating political commitments.”

B. China Protests US Remarks on Piraeus Port Control

After the US ambassador to Greece urged Athens to reconsider China’s control of the Port of Piraeus, Beijing issued a formal diplomatic protest, accusing Washington of “inappropriate interference” and claiming to defend Greek sovereignty, while maintaining its controlling stake in the port.

Why it matters:

Individually, these look like routine spats. Together, they signal a leadership displaying acute strategic insecurity. China is reacting faster, louder, and with less message discipline than usual. Even modest diplomatic comments trigger disproportionate pushback. Beijing increasingly frames external scrutiny as existential challenge, not policy friction. What looks like confidence is actually prestige anxiety.

This psychological brittleness creates exploitable patterns for US strategy. A leadership that prioritizes face-saving over tactical flexibility will make suboptimal choices when forced to respond quickly to allied coordination. Japan’s Taiwan statement and the Piraeus comment were relatively modest provocations, yet they triggered responses that revealed Beijing’s priorities and decision-making tempo. This gives Washington a roadmap for using coordinated allied messaging to force China into defensive postures that constrain its strategic options and expose internal contradictions between confidence projection and actual strategic anxiety.

Implications for US National Security:

• Higher escalation risk in the Taiwan Strait: Japan’s rhetorical shift forces China to respond more aggressively, narrowing crisis-stability margins.
• Critical infrastructure battles will intensify: Piraeus shows China will contest US scrutiny of BRI-linked assets even on NATO territory.
• Opportunity for the US and allies: Beijing’s diplomatic overreactions create openings for alliance coordination, especially as partners grow wary of Chinese influence.
• Strategic miscalculation risk rises: A thin-skinned, prestige-driven China is more prone to coercive diplomacy.

China’s gray zone tactics often hide in plain sight. Each week, I will feature one that deserves a closer look.

MSS Is Using LinkedIn “Headhunters” to Target Western Lawmakers and Analysts

This operation exemplifies Beijing’s systematic approach to cognitive access tradecraft. MI5 issued a formal espionage alert to Parliament warning that China’s Ministry of State Security is operating through civilian “headhunters” on LinkedIn to target:

• U.K. lawmakers
• Parliamentary staff
• Economists
• Think-tank researchers
• Consultants with government access

China-based recruiters (including identified individuals in Beijing and Hong Kong) initiate contact, then hand targets to MSS officers posing as clients or research sponsors.

Why this is an irregular warfare case study:

This demonstrates cognitive access tradecraft: quiet, deniable, scalable, and tailored to Western vulnerabilities. It leverages professional insecurity, desire for “consulting side work,” LinkedIn’s trust-based environment, and the prestige of foreign government clients. Civilian cover plus online credibility equals low-cost elite penetration, providing Beijing with a blueprint for systematic cognitive penetration that exploits Western institutional assumptions about legitimate professional networking.

Implications for US National Security:

• Narrative Power as Capability: Beijing treats discourse power as a measurable asset and core strategic lever.
• Population as Narrative Infrastructure: Citizens, creators, and academics become amplifiers of state-aligned messaging.
• Unified Domestic–International Messaging: Xi Thought on Culture aligns patriotic education, internal control, and external narratives.
• Conceptual Battlespace Expansion: Beijing seeks to redefine global concepts — sovereignty, development, rights — in ways that reduce US normative reach.
• Content Laundering Through Partnerships: Media alliances and cultural exchanges provide conduits for spreading party-aligned frames under local branding.

Chinese Vulnerabilities & US Counter-Opportunities

China’s efforts to expand material capabilities reveal fundamental structural weaknesses that US strategy can exploit. Amphibious logistics remain Beijing’s most fragile variable because civilian ferries, while expanding lift capacity, introduce uncontrollable variability in training, command integration, and survivability under fire that US forces can monitor and exploit. Similarly, China’s financial push into US and EU markets forces Beijing into Western transparency regimes that expose influence pathways Washington can trace and constrain. Most tellingly, the leadership’s sharp diplomatic overreactions reveal growing prestige insecurity that gives the US opportunities to shape allied messaging designed to elicit predictable Chinese overreach.

Beijing’s overseas infrastructure control depends on political goodwill rather than durable power projection. China’s position in Piraeus and across BRI port holdings remains vulnerable to partner fatigue, elite turnover, and public concern about sovereignty. The US can capitalize by supporting transparency efforts that make Chinese influence harder to sustain politically. Meanwhile, MSS recruitment tradecraft relies on Western professional norms of trust, openness, and legitimate career outreach that can be disrupted quickly through targeted counterintelligence guidance, giving the US a low-cost avenue to shrink China’s access surface.

Perhaps most critically, China’s ability to project financial strength abroad is undermined by fiscal strain at home. Local revenue shortfalls, rising debt loads, and slowing consumption leave Beijing less able to absorb losses or sustain politically costly overseas lending. This gap allows the US to question the durability of Chinese financing when advising partners on long-term economic choices, exposing the contradiction between Beijing’s global ambitions and domestic resource constraints.

Know someone who should be tracking this? Please share.

xinanigans.com · Erika Lafrennie

9. Lawmakers say Rubio distanced US from peace plan

​Summary:

At Halifax, US lawmakers said SECSTATE told them the Ukraine “peace plan” was a Russian proposal passed via Washington, not POTUS' policy. He then posted that the US authored the framework using Russian and Ukrainian input. European allies deem terms, including limits on NATO expansion and Ukraine’s military, unacceptable.

Lawmakers say Rubio distanced US from peace plan

Members of Congress attending an international security forum said Secretary of State Marco Rubio called them to say the Americans did not instigate the proposal.

By Joe Gould11/22/2025 07:10 PM ESTUpdated: 11/22/2025 09:57 PM EST

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/22/lawmakers-deny-peace-plan-ukraine-00666185?utm

Sen. Mike Rounds speaks with reporters on the Capitol subway on Nov. 20, 2025. | Mariam Zuhaib/AP

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — U.S. lawmakers attempted Saturday to reverse days of confusion around a leaked peace plan for Ukraine, saying Secretary of State Marco Rubio assured them the document does not represent the Trump administration’s position.

Rubio called the bipartisan delegation to the Halifax International Security Forum on Saturday afternoon, they said, while en route to Geneva for talks with Ukrainian officials. He described the plan as a Russian proposal, they said, and not a U.S. initiative.

“He made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.). “It is not our recommendation. It is not our peace plan. It is a proposal that was received, and as an intermediary, we have made arrangements to share it — and we did not release it. It was leaked.”’

Their comments, at a Halifax press conference, amounted to a massive U-turn for an episode that has dominated the news this week and fueled a mad diplomatic scramble. The release of the plan has prompted questions in Kyiv, European capitals and Washington about whether the U.S. was backing a Kremlin-friendly plan.

Rubio told lawmakers that he was unaware of any plans by President Donald Trump to cut off intelligence sharing or military assistance if Ukraine rejected the terms.

“He told me … he was not aware of that threat being made,” Rounds said. “The intent was to take what had now been publicly discussed in news reports and to allow the Ukrainians the opportunity to respond back to it.”

Rubio, in a late Saturday message on X, disputed the notion that the U.S. wasn’t involved in drawing up the plan.

“The peace proposal was authored by the U.S.,” he wrote. “It is offered as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations. It is based on input from the Russian side. But it is also based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

The lawmakers said the call came at their request after they grew alarmed by the proposal and heard global leaders railing against it. Rubio, they said, agreed to walk them through the situation and gave the lawmakers permission to describe what he told them.

Rubio, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and Trump envoy Steve Witkoff are meeting with Ukrainian advisers in Geneva on Sunday before engaging the Russians. European governments are rushing envoys of their own to influence the talks.

National security advisers from France, Germany and Italy may join, and leaders from 27 European Union states are preparing a counterproposal. Many have called the U.S. document a nonstarter.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), also at the forum, said the peace plan included elements Ukraine and U.S. allies would never accept, including restrictions on NATO adding new members and the size of Ukraine’s military.

“There is so much in that plan that is totally unacceptable,” she said. “If we’re going to have a real negotiation that is going to actually produce a peace deal for Ukraine and Russia.”

Daniella Cheslow contributed to this report.

Filed Under: 

• CongressWhite HouseMarco RubioUkraineRussia’s War on Ukraine

10. Even 10,000 missiles won’t be enough: China’s sprint toward Taiwan invasion

Summary:

​Behind ​P​OTUS and Xi’s smiles lies a China sprinting to field a “world-class” force ready to coerce or invade Taiwan by 2027. Beijing is rapidly expanding its nuclear triad, missile production, navy, and amphibious capabilities, drawing lessons from Ukraine on saturating Western air defenses with massed strikes. Massive PLA purges expose corruption and raise questions about readiness, yet Xi may still move if he deems force essential to China’s destiny. Meanwhile, POTUS revives strategic ambiguity and appears to pivot U.S. focus inward, unsettling allies like Japan as regional tensions and the risk of great-power war intensify.

Comment: Long read. Based on the premise of the  "Davidson Window." (PLA readiness to invade Taiwan by 2027). Provocative headline aside, this consolidates a lot of recent reporting from the mainstream media (including 60 Minutes), think tanks, substacks (Mick Ryan), and research studies. Also there are extensive photos and maps/graphics at the link.

Even 10,000 missiles won’t be enough: China’s sprint toward Taiwan invasion

The Cold War in the Indo-Pacific is heating up: China is arming itself 'at the fastest pace since World War II,' boasting of a ballistic missile that 'can reach any point on Earth,' bringing its nuclear arsenal out of the shadows, and closing the gap with the US Navy by launching a third aircraft carrier; President Xi is purging 'corrupt' generals in a sweeping shakeup of the army but demands readiness to conquer Taiwan by 2027 — warning the West: 'Choose — war or peace,' as Trump refuses to promise help to the island: 'It’s a secret, but Xi knows what will happen'

Elyasaf Kosman|11.21.25 | 13:39

ynetnews.com · November 21, 2025

https://www.ynetnews.com/magazine/article/hjtjsgjxzg

When U.S. President Donald Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping late last month in South Korea, the leaders of the two rival superpowers shook hands, smiled, and showered each other with compliments. “He’s a tough negotiator,” Trump said of Xi, referring to the ongoing trade war with Beijing — a conflict that’s now on pause following the agreement reached at the summit — later calling him a “friend” and a “great leader of a great nation.”

Xi, for his part, praised Trump’s “significant contribution” to ending the war in Gaza. While admitting that China and the U.S. “don’t always see eye to eye,” he emphasized that cooperation between them was possible: “I have always believed that China’s development goes hand in hand with your vision of making America great again,” Xi told Trump.

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Chinese President Xi Jinping

(Photo: Alexander Kazakov/ AFP, Shutterstock)

The smiles and conciliatory words, however, mask growing tension. Just minutes before that summit, Trump announced in a post on his Truth Social network that he had instructed the Pentagon to resume nuclear testing — ending a 30-year moratorium — against the backdrop of China’s race to build a nuclear arsenal to match that of the U.S. and Russia, which is also developing modernized nuclear weapons.

China isn’t limiting itself to weapons of mass destruction. It’s rapidly upgrading its conventional military capabilities, with the declared goal of transforming the People’s Liberation Army into a “world-class military” by 2035. According to U.S. intelligence assessments, the Chinese military has an even earlier and more alarming target: to be ready for an invasion of Taiwan — the democratically governed island that Beijing claims as its own — by 2027.

At 72, Xi, who rose to power in 2012, is regarded as China’s most powerful ruler since the country’s communist founder Mao Zedong. He places great emphasis on military might. A decade ago, he launched sweeping reforms in the People’s Liberation Army, which, with its 2 million soldiers, is the largest in the world — but suffers from numerous shortcomings and a severe lack of combat experience, raising questions about its readiness for war. The last major military confrontation it fought was a short border war with Vietnam in 1979, in which Chinese forces suffered defeat.

Xi led major structural reforms within the army, including cutting reliance on ground forces, which were reduced by about 300,000 troops. He has worked to uproot corruption from within the ranks, launching broad purges that also removed officers deemed disloyal, while funneling enormous sums of money into upgrading military capabilities. Since Xi came to power, China’s official defense budget has more than doubled, reaching roughly $245 billion a year, though estimates suggest the true figure is significantly higher.

The U.S. defense budget remains roughly three times larger, but China is steadily narrowing the gap.

'Choose: war or peace'

China’s defense spending is five times greater than Japan’s and seven times greater than that of South Korea, Washington’s two key allies in the region. The growing concern was voiced recently by Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles, who urged Beijing to explain what he called “the most significant military buildup and expansion of conventional capabilities by any nation since the end of World War II.”

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U.S. President Donald Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping

(Photo: Reuters/ Evelyn Hockstein)

Marles warned that the anxiety surrounding China’s rearmament continues to grow because Beijing offers no explanation for its intentions — no reassurance for its neighbors. “What we want to see,” he said in June, “is strategic transparency and reassurance from China — an understanding of why it requires such an extraordinary military buildup.”

Xi, of course, emphasizes in his public statements that he seeks cooperation and peace — yet consistently boasts of Beijing’s growing military power. “The great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is unstoppable!” he declared in a massive military parade at Tiananmen Square in Beijing this September. Standing beside him were Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, with whom he has strengthened military and economic ties in recent years.

At that parade — marking 80 years since the victory over imperial Japan in World War II — Xi issued a blunt warning to the West: “Today, humanity is once again faced with a choice between peace and war, between dialogue and confrontation, between cooperation that benefits all and a zero-sum game.”

Missiles, drones, and 80,000 ‘doves of peace’

He didn’t stop at rhetoric. During the parade, China unveiled an array of new weapons: robotic submarines, laser interception systems, and cruise missiles with hypersonic glide warheads capable of mid-flight maneuvers that make them extremely difficult to intercept. Such capabilities in the Indo-Pacific theater are particularly troubling to the United States, as they would enable China to target American warships and complicate Washington’s efforts to send aid or reinforcements to Taiwan in the event of an attack.

China's military parade

(Video: Reuters )

The parade also marked the first time China publicly revealed its “nuclear triad” — the ability to launch nuclear warheads from the sea, air, and land. Among the weapons showcased was the DF-5C intercontinental ballistic missile, equipped with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs), meaning each warhead can strike a different target independently.

According to China, the missile’s range includes the continental United States. The state-run Global Times boasted that the weapon can hit “any point on Earth” and “stands ready at all times to ensure effective deterrence and prevent wars.”

China’s nuclear arsenal comes out of the shadows

The growing display of China’s nuclear capabilities reflects a dramatic expansion of its arsenal. In just five years, Beijing has doubled its number of nuclear warheads from 300 to 600. The Pentagon now estimates that China could possess more than 1,000 warheads by 2030.

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An alliance against the West: Xi at a parade in Beijing alongside Putin and Kim Jong Un

(Photo: Alexander Kazakov/ AFP)

While the U.S. still maintains a much larger stockpile — 5,177 warheads, compared to Russia’s 5,459 — China is closing the gap, both in the number of warheads and in its delivery systems.

A recent analysis by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), conducted after the Beijing military parade, warned that the U.S. is “losing the nuclear arms race.” The report said Washington has struggled to modernize its aging strategic nuclear forces, largely due to budget constraints.

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Chinese soldiers

(Photo: Reuters/Tingshu Wang)

“While Washington moves slowly,” the report read, “China and Russia are expanding their arsenals at a breathtaking pace. China’s nuclear triad is now more diverse than that of the United States, featuring five distinct delivery systems for nuclear weapons. The parade was a wake-up call — showing that China is bringing its nuclear arsenal out of the shadows to challenge the very foundations of U.S. strategic superiority.”

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(Photo: Reuters/Maxim Shemetov)

The missile sprint

China has placed enormous emphasis on developing its missile forces, accelerating production by 50% in recent years. Last month, CNN published an investigation showing that this pace has continued through 2025. Based on satellite imagery, the report revealed that more than 60% of China’s 136 missile production facilities have been expanded since early 2020, covering an additional 2 million square meters of new construction, including plants, towers, and underground bunkers.

Entire villages, the report noted, have vanished from satellite photos to make way for these facilities.

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The Chinese military parade

(Photo: Liu Xu/Xinhua via AP)

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(Photo: Reuters/Maxim Shemetov)

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(Photo: Kevin Frayer/Getty)

“This is how China positions itself as a global superpower,” said William Alberque of the Pacific Forum think tank in the U.S. “China is already in a sprint — and it’s preparing for a marathon.”

President Xi has described the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force as “the strategic support for our nation’s status as a great power and a cornerstone of its national security.” Military analysts believe the Rocket Force would play a decisive role if Xi were to attempt to seize Taiwan by force.

An amphibious invasion of the island — 130 kilometers from mainland China at its narrowest point — would be a daunting task, given Taiwan’s natural defenses. Only 14 beaches are suitable for amphibious landings, and they are heavily fortified with U.S.-supplied defense systems.

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(Photo: Reuters/Maxim Shemetov)

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(Photo: Alexander Kazakov, Sputnik, Kremlin pool photo via AP)

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(Photo: Xinhua)

As a result, many analysts believe China would first impose a blockade, aiming to choke Taiwan into submission, with its missiles taking center stage in such a scenario.

“China’s military wants to create the conditions for an invasion,” said David Avelat, an analyst at the CNA research institute. “That means striking ports, helicopter bases, supply hubs — anything that could help Taiwan hold out. These missiles could also serve to deter the U.S. from sending military aid.”

Learning from Ukraine: 'China is not Iran'

CNN noted that China’s surge in missile production accelerated after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, a war in which Beijing has officially remained “neutral” while quietly helping Moscow weather the Western sanctions and economic isolation. Like many other countries, China has closely observed the fighting in Ukraine, drawing lessons from what would be its first major military confrontation since 1979.

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The possible siege of Taiwan

“They’re watching Ukraine very closely,” said William Alberque of the Pacific Forum. “They’re witnessing real combat between two highly trained, technologically advanced militaries — and they’re taking meticulous notes.”

One of Beijing’s main takeaways, Alberque said, is that the most efficient way to overwhelm Western air defenses is by flooding them with cheap weapons such as drones. Doing so would exhaust defensive systems and allow more advanced ballistic missiles to break through and strike their targets.

He added that China’s early war games once estimated it would need 5,000 to 10,000 missiles to defeat Taiwan — but after observing the Ukraine war, those estimates have “risen exponentially.”

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Regional map

This massive buildup coincides with reports of a shortage of U.S. interceptors, expensive systems that were depleted partly because Washington supplied some to Israel during its 12-day war with Iran.

American media have reported that 25% of the interceptors in the U.S.-made THAAD missile defense system, deployed in Israel, were used during that conflict. The THAAD system is a key component of America’s Indo-Pacific defense network, but production has struggled to keep pace: each interceptor costs $12.7 million and takes a long time to manufacture.

In contrast, China’s launch capabilities are far more diverse, said Collin Koh of Singapore’s IDSS think tank, speaking to Newsweek.

“Unlike Iran, which can only launch missiles from land — limiting the direction of attack — China can strike from multiple platforms. A Chinese missile barrage would be far more complex for Taiwan and the U.S. to counter. Even a combination of advanced air defense systems wouldn’t be enough to deter or neutralize Beijing’s threat.”

The dragon at sea: China’s naval and air arms race

China’s military acceleration extends well beyond its missile program. The country is rapidly transforming its navy into a “blue-water fleet” — one capable of operating far from its shores, deep in the world’s oceans, and projecting global power.

In terms of ship numbers alone, China’s navy surpassed the U.S. Navy back in 2014 and continues to grow at a staggering rate. As of 2023, it boasted 332 vessels, compared to the U.S. Navy’s 291. According to projections by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), China’s fleet will expand by 48% by 2030.

Although still inferior to the U.S. Navy in combat experience and operational capabilities, China’s maritime forces are steadily narrowing the gap. In preparation for a potential invasion of Taiwan, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has staged increasingly complex drills near the island in recent years, including simulated encirclement exercises meant to rehearse a naval blockade.

The Pentagon has assessed that while China’s operational reach in the Indo-Pacific remains “modest,” it is expanding as the navy gains experience and technological sophistication.

The Fujian: China’s third aircraft carrier

Earlier this month, China officially launched its third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, the first to be designed and built entirely domestically. Its first two carriers were based on Soviet blueprints. The Fujian represents a significant leap forward in Chinese naval engineering and is expected to play a key role in any future conflict over Taiwan.

Analysts believe Beijing would deploy at least one carrier, possibly the Fujian itself, in the waters between Taiwan and U.S. military bases in the Pacific, particularly Guam, in an effort to deter Washington from sending reinforcements or supplies.

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Chinese aircraft carrier

(Photo: AFP)

The Fujian incorporates several major technological upgrades, most notably an electromagnetic catapult system to launch aircraft. Unlike the older steam catapults used on most U.S. carriers, this system places less stress on aircraft, reducing wear and damage, and allows for the launch of heavier or more varied aircraft — including surveillance and early-warning planes.

“The Fujian is a major step forward for China,” said Brian Hart, deputy director of the CSIS “China Power Project.” “It can deploy more types of aircraft, carry more weapons, and operate more efficiently. It represents China’s growing confidence as a maritime power.”

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(Photo: AFP)

Even so, the Fujian still lags far behind U.S. carriers. America currently operates 11 nuclear-powered carriers, each far larger, longer-ranged, and more capable. A CNN analysis found that Fujian can support only about 60% of the flight sorties that U.S. Nimitz-class carriers — some of which are 50 years old — can handle. The U.S. is also replacing the Nimitz fleet with the even more advanced Ford-class carriers.

Still, Beijing is not slowing down. Reports indicate that a fourth Chinese carrier is already under construction, incorporating lessons from Fujian’s design. China is also developing nuclear propulsion technology for its carriers.

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Footage from March 2025 shows a prototype of the sixth-generation stealth fighter jet China is developing, dubbed the J-36.

“China is closing the gap in every dimension,” Hart added. “It’s building more carriers, launching more nuclear submarines, and deploying larger destroyers capable of carrying more missiles.”

From corruption to purges: Xi’s housecleaning of the generals

China’s military modernization drive has not been without turbulence.

Beneath the gleaming parades and new weaponry, President Xi Jinping has waged a sweeping anti-corruption and loyalty purge across the upper echelons of the People’s Liberation Army — a campaign that has both consolidated his power and exposed deep dysfunction within the ranks.

Since taking power 13 years ago, Xi has dismissed or detained dozens of senior officers, many of whom he personally appointed. According to a tally by Bloomberg News, at least 14 of the 79 generals promoted by Xi have since been removed from their posts, including two defense ministers.

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The purge at the top continues: He Weidong, China’s No. 2 military official, disappeared in March, and last month Beijing announced he is suspected of corruption

(Photo: AP/ Ng Han Guan)

The most prominent of these was General He Weidong, the PLA’s second-highest-ranking officer, who vanished from public view in March and was confirmed last month to have been arrested on corruption charges, along with eight other generals — including the commander of China’s Rocket Force.

Beijing offered no details about the accusations, saying only that they involved “very large sums of money.”

A Bloomberg report from early 2024, citing U.S. intelligence assessments, suggested that Xi’s purge was driven by his fears that corruption could undermine military readiness, particularly within the Rocket Force — the branch responsible for China’s nuclear and missile arsenal.

The report included startling claims: some missiles had been filled with water instead of fuel, and launch silos suffered from defective blast doors. The revelations, if true, rattled Xi’s confidence in his forces’ reliability.

Washington analysts concluded that the corruption scandal had shaken Xi’s faith in his military’s combat readiness, making a major offensive less likely in the near term.

In a commentary for Foreign Affairs, Professor Taylor Fravel, director of the Security Studies Program at MIT, wrote that the continuing purges could cripple command efficiency and foster a “chilling effect” within the ranks.

“Officers at all levels may become increasingly risk-averse,” Fravel argued, “fearing that any misstep could put them in Xi’s crosshairs. That dynamic could reinforce the PLA’s existing tendency toward excessive centralization — making complex, multi-branch operations far more difficult to execute.”

Trump keeps his secrets: ‘Xi knows what will happen’

Yet despite the questions about China’s readiness, experts warn that military capability alone may not determine whether Beijing strikes Taiwan.

Fravel and others note that China has initiated wars in the past, even when its army was far less prepared than it is today.

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(Photo: Reuters/Evelyn Hockstein)

“If Xi believes that the recent purges have weakened his military’s readiness, an opportunistic use of force may seem less likely in the near term,” Fravel wrote. “But if he concludes that an attack on Taiwan has become necessary for China’s destiny, he will give the order regardless of those weaknesses.”

The lingering uncertainty now shifts to Washington’s response if China does invade.

After losing the Chinese Civil War in 1949, the defeated Republic of China government fled to Taiwan, establishing the democratic island while the Communist Party, under Mao Zedong, founded the People’s Republic of China on the mainland.

The U.S. recognized Taipei as the legitimate Chinese government for three decades — until 1979, when Washington normalized relations with Beijing and recognized the Communist government as the sole legitimate authority.

Since then, U.S.-Taiwan ties have remained unofficial but robust, with the Taiwan Relations Act obligating Washington to provide Taipei with the means to defend itself.

For decades, the U.S. has maintained a policy of “strategic ambiguity,” deliberately avoiding a clear commitment to defend Taiwan militarily in the event of invasion.

Former President Joe Biden appeared to break that precedent in 2022 when he declared that the United States “would respond militarily” if China attacked. But President Donald Trump, now serving his second term, has reverted to the old playbook of ambiguity.

When asked in an interview on 60 Minutes last week whether the U.S. would come to Taiwan’s defense, Trump replied: “I can’t reveal my secrets.”

Trump said the Taiwan issue had not come up during his recent summit with Xi in South Korea, but added that the Chinese leader and his circle had made one thing clear: they would not invade while Trump was in the White House.

“They know what the consequences would be,” Trump said cryptically. “You’ll find out if it happens. Xi understands what the answer will be.”

A shifting America: isolation, priorities, and doubts among allies

Trump’s carefully maintained ambiguity is unsettling U.S. allies from Asia to Europe, who worry that his “America First” doctrine could leave them exposed in the event of Chinese or Russian aggression.

A recent Politico report revealed that the newly renamed Department of War (formerly the Department of Defense) is drafting a national strategy paper that would refocus U.S. priorities on homeland defense and operations within the Western Hemisphere — placing them above deterrence missions against China or Russia.

According to officials familiar with the discussions, the shift represents a fundamental reordering of America’s global posture: Washington would focus more on countering regional threats like drug cartels and maritime smuggling while reducing its forward presence in Asia and Europe.

In fact, such a transition already appears to be underway.

In September, the U.S. military launched an extensive bombing campaign against “narco-ships” in the Caribbean, and this week the Pentagon deployed its most advanced Ford-class aircraft carrier to the same region.

“It’s going to be a major shift for the United States and its allies across several continents,” an insider told Politico. “The long-standing, reliable security guarantees that Washington once provided are now in question.”

Despite this apparent pivot inward, analysts say the U.S. cannot afford to abandon its interests in the Indo-Pacific, the world’s most strategically vital theater. Even with China’s meteoric rise, the U.S. remains the dominant military power in the region.

Retired Australian general Mick Ryan told CNN he still considers the U.S. military “the strongest in the world — though the margin is smaller than it used to be.”

David Santoro, head of the Pacific Forum think tank, warned of the dangers of escalation: “We’re already in a cold war,” Santoro said. “It’s present across every domain — economic, technological, and military. The real danger is that it turns into a hot one.”

Fury in Beijing: Japan warned of ‘a crushing defeat’

Tensions surrounding Taiwan are now spilling into a full-blown diplomatic clash between China and Japan.

The spark came last week when Japan’s newly elected prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, was asked in parliament how Tokyo would respond if China launched a military invasion of Taiwan.

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Japan’s Prime Minister Takaichi with Xi last month. She did say what would happen if China invades — and faced harsh threats

(Photo: Japan pool/ JIJI PRESS / AFP)

Her answer sent shockwaves through Beijing: “Such a scenario would threaten Japan’s survival,” she said, “and could therefore trigger a military response from us.”

China’s reaction was immediate and furious.

The Defense Ministry in Beijing warned that if Japan were to intervene militarily on Taiwan’s behalf, it would suffer a “crushing defeat.”

The Chinese government summoned the Japanese ambassador for a formal reprimand, accusing Takaichi of causing “serious damage” to bilateral relations.

“Japan must clearly understand its own history and not repeat its past mistakes,” the Chinese statement said — a pointed reference to Japan’s imperial expansion in Asia before and during World War II.

In Tokyo, the Foreign Ministry stood by Takaichi’s general stance, saying there was “no reason to retract her remarks.” But facing growing diplomatic pressure, the prime minister sought to soften the tone.

She told reporters that her comments were “purely hypothetical” and that she would avoid making similar statements in future parliamentary sessions.

Despite the attempt to calm tempers, the episode underlined the rapidly deteriorating security environment in East Asia, where the Taiwan question has become the defining flashpoint between the world’s great powers.

As the region braces for what analysts now call “the Pacific century’s defining showdown,” one warning echoes from Washington to Tokyo to Taipei:

Even 10,000 missiles might not be enough to stop the rise of China’s dragon.

ynetnews.com · November 21, 2025

11. The future of war is the future of society

​Summary:

Cheap, autonomous drones and AI are making gun-wielding infantry and manned platforms obsolete, transforming war and thus society. He traces how past military revolutions, steppe warfare, gunpowder, industrial war, forced new state structures, finance, and mass ideology. Today’s AI-drone revolution will favor capital- and knowledge-intensive systems, large-scale manufacturing, and information control. China is adapting faster, mastering drone supply chains and social-media control, while the United States and Europe cling to 20th-century models. To avoid defeat, liberal democracies must retool industry, alliances, and social cohesion for an era where flying robots dominate the battlefield.

Comment: Mr Smith certainly made a powerful and possibly prescient prediction in 2013. Has his prediction been "utterly vindicated?" Maybe I am a luddite but I think we will always need the infantryman to close with and destroy the enemy and take and hold ground. Or maybe I am proof of the old adage that the only thing harder than getting a new idea into a military mind is getting an old one out. On a serious note I think drones and AI will be game changers. I just will always believe that war will never be removed from the human domain and it is the human that will be the ultimate arbiter of victory or defeat. That said, I agree that there is a lot of retooling necessary.

The future of war is the future of society - Asia Times

As AI makes war more capital- and knowledge-intensive, Western society must adapt to survive

by Noah Smith

November 20, 2025

asiatimes.com · Noah Smith

https://asiatimes.com/2025/11/the-future-of-war-is-the-future-of-society/

The most prophetic post I’ve ever written wasn’t about economics — well, not directly at least. It was about military technology. I’m not much of an expert in that subject, but I managed to make some predictions that were unpopular at the time but which have been borne out spectacularly in the years since.

The original article, written for Quartz, was in 2013, but right now I can only find this republished version from 2020. Here’s what I wrote:

The human race is on the brink of momentous and dire change. It is a change that potentially smashes our institutions and warps our society beyond recognition. It is also a change to which almost no one is paying attention. I’m talking about the coming obsolescence of the gun-wielding human infantryman as a weapon of war…

You may not even realize you have been, indeed, living in the Age of the Gun…But imagine yourself back in 1400. In that century…the battlefield was ruled not by the infantryman, but by the horse archer—a warrior-nobleman who had spent his whole life training in the ways of war. Imagine that guy’s surprise when he was shot off his horse by a poor no-count farmer armed with a long metal tube and just two weeks’ worth of training. Just a regular guy with a gun…

For centuries after that fateful day, gun-toting infantry ruled the battlefield…But sometime in the near future, the autonomous, weaponized drone may replace the human infantryman as the dominant battlefield technology. And as always, that shift in military technology will cause huge social upheaval.

The advantage of people with guns is that they are cheap and easy to train…The hand-held firearm reached its apotheosis with the cheap, rugged, easy-to-use AK-47; with this ubiquitous weapon, guerrilla armies can still defy the mightiest nations on Earth…

But another turning point in the history of humankind may be on the horizon. Continuing progress in automation, especially continued cost drops, may mean that someday soon, autonomous drone militaries become cheaper than infantry at any scale.

Note that what we call drones right now are actually just remote-control weapons, operated by humans. But that may change…Sometime in the next couple of decades, drones will be given the tools to take on human opponents all by themselves…meanwhile, technological advances and cost drops in robotics continue apace. It is not hard to imagine swarms of agile, heavily armed quadrotor drones flushing human gunmen out of buildings and jungles[.]

That was 12 years ago. At the time, when I floated this idea on Twitter, people jumped to scoff at it. They told me that electronic warfare would be too powerful for drones to overcome, that drones wouldn’t have the firepower to dominate the battlefield and so on. They pointed out — quite correctly — that when it comes to military technology, I don’t have any expertise.

And yet, as of 2025, my prediction has been utterly vindicated. Reports from the battlefield in Ukraine tell of a battlefield so completely dominated by drone warfare that experts are forced to go out of their way to argue that traditional artillery still has a role. Here’s Michael Kofman (my favorite Ukraine expert):

Drones continue to be responsible for most daily casualties, with the front line defined by overlapping drone and artillery fire engagement zones 20-25km from the forward line of troops. This is commonly referred to as the ‘kill zone.’..Drone units work to suppress and displace the opponent’s drone crews further from the front…[L]onger range drones strike artillery, logistics, and enemy drone teams further in the rear…

On the Russian side Rubicon formations remains a leading problem for drone operators, not only the drone companies themselves, but because they train other Russian drone units to replicate their approaches focused on AFU logistics, drone crews, and intercepting ISR…One of the observed changes is the balance of casualties in the AFU has shifted from infantry to supporting roles, drone operators, logistics, etc. There is very little infantry forward, and in many AFU brigades infantry now bears less of the casualties…

Most units now have a UGV platoon, company, or battalion. These require greater skill and training to employ, but hold considerable promise, reducing casualties…The airspace has become even more contested for longer-range ISR, with both sides establishing dense tactical radar coverage to detect drones, and one way attack munitions…

Artillery remains important to suppressing enemy forces and shaping how they attack, especially in bad weather, which is more prevalent this time of year. Fog, wind, and rain significantly degrade drone operations[.]

Other reports all tell the same story.

The drone is increasingly regarded as the infantryman’s basic weapon. The US Army is ordering a million drones to equip its soldiers (a war would require many, many times that). Drones are replacing artillery, now having the capability to take out infantry, tanks, artillery, and basically anything else at a fairly long range.

Strike drones are supplementing bombers and long-range missiles as a way of dealing damage behind the lines; Ukraine’s drone strikes are degrading Russia’s oil industry from thousands of miles away.

And drone technology is still in its infancy. Currently, drones are still piloted by humans. This makes them subject to electronic warfare that jams the link between pilot and drone, forcing them to use spools of fiber-optic cable to maintain a secure connection.

And it means that drone operators have to stay somewhat near the front, exposing them to enemy strikes. Skilled human operators are a valuable resource that limits the amount of drones that can be used at once.

This is about to change. Advances in AI are going to enable drones to behave autonomously — the “killer robots” out of a science fiction novel. In fact, Ukraine has already experimented with autonomous drone swarms.

Drones are going to first supplement and then replace boats, fighter jets, submarines, and every other manned weapon of war. Human infantry and human-crewed vehicles will become obsolete due to their sheer expense. Soldiers and big vehicles cost a lot; drones cost much less.

All of these predictions are fairly obvious and easy to make. AI is only getting better. And machines are generally cheaper than humans, who are only going to get more expensive over time.[1] Those two facts are all I really needed[2] in order to predict the rise of drones back in 2013, and neither has changed since then.

What happens next is harder to foresee. Obviously, everyone will look for ways to shoot down swarms of drones. At first, this will involve very fast guns, like Rheinmetall’s Skyranger. A drone is cheap, but a bullet is cheaper.

Even cheaper, eventually, will be a puff of light; laser weapons are being developed that can shoot down drones cheaply, quickly, and very accurately. Eventually, we may see big battleships and tanks bristling with point defense lasers force their way through swarms of drones, while defenders try to take them out with big, fast missiles.

Maybe that will result in the return of WW2-style maneuver warfare. Or maybe missiles will cheaply take down any big vehicle, creating static battlefields more like World War 1 (or the current Ukraine war), where the only way to win is to have your economy produce more drones than the enemy. Recall that I’m not actually an expert in military technology, so I can’t say how this will shake out. I’m not sure if anyone knows yet.

But what I do think is very likely is that the organization of human societies will have to change. Take a look at the long-term history of warfare. Our numbers are pretty patchy, but as far as we can tell, there have been three really big waves of warfare over the last millennium:

1. The Mongol conquests in the 1200s (and follow-up conquerors in the 1300s like Timur)
2. The Thirty Years’ War and the fall of the Ming Dynasty in China in the 1600s
3. The World Wars and communist revolutions of the 1900s

People argue a lot over why there were these three big outbreaks of war all over the world. Some blame climate change, while others blame patterns of trade, population growth, and so on. But I think one big plausible factor is military technology.

Each of the three waves of war coincides with a dominant package of military technology. The Mongols ran circles around their opponents with stirrup-equipped horses, and outranged them with recurved bows. The wars of the 1600s represented the peak of gunpowder warfare, while the wars of the 20th century were the peak of industrial warfare — planes, tanks, metal ships, and so on.

Interestingly, none of those big wars happened right after the key technologies were introduced. There was always a substantial lag. Most of the bow and stirrup technologies that made the Mongols so fearsome were invented a millennium earlier by the Xiongnu (the predecessor of the Huns). Cannon and muskets were invented a century before the cataclysms of the 1600s.

The World Wars saw rapid innovation, but the machine gun, the howitzer, the ironclad battleship, and other key technologies were pioneered earlier. There were constant incremental improvements in all of these technologies, of course, but it’s unlikely that they reached some special threshold of lethality that caused wars to suddenly get much much bigger and deadlier.

Instead, what changed were the societies that made use of the weapons.

There were plenty of steppe empires before the Mongols, but they usually weren’t able to overcome densely populated, settled civilizations like China. Only once Genghis Khan implemented reforms like meritocracy, writing, and so on were the steppe warlords able to break through and conquer the world.

Mongol tactics — especially the ability of mounted units to remain separate for days and then all converge on the same place at the same time — required sociocultural innovations to prevent defection/betrayal and ensure cooperation among highly mobile subcommanders.

Similarly, firearms and artillery saw wide adoption by the 1400s, but it wasn’t until the 1600s that gunpowder armies grew to truly massive size — hundreds of thousands of men instead of tens of thousands. That increase in size drove much of the higher death toll of the wars of the 1600s, since those giant armies had to live off the land, which caused famines and massacres (the battlefield death toll was higher too, obviously).

Those big armies required lots of money, which required lots of financing — better tax collection and more bank loans. Paul Kennedy notes that the countries that won wars in the gunpowder era tended to be the ones that were the best at tax collection. Charles Tilly argues that gunpowder-era wars made the modern state, because the regimes that survived were the ones that developed complex bureaucracies in order to collect more taxes to fund their wars.

The World Wars were also made possible by innovations in social organization — modern corporations, even larger bureaucracies, modern supply and logistics, and continuous research and development. Those social innovations emerged partly as a way to make countries more effective in war — if you didn’t develop those things, you were liable to be conquered.

It’s likely that all three eras of warfare required innovations in persuasion, ideology and communication as well. Genghis Khan had to convince a plethora of fractious steppe warlords to all stick together and cooperate. The great powers of the 1600s used a combination of religion and local loyalties — often communicated using the printing press — to help motivate their large armies to fight.

In the 20th-century wars, ideologies like communism, fascism, and democracy were key, and radio was an important new tool. All of those ideological changes changed society as well.

It was these social changes that allowed wars to get so big and cataclysmic in each era. So it might seem like the changes I’m describing are a bad thing — and in fact, I do think it’s a distinct possibility that we’ll see a cataclysmic global drone war sometime in the future. But from any one country’s point of view, those social changes were absolutely necessary, since the only thing worse than winning a war is losing a war.

And historically, warfare acted as a vector for the beneficial spread of both physical and social technologies. Countries in the early modern period had to adopt modern fiscal systems in order to be able to resist conquerors who already had those systems in place. Industrial production spread not just because it made citizens wealthier, but because you needed it to make guns, ammunition, railroads and so on.

In other words, it’s very difficult for countries to resist the changes that new dominant packages of military technologies necessitate. In the 1700s and 1800s, you either learned to be a gunpowder empire or you got conquered and enslaved. In the 20th century, you had to become a modernized industrial state, or you got plowed under. If there is a single driving, irresistible force of history, I think it must be the innovations that we use to kill each other.

Right now, we’re in the middle of a revolution in military affairs that will be just as profound as the Industrial Revolution, the introduction of gunpowder, or the rise of steppe warfare. The two great inventions of our time — AI and the electric tech stack — are rapidly eclipsing industrial warfare.

That will probably make war more capital-intensive, as human labor is increasingly removed from the equation (and because AI is very capital-intensive). It will almost certainly make it more knowledge-intensive, as understanding of how to apply AI effectively becomes decisive.

These changes are going to force our society to change and adapt. The America that won World War 2 didn’t look like the America of Thomas Jefferson’s time. And if we want to remain powerful and secure, the America of the 21st century won’t look like Roosevelt’s America, either. It can’t.

Right now, China looks like it’s outpacing other societies in terms of adapting itself to the new requirements of war. Possibly alone among all countries, it has mastered every part of the drone supply chain.

China’s emphasis on manufacturing, while perhaps not economically efficient, has also probably prepared it better for prolonged capital-intensive war. Right now, they would be able to out-produce the rest of the world in terms of drones.

If we are to match them, we’re going to need to make better use of industrial policy to patch the holes in our supply chains, stop wrecking those supply chains with tariffs on our allies, and form closer partnerships with those allies so that we can achieve the scale to match China.

China also seems to be adapting the new communications technologies of social media more effectively than many of its rivals — or at least, more effectively in terms of warfighting ability. We scoff at China’s massive system of internet thought control, but it’s possible that this is the only way to keep a modern nation from fracturing and spiraling into chaos in the age of social media.

I hope there are ways to hold together a modern nation-state without resorting to centralized thought control. But we really need to start looking for those techniques, instead of just assuming that stability will somehow naturally reemerge from the chaos of X and TikTok.

Most of all, America — and Europe, and other developed countries — must prepare for dramatic, wrenching change. These days, we often find ourselves looking backward — resisting the adoption of new technologies, blocking development and wallowing in nostalgia for the glory days of the 20th century.

But the kind of society we had then will not serve us as well in an age when flying robots rule the battlefield. Just as Thomas Jefferson’s America gave way to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s, we must find a way to preserve the core benefits and advantages of our liberal democracy while transitioning to the next thing.

Right now, I don’t think either Americans or Europeans are mentally prepared for that change. I hope it doesn’t take a catastrophic defeat in a major war in order to wake them up.

Notes

1 The cost of a human soldier goes up with both lifetime earnings and with the subjective value that society places on each human life. Both of those things go up as economies grow.

2 Technically, I also had to know that explosives carried by drones would win the battle against new kinds of armor. But that’s just obvious from basic physics. It takes a huge amount of energy.

This article was first published on Noah Smith’s Noahpinion Substack and is republished with kind permission. Become a Noahopinion subscriber here.

asiatimes.com · Noah Smith

12.  Taiwan Defense Report Highlights Area Denial Progress

​Summary: 

Taiwan’s 2025 defense report details a rapid shift to asymmetric area-denial: mass production of Hsiung Feng and air-defense missiles, expanded Haifeng anti-ship brigades and new Littoral Combat Command, Marine littoral strike and capital defense roles, plus a huge buildup of drones and loitering munitions to erode and complicate any PLA invasion.

​Comment: I could not find a link to the specific Defense Report the author references in his article, but here is a link to the Taiwan Defense report on 9 October 2025: https://www.ocac.gov.tw/OCAC/Eng/Pages/Detail.aspx?nodeid=329&pid=80210729 Graphics at the link. 

Taiwan Defense Report Highlights Area Denial Progress - Naval News

navalnews.com · Aaron-Matthew Lariosa

• 
  
• Published on 23/11/2025
• By Aaron-Matthew Lariosa
• 
  

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2025/11/taiwan-defense-report-highlights-area-denial-progress/

Taiwan highlighted its efforts in developing area denial capabilities, including anti-ship missiles, attack drones and new coastal defense forces, to counter a potential Chinese invasion of the island in its 2025 National Defense Report.

With the build-up and increasing capability of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the Republic of China Armed Forces have doubled down on assets and strategies that can defeat enemy naval attacks and amphibious landings. Among the numerous modernization projects highlighted in the report, the Ministry of National Defense emphasized its investments in asymmetric capabilities.

Through the introduction of new amphibious assault ships, naval aviation and dedicated landing barges, Beijing’s capabilities to invade Taiwan have drastically increased in recent years. In response, Taipei has opted for a strategy designed to erode the enemy via the deployment and use of asymmetric warfare.

Mass Missile Production

The nine precision weapon systems prioritized for mass production in the 2022-2026 Sea-Air Combat Power Improvement Plan. Ministry of National Defense photo

Between 2022 and 2026, Taipei pursued the “Sea-Air Combat Power Improvement Plan.” Under this $8 billion four-year-long program, nine types of anti-ship missiles, cruise missiles and surface-to-air missiles were earmarked for mass production. The plan aimed to increase Taipei’s missile stocks for its ground, air and sea services. These systems include the supersonic Hsiung Feng III anti-ship missiles and upgraded Hsiung Feng IIE cruise missiles capable of reaching targets up to 1,200 kilometers away.

The HF series of missiles makes up the bulk of Taipei’s mobile ground-based missile forces, which are fielded under the Republic of China Navy’s (ROCN) Haifeng anti-ship missile brigades. They also equip the service’s surface combatants and growing missile corvette force. The Tuo Chiang-class corvette can carry a mix of 12 HF-II and HF-III anti-ship missiles. The fleet’s smaller Kuang Hua VI-class missile boats field four HF-IIs.

Anti-aircraft systems like the Sea Sword and Sky Bow were also prioritized in the mass production scheme. The report noted that the defense of “high value assets” such as the mobile HF-series anti-ship missile launchers would be provided by these systems.

Ben Lewis, founder of PLATracker, an organization dedicated to monitoring Chinese military activity and development, told Naval News that the mass production of surface-to-surface and surface-to-air significantly bolsters Taipei’s area denial capabilities to defeat an invasion

“Taiwan’s capacity to contest PLA command of the air and identify, target, and strike PLA Navy (PLAN) vessels could be the decisive measurement of their ability to defeat a blockade or invasion from the PRC,” Lewis said.

In the 2025 National Defense Report, the Ministry of National Defense looks to allocate an additional budget from 2026 for a follow-up program dubbed “Procurements for Strengthening Defense Resilience and Asymmetric Combat Capabilities Plans.”

“Taiwan needs mass. Plain and simple, we need to continue making strides so that Taiwan can increase production,” Jaime Ocon, a Research Fellow with Taiwan Security Monitor, told Naval News. “I think it goes back to the big three. Missiles, mines, and loitering munitions.”

Anti-Ship Missile Brigades and Coastal Defense Forces

A ROCN HF-II launcher practices deployment. Military News Agency photo

Lewis and Ocon highlighted that these developments in Taiwanese area denial have also been matched by updates in force posture, particularly within the Marine Corps and a broader multi-service approach to unmanned systems that are set to elevate the country’s area denial capabilities.

Earlier this year, the Republic of China Marine Corps unveiled plans to transform its 66th Marine Brigade into a unit capable of supporting littoral strike operations. “The brigade’s organization was appropriately adjusted to a ‘drone battalion’ and ‘firepower battalion’ in response to the requirements of new missions,” read the 2025 National Defense Report. Ocon noted that Taiwanese Marines have also been stationed at strategic locations around Taipei to combat decapitation strikes that could occur in the capital during a Chinese invasion.

According to Ocon, 2026 will see the ROCN expand the number of Haifeng anti-ship missile units and task them alongside missile boats and additional maritime reconnaissance units to form the Littoral Combat Command. This new formation will also be supplemented by several 400 RGM-84L-4 Harpoon Block II batteries, which are set to become fully operational by 2029.

“New bases are already being constructed and their mission will be specifically to make sure the 24 nautical mile contiguous zone is kept secure in the event of a conflict. All of this will help Taiwan with coastal defense by being able to concentrate firepower in key areas and waterways that would further complicate Chinese planning,” Ocon said.

Unmanned Procurement

Taiwanese Defense Minister Wellington Koo observes the launch of an Anduril ALTIUS-600M attack drone. Military News Agency photo

While this year’s defense report highlighted an objective of 5,000 drones composed of 13 variants across the Army, Navy and Air Force by 2028, as well as noting an existing amount of 1,600 systems, Taiwan recently announced plans to increase this amount ten-fold to 50,000.

Taiwanese companies have met this growing market with domestically designed unmanned aerial drones and surface vessels. Recent defense shows and demonstrations in Taiwan have placed local firm Thunder Tiger as one of the leading contenders for this massive procurement project. A Thunder Tiger representative told Naval News at the Association of the United States Army’s annual symposium that the company was ready to scale its production of the Sea Shark unmanned surface vessel.

American firms are also selling their drones to the Taiwanese military. This week saw Taiwanese Defense Minister Wellington Koo observe the launch of an Anduril Altius-600M loitering munition at the Army’s unmanned training center. , marketed as an “air-breathing autonomous air vehicle.”

“A significant investment is also being made in loitering munitions that can be fired via a mobile launch platform like a large truck or a Humvee. Hopefully taking some lessons from Ukraine with this “shoot and scoot” tactic that a lot of people are reporting on when it comes to artillery attacks. And that’s exactly what Taiwan should start to practice. Mock fires using these drones, and then moving back into terrain to conceal themselves,” Ocon said.

Based on lessons from Ukraine, Ocon also noted that Taiwan should drastically increase the drone fleet into the millions. “I will just say that 50,000 is a great step but we need to add some zeros to that, we need five million,” he said.

Lewis stated that the planned drone deployment and procurement “is the most important takeaway” within this year’s defense report. “The value of these systems cannot be understated,” Lewis said.

Together, these expanded missile stockpiles, dedicated coastal defense units and ambitious plans for a large drone force form Taipei’s area denial response to the naval and air build-up across the strait.

navalnews.com · Aaron-Matthew Lariosa

13. Civil Affairs, AI, and the Future of Army Readiness

​Summary:

The Army’s Atlas Lion exercise used AI models instead of human evaluators to assess Special Operations Civil Affairs teams, analyzing thousands of data points from complex, large scale combat scenarios. AI driven tabletop training standardized certification, scaled realism, and gave commanders readiness metrics, amid lingering skepticism about relying on algorithms.

Civil Affairs, AI, and the Future of Army Readiness

By Maj. Justin ZwickNovember 18, 2025

https://www.army.mil/article/289070/civil_affairs_ai_and_the_future_of_army_readiness

Fort Bragg, N.C. – Soldiers from the 91st Civil Affairs Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group, executed a team-level validation exercise conducted October 20 – 24 2025. This annual training event enhances unit readiness and prepares Soldiers for complex missions worldwide. Following months of individual and collective training, Civil Affairs teams validated their skills in a realistic training scenario, designed to test Soldiers’ skills in a complex and dynamic environment.

Army Special Operations Forces Civil Affairs (ARSOF CA), is a branch of Soldiers specially trained to understand and influence the civil component of the operational environment. Civil Affairs professionals serve as an integral component in providing Commanders with key information about a region’s civilian population, enabling commanders to maintain operational tempo, preserve combat power, and consolidate gains. Capable of operating within the full spectrum of operations, ARSOF CA teams integrate with key populations and organizations to best understand civil networks to support national and theater-level objectives.

During Atlas Lion 26-1, two 4-person teams from Bravo Company of the 91st Civil Affairs Battalion navigated complex scenarios designed to evaluate months of tactical training. From engaging with local nationals to evacuating simulated casualties under hostile conditions, teams worked through multifaceted scenarios in a large-scale combat operations environment to prepare Soldiers for the unforeseen challenges overseas.

“This training environment replicates a large-scale combat operations environment. When we train, we train for the future,” explained Lt. Col. Michael Veglucci, Commander of the 91st Civil Affairs Battalion. “This gets after our core competencies and our Civil Affairs battle drills.”

After a week of validating their CA collective tasks, the 91st Civil Affairs Battalion partnered with Delta Company, 96th Civil Affairs Battalion, to execute a comprehensive tabletop exercise. This exercise leveraged a one-of-a-kind artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) model that enabled leaders to certify their Company in the unit’s critical tasks, a groundbreaking shift in how the Army assesses readiness.

In a first full iteration for the formation, ARSOF CA conducted a company-level certification exercise without using humans as external evaluators. For decades, units relied on observers to monitor training and assess Soldier competencies. Today, that work is being done by AI.

Civil Affairs Soldiers, who typically find themselves engaging with civil populations to solve complex problems, suddenly found themselves interacting with role players and civilian leaders built into the AI model.

In an innovative approach to transform how Soldiers prepare for future conflicts across multiple operational environments, AI is helping standardize training. AI enables commanders to rapidly scale training without proportionally increasing resources. What was once expensive and resource-intensive feat is now being done with the stroke of a keyboard.

“What makes this AI model unique is that it is limitless in complexity and cohesion to give the training audience a valuable and effective training opportunity,” said Morgan Keay, CEO and founder of Motive International, who ran the training. “This training provides commanders with an objective assessment of their formation’s ability to execute critical tasks before sending anyone overseas.”

During Atlas Lion, the AI model analyzed tens of thousands of data points using key performance indicators, a task previously impossible for human evaluators. By leveraging thousands of pages of doctrine, documents, and regulations, the model provided an unbiased assessment of the Company’s ability to conduct Civil Affairs tasks critical to mission success.

While some express skepticism about the role of AI in evaluating Soldiers whose primary role is to engage with civilian populations, the Army is adapting, modernizing, and transforming how it trains and certifies its troops.

As the Army continues to identify innovative ways to train and certify formations, Civil Affairs Soldiers are shaping the future of training. Through innovation and forward-thinking leadership, ARSOF CA is not only enhancing their readiness but also setting the standard for how the Army will train and certify its Soldiers to meet the demands of tomorrow’s missions.

14. How the Internet Rewired Work—and What That Tells Us About AI’s Likely Impact

​Summary:

The internet mostly didn’t create or erase whole occupations; it seeped into almost every job, automating routine tasks while thickening roles around judgment, coordination and relationships. AI will likely do the same: uneven task-level disruption, quiet workflow rewiring and many new backbone jobs in data, safety and infrastructure.

Comment: Good news or bad news? Or natural economic, business, and human evolution? Adapt or die.

How the Internet Rewired Work—and What That Tells Us About AI’s Likely Impact

WSJ

Pundits in the late 1990s offered all sorts of predictions about how the internet would affect jobs. For the most part, they were way off.

By Matt Sigelman

Nov. 22, 2025 12:00 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/internet-work-ai-9c42127d?mod=hp_listc_pos1

Timo Lenzen

Remember when America Online CDs carpeted America and “You’ve got mail” felt like the future? The internet did transform work—but not the way 1998 thought. The surprises weren’t just CEOs in hoodies and legions of coders. They were barbers with booking links, nurses on telehealth, and delivery jobs by the hundreds of thousands.

Looking back at that time isn’t just an exercise in nostalgia. What we imagined then, and how the internet actually changed jobs—sometimes loudly, often quietly—suggests a lot about today’s artificial-intelligence moment.

The late 1990s brimmed with predictions, often contradictory. On one side were promises of instant transformation; on the other, eye rolls about hype and bubbles. With hindsight, both camps were partly right and partly wrong. The internet turned out to be more transformative than skeptics allowed, yet its effects on jobs arrived slower and in more unexpected places than boosters forecast.

If you were looking only for a sudden surge of “internet jobs,” you missed the real headline: The internet slipped inside almost every job and rewired how work got done.

That didn’t mean it was painless. The internet wasn’t a huge job killer overall, but for some occupations, it wasn’t a gentle decline—it was a cliff. The number of travel agents dropped as booking went online. Meter readers fell as utilities digitized. Other declines are still unfolding: Counter-clerk employment dropped by 30% between 2015 and 2023 as kiosks and then apps took over; telemarketer jobs fell 75% as the web provided new channels for outreach.

What a job is made of

So why did the same technology erase some roles but not others? Because jobs differ in what they are made of. Travel agents had one core task: booking. Meter readers mainly, well, read meters, while telemarketers made calls timed to your dinner. These were routine, digitizable tasks the internet could substitute for directly.

But most jobs aren’t focused on a single, routine task—think finance manager, or plumber. They are bundles of judgment, coordination and hands-on work. The internet could replace some tasks, but it couldn’t substitute for the whole occupation.

As a result, the bigger story has been additive. In 1998, few could conceive of social media—let alone 65,000 social-media managers—and 200,000 information-security analysts would have sounded absurd when data still lived on floppy disks.

Even more important was the quiet transformation of nearly every job in the economy. Today, just 10% of workers make minimal use of the internet on the job—roles like butcher and carpet installer. And it isn’t just white‑collar work that changed. Dental-lab technicians shifted from manual molds to digital scanning and CAD/CAM; etchers and engravers moved from hand tools to digital engraving.

usa250

“The Story of the World’s Greatest Economy” is a yearlong WSJ series examining America’s first 250 years. Read more about it from Editor in Chief Emma Tucker.

These were quiet revolutions unfolding far from the spotlight. But it didn’t happen all at once. Email, shared calendars and CRMs sped up familiar tasks without changing who did what. Outlook replaced inbox trays; shared drives replaced file rooms.

Then workflows changed. Marketing shifted from campaign bursts to always‑on funnels and A/B testing. Clinics embedded e‑prescribing and patient portals, reshaping front‑office and clinical handoffs. The steps, owners and metrics shifted.

The transformation

Only then did the backbone scale: We went from server closets wedged next to the mop sink to data centers and cloud regions, from lone system administrators to fulfillment networks, cybersecurity and compliance. That is where many unexpected jobs appeared. Networked machines and web‑enabled software quietly transformed back offices as much as our on‑screen lives.

Similarly, as e‑commerce took off, internet‑enabled logistics rewired planning roles—logisticians, transportation and distribution managers—and unlocked a surge in last‑mile work. The build‑out didn’t just hire coders; it hired coordinators, pickers, packers and drivers. It spawned hundreds of thousands of warehouse and delivery jobs—the largest pockets of internet‑driven job growth, and yet few had them on their 1998 bingo card.

This pattern was already visible in the previous major technological leap: computerization. In the 1970s and 1980s, green-screen terminals gutted roles built around narrow, routine tasks. Payroll clerks plunged 70% between 1970 and 1980, census data show. Secretarial jobs fell nearly 60% over the same period. Yet most jobs came to depend on computers without seeing big employment declines.

By the time the web arrived, many jobs—especially in knowledge work—had thickened. Accountants were no longer ledger‑keepers; they handled tax strategy, audit planning, client advisory and compliance. The internet sped up parts of that bundle but couldn’t substitute for the whole. Administrative assistants moved from answering phones and scheduling appointments to coordinating projects and managing vendors. Today, the share of workers in professional and managerial occupations has more than doubled since the dawn of the digital era.

The implications for AI

So what does that tell us about AI? Our mental model often defaults to an industrial image—John Henry versus the steam drill—where jobs are one dominant task, and automation maps one‑to‑one: Automate the task, eliminate the job. The internet revealed a different reality: Modern roles are bundles. Technologies typically hit routine tasks first, then workflows, and only later reshape jobs, with second‑order hiring around the backbone.

That complexity is what made disruption slower and more subtle than anyone predicted. AI fits that pattern more than it breaks it. The text-generating AI known as large language models can draft briefs, summarize medical notes and answer queries. Those are tasks—important ones—but still parts of larger roles. They don’t manage risk, hold accountability, reassure anxious clients or integrate messy context across teams.

Expect a rebalanced division of labor: The technical layer gets faster and cheaper; the human layer shifts toward supervision, coordination, complex judgment, relationship work and exception handling.

What to expect from AI, then, is messy, uneven reshuffling in stages. Some roles will contract sharply—and those contractions will affect real people. But many occupations will be rewired in quieter ways. Productivity gains will unlock new demand and create work that didn’t exist, alongside a build‑out around data, safety, compliance and infrastructure.

AI is unprecedented; so was the internet. The real risk is timing: overestimating job losses, underestimating the long, quiet rewiring already under way, and overlooking the jobs created in the backbone. That was the internet’s lesson. It’s likely to be AI’s as well.

Matt Sigelman is president of the Burning Glass Institute. He can be reached at reports@wsj.com.

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WSJ

​15. More is needed to turn the Marine Corps' aspirations into reality

​Summary:

The Corps’ Force Design 2030 reforms have hollowed combined-arms capability and resiliency. Aspirational rhetoric masks shortfalls in ships, fires, logistics, and amphibious capacity. They urge reversing Marine Littoral Regiments and Stand-in Forces, killing NMESIS/NSM/LSM, and reinvesting in traditional MAGTFs, more and better amphibs, long-range missiles, and prepositioning to restore true expeditionary readiness.

More is needed to turn the Marine Corps' aspirations into reality

defenseone.com

If the force is truly to have balanced lethality and battlefield resiliency, it will need more ships, missiles, and money.

By Charles Krulak, Michael Hagee and James Conway

November 23, 2025 08:00 AM ET

https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2025/11/more-needed-turn-marines-aspirations-reality/409719/?oref=d1-homepage-top-story

U.S. Marines with the 1st Marine Division board a CH-53E Super Stallion of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing during an exercise at Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, California, on Aug. 21, 2025. U.S. Marine Corps / Lance Cpl. Alexis Ibarra

If the force is truly to have balanced lethality and battlefield resiliency, it will need more ships, missiles, and money.

|

November 23, 2025 08:00 AM ET

• Commentary
• Marine Corps
• Navy
• Industry

 Commandant of the Marine Corps’ October 2025 Force Design update asserts: “The Marine Corps is a globally responsive, lethal, and resilient combined-armed naval expeditionary force that projects power from sea to land and land to sea, fighting as a Marine Air Ground Task Force across all domains in contested environments to deter, deny, and defeat adversaries.”

This statement is aspirational. It does not reflect the current state of the Marine Corps, which is best characterized as a force lacking balanced lethality and battlefield resiliency. Until the senior leadership comes to grip with this truth, the Corps will remain a service in stasis. Optimistic expressions ring hollow when confronted with the realities of resources, defense budgets, Department of War acceptance, and congressional support.

The capability of fighting in every “clime and place” and task organizing for any mission are longstanding hallmarks of the Marines. Unfortunately, the Corps’ ability to respond quickly and effectively to global threats or to tailor a force capable of defeating any adversary were degraded by an unwise “divest to invest” approach to transformation, originally and innocuously termed “Force Design 2030.”

The adverse effects of Force Design continue to plague Marines almost six years after its inception. These include the loss of combined arms capabilities and resilience, reductions in requirements for amphibious ships, emasculation of the Maritime Prepositioning Force, and disregard for an integrated and disciplined combat development process. Words alone will not fix these problems.

The Commandant offers worthy goals for a ready and capable 911 force and strong and resilient regimental, brigade, and corps-size Marine Air Ground Task Forces, or MAGTFs. But unless rhetoric is backed by actions and resources, it is little more than empty, if aspirational, expressions. Restoring the Marines’ ability to be the nation’s expeditionary force-in-readiness will require significant investments in new and improved supporting arms, such as expeditionary bridging and assault breaching, mobile protected direct-fire support, cannon artillery, aviation and logistics.

It will also require the Marines working with the Navy to improve amphibious ship readiness rates and move beyond the requirement for 31 traditional amphibious ships as well as rebuilding the depleted Maritime Prepositioning Squadrons. To his credit, the Commandant has been arguing for enough ships to maintain a minimum steady presence of 3.0 Amphibious Ready Groups/ Marine Expeditionary Units (ARGs/MEUs). Achieving this goal will require improved readiness rates and almost certainly more than 31 ships. We believe additional ships are also required to reinforce deployed ARGs/MEUs if necessary or to respond to emerging threats in other theaters. The evolving National Defense Strategy is expected to focus more heavily on the Western Hemisphere. It will not alleviate the requirement for naval forces to respond globally when our national interests are threatened.

These are not easy or short-term fixes. Still, there are things that can and must be done now. These initiatives are “low-hanging fruit” that will improve the Corps’ capabilities to confront not only China but other adversaries threatening U.S. security interests.

The Commandant would be wise to turn the two Marine Littoral Regiments back into traditional regiments; replace the concept for small, isolated and widely separated Stand-in Forces with forces that are survivable and sustainable; halt the Navy Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) and Naval Strike Missile programs; and move away from the Landing Ship Medium.

The purpose-built Marine Littoral Regiment, long-delayed NMESIS, and relatively short-range Naval Strike Missile are largely irrelevant today and arguably more so in the future. The Naval Strike Missile is ill-suited for attacking ships from fixed positions ashore given its subsonic speed and less-than-200-mile range. Isolated and widely separated Stand-in Forces and the 14-knot, lightly armed, and unprotected Landing Ship Medium are not survivable in contested waters. Were none of the NMESIS, Naval Strike Missile and Landing Ship Medium tactical limitations bad enough, the fielding delays should be a coup de grace for all three programs.

According to the FD 2025 update: “The Service fielded the first six NMESIS launchers to 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment in 2023 and continues to build capacity toward 18 launchers per medium-range missile system launcher battery, which will be fully realized in FY 33.” If the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment will not have its full complement of launchers for seven years, when will the 12th Marine Littoral Regiment have its full complement? How long will it take to field the NMESIS for the remaining planned 12 missile batteries?

The fielding schedule for the first nine Landing Ship Medium prototype vessels that Congress authorized for “testing and experimentation” is well into the future. The lead ship is not expected to be delivered until 2029 or later. At best, these ships will compete with traditional amphibious ships for funding and manning. At worst, they will count against the 31-amphibious-ship requirement.

The Marines have lethal, supportable, and sustainable options to these ill-conceived programs—task organize for any mission from the Corps’ toolkit of capabilities, augmented with new and better munitions and equipment as appropriate.

Better options than the Naval Strike Missile include the upcoming 300-mile Increment 2 variant of the ballistic Precision Strike Missile, launched by the High Mobility Artillery Rocker Launcher System (HIMARS); and the F-35-launched, anti-ship Joint Strike Missile and Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile. There is no need to continue down the current path of a largely purpose-built, regional defense force that is neither survivable nor sustainable inside hotly contested areas. If the Marines need a Stand-in Force, tailor it to be a combined arms Marine Expeditionary Brigade or Marine Expeditionary Force-size force, supported by traditional amphibious ships and Maritime Prepositioning Squadrons.

These are steps the Marines could take today to improve global response and strengthen the MAGTF. But more will need to be done to fully realize the aspirational words of the 39th Commandant. He and his successors must set a new course that fully restores the Marine Corps as the Nation’s expeditionary force-in-readiness. This journey will not be quick or easy. It will take time, resources, and Department of War and congressional support.

Charles Krulak served as the 31st Commandant of the Marine Corps.

Michael Hagee served as the 33rd Commandant of the Marine Corps.

James Conway served as the 34th Commandant of the Marine Corps.

​16. How wargaming can help us prepare for modern crises

​Summary:

Wargaming, long used for military planning, is presented as a vital tool to rehearse modern, interconnected crises such as AI enabled ransomware, deepfakes, and critical mineral coercion. By casting officials, industry, and public actors into realistic scenarios, games expose gaps, trade offs, and hidden assumptions. Techniques like matrix games, red teaming, and tabletop exercises reveal second and third order effects and help adapt regulation and crisis response. The authors argue chronic risk reports are not enough. Governments must institutionalize wargaming drills to stress test systems and build resilience against emerging digital, economic, and hybrid threats already reshaping national security.

​Comment: I think we need to invest in three three things: education, wargaming, and getting our smart people's boots on the ground in conflict areas to collect lessons learned (as we did in Crimea in the 19th Century, i.e., the "Delafield Commission."). We need to invest heavily in education (we have to outthink our enemy as well as outfight them, wargaming should be done early and often and focus on the broad range of complex challenges we face, and we need to actually see conflicts for ourselves to learn from them.

How wargaming can help us prepare for modern crises

Defense News

By Natalia Zwarts, Rand Europe, The Conversation and Ondrej Palicka, Rand Europe, The Conversation

 Nov 22, 2025, 12:00 PM

https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/2025/11/22/how-wargaming-can-help-us-prepare-for-modern-crises/

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here. The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.

Consider the following scenario. There’s a ransomware attack, enhanced by AI, which paralyses NHS systems — delaying medical care across the country.

Simultaneously, deepfake videos circulate online, spreading false information about the government’s response. At the same time, a foreign power quietly manipulates critical mineral markets to exert pressure on the economy.

The scenario is not just a theory. It is a situation waiting to be rehearsed. And research suggests an old tool called wargaming — an exercise or simulation of a threatening situation — provides the method to do exactly that. Researchers are indeed calling for a new research agenda for experimental design for such games, applied to modern scenarios.

In a world of compounding crises, the U.K. government has published its first-ever chronic risks analysis, delivering a stark warning. It says the threats of the 21st century are already here and they’re deeply interconnected.

From AI-driven cybercrime to biodiversity loss and demographic shifts, the report maps 26 chronic risks that are slowly eroding national security, economic resilience and social cohesion.

The analysis rightly calls for a broader response, urging collaboration across government, industry, academia and society at large.

If chronic risks are the century’s slow burns, then wargaming is the fire drill we haven’t run. In brief, wargaming is a centuries-old tool to explore “what if” scenarios by simulating real-world crises.

In a wargame, participants take on roles, usually in opposing teams, and make decisions in response to unfolding events. Depending on the scenario, participants are recruited to act in a way that would be characteristic for the military, government, industry or humanitarian organizations.

By revealing gaps, stress points and unexpected outcomes, wargaming helps decision-makers plan smarter and respond faster when the real thing hits. Ignoring these feedback loops risks turning slow moving challenges into sudden, systemic shocks.

Historically limited to traditional warfighting, it increasingly offers a way to stress-test systems against cascading threats, from resource scarcity driving geopolitical tensions to digital exclusion fueling misinformation.

Beyond war

Wargaming is still popular among organizations across the world. The Pentagon uses red team exercises to anticipate hybrid warfare. Red-teaming includes modeling of the adversary and attempting to predict their reasoning, planning and actions.

Nato’s “locked shields” exercises simulate cyberattacks on critical infrastructure. And the EU runs tabletops, exercises that help help stress-test defense capability development plans.

Developments in AI have recently been translated into gaming techniques. The Rand corporation has run wargames on issues from antimicrobial resistance to climate change.

Singapore has used wargaming to test urban development policies involving climate adaptation, transportation and population growth.

At a recent Rand Europe wargame examining the governance of AI in health care, players were asked to act as policymakers deciding whether to impose strict, moderate or minimal regulation on new AI tools such as automated transcription of doctor visits. They had to balance this with concerns about safety, privacy and equitable access.

The game illustrated how competing priorities, such as innovation speed versus regulatory oversight, shape real-world decisions. Despite the complexity of the topic, participants typically reached a consensus within minutes, revealing not only preferred policies but also the trade-offs that were revealed under pressure. The results of the game showed that regulation has to adapt to emerging risks, rather than be rigid.

Exercises like this demonstrate how wargaming can expose underlying assumptions and offer policymakers, practitioners and the public a structured way to debate difficult choices before or as they appear in the real world.

Depending on the scope of the game, you could choose to play one round or scenario, or extend it to more in-depth questions. The game results are the most relevant for those who will have to make such decisions, but it’s also very telling to provide them with pathways chosen by the public.

So what games should we be playing? The rapid evolution of crypto-based scams could be explored through a matrix game that includes financial regulators, banks and tech companies. A matrix game allows for a quick role-play of specific agendas with proposed actions judged by an expert facilitator. Participants would be divided into groups of criminals, law enforcement, industry and financial sector. They would then simulate a scenario where fraud spreads faster than enforcement can respond, revealing regulatory blind spots and communication failures.

In another exercise, policymakers could model how a terrorist group might weaponize AI-generated deepfakes. Participants from law enforcement, public health and social media platforms would need to determine how quickly they could identify and respond to the threat while maintaining public trust.

A third scenario could focus on geopolitical competition over critical minerals. A simulated trigger event involving European, Chinese and African actors would allow players to explore the impacts on trade policy, infrastructure security and diplomatic engagement.

These simulations would not predict the future, but would reveal how different people might behave when systems come under stress. Indeed, research into wargaming shows that while these tools aren’t perfect, they are extremely useful.

Wargaming offers a range of techniques suited to different risks. Matrix games allow multiple actors to make decisions in an evolving scenario. This makes them ideal for exploring uncertainty and conflicting interests. Red teaming helps organizations see their systems from the perspective of an adversary, exposing vulnerabilities that may go unnoticed in internal assessments. And tabletop exercises can help policymakers trace the second- and third-order effects of a crisis.

We conduct fire drills, flood drills and emergency alerts for physical disasters. It is time we have more opportunities to do the same for digital blackouts, deepfake terrorism and financial manipulation. These risks are not theoretical. They are already beginning to reshape our world — governments must take heed.

Reports like the chronic risks analysis are vital for naming and describing the dangers ahead. But they must be matched with tools that prepare us to navigate them. Wargaming gives us a chance to practice the future — to uncover the gaps in our systems, to rehearse our collective response and to build the resilience we will need in the years to come.

We might not be able to predict the future perfectly given the speed of change. But we can test the options for potential futures. Wargaming is how we start.

Natalia Zwarts is a research leader in wargaming at Rand Europe. Ondrej Palicka is a junior researcher at Rand Europe.

​17. Hung Cao and the new Pacific defense architecture

​Summary:

Hung Cao, new Navy undersecretary, views Guam and the wider Marianas as distributed Pacific power-projection nodes and Vietnam as a key maritime partner resisting Chinese coercion. His visits highlight a shift from concentrated bases to a resilient alliance network, significantly strengthening regional deterrence while respecting partners’ autonomy and historical sensitivities.

Comments: We need a silk web of friends, partners, and alliances for power-projection and mutual defense. 

Hung Cao and the new Pacific defense architecture - Breaking Defense

breakingdefense.com · Robbin Laird

Robbin Laird and Edward Timperlake discuss newly-appointed Navy Undersecretary Hung Cao’s thoughts on Guam and Vietnam’s roles in the Indo-Pacific when it comes to deterring China.

By Robbin Laird and Ed Timperlake on November 21, 2025 10:23 am

This is the latest in a series of regular columns by Robbin Laird, where he will tackle current defense issues through the lens of more than 45 years of defense expertise in both the US and abroad. The goal of these columns: to look back at how questions and perspectives of the past should inform decisions being made today. He’s joined on this piece by Ed Timperlake, a former CO of VMFA-321, a Marine Fighter Attack Squadron.

Last week, we met with Under Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao in his Pentagon office to discuss his recent visits to Vietnam and Guam, two locations that encapsulate both his personal journey and the strategic transformation reshaping American power projection in the Pacific.

Cao was sworn in as Under Secretary of the Navy on Oct. 3. Less than three weeks later, he traveled to Guam in his capacity as Senior Defense Official for Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Shortly thereafter, on Nov. 2, he accompanied Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to Vietnam, returning to the country he fled as a four-year-old refugee fifty years earlier.

It’s important to set the stage for any discussion about the role of smaller Pacific countries and how it has changed.

In 2013, we published an article for AOL Defense — now Breaking Defense — illustrating a strategic triangle of Hawaii, Guam, and Japan as three foundational bases from which the United States projected military power. At the time we noted that you could expand that to include Australia and South Korea.

If we redrew those graphics today, they would look fundamentally different. The transformation reflects evolution in how American military power operates in the twenty-first century. It would represent something more complex and resilient: a network of overlapping partnerships, each calibrated to specific circumstances but collectively creating a web of relationships enhancing regional stability. This network distributes both capability and strategic commitment across multiple nations and locations.

Cao explained that the goal extends beyond Guam to encompass the broader Mariana Islands, significantly expanding the area available for force protection and projection. Adding the Northern Mariana Islands to Guam for US military operational purposes increases total land area by more than 80 percent — from approximately 212 square miles to 391 square miles.

Guam has become increasingly conceptualized as a node in a distributed network, a place from which capabilities can be rapidly dispersed throughout the region in response to specific crises.

This shift reflects hard-learned lessons. Concentration of forces creates vulnerability, particularly in an era of precision strike and advanced targeting. By distributing capabilities across wider geographic areas, emphasizing mobility and rapid repositioning, and building infrastructure to support dispersed operations, the United States makes itself a more difficult target while enhancing its ability to respond flexibly.

This expanded operational space provides multiple advantages: it complicates adversary targeting, creates redundancy in critical capabilities, enables forces to operate from unexpected vectors, and provides depth for logistics and sustainment operations.

Another expanded node on the geographic map is Vietnam, where Cao’s visit centered on maritime security and the joint commitment both nations share to maintaining an open and free Pacific.

Vietnam, like the Philippines, has experienced repeated aggressive actions by Chinese maritime forces against civilian vessels operating in waters Vietnam considers within its legitimate maritime zone. Chinese government vessels, including law enforcement and maritime militia, have regularly attacked and harassed Vietnamese fishing vessels in the South China Sea. Documented incidents include beatings of crew members, use of iron bars and water cannons, ramming and sinking of vessels, confiscation of equipment, and detention of fishermen.

These acts have created genuine alarm in Hanoi and driven Vietnamese interest in enhancing their capacity to monitor, patrol, and defend their maritime approaches. The United States has assisted through concrete capability transfers: Over recent years, Washington has transferred three Hamilton-class cutters from the US Coast Guard to the Vietnamese Coast Guard, refurbished to ensure operational effectiveness.

By enhancing Vietnamese maritime domain awareness and patrol capability, the United States strengthens the collective capacity of regional states to resist coercion and maintain freedom of navigation. Cao emphasized that this cooperation represents the core of what both nations are working toward: keeping the Pacific open and free for commercial shipping, trade, and peaceful economic activity.

The Alliance Network: America’s Strategic Advantage

The transformation of Guam’s role and deepening of US-Vietnam maritime cooperation are parts of a broader reconfiguration of Pacific security architecture.

Cao’s visits in his first weeks reflects a fundamental reality: The United States cannot unilaterally ensure Pacific security. The region is too vast, challenges too diverse, and resources required to substantial for any single nation. But the United States benefits from an unmatched network of allies and partners sharing American concerns about coercion and erosion of the rules-based international order.

Vietnam’s evolution from adversary to partner represents one of the more remarkable transformations in this network. The relationship remains carefully calibrated, conscious of historical sensitivities. Vietnamese leadership has articulated the Four Nos: no participation in military alliances; no aligning with one country to oppose another; no foreign military bases in Vietnamese territory; and no use of force in international relations.

This policy, sometimes termed “bamboo diplomacy,” reflects the flexible yet resilient balancing act Vietnam maintains amid major power rivalry. The Hamilton-class transfers exemplify a broader American approach that sees capability building in partner nations as force multiplication, respecting Vietnam’s autonomy while addressing shared security concerns.

But shared concerns about Chinese maritime behavior, mutual interest in free trade and open sea lanes, and complementary strategic perspectives have created genuine common ground.

This pattern repeats throughout the region. The Philippines has reinvigorated its alliance with the United States. Australia has committed to unprecedented defense integration. Japan continues expanding defense capabilities and operational cooperation with American forces. South Korea maintains its fundamental alliance commitment.

The Pacific remains vast, diverse, economically vital, and strategically crucial. How the United States engages with this region will shape global security for decades to come. Cao’s early emphasis on Guam and Vietnam signals this engagement will be grounded in strategic realism and appreciation for the region’s complexity. His personal journey from refugee to defense leader adds human dimension to these strategic imperatives.

breakingdefense.com · Robbin Laird

18. Trump’s Neville Chamberlain Prize

​Summary:

Thomas L. Friedman argues POTUS deserves a “Neville Chamberlain Peace Prize” for a proposed Ukraine deal that appeases Vladimir Putin and betrays Kyiv and U.S. allies. The plan, negotiated without Ukraine or Europe, mirrors Kremlin demands, forces territorial concessions, limits Ukrainian defenses, and trades frozen Russian assets for profit. Friedman supports a “dirty” but not “filthy” peace: no formal cessions, EU-backed security forces along a cease-fire line, Russian reparations, sanctions until paid, and rapid EU accession for Ukraine. Using U.S. leverage only on Ukraine, he warns, would stain America with dishonor and embolden aggressors worldwide.

Comment: A brutal critique from Thomas Friedman. I think we should be concerned with how both our allies and adversaries interpret this. How does this affect the perception of strategic reassurance and strategic resolve in other regions? I think the SECSTATE is trying to control the narrative (see the Politico article) and POTUS is walking this back now.

Trump’s Neville Chamberlain Prize

NY Times · Thomas L. Friedman ·

Nov. 22, 2025

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/22/opinion/ukraine-russia-negotiations-trump-deal.html

OpinionThomas L. Friedman

Credit...Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

Listen to this article · 7:10 min Learn more

• Nov. 22, 2025

Finally, finally, President Trump just might get a peace prize that would secure his place in history. Unfortunately, though, it is not that Nobel peace prize he so covets. It is the “Neville Chamberlain Peace Prize” — awarded by history to the leader of the country that most flagrantly sells out its allies and its values to an aggressive dictator.

This prize richly deserves to be shared by Trump’s many “secretaries of state” — Steve Witkoff, Marco Rubio and Dan Driscoll — who together negotiated the surrender of Ukraine to Vladimir Putin’s demands without consulting Ukraine or our European allies in advance — and then told Ukraine it had to accept the plan by Thanksgiving.

That is this coming Thursday.

If Ukraine is, indeed, forced to surrender to the specific terms of this “deal” by then, Thanksgiving will no longer be an American holiday. It will become a Russian holiday. It will become a day of thanks that victory in Putin’s savage and misbegotten war against Ukraine’s people, which has been an utter failure — morally, militarily, diplomatically and economically — was delivered to Russia not by the superiority of its arms or the virtue of its claims, but by an American administration.

How do you say “Thanksgiving” in Russian?

To all the gentlemen who delivered this turkey to Moscow, I can offer only one piece of advice: Be under no illusions. Neither Fox News nor the White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt will be writing the history of this deal. If you force it upon Ukraine as it is, every one of your names will live in infamy alongside that of Chamberlain, who is remembered today for only one thing:

He was the British prime minister who advocated the policy of appeasement, which aimed to avoid war with Adolf Hitler’s Germany by giving in to his demands. This was concretized in the 1938 Munich Agreement, in which Chamberlain, along with others in Europe, allowed Germany to annex parts of Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain boasted it would secure “peace for our time.” A year later, Poland was invaded, starting World War II and leading to Chamberlain’s resignation — and his everlasting shame.

This Trump plan, if implemented, will do the modern equivalent. By rewarding Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine based on his obsession with making it part of Mother Russia, the U.S. will be putting the whole European Union under Putin’s thumb. Trump’s message to our allies will be clear: Don’t provoke Putin, because as long as I am commander in chief, the United States will pay no price and we will bear no burden in the defense of your freedom.

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Which is why, if this plan is forced on Ukraine as is, we will need to add a new verb to the diplomatic lexicon: “Trumped” — to be sold out by an American president, for reasons none of his citizens understand (but surely there are reasons). And history will never forget the men who did it — Donald Trump, Steve Witkoff, Marco Rubio, Dan Driscoll — for their shame will be everlasting.

As a Wall Street Journal editorial on Friday put it: “Mr. Trump may figure he can finally wash his hands of Ukraine if Europe and Ukraine reject his offer. He’s clearly sick of dealing with the war. But appeasing Mr. Putin would haunt the rest of his presidency. If Mr. Trump thinks American voters hate war, wait until he learns how much they hate dishonor. … A bad deal in Ukraine would broadcast to U.S. enemies that they can seize what they want with force or nuclear blackmail or by pressing on until America loses interest.”

Mind you, I am not at all against a negotiated solution. Indeed, from the beginning of this war I have made the point that it will end only with a “dirty deal.” But it cannot be a filthy deal, and the Trump plan is what history will call a filthy deal.

Even before you get to the key details, think of how absurd it is for Trump to strike a deal with Putin and not even include Ukraine and our European allies in the negotiations until they were virtually done. Trump then declared it must be accepted by Thursday, as if Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who has a parliament that he needs to win acceptance from, could possibly do so by then, even if he wanted to.

As my Times colleague David Sanger observed in his analysis of the plan’s content: “Many of the 28 points in the proposed Russia-Ukraine peace plan offered by the White House read like they had been drafted in the Kremlin. They reflect almost all Mr. Putin’s maximalist demands.”

Ukraine would have to formally give Russia all the territory it has declared for itself in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The United States would recognize that as Russian territory. No NATO forces could be based inside Ukraine to ensure that Russia could never invade again. The Ukrainian military would be capped at 600,000 troops, a 25 percent cut from current levels, and it would be barred from possessing long-range weapons that could reach Russia. Kyiv would receive vague security guarantees from the U.S. against a Russian re-invasion (but who in Ukraine, or Moscow, would trust them coming from Trump?).

Under the Trump plan, $100 billion in frozen Russian assets would be put toward U.S.-led efforts to rebuild and invest in Ukraine, and the U.S. would then receive 50 percent of the profits from that investment. (Yes, we are demanding half of the profits generated by a fund to rebuild a ravaged nation.)

Trump, facing blowback from allies, Congress and Ukraine, said Saturday that this was not his “final offer” but added, if Zelensky refuses to accept the terms, “then he can continue to fight his little heart out.” As always with Trump, he is all over the place — and as always, ready to stick it to Zelensky, the guy fighting for his country’s freedom, and never to Putin, the guy trying to take Ukraine’s freedom away.

What would an acceptable dirty deal look like?

It would freeze the forces in place, but never formally cede any seized Ukrainian territory. It would insist that European security forces, backed by U.S. logistics, be stationed along the cease-fire line as a symbolic tripwire against any Russian re-invasion. It would require Russia to pay a significant amount of money to cover all the carnage it has inflicted on Ukraine — and keep Moscow isolated and under sanctions until it does — and include a commitment by the European Union to admit Ukraine as a member as soon as it is ready, without Russian interference.

This last point is vital. It is so the Russian people would have to forever look at their Ukrainian Slavic brothers and sisters in the thriving European Union, while they are stuck in Putin’s kleptocracy. That contrast is Putin’s best punishment for this war and the thing that would cause him the most trouble after it is over.

This would be a dirty deal that history would praise Trump for — getting the best out of a less than perfect hand, by using U.S. leverage on both sides, as he did in Gaza.

But just using U.S. leverage on Ukraine is a filthy deal — folding our imperfect hand to a Russian leader who is playing a terrible one.

There is a term for that in poker: sucker.

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Thomas L. Friedman is the foreign affairs Opinion columnist. He joined the paper in 1981 and has won three Pulitzer Prizes. He is the author of seven books, including “From Beirut to Jerusalem,” which won the National Book Award.

NY Times · Thomas L. Friedman ·

19. Ukraine's allies consider how to fill intelligence gaps if US backs out

​Summary:

At the Halifax International Security Forum, allies weighed how to offset POTUS’s threat to cut intelligence to Ukraine if Kyiv rejects his peace plan. Officials called U.S. capabilities unique yet noted expanding commercial satellite options like Finnish firm ICEYE and Canada’s RADARSAT support. EU leaders highlighted Galileo, Copernicus and future IRIS² but admitted gaps, especially versus Starlink and U.S. ground intelligence. Canadian and NATO officials said drones and integrated European assets could partly compensate yet warned losing American insights would hinder long range precision strikes. Many hope the threat is bargaining, as Europeans secure seats at upcoming Geneva talks.

​Comment: Troubling to say the least. Our liaison relationships are key to good intelligence. And the exposed weaknesses of our allies is another issue.

Ukraine's allies consider how to fill intelligence gaps if US backs out

Trump’s threat to withhold military intelligence exposes lagging satellite abilities among allies.

By Daniella Cheslow

11/22/2025 06:48 PM EST

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/22/ukraine-halifax-military-intelligence-00666184

A dead body lies on the ground at a market destroyed by a Russian airstrike on Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, Friday, Nov. 21, 2025. | AP Photo/Kateryna Klochko

HALIFAX — Ukraine’s allies are still trying to figure out how seriously to take the U.S. threat to halt intelligence-sharing with Kyiv if it does not agree to a proposed peace plan — but some said Saturday they’re thinking through how to patch shortfalls.

“U.S. capability is unique. That’s absolutely clear and irreplaceable, even in a NATO context,” said James Appathurai, interim head of NATO’s DIANA defense innovation program. However, he added, “there are commercial options available to any country that were not available or not thought of even a few years ago.”

He pointed to satellite imagery in particular as an area where commercial products could provide a boost on the battlefield to Ukraine. Real-time satellite imagery has been key to Ukraine’s defense against Moscow, giving its military the ability to anticipate incoming Russian attacks and target their own strikes.

Appathurai spoke to POLITICO on the sidelines of the Halifax International Security Forum, an annual gathering of defense officials and national security professionals in Nova Scotia.

He pointed to one alternative to U.S. providers in the form of the Finnish space company ICEYE, which was formed to monitor ice from outer space but now provides mobile Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance. It has sold satellites to the militaries of Poland and the Netherlands, along with Finland’s armed forces and those of Portugal. It also provides some data to Ukraine already.

That said, retooling and reorienting technology can be a slow and expensive process, and Ukraine’s needs are immediate.

ICEYE, for example, is still coming into its own as a defense contractor. Its VP for missions, Joost Elstak, told DefenseNews this month that it had between five and 10 sovereign satellites in orbit and expected to launch another 10 to 15 within the next two years.

He said European interest in his company soared after President Donald Trump paused sharing space intelligence with Ukraine in March of this year. Elon Musk’s threats to cut Ukraine off from his Starlink satellite internet service added to the appeal of alternatives.

Andrius Kubilius, the European Commissioner for Defence and Space, told reporters at Halifax that Europe already has some top-performing satellite offerings, including the Galileo global navigation satellite system and the Copernicus weather observation system.

However, he said, “there are some systems where we are being a little bit behind,” and named Starlink. A European alternative to the service, IRIS², is scheduled to go online in 2030. In the meantime, the EU is working on integrating the national assets of its member countries, he said, but voiced confidence in the bloc’s ability to support Ukraine.

“Ukraine, if they will decide that they want to continue, they will continue,” Kubilius said.

James Bezan, a Conservative member of Canada’s House of Commons and shadow defense minister of defense, argued that his country could help fill in some gaps.

He said Ottawa has previously shared RADARSAT-2 images with Ukraine “that helped them see what was happening at the border and beyond.” He added that Canada could resume those images if the U.S. walks away, “but there is other intelligence that the U.S. gathers, that they have access to that even within NATO and the Five Eyes may not necessarily be available to us, and if that gets removed from Ukraine, that would be problematic.”

In particular, he pointed to intelligence collected on the ground.

Canada’s Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jennie Carignan said in an interview that without U.S. military assistance, “there’s various gaps, long-range precision, like you have to be able to strike within Russia, there is no doubt about that.” She said she could imagine finding ways to meet Ukraine’s needs through alternatives. “Drones can certainly pick up some of that and in other ways. So that’s what I mean by — no, that those capabilities might not be available anymore, but we would have to adjust and turn towards something else.”

No American military brass attended Halifax, leaving European and NATO officials to speculate as to how concrete the threat from the Trump administration is, or whether Washington is waiting for a counteroffer. On Saturday evening, the EU, UK, France and Germany secured seats at the table at upcoming talks on Trump’s peace plan, which will likely be held in Geneva.

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who was among a handful of Republican lawmakers attending, said he hoped Trump’s threat was part of a negotiating parlay.

“As long as there’s a response back, I’m hopeful that he will recognize that this is way too important to simply say, one, and done,” Rounds said.

Mike Blanchfield and Joe Gould contributed to this report.

Filed Under: 

• Ukraine

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