Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"Dictatorships foster oppression, dictatorships foster servitude, dictatorships foster cruelty, more abominable is the fact that they fost idiocy."

– Jorge L Borges

"It is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error."

– Thomas Paine

"There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization, If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia."

– Kurt Vonnegut

1. Pentagon plan calls for major power shifts within U.S. military

2. Breaking the Glass Ceiling of Irregular Warfare

3. For Ukraine’s Allies in Europe, a Bad Deal With Russia Is Worse Than No Deal

4. The Pernicious Myth That America Doesn’t Win Wars

5. U.S. Tanker Seizure Has Paralyzed Venezuelan Oil Shipping—Except Chevron’s

6. Trump Orders Blockade of Sanctioned Oil Tankers in and out of Venezuela

7. Trump makes pick to lead NSA spy agency after months of leadership limbo

8. Opinion | America first? Not when Trump is dealing with China.

9. A Free World Needs a Strong America

10. America Needs a New Definition of Service

11. ‘We’ve Been Let Down’: 11 Gen Z-ers on the Military, America’s Place in the World and Their Generation

12. ‘Testing the waters’? US reported to have seized Chinese cargo bound for Iran

13. In Search of a China Strategy (analysis of the 2025 NSS)

14. Pax Silica can reshape supply chains for greater economic security

15. Hegseth: Pentagon Won’t Release Full Video of Sept. 2 Boat Strike

16. Senior US and Chinese defence officials continue ‘military-to-military’ dialogue

17. Newcomers in charge at PLA’s corruption-hit command overseeing Taiwan

18. Anchoring Intelligence: Ground Truth in an Age of Synthetic Deception

19. Black Boxes and Broken Mirrors: Iran, Israel, and the New Geography of Instability

20. Next Fight Nigeria: An Introduction to the Central Nigerian Operational Environment

21. Sabotage as a “New Normal”

22. Training Like It’s 1993: We’re Still Not Doing Enough to Integrate Drones

23. The Red Séance: How Xi Jinping Is Soft-Burying the Deng Era

24. Microinsurgency: Introducing and Defining a Distinct Category of Intrastate Conflict

25. What the Disappearance of the ‘One China’ Policy From Trump’s 2025 NSS Means for Taiwan

26. Exclusive | Panama Ports Deal Hits Impasse as China Makes New Demands for Its Approval

1. Pentagon plan calls for major power shifts within U.S. military

Summary:

Pentagon leaders are developing a Unified Command Plan overhaul to consolidate combatant commands, cut four star billets, and speed decision making. The leading option would place CENTCOM, EUCOM, and AFRICOM under a new U.S. International Command, while NORTHCOM and SOUTHCOM would merge under U.S. Americas Command. A proposed Arctic command under Americom appears dropped. The structure would shrink commands from 11 to 8, retaining Asia-Indo-Pacific, Cyber, Special Operations, Space, Strategic, and Transportation commands. Approval requires Secretary Hegseth and POTUS. Congress demands a cost, alliance impact blueprint before funds release. Alternatives ranged from six commands to models; critics warn expertise erosion.

Comment: It is time for a radical change to the Unified Command Plan.

But will the plan be radical enough?

I recommend that it include establishing a Northeast Asia Combatant Command. Here are my proposals (and there will be another soon as well).

When Korea's next war will not stay in Korea

Here's why the Republic of Korea--U.S. alliance needs a Northeast Asia combatant command.

https://www.upi.com/Voices/2025/11/21/perspective-new-military-command-proposed/7291763740526/

Strategic Concept: Establishing a Combined Northeast Asia Combatant Command (NEACOM) in Seoul

https://nationalsecurityjournal.org/strategic-concept-establishing-a-combined-northeast-asia-combatant-command-neacom-in-seoul/

Here is an excerpt from a forthcoming paper that is germane to this proposal:

A Low-Cost, High-Impact Structural Reform

Skepticism in Washington often centers on cost and bureaucracy. A Northeast Asia Combatant Command answers both concerns. It can be established largely with existing resources by consolidating and realigning headquarters functions already present in Korea. One headquarters can be eliminated, and personnel and equipment from U.S. Forces Korea, Eighth Army, and related structures can be repurposed to form a single operational command for the region.

This approach aligns with the National Security Strategy’s emphasis on prioritization and efficiency. The United States does not need more layers. It needs fewer seams. Properly designed, a Northeast Asia Combatant Command simplifies command relationships, shortens decision cycles, and improves readiness without expanding overhead. It is reform, not expansion, and it delivers strategic return disproportionate to its cost.

Pentagon plan calls for major power shifts within U.S. military

Washington Post · Dan Lamothe

If adopted, the changes would complement other efforts by the Trump administration to move resources away from the Middle East and Europe.

December 15, 2025 at 5:55 p.m. ESTYesterday at 5:55 p.m. EST

By Dan Lamothe, Tara Copp, Noah Robertson and Alex Horton

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/12/15/military-command-plan-caine-hegseth/

Senior Pentagon officials are preparing a plan to downgrade several of the U.S. military’s major headquarters and shift the balance of power among its top generals, in a major consolidation sought by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, people familiar with the matter said.

If adopted, the plan would usher in some of the most significant changes at the military’s highest ranks in decades, in part following through on Hegseth’s promise to break the status quo and slash the number of four-star generals in the military. It would reduce in prominence the headquarters of U.S. Central Command, U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command by placing them under the control of a new organization known as U.S. International Command, according to five people familiar with the matter.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine is expected to detail the proposal, which has not previously been reported, for Hegseth in the coming days. Such moves would complement other efforts by the administration to shift resources from the Middle East and Europe and focus foremost on expanding military operations in the Western Hemisphere, these people said. Like others interviewed for this report, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the effort before it is conveyed to the secretary.

Hegseth’s team said in a statement that they would not comment on “rumored internal discussions” or “pre-decisional matters.” Any insinuation that there is a divide among officials over the issue is “completely false — everyone in the Department is working to achieve the same goal under this administration,” the statement said.

Hegseth arrives at the U.S. Capitol for a meeting with House and Senate leaders on Dec. 9. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The Pentagon has shared little to no details with Congress, a lack of communication that has perturbed members of the Republican-led Senate and House Armed Services committees, according to two people familiar with how the panels have prepared for the proposal. Top officers at the commands involved are awaiting more details as well, officials said.

The plan also calls for realigning U.S. Southern Command and U.S. Northern Command, which oversee military operations throughout the Western Hemisphere, under a new headquarters to be known as U.S. Americas Command, or Americom, people familiar with the matter said. That concept was reported earlier this year by NBC News.

Pentagon officials also discussed creating a U.S. Arctic Command that would report to Americom, but that idea appears to have been abandoned, people familiar with the matter said.

Combined, the moves would reduce the number of top military headquarters — known as combatant commands — from 11 to eight while cutting the number of four-star generals and admirals who report directly to Hegseth. Other remaining combatant commands would be U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, U.S. Cyber Command, U.S. Special Operations Command, U.S. Space Command, U.S. Strategic Command and U.S. Transportation Command.

Those familiar with the plan said it aligns with the Trump administration’s national security strategy, released this month, which declares that the “days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over.”

U.S. and Lithuanian troops participate in a military exercise in Germany in March. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

The proposal was organized by the Pentagon’s Joint Staff under the supervision of Caine, and is due to be shared with Hegseth as soon as this week as the preferred course of action among senior military officials. It grew from a request made by Hegseth in the spring to look for ways to improve how troops are commanded and controlled, a senior defense official familiar with the discussion said, adding that Hegseth has kept in touch with Caine about the issue over the past several months.

Any changes would need the approval of Hegseth and President Donald Trump. The moves would come in the Pentagon’s Unified Command Plan, which lays out the roles of the military’s major headquarters.

Lawmakers have taken the extraordinary step of requiring the Pentagon to submit a detailed blueprint that describes the realignment’s potential costs and impacts on America’s alliances. The measure, included in Congress’s annual defense policy bill, would withhold money to enact the effort until at least 60 days after the Pentagon provides lawmakers with those materials.

The bill has cleared the House and is expected to pass the Senate this week.

The senior defense official said the proposed realignment is meant to speed decision-making and adaptation among military commanders. “Decay” had been observed in how the U.S. military commands and controls troops, he added, suggesting that the need for sweeping change is urgent.

“Time ain’t on our side, man,” the senior defense official said, describing internal conversations around the plan. “The saying here is, ‘If not us, who, and if not now, when?’”

The potential reorganization comes as Hegseth has begun broader efforts to cull the total number of generals and admirals across the military. He also has fired or otherwise forced out more than 20 senior officers, threatened others with polygraph tests to determine whether they have leaked information to the news media, and told those remaining that if they do not like the administration’s policies they should “do the honorable thing and resign.”

Chuck Hagel, who served as defense secretary during the Obama administration and as a Republican member of the Senate before that, expressed concerns about the Trump administration’s ambitions. There are different dynamics, needs and security threats throughout the globe, he said.

“The world isn’t getting any less complicated,” Hagel said in an interview. “You want commands that have the capability of heading off problems before they become big problems, and I think you lose some of that when you unify or consolidate too many.”

Senior military officials considered about two dozen other concepts, the senior defense official said. At least one discussion called for a reduction to six total combatant commands. Under that plan, Special Operations Command, Space Command and Cyber Command would be downgraded and placed under the control of a new U.S. Global Command, said other officials familiar with the discussion.

Caine is expected to share at least two other courses of action with Hegseth, people familiar with the matter said. One concept calls for creating two commands to house all of the others, with all major geographic organizations such as Central Command and European Command placed under the control of an entity that would be called Operational Command. Other major headquarters, such as Transportation Command and Space Command, would fall under an organization called Support Command.

One proposal suggested the creation of a new headquarters unit, Joint Task Force War, to be based at the Pentagon. It would focus on planning and strategy when the United States was not at war, and be capable of controlling forces anywhere in the world when there was a conflict, people familiar with the matter said.

The idea didn’t “test well” in exercises with military officials and appears unlikely to be adopted, the senior defense official said. Top military officials expressed concerns that such an organization would not possess the same regional expertise and relationships inherent to the military’s current construct.

Even if you have “some of your best people” in such a task force, the senior official said, “you don’t have a fingertip feel” for what is occurring in a region. A second official said it seemed “very confusing” to have top commanders in a region prepare for a conflict there, only to hand those plans over to another commander when something occurred.

Another plan sought to reorganize the military by domain, with operations organized and led by whether they occurred on land or in air, sea, space or cyberspace, people familiar with the matter said. The idea had supporters in the Space Force but had few other proponents, people familiar with the matter said. It also limited the Marine Corps’ influence, with it falling under the control of the Navy Department even as the other branches of service were elevated.

Military officials involved in the reorganization effort also considered whether to elevate the chairman’s role to allow him to command forces, rather than serving as the senior military adviser to both the president and the defense secretary. That could have occurred through the Joint Task Force War framework, two officials said, but the concept seemed murky.

The idea also could have been complicated by the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, landmark legislation that reorganized the military and defined the chairman’s role. Under the law, the chairman is considered the “principal” military adviser to the president, the defense secretary and other senior officials. Operations are controlled through a chain of command that runs from combatant commanders, to the defense secretary, to the president.

Washington Post · Dan Lamothe

2. Breaking the Glass Ceiling of Irregular Warfare

Summary:

Mark Grdovic argues irregular warfare (IW) remains vital yet chronically misunderstood because the force lacks a clear, usable foundation. He notes a “boom and bust” cycle across four IW epochs, where enthusiasm fades once conventional priorities reassert. He contends DODI 3000.07 is necessary but insufficient, especially when force structure decisions undercut IW capacity. The core problem is definitional misalignment between Joint and Army concepts, which then drives checklist thinking and divorces tactics from strategy. Grdovic proposes reframing IW as a strategy to offset superior force, and separating “conducting IW” from “countering IW” within doctrine, training, and professional military education.

Excerpt:

IW, and how to properly counter it, is a critical topic that needs to be a standard component of professional military education and training. It can be challenging to comprehend, not because it is the “graduate level of warfare,” but because it is unfamiliar. Again, think of the boxer or lawyer analogy: In the wrong context, each would be inappropriately prepared and dressed for the wrong fight. They would likely both rationalize their poor performance as being due to the “advanced or graduate level” of the conflict and not their own lack of awareness. The establishment of the Irregular Warfare Center along with the substantial and collaborative efforts underway between the Army’s Center for Lessons Learned at Fort Leavenworth and the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg are excellent steps in the right direction. However, every time an additional topic is bolted on and dropped into the proverbial rucksack of IW, it is a step backwards that makes their endeavors to educate the force more challenging and less likely to succeed. Strongly worded documents and enthusiasm alone will not mitigate a flawed foundation and stave off another period of relegation. The amount of analysis and staff work invested to date or “sunk cost” should never be a justification to say this will have to be “good enough.” It is critical to be aware of the previous efforts that came before this one and ask: Why did they fail? And is this effort on the same route staggered by time or on a different course? Alternately, if history is any indicator, we could just let things play out and take another shot at it during the next epoch in about ten years.

Comment: Mark makes an important contribution to the debate. As I have written many times, I have three simple criteria for the definition

1. How will it help me “do strategy?”

2. How will it help me contribute to campaigning?

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

Breaking the Glass Ceiling of Irregular Warfare - Foreign Policy Research Institute

fpri.org · Mark Grdovic

https://www.fpri.org/article/2025/12/breaking-the-glass-ceiling-of-irregular-warfare/

“The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and the commander have to make is to establish…the kind of war on which they are embarking; neither mistaking it for, nor trying to make it into something that is alien to its nature. This is the first of all strategic questions and the most comprehensive.” – Carl von Clausewitz

Irregular warfare (IW) seems to be a topic with an equal ability to generate enthusiasm, resistance, and confusion. While the topic is without question of critical importance within the US military, the challenge remains how to define it, how to translate a definition into practical application, and, perhaps most importantly, how to inculcate the force to embrace it as requisite professional knowledge. For my colleagues who would quickly point out the DoD Instruction (DODI) 3000.07 Irregular Warfare published in September 2025 as an answer to my concerns, I can only say, “Oh how I wish it were that simple.” The DODI is latest in a long line of noble attempts to resolve this situation with an official document (e.g., the 2007 Joint Operating Concept, the 2010 Joint Integrating Concept, the 2020 Annex to the National Defense Strategy, and the 2023 Department of Defense Implementation Guidance. to name only a few). It will take more than a strongly worded document insisting that the Department of Defense places a premium on this capability (and therefore you should too) when it simultaneously disbands 33 percent of its Security Force Assistance Brigades in the name of restoring proper warfighting capability.

We have been here before. I have often referred to the post-World War II periods of enthusiasm for IW as separate epochs, of which I count the current period as the fourth. While the specific wording and definitions have changed slightly over time, the same pattern of academic enthusiasm followed by eventual relegation when the first opportunity emerges. The first epoch (circa 1961–1970), largely categorized as Special Warfare, culminated with the start of the withdrawal from Vietnam. The second epoch (circa 1983–1990), categorized as Low Intensity Conflict, culminated with the end of the Cold War and the Gulf War in Kuwait. The third epoch (circa 2004–2012), categorized as Irregular Warfare, culminated with the withdrawal from Iraq, the killing of Osama bin Laden and the withdrawal of conventional forces from Afghanistan. The Russian invasion of Crimea gave birth to a fourth epoch (circa 2014–the present), retaining the terminology of Irregular Warfare, but with a rebranding away from counterterrorism and counterinsurgency and toward great-power competition. An argument could be made that the current period is really a continuation of the “third epoch.” However, current efforts are somewhat distinctly different than those of the previous period.

In any case, this pattern of “boom and bust” should at least raise the question: Why does this keep happening? Why did the previous efforts to effectively integrate IW into the mainstream of US military culture not succeed? Perhaps more importantly, are current efforts following the same trajectory? A logical starting point for answering those questions could be to ask one additional question: Why should the US military be interested in IW? What is the perceived criticality and value of this elusive topic? The reasons why are not simple or intuitive. The simple answer is that all four epochs were periods categorized by the United States struggling to counteract new threats and/or adversaries (Vietnam, the rise of terrorism, the rise of insurgencies, and the rise of states using irregular proxies to conduct subversion and/or sabotage). In every case, the US military’s response produced mixed or inconclusive results while expending significant time, effort, and resources. A reasonable conclusion would be that IW warrants our close attention and a more deliberate approach to prevent this from happening again.

The starting point that frames the collective thinking and subsequent understanding of IW is its definition. This is quite literally the foundation of the structure that is to follow and no amount of extra effort on the upper floors will mitigate any foundational deficiencies. It is concerning that the Joint and Army definitions are not the same and do not convey the same thing, simply said differently.

Figure 1. Joint and Army Irregular Warfare Definitions

The Joint and Army definitions both suffer from a series of non-defining declarative statements that add little to nothing to the definitions. The Army definition mentions “overt, clandestine or covert employment,” which is simply “all types of operations,” and both the Army and Joint definitions list “state and non-state actors,” which is essentially anyone. Other non-descriptive descriptions are “military and non-military capabilities,” meaning all capabilities, and “to assure or coerce,” which means to defend or attack. This leaves only one defining phrase for each definition. For the Joint definition, it comes down to (the conduct of) indirect, non-attributable, or asymmetric activities. For the Army definition, it comes down to (activities conducted) to achieve objectives other than military domination against an enemy. The result is that the joint definition defines IW by how activities are conducted while the Army defines it by the intended outcome on an adversary (e.g., influence/objectives other than military domination). Hoping that this is “good enough” as a foundation is like incorrectly tightening screws on a piece of machinery and hoping they do not rattle loose down the road.

When this happens, it is not uncommon to see amplifying paragraphs and declarative statements in official documents in an attempt to clarify what the definition did not. This creates a dynamic where the reader is not necessarily sure of what the topic is but understands things about it. For example, DODI 3000.07 on page 4 states, “IW is an important method by which the DoD employs military forces as part of a broader whole-of-government approach in strategic competition to achieve national interests.” Said another way, “IW is important, and DoD uses it to do military stuff within strategies to achieve important things.”

Figure 2. Irregular Warfare Operations and Activities as listed by the Army’s Center for Lessons Learned (CALL)

Both the Joint community and the Army then make the leap to provide lists of IW operations and activities (see figure 1). While this might seem like it provides a degree of clarity, this is problematic for a few reasons. By reducing the topic to a list of activities, it is no longer a form of warfare with structure based in strategy but merely a nebulous environment in which tactical activities take place. Upon closer inspection, one might notice that the Joint and Army lists make almost no mention of an adversary’s activities to wage this form of warfare. This starts to create a very myopic approach that implies to the practitioner, “do not concern yourself with the What and Why, or your adversary’s strategy, and just focus on the How (to counter).”

The second and perhaps greater issue is the fact that, arguably, the vast majority of the operations and activities listed are either countering efforts or not within the normal purview of the conventional force. I try to consider the E-6 squad leader who is doing his or her best to embrace and understand this topic, because they have continuously been told of its importance. Should they try to develop an understanding of Counter Threat Finance, Counterterrorism, Unconventional Warfare or the intricacies of Security Cooperation and Foreign Military Sales and the potential application to their troops?

This reality creates an awkward and significant gap between the definition(s), their respective follow-on “descriptive” paragraphs, and the lists of operations and activities. I cannot help but be reminded of the famous quote: “Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” This brings me back to the original question: What is the value proposition of the topic for military members?

IW might be best understood, first and foremost, as a form of warfare that specifically avoids or mitigates an opponent’s superior military capabilities. It is warfare that employs indirect attacks (whether clandestine or overt, attributable or non-attributable, kinetic or non-kinetic) to erode or degrade an opponent’s capabilities or will to fight. While it can be employed independently or in concert with other conventional forms of warfare, it does not tend to produce results quickly or decisively. It is not superior to other forms of warfare. It is the best option when more direct options are not viable. However, if a target is unfamiliar with IW and/or ill-equipped to effectively counter it, then IW can produce positive strategic results over time.

This provides a very different context for understanding IW and its strategic value. Within this context, we can also understand why the US military is also a primary target of IW strategies by opponents due to its superior military capabilities. Understanding IW in this way is the foundation for understanding how to counter it. Countering IW is not to be thought of (and should not be thought of) as synonymous with conducting it. Lumping all activities under one umbrella term of IW creates a false impression that the strategy of conducting IW is the same as the strategy for countering it (a single form of warfare), somewhat like fighting fire with fire. The solution to IW is not more IW. This is a unique dynamic compared to maneuver warfare, which is countered by better maneuver warfare. It is for this reason that crafting a definition that encompasses this construct has proven so challenging.

In 2004, as Iraq was devolving into chaos, I wrote an article called Understanding Counterinsurgency. I made an analogy about how the US military is predisposed to think of combat like fighting an opposing boxer in a ring. However, counterinsurgency is more like a contest against an opposing lawyer to win over a jury (aka the population). How we frame the topic is critical to our thinking and understanding and the subsequent development of a viable strategy. Memorizing lists of tactics will not accomplish the intended educational objective. By not labeling the counter activities as IW, it also avoids any misperception or natural bias that these efforts are somehow in competition with other forms of warfare or core military functions. In fact, it more accurately places these activities in direct support of the broader Joint Force’s objectives by preserving and protecting those capabilities from being eroded and degraded.

Figure 3. A Proposed Model of Irregular Warfare, its Associated Operations and Activities

The counter activities should not be regarded as “irregular.” In this context, within the Department of Defense, there are certain organizations that do possess a charter and the associated capabilities to conduct IW. These organizations, the preponderance of which reside within the special operations and cyber communities, understand their requirements. There would be little to no value in attempting to combine the education requirements to counter and conduct this form of warfare into one topic.

Additionally, many core functions and activities that would be conducted to counter an adversary’s use of IW do not suddenly make those activities IW themselves or some distinct IW variety of those functions. For example, logistics support, security cooperation, security force assistance efforts, stability operations, defensive cyber operations, space-based support, and intelligence sharing with an ally facing a form of IW do not need a new label as IW efforts. However, understanding the threat’s strategy and tactics provides useful context for how best to apply those core military functions.

IW, and how to properly counter it, is a critical topic that needs to be a standard component of professional military education and training. It can be challenging to comprehend, not because it is the “graduate level of warfare,” but because it is unfamiliar. Again, think of the boxer or lawyer analogy: In the wrong context, each would be inappropriately prepared and dressed for the wrong fight. They would likely both rationalize their poor performance as being due to the “advanced or graduate level” of the conflict and not their own lack of awareness. The establishment of the Irregular Warfare Center along with the substantial and collaborative efforts underway between the Army’s Center for Lessons Learned at Fort Leavenworth and the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg are excellent steps in the right direction. However, every time an additional topic is bolted on and dropped into the proverbial rucksack of IW, it is a step backwards that makes their endeavors to educate the force more challenging and less likely to succeed. Strongly worded documents and enthusiasm alone will not mitigate a flawed foundation and stave off another period of relegation. The amount of analysis and staff work invested to date or “sunk cost” should never be a justification to say this will have to be “good enough.” It is critical to be aware of the previous efforts that came before this one and ask: Why did they fail? And is this effort on the same route staggered by time or on a different course? Alternately, if history is any indicator, we could just let things play out and take another shot at it during the next epoch in about ten years.

Image credit: U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Isabel Tanner

fpri.org · Mark Grdovic

3. For Ukraine’s Allies in Europe, a Bad Deal With Russia Is Worse Than No Deal

Summary:

European leaders argue that a Russia favorable settlement in Ukraine would undermine deterrence and invite wider war, so a bad deal is worse than no deal. They fear Moscow would emerge with greater military production, validated coercion, and confidence NATO is weak, forcing Europe into higher defense spending and forward posture. POTUS seeks a rapid settlement and a broader rapprochement with Russia for “strategic stability” and potential business openings, widening the trans Atlantic gap. European security experts rank a pro Russia ceasefire among the top EU risks, alongside hybrid threats. Europe is weighing major financing options, including using frozen Russian assets, to sustain Ukraine’s leverage.

Comment: Peace at any cost always costs someone, sometimes perhaps more than the value of peace itself.

For Ukraine’s Allies in Europe, a Bad Deal With Russia Is Worse Than No Deal

WSJ

A deeper agenda is driving Europe’s support for Kyiv: self-preservation

By Laurence Norman

and Daniel Michaels

Dec. 16, 2025 11:00 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/for-ukraines-allies-in-europe-a-bad-deal-with-russia-is-worse-than-no-deal-f9b99fde

Delegates from European countries attended a memorial for Ukrainian soldiers at a military cemetery in Lviv, Ukraine, last week. Roman Baluk/Reuters

BRUSSELS—European leaders rallying support for Kyiv say they are working to defend a democratic country, safeguard international law and counter Russian aggression.

But there is another motivation rooted in self-interest: Europe believes a deal that favors Moscow risks a wider war that could engulf the whole continent.

Russia is in a position to emerge from peace negotiations with vastly expanded military production capacity, confident it can redraw borders by force and viewing NATO as weak.

Cash-drained European capitals fear they would have no other choice but to massively increase military spending and defensive preparations, in the hope of preserving their deterrence.

President Trump and his team want a quick settlement to the conflict, which is set to enter its fifth year. For Europe, as much as for Ukraine, a bad peace deal that leaves Kyiv weak and vulnerable is worse than no deal at all for now.

“The future of Ukraine is closely linked with our own,” said German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius on Tuesday. “If we cannot achieve lasting and just peace for Ukraine, we will not have any guarantee for our own security either,” he told a virtual gathering of mainly European countries contributing to Ukraine’s war effort.

The diverging trans-Atlantic positions represent a more fundamental rupture. The Trump administration wants the U.S. and Europe to achieve a rapprochement with Moscow for what the administration terms “strategic stability with Russia.” The White House says that would reduce the risk of a wider war. Administration officials also see potential business opportunities with Russia.

Europe and Ukraine take an opposing view. They see Russia as a long-term threat and believe that any trust must be earned and verified—and until then, Moscow must be deterred.

Russia has accused Europeans—and the U.S. under the Biden administration—of waging a proxy war against it by backing Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin warned recently that if Europe sought war, Russia was ready for it. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said Kyiv’s allies’ strategy is to “fight to the last Ukrainian” rather than quickly reach a settlement. The Kremlin, however, hasn’t accepted the U.S. peace proposal and there is little sign it has any intention of winding down the war.

Ukrainian artillerymen fire toward Russian troops in the critical Donbas region. Stringer/Reuters

The competing Western perspectives have been evident in and around U.S.-led peace talks over recent months. Differences have repeatedly strained already volatile relations between Europe and Washington.

A U.S. national security document published this month accused Europeans of harboring “unrealistic expectations” over the war. Days before its release, European leaders had warned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to be wary of agreeing to significant concessions in talks with the U.S. before locking in details of what Washington would offer if Russia breached a peace deal and attacked Ukraine again.

“We want peace. But not a peace that is in reality a capitulation,” French President Emmanuel Macron said last month. He described that as a deal that “gives Russia all the freedom to continue to go further” and endanger Europe.

A recent survey of 500 European security specialists ranked “a cease-fire favorable to Russia in its war against Ukraine” as one of the two top risks to the European Union next year. The other risk is hybrid or gray-zone war, which many officials have previously said Russia is already waging against Europe.

“EU security is threatened directly by a peace deal that would lock in territorial gains for Moscow, reward aggression, and undermine Ukraine’s long-term viability as a sovereign, democratic state,” said a summary of the survey, compiled by the European University Institute, an EU research institution. “A ‘Russian peace’ would also signal that the EU cannot shape its own security environment or deter future threats from Russia,” according to the report.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary-General Mark Rutte last week sketched out the scenario in Berlin. “Just imagine if Putin got his way,” said Rutte, a former Dutch prime minister. “Ukraine under the boot of Russian occupation, his forces pressing against a longer border with NATO, and the significantly increased risk of an armed attack against us.”

Rutte said NATO would need to substantially increase its presence near its borders with Russia and face a financially painful acceleration of military spending, beyond already planned increases.

“So, let’s not forget,” he said. “Ukraine’s security is our security.”

Now, contours of a peace deal that might assuage Ukrainian and European fears are emerging after two days of talks in Berlin that included eight hours of negotiations between Zelensky and Trump’s top Russia envoys.

The U.S. gave a firmer commitment to backstopping European security guarantees to Ukraine, and Trump has pledged to seek U.S. Senate support for Washington’s role. Yet the biggest obstacle to locking Ukraine into the U.S. peace proposal—control of territory—remains unresolved.

Europeans for months have worked to nudge Washington away from peace proposals they see as too favorable to Russia. European leaders recently joined Ukraine in rejecting the White House’s call for Kyiv to withdraw troops from a well-fortified area it still holds in the Donbas region, fearing that ceding it would ease a future Russian invasion.

This week, EU governments will face their biggest test yet of whether they will bear the costs of keeping Ukraine in the fight.

The bloc has indefinitely frozen Russian assets held within its borders to prevent the money returning to Russia unless Moscow agrees to pay reparations to Ukraine. The Trump administration has said it wants to use those funds in part for Russian-U.S. economic projects.

On Thursday, EU leaders will gather in Brussels to decide whether to use the Russian assets to fund a $105 billion loan to Ukraine aimed at covering two-thirds of Kyiv’s budget and military needs for the next two years. Without the loan, Ukraine is projected to run out of cash by the spring, leaving it with very little leverage in any peace talks.

Trump has ended almost all U.S. financial support to Ukraine, so the European decision is critical. Alternative funding options look bleak.

“If the guns fall silent, these funds will be crucial for restarting the war-torn economy and addressing the country’s postconflict challenges,” said Jana Kobzova, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank. “If Putin rejects a deal and grinds on with his invasion, the cash will help underpin Ukraine’s self-defense.”

Whatever the outcome of peace talks, she said, deploying the frozen assets is “an investment into Ukraine’s and Europe’s own security.”

Write to Laurence Norman at laurence.norman@wsj.com and Daniel Michaels at Dan.Michaels@wsj.com

WSJ

4. The Pernicious Myth That America Doesn’t Win Wars

Summary:

Mike Nelson argues the claim that America “doesn’t win wars” hardened after Afghanistan and now drives bad policy. He says it rests on confusion over what counts as war, ignorance of how often the United States uses force, and a tendency to judge outcomes only by World War II total victory. Many post 1945 conflicts achieved limited political aims: Korea preserved the Republic of Korea, and Iraq removed Saddam, later improved counterinsurgency, and helped defeat ISIS, even if the war was poorly justified and managed. Nelson separates military success from political wisdom and urges assessment of goals, costs, and results.

Excerpt:

Americans should not look at our military through rose-colored glasses, chest thumping as we chant “USA” and insisting that no other force can land a glove on us. But neither should we allow the false narrative of failure to take hold. We should be clear eyed, about what our military has accomplished, can accomplish, and, in the future when called upon, the costs, risks, and potential gains – be they maximalist or limited – in using force. Armed conflict will remain a necessary tool for the United States. We absolutely need to adapt our military to meet, and defeat, the challenges of the future, and we need to balance and incorporate military power into our global strategies appropriately – but that will not happen if we do it based on the incorrect understanding of the past.

The Pernicious Myth That America Doesn’t Win Wars

By Mike Nelson

December 16, 2025

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/12/16/the_pernicious_myth_that_america_doesnt_win_wars_1153562.html

False narratives have a way of becoming taken as fact in popular understanding. After years of repetition, these statements calcify into articles of faith, not only going unchallenged, but having any counterarguments met with incredulity, as though the person making the alternative case must be uninformed or unaware of the established consensus. Once accepting these narratives, one is free to form a world view and make decisions based upon them – denying the reality that, if the underlying assumption is wrong, then so are the decisions that flow from it.

One of these which has taken hold among many since the humiliating end to the war in Afghanistan, is that the American military doesn’t win wars, or that it hasn’t since the end of World War II. This critique of the armed forces, foreign policy, or use of force has become an ironclad truth among many using it as a starting point to advocate for their own preferred change. Advocates of Secretary Hegseth’s vision for the military have echoed it – “the military had grown weak and woke, so we need to change the culture, ignore or at least diminish adherence to legal restraints, and remake the composition of the military.” Restrainers, isolationists, and America Firsters have joined the chorus – “America has given up blood and treasure on stupid wars in which we were failures.”

There is only one minor problem with this understanding, and more importantly using it as a baseline from which to derive policy prescriptions – it isn’t true, at all. It reflects a misunderstanding of how America has used force and what we have and haven’t achieved. And, unlike many misunderstandings about American defense, this isn’t solely amongst those with little familiarity of what the military does; the view has taken hold among many who should know better. There are several reasons for belief in the fallacy.

First is ignorance of what a war is, or at least not having a common definition of it. For the pedants, one could point out that the United States has not been at war, by strict definition, since 1945 (the last declaration of war was 1942 when we added Bulgaria, Hungary, and Rumania to the countries upon whom we had declared war in December 1941). However, this isn’t relevant to the topic at hand because if the United States has not fought a war since 1945, then by this definition we also haven’t lost one. In fact, the U.S. has only declared war during the War of 1812, The Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, and the World Wars, yet we have engaged in armed conflict significantly more times than these. So, for the purposes of this debate, we can reflect upon the United States using force to achieve foreign policy objectives. With this more expansive definition, then Grenada is just as much of a war as World War II (although the latter certainly is a source of more pride than the former).

Second is ignorance of the number of conflicts in which the United States has been involved. Americans tend to have short memories and often pay less attention to events beyond the water’s edge. Many are largely ignorant of even ongoing, smaller operations being conducted in their name (remember the shocked response to the Niger incident when many people, including congressional leaders, announced their ignorance of U.S. presence there?). This phenomenon is exacerbated by the passage of time. How many Americans are aware of our involvement in the Dominican Civil War in 1965? Or the various conflicts that made up the Banana Wars?

Third is ignorance or misunderstanding of the outcome of those wars. Our perspective has been skewed, likely due to the recent history of the embarrassing and self-inflicted defeat in Afghanistan, the messy and confusing nature of the war in Iraq, and the historic examples of very clearly defined wars with obviously complete victories. There was no ambiguity in the World Wars; the United States went to war with an adversary nation state (or coalition of them), fought their uniformed militaries, and ended these with a formal surrender ceremony abroad and victory parades at home. But this is not the norm, neither for American military intervention, nor for conflict in general.

Most of American military history does not look like these – conflicts which are large in scale, discrete in time, and definitive in outcome. Some of our previous interventions have been short duration and clear victories, but smaller in scale (e.g., Grenada and Panama). Some have been clear victories, but incremental, fought sporadically with fits and starts, and over the course of years if not decades (e.g., the several smaller conflicts which are often lumped together under the umbrella of the Indian Wars).

But then there is another category – one in which the conflict results in a seemingly less satisfying, but mostly successful result, sometimes after a series of stupid and costly errors, and sometimes after years of grinding conflict that end gradually rather than with a dramatic ceremony. The Korean War, often described as a “draw” because the border between North and South Korea remains today where it was before the beginning of the war, had moments of highs and lows, periods where it seemed nothing could prevent a U.S, led total victory, only to see the multinational force squander their advantage (e.g. reaching the Yalu river), and moments where all seemed lost, only to escape from the jaws of defeat through audacity and courage (e.g. Chosin Reservoir, Pusan, Inchon). But when President Truman committed U.S. forces as part of the UN mission to respond to communist aggression, the stated intent was to assist the Republic of Korea in repelling the invasion and to maintain their independence. South Korea still exists to this day. The combined communist forces of the PRK and CCP were prevented from achieving their aims by American military power.

We have a much more recent (and undoubtedly more controversial) example of a misunderstood success. Many of those who ballyhoo about America not winning wars point not only to the failure in Afghanistan, but also to the recent war in Iraq. The Iraq War was many things -- initially fought with great tactical and operational brilliance, then sinking into lethargic and incompetent counterinsurgency, then adaptive to local power structures, and, of course, initiated under pretenses we now know to be incorrect. But it was not, despite the ironclad popular perception, a military failure. The military set out, with the invasion of 2003, to defeat the combined forces of the Iraqi Army and Republican Guard and remove the Ba’athist government from power. We achieved that goal. Once in control of Baghdad, the U.S. faced a new threat – one of a growing and complex insurgency for which we had failed to plan or anticipate. American forces under Ricardo Sanchez, and continuing under George Casey, seemed perplexed and frustrated by a conflict they had not come prepared to fight, nor that they adapted to. For years, despite the instance of many military and political leaders, the war was not going our way as American casualties increased month after month.

But by 2008 the Sawah, the movement of Sunni tribal militias aligning with the U.S. led coalition and the government in Baghdad, and the American efforts to adapt to a more effective counterinsurgency strategy were turning the tide, to the point that by 2010, the violence in Iraq had largely subsided.

The government the United States helped bring about in Baghdad to replace Saddam Hussein endures to this day, but not without difficulties. In his 2005 “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq,” George Bush defined victory in the long term as an Iraq that is “ peaceful, united, stable, and secure, well integrated into the international community, and a full partner in the global war on terrorism.” By continuing to maintain a relationship with Iraq, we are helping shape this long term result, just as we did as we helped postwar Germany and Korea maintain security and political stability.

In part due to the oppressive steps of a flawed Prime Minister, in part due to American desire to recede from presence and oversight in Iraq, and in part due to a compounding effect of spillover from the Syrian Civil War, there was the need for further American assistance in defeating the threat from ISIS, but defeat them we did – another success for the American military. The Iraqi government also has close relationships with our Iranian regional rivals, as many of the local Arab countries do based on proximity. But just as the need for the 2^nd and 3^rd Punic Wars does not change the fact the 1st Punic War was a Roman victory, the War against ISIS does not change the fact that the United States accomplished the goal of deposing and replacing Saddam Hussein. Likewise, the fact that the USSR gained influence over eastern Europe does not change the fact that WW2 ended in a definitive defeat of the Nazis.

None of that changes a separate question, however – whether the war was worth it. But that was a political decision, and one that does not negate the truth that the U.S. military first defeated the Iraqi military in a decisive win and then quelled a grinding insurgency in a less decisive way.

Just because a victory isn’t total, complete, satisfying, or is achieved after several horrible and demoralizing mistakes, doesn’t mean that the military fighting it lost. The War of 1812 was a victory, despite the fact the U.S. failed to achieve its maximalist goals of incorporating Canada but did achieve the goal for which the war was fought – rejecting British attempts to deny American sovereignty. World War II was a victory, despite the fact it set conditions for the Cold War and Communist oppression but did defeat the Nazis. Korea was a victory, despite the fact we did not unify the Koreas under the democratic South but did prevent the communist conquest of it. And Iraq was a victory -- a poorly decided, stupidly managed, and possibly counterproductive in the long-term victory.

When viewed in this prism, the United States military has myriad successes since World War II and, in fact, has suffered a smaller handful of definitive losses in that time – Vietnam, Iran (Operation Eagle Claw), Somalia (1993), and Afghanistan – with the temporal proximity of the latter, and the fact that two of these were also America’s longest conflicts helping to warp American’s understanding of our military effectiveness.

None of this is to say that America should not take a harsh look at our recent military efforts, critique and analyze them, and seek continuous improvement. Grenada, as I have mentioned, was a victory, but an incredibly embarrassing one that was likely only successful because we fought a backwater Caribbean country with a population of less than 100,000 at the time. The hard lessons learned by examining the disasters, mistakes, and close calls from Operation Urgent Fury helped reform the military into the globally dominant force that defeated the world’s fourth largest army in 100 hours less than a decade later.

Americans should not look at our military through rose-colored glasses, chest thumping as we chant “USA” and insisting that no other force can land a glove on us. But neither should we allow the false narrative of failure to take hold. We should be clear eyed, about what our military has accomplished, can accomplish, and, in the future when called upon, the costs, risks, and potential gains – be they maximalist or limited – in using force. Armed conflict will remain a necessary tool for the United States. We absolutely need to adapt our military to meet, and defeat, the challenges of the future, and we need to balance and incorporate military power into our global strategies appropriately – but that will not happen if we do it based on the incorrect understanding of the past.

Mike Nelson is a retired Army Special Forces officer and currently chief of staff at the University of Pennsylvania's Penn Washington. He is a contributing editor at Providence Magazine and a member of the Atlantic Council's Counter Terrorism Project.

5. U.S. Tanker Seizure Has Paralyzed Venezuelan Oil Shipping—Except Chevron’s

Summary:

U.S. seizure of a sanctioned “dark fleet” tanker has disrupted Venezuela’s illicit oil shipping, leaving multiple vessels idling or rerouting and tightening pressure on Nicolás Maduro. POTUS ordered a full blockade of sanctioned tankers entering or leaving Venezuela, signaling more interdictions and a Caribbean military buildup. Despite the disruption, Chevron continues shipping Venezuelan crude to the U.S. Gulf Coast under a U.S. license exception, with operations reportedly unaffected. Chevron’s joint ventures employ roughly 3,000 people and produce about 300,000 barrels per day, near one third of national output. Analysts say prolonged disruption could sharply cut regime revenue, though Maduro has weathered prior pressure and price shocks.

U.S. Tanker Seizure Has Paralyzed Venezuelan Oil Shipping—Except Chevron’s

WSJ

Vessels are idling at ports or veering away from the region. But for Chevron, it’s business as usual.

By Collin Eaton

Follow, Benoit Faucon

Follow and Kejal Vyas

Dec. 16, 2025 8:00 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/venezuela-oil-chevron-0dca243f

A Chevron-chartered oil tanker in Venezuela. Isaac Urrutia/Reuters

Chevron CVX -2.04%decrease; red down pointing triangle stands as one of the last big shippers of Venezuelan oil after the U.S. seized a sanctioned tanker last week allegedly carrying the country’s crude to the black market.

The threat of another U.S. seizure has disrupted the country’s usually bustling traffic of dark-fleet vessels ferrying the Latin American country’s oil to China and Cuba. Several tankers are idling at Venezuelan ports, and others are veering away from the region, vessel-tracking data show.

President Trump on Tuesday ordered a complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers going into and out of Venezuela, escalating his administration’s pressure campaign against strongman Nicolás Maduro.

For Chevron, though, it remains business as usual. The company is still sending oil tankers to the U.S. Gulf Coast, its operations unimpeded thus far by rising tension between Trump and Maduro.

The day after U.S. forces captured the dark-fleet supertanker Skipper, two vessels carrying crude for Chevron departed from the Bajo Grande, a port on Venezuela’s Lake Maracaibo, both bound for the U.S., according to data from TankerTrackers.com.

A video posted by Attorney General Pam Bondi shows armed U.S. personnel rappelling from a helicopter and taking control of a tanker off Venezuela’s coast. Photo: U.S. Attorney General’s Office/X via AP

A Chevron spokesman said its operations in Venezuela continue without disruption and in compliance with the law. He called the company’s presence in Venezuela a stabilizing force for the local economy and directed questions about the security situation to U.S. officials.

“They’ve stuck with the Venezuelan market through thick and thin, and endured a lot of adverse conditions, a lot of headwinds,” said Clay Seigle, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Chevron, in a way, is punching above its weight in terms of contributing to the future of Venezuela.”

Chevron has long faced criticism for operating in Venezuela but has shown remarkable staying power in the country, where it has had a presence for more than 100 years. Its operations, according to its critics, redound to the benefit of Maduro, whom the U.S. has accused of leading a drug-trafficking cartel and whose regime runs on oil revenue.

Under Chevron’s license to operate in Venezuela, about half the oil it and state-run PdVSA pump goes to Maduro’s government, which then tries to monetize it by selling the crude to China or Cuba using a shadow fleet. The U.S. has sanctions in place that prohibit companies from trading Venezuelan oil; Chevron’s license is essentially an exception to the rule.

In an interview at a Wall Street Journal event earlier this month, Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said the rules Chevron operates under don’t allow the company to pay Venezuela taxes or royalties with the revenue it generates from crude sales.

“They’re very restrictive in terms of what we can do,” he said.

Chevron and its joint ventures, which employ about 3,000 people, operate in the country’s Orinoco Belt, rich in heavy oil. The output from those fields has risen to about 300,000 barrels a day since the Biden administration granted Chevron a license to resume operations there in late 2022. That represents about one-third of Venezuela’s total oil production—and less than 10% of Chevron’s global output.

If Venezuela’s sanctioned oil traffic is stalled for long, a major revenue stream for Maduro would dry up. Crude sales have long represented more than 90% of Venezuela’s export income.

“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America,” Trump said Tuesday on Truth Social. “It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before—until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the oil, land, and other assets that they previously stole from us.”

Evanan Romero, a Houston-based energy consultant and former Venezuelan deputy oil minister, said an oil blockade would spell the end of Maduro’s regime.

“If you’ve already cut the narco revenue and then you get rid of the oil, we’re talking about the final collapse. If you’re capturing ships, then these guys have days left,” said Romero, who is advising opposition leader Maria Corina Machado on an oil-sector recovery plan.

U.S. officials have said there would be more ship seizures in a bid to force Maduro from power, an effort that has involved a massive military buildup in the Caribbean. Trump has said Maduro’s “days are numbered,” though he hasn’t publicly committed to a next course of action.

Maduro called last week’s tanker seizure an act of naval piracy by the U.S. The White House said it targeted the Guyana-flagged Skipper because it was sanctioned for its involvement in the shipping of Iranian crude.

Seven other oil tankers in Venezuela’s Port José and the Port of Amuay have idled for nearly a week since the seizure, according to vessel tracker Samir Madani at TankerTrackers.com.

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Other oil supertankers are giving Venezuela a wide berth. Five inbound ships turned around and headed for ports elsewhere in the past four to five days, the data show. One was carrying Russian naphtha—a diluent Venezuela uses to mix with heavy oil—to the South American country when it turned tail in the Indian Ocean; the others were empty.

Analysts said Maduro’s cash flow has already taken a hit because it has had to offer discounts for its crude. Venezuela exported almost 800,000 barrels a day between Sept. 1 and Dec. 15, with about 81% going to China, 17% to the U.S. and about 2% to Cuba, TankerTrackers.com data show.

Maduro’s regime, however, has survived harsher conditions in the past. During the Covid-19 pandemic, prices for Venezuela’s heavy crude sank to a fraction of today’s prices, and the country’s oil output collapsed to less than half its current level. Yet Maduro held on.

“It’s an escalation that, if it becomes a pattern, it could significantly impact Venezuela,” said Francisco Monaldi, director of the Latin America energy program at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. “This is not the worst pressure Maduro has faced—at least not yet.”

Write to Collin Eaton at collin.eaton@wsj.com, Benoit Faucon at benoit.faucon@wsj.com and Kejal Vyas at kejal.vyas@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications

An earlier version of this article misspelled Clay Seigle’s last name as Seigel. Separately, President Trump made his comments about the oil blockade on Truth Social. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said the comments were made on X. (Corrected on Dec. 16)

WSJ

6. Trump Orders Blockade of Sanctioned Oil Tankers in and out of Venezuela

Summary:

POTUS ordered a “total and complete blockade” of sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela, escalating pressure on Nicolás Maduro after a recent U.S. tanker seizure and signals of further interdictions. A major U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean underpins the threat, with warships, aircraft, and thousands of troops deployed, while Congress moves war powers measures that would require authorization for military action. Shipping traffic has already contracted sharply, with vessels avoiding Venezuelan ports and more than 10 million barrels reportedly stranded afloat amid a cyber disruption and enforcement risk. Venezuela condemned the move as piracy and aggression. The order appears to exclude Chevron’s licensed exports, complicating enforcement, legality, and humanitarian risk calculations.

Comment: Is a blockade considered an act of war?

Under international law, a blockade is a belligerent operation in which a state uses naval and or air forces to prevent all or most maritime traffic from entering or leaving an adversary’s ports or coastline. It is traditionally a law of armed conflict concept, not a routine peacetime enforcement measure.

A lawful blockade must be declared and notified, be effective in practice, be applied impartially, respect neutral shipping, and allow passage of humanitarian assistance. These principles are reflected in customary international law and codified most clearly in the San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea (1994).

https://iihl.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/SAN-REMO-MANUAL-on-INTERNATIONAL-LAW-APPLICABLE-TO-ARMED-CONFLICTS-AT-SEA-2.pdf

Trump Orders Blockade of Sanctioned Oil Tankers in and out of Venezuela

WSJ

The president’s announcement further escalates pressure on country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro

By Vera Bergengruen

Follow, Kejal Vyas

Follow and Costas Paris

Updated Dec. 16, 2025 9:58 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/trump-orders-blockade-of-sanctioned-oil-tankers-in-and-out-of-venezuela-3143a24a

President Trump threatened that the U.S. military presence would ‘only get bigger.’ Alex Brandon/AP

President Trump ordered a “total and complete blockade” of sanctioned Venezuelan oil tankers, escalating pressure on Nicolás Maduro.
The U.S. deployed warships, planes, and thousands of troops to the region, with Trump threatening further military expansion.
Following a U.S. tanker seizure, vessels waiting at Venezuelan ports dropped from approximately 45 to about a dozen.

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 ordered a “total and complete blockade” of sanctioned Venezuelan oil tankers, escalating pressure on Nicolás Maduro.

President Trump on Tuesday ordered a “total and complete blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela, in a major escalation of his pressure campaign against the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro.

“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America,” Trump posted on Truth Social, referring to U.S. warships, planes and thousands of troops deployed to the region.

He threatened the U.S. military presence would “only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before” unless Maduro’s regime returned “Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us,” an apparent reference to Venezuela’s nationalization of U.S.-linked holdings in the country. In recent weeks, Trump has threatened to carry out land strikes in Venezuela.

It was unclear how many tankers would be affected, and to what extent the U.S. military would be involved in implementing such a blockade. The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The announcement comes days after the U.S. seized a tanker full of Venezuelan crude, and the White House indicated there would be more ship seizures. The threat has left tankers stuck off the coast of Venezuela, with shipping data showing some vessels making U-turns rather than risk being interdicted.

Venezuela’s government, which in recent years has used Iran- and Russia-linked tankers to evade U.S. sanctions that bar the trading of Venezuelan crude, slammed last week’s seizure as blatant theft and Tuesday’s blockade order.

“The president of the United States is trying in an absolutely irrational manner to impose a supposed military naval blockade on Venezuela to steal the riches of our homeland,” Venezuela’s government said in a statement. “Venezuela will never go back to being a colony of the empire, nor any other foreign power.”

A military blockade is considered an act of war, but Trump’s move appeared to stop short of a full blockade. It appeared to exclude Chevron, which has been operating in Venezuela and exporting oil under a license exempting it from U.S. sanctions that Trump renewed this year. On Tuesday, a Chevron spokesman said its operations in Venezuela were continuing without disruption and in compliance with the law.

By targeting sanctioned vessels, the U.S. could be sidestepping prohibitions on economic blockades under international law except in response to armed attack.

“It is international law 101 that a military blockade is not just a violation of the UN Charter, but a crime of aggression unless that blockade is in response to an “armed attack,” Ryan Goodman, a law professor at New York University, said in a social-media post.

Since the seizing of the Skipper tanker last week, the number of vessels waiting to call at Venezuelan ports has dropped dramatically, from around 45 before the seizure to about a dozen on Tuesday, according to marine traffic data. The last U.S. blockade was in 1962, ordered by President John F. Kennedy to stop further Soviet missile deliveries to Cuba.

The blockade further ratchets up the pressure on Maduro as the Trump administration continues its controversial bombing campaign of alleged drug-smuggling vessels in the region and the significant military buildup in the Caribbean near Venezuela. The Navy’s largest aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R. Ford, arrived in the region last month carrying dozens of fighter jets, along with a carrier strike group that includes other warships.

F-35A stealth jet fighters, EA-18G Growler electronic warfare planes, HH-60W rescue helicopters and HC-130J rescue planes are being staged in Puerto Rico, according to photographs and flight tracking data. Tanker aircraft that can refuel bombers and jet fighters midair have been moved to the Dominican Republic.

The announcement of the blockade comes as U.S. lawmakers are set to vote on House and Senate war powers resolutions to require congressional authorization for military action against Venezuela.

In Tuesday’s post, Trump accused Maduro’s “illegitimate” regime of “using Oil from these stolen Oil Fields to finance themselves, Drug Terrorism, Human Trafficking, Murder, and Kidnapping.” The Trump administration has accused Maduro of leading a drug-trafficking cartel that it has designated as a foreign terrorist organization.

In 2007, under Maduro’s mentor and predecessor, the late Hugo Chávez, Venezuela expropriated oil projects operated by Exxon and ConocoPhillips after the American companies rejected new contract terms that gave the Venezuelan government majority control over joint ventures, leading to lengthy court battles.

But people close to Venezuela’s government and oil analysts said they were puzzled by Trump’s assertion that Venezuela had stolen land and oil from the U.S.

“No country in the Western Hemisphere has ever suffered a blockade that shuts off its primary source of export revenue,” says Francisco Rodriguez, a Venezuelan economist at the University of Denver. He warned that the measure could trigger severe food shortages in the country of 28 million people.

“Trump is demanding that a new Venezuelan administration carry out a massive transfer of its oil wealth to the United States. This quite obviously violates both Venezuelan and international law,” Rodriguez added.

Venezuelan oil exports “are currently gridlocked” because of a cyber attack on the country’s oil exporter and the U.S. tanker seizure, energy consultants Kpler said.

Venezuela accused the U.S. of being behind the attack that crippled the state-run oil exporter’s administrative systems and suspended a number of laden tankers from leaving the country’s ports.

More than 10 million barrels of oil are on board other tankers around Venezuela, according to maritime data. That’s equivalent to about the volume that eight very large crude carriers, the largest tankers at sea, can move.

The Benin-flagged Boltaris, which was carrying 300,000 barrels of Russian naphtha to Venezuela, turned around over the weekend and is now sailing back towards Europe.

At least six very large crude carriers, VLCCs, that were scheduled to load crude at Venezuelan ports in the next two weeks have made U-turns, according to ship monitoring TankerTrackers.com.

Write to Vera Bergengruen at vera.bergengruen@wsj.com, Kejal Vyas at kejal.vyas@wsj.com and Costas Paris at costas.paris@wsj.com

WSJ

7. Trump makes pick to lead NSA spy agency after months of leadership limbo

Summary:

POTUS has nominated Lt. Gen. Joshua M. Rudd, the deputy commander of U.S. Asia-Indo-Pacific Command and a career Special Forces officer, to lead the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command, ending eight months of interim leadership since Gen. Timothy Haugh was fired in April. The nomination was reportedly transmitted to Congress, though the White House disputed that it had been sent to the Senate. Rudd’s operational and senior staff background includes Delta Force and Pacific special operations, but limited cyber or signals intelligence leadership, likely prompting scrutiny. Senators and former officials warned leadership churn, retirements, and persistent China, Russia, Iran, and criminal threats raise the stakes.

Comment: General Rudd is certainly an interesting choice. Will this advance the Cyber-Space-SOF triad with a focus on the Asia-Indo-Pacific?

Trump makes pick to lead NSA spy agency after months of leadership limbo

The prospective confirmation of Lt. Gen. Joshua M. Rudd would end eight months of uncertainty at the helm of the nation’s largest spy agency and the military’s cyber command.

December 16, 2025 at 7:02 p.m. ESTYesterday at 7:02 p.m. EST

The National Security Administration campus in Fort Meade, Maryland. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

By Ellen Nakashima and Alex Horton

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/12/16/nsa-cybercom-joshua-rudd-china/

President Donald Trump has nominated a career Special Forces officer and current deputy commander of Indo-Pacific Command to be the next head of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

The nomination and prospective confirmation of Lt. Gen. Joshua M. Rudd, a former Delta Force commander, would end eight months of leadership limbo at the helm of the nation’s largest spy agency and its offensive military cyber organization.

The nomination was received by Congress this week, said the two officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because it has not been officially announced by the Pentagon, White House or the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

A White House official said that no such nomination had been transmitted to the Senate.

Follow Trump’s second term

Rudd would formally replace Gen. Timothy Haugh, who was fired by Trump in April. The president’s move drew sharp bipartisan rebukes as an unjustified political move engineered by the far-right activist Laura Loomer.

The acting head has been Lt. Gen. William J. Hartman, who had been Haugh’s deputy at both organizations and was widely expected to succeed Haugh. The nomination never materialized. Some former officials told The Washington Post that he failed to impress some senior Pentagon officials.

Rudd’s role at Indo-Pacific Command gives him experience in the U.S. military’s effort to counter China’s aggressive push for regional dominance.

Rudd commanded the elite Delta Force, as well as squadrons and teams during numerous combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“He is the rare senior officer that can easily transition from being in the field with muddy boots, to engaging senior civilian leadership in a thoughtful, strategic context in the halls of power,” said Christopher C. Miller, who served as acting defense secretary in the final months of Trump’s first administration.

Rudd carved an unusual path for a career Special Operations officer, beginning as a quartermaster in 1993, a position focused on supply and logistics far from the front lines. He later joined the infantry and rose to head the clandestine unit, that along with SEAL Team 6, executes the military’s highest-stake missions. He then oversaw all Special Operations troops assigned to the Pacific, a responsibility that sprawls over half the globe and is focused on countering threats like China and training alongside regional counterparts.

But his relative lack of leadership experience in cyber operations and signals intelligence probably will draw scrutiny in the confirmation process. Some former senior U.S. cyber officials, speaking in general terms, noted that Rudd could have a steep learning curve at a time when the administration has signaled it wants a more effective and aggressive strategy to target adversaries in cyberspace.

You would never “nominate someone to SOCOM that didn’t have a heavy special operations background or [pick] someone to run Space Command that didn’t know space,” said one former official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation. “Why would we think it’s a good idea to make someone without cyber experience the head of Cyber Command?”

The next NSA and Cybercom chief will face challenges: workforces rocked by what many inside and outside the agencies see as politically motivated firings, including those of Haugh and his deputy, Wendy Noble, and a brain drain caused by the voluntary departures of a number of experienced personnel.

“Between the firings and the early retirements, NSA has lost decades of experience at the senior leadership level, the cybersecurity unit and the general counsel’s office,” said Glenn Gerstell, who served as NSA general counsel from 2015 through 2020.

“I look forward to reviewing Lt. Gen. Rudd’s nomination and evaluating his qualifications to lead the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command at a moment of unprecedented cyber and national security threats. That said, it should never have taken this long to nominate someone to this critical post," said Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chair Mark Warner (D-Virginia). “At a time when China, Russia, Iran, and criminal actors are constantly probing our defenses, this kind of chaos and vacancy at the top makes America less safe.”

Opinion | America first? Not when Trump is dealing with China.

Washington Post · Derek Scissors

The president’s second-term China policy started out aggressive. That quickly changed.

December 16, 2025 at 7:30 a.m. ESTYesterday at 7:30 a.m. EST

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/12/16/trump-china-xi-jinping/

Derek Scissors is chief economist of the China Beige Book. Zack Cooper is a lecturer in public and international affairs at Princeton University. Both writers are senior fellows at the American Enterprise Institute.

In the roughly 10 months since his return to the White House, President Donald Trump has made many threats against perceived adversaries. He has even followed through on some of them — for example, against Iran. The president has been remarkably generous, though, toward the United States’ most prominent adversary: China. Since April, Trump has repeatedly given ground to the People’s Republic. He did it again last week by agreeing to allow export of the advanced H200 chip to Chinese customers.

Trump’s second-term China policy started out aggressive, with a series of announcements about raising tariffs on Chinese products from 25 percent to 145 percent. By early spring, however, tariffs faded into the background as an issue in U.S.-China trade, because on April 4, China countered with new, stricter export controls on rare-earth materials, including for the first time rare-earth magnets.

Rare earths are valuable to a range of U.S. economic sectors. The auto industry, in particular, warned that without low-cost but indispensable rare-earth magnets, assembly lines might be shut down. This was quite a predictable predicament, as Beijing had long bragged about its rare-earth reserves and used export limits in disputes.

Yet the administration seemed completely unprepared. It embarked on what turned out to be a farcical series of trade meetings. At various points, Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claimed a deal was possible that would “fully open” the Chinese market to U.S. business or rebalance the trade relationship — claims no longer being made because they were ridiculous from the start.

By early October, it was China taking the initiative, launching a second, broader set of controls on rare-earth exports. Trump responded with more tariff threats, but he also noted that a trade war was not “sustainable,” a far cry from his attitude six months earlier.

In late October, Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met and supposedly crafted a deal. The U.S. immediately cut tariffs somewhat and suspended new export controls and port fees. China made commitments involving resumption of rare-earth exports as well as imports of U.S. soybeans.

Except China’s steps have been only partial. Soybean purchases are slow, and Bessent was forced to admit on Nov. 16 that the rare-earth agreement had not been finalized. In early December, China started to issue rare-earth licenses, but they still come with multiple conditions and overall export volume remains subdued. In the meantime, a long-delayed U.S. inquiry into semiconductor imports seems to have vanished. The Trump administration looks intimidated.

Nor is the near-paralysis limited to trade. The administration is trying so hard to avoid angering Beijing that it is pulling its foreign policy punches as well.

During a Japanese parliament budget hearing on Nov. 7, new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi remarked that a Chinese invasion or blockade of Taiwan could be a “threat to Japan’s survival” — implying Japan might get involved. It was exactly the stance that Trump administration officials in the Pentagon have been pushing Tokyo and other allies to take. Normally, this would be the moment for the American president to reaffirm the U.S.-Japan alliance. Trump did no such thing.

Drawing on its usual coercive playbook, China responded to Japan by stopping most tourism, cutting seafood imports and having a Chinese “diplomat” in Osaka threaten that if Takaichi stuck her neck out, it would be “sliced off.” No White House response followed. It took over a week for the State Department to issue an anodyne, low-level tweet. Only after a Chinese aircraft locked its radar on Japanese jets did the State Department assert it was “unwaveringly committed to our ally Japan.”

On Nov. 24, Trump and Xi spoke by phone. In a brief online post afterward, Trump described it as a “very good” conversation in which the leaders “discussed many topics.” China’s official takeaway was more specific: It said Trump “understands how important the Taiwan question is to China.” Leaders in Asia are increasingly nervous that Trump will try to placate Xi when China has disputes with any U.S. partners, just as he appears to be aligning with Russian President Vladimir Putin over Ukraine.

Much has been made about 2027 being a dangerous year for Taiwan, but 2026 is setting up to be even more problematic. Trump has already agreed to go to China in April and perhaps in November as well. He has offered to host Xi for a state visit and at his Doral resort in Florida next December. This will give Xi and his representatives many opportunities to press Trump for concessions on Taiwan and other issues.

Finally, there is TikTok. Despite much talk about a deal that would divest ByteDance’s share of TikTok, the Trump administration continues to violate U.S. law by allowing it to operate here without a deal in place. Again, Trump has sacrificed leverage and gotten nothing in return.

Combining economic and national security yields perhaps the worst outcome. China has pressured Nvidia to sell advanced semiconductors by rejecting the older technology that the U.S. initially allowed the tech giant to sell. Nvidia, in turn, pushed the White House to greenlight exports of more advanced chips. By permitting H200 exports, the president effectively gave in to Beijing on another vital issue. This year has seen Trump go completely in reverse.

Washington Post · Derek Scissors

9. A Free World Needs a Strong America

Summary:

The New York Times editorial board argues global stability is shaken by autocrats and new technologies, so the U.S. must rebuild military strength and purpose to defend liberty and a rules based order. It says deterrence, alliances, protection of the commons, and adherence to law were the post Cold War consensus, but it contends POTUS has shifted toward coercive “Department of War” instincts, moral equivalence on Ukraine, and transactional threats. The board accepts the need to counter China and Russia and to cut Pentagon bureaucracy, yet argues “America First” undermines the Cold War lessons that won: allied followership, R&D, values, legitimacy, and patience. Military innovation must be paired with soft power and democratic example.

Comment: Please go to the link to view the proper format of the article and the interactive intro graphics. The NY Time Editorial Board gets at the national security philosophical and strategic divide.

We should not throw out the baby with the bathwater. There is still much to be learned from the Cold War and there are useful lessons for the future as we take on the Dark Quad or CRInK.

A Free World Needs a Strong America

NY Times

Opinion

The Editorial Board

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/12/14/opinion/editorials/us-military-cold-war-lessons.html?unlocked_article_code=1.9U8.y82H.MuJJ4Ht4TTL9&smid=url-share

A Free

World

Needs

a Strong

America

As recently as a decade ago, it would not have been hard to unite a broad majority of Republicans and Democrats around a shared idea of what America’s military power should be for.

Defense of the homeland. Deterrence of would-be aggressors. Cooperation with treaty allies and protection of kindred democracies confronting common foes. Humanitarian aid and relief. The security of the global commons: sea lanes, air corridors, undersea cables, digital networks. Upholding the laws of war.

In sum, the ability to prevent war wherever possible and win it whenever necessary — all for the sake of a safer, more open, rules-based world.

The Trump administration brings a starkly different mind-set to the issue. Out with the Department of Defense; back to the Department of War. Well-established rules of engagement have yielded to blowing up small boats on the high seas. In place of standing with Ukraine’s embattled democracy against Russia’s invasion, the administration has adopted a course of moral equivalence between the two sides while seeking profits from the war through arms sales and mineral deals.

As for the kind of military alliance-building that typified American foreign policy for much of the 20th century, President Trump has reverted to threats of conquest more common in the 19th. And this is to say nothing of his efforts to deploy troops to American cities, impose political loyalty tests on senior officers or hamstring reporters at the Pentagon.

The Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard to U.S. cities has drawn legal blowback from state and local leaders and harsh criticism from Democratic lawmakers.

Mr. Trump justifies his approach by claiming that the Pentagon needs an entirely different mentality for a new era of great-power rivalry. That’s not wrong. China’s rise and Russia’s revanchism means our security is more threatened today than it has been in decades. But so does the fact the United States has forfeited our military’s edge.

The president has done better than his predecessors in getting NATO allies to start budgeting adequately for their defense. He’s been right, also, to cut through layers of entrenched Pentagon bureaucracy that have prevented the military from keeping pace with technological changes that leave us increasingly vulnerable.

But Mr. Trump and his administration are grievously wrong to think the “America First” approach they’ve adopted meets the moment. America cannot adequately defend itself and its vital interests unless it recovers the strategies and instincts that served it well in its greatest triumph of the past century — not World War II, but the Cold War.

The phrase “Cold War mind-set” is usually meant as an insult, sometimes with good reason. Stretches of that long struggle were marked by political paranoia, nuclear brinkmanship and ideological Manichaeism that nobody should want to repeat. There were blunders and fiascos, none greater than the war in Vietnam.

Yet it is worth remembering that our victory in the Cold War didn’t come at a cost of more than one million American casualties, as World War II did. The architects of the Cold War understood that the country’s future security required engagement, not isolation, and that the primary purpose of military power was the prevention of war through deterrence, alliances and international legitimacy — hence the name the Department of Defense, not War.

The Trump administration routinely prioritizes national interests over multilateral alliances like NATO.

America’s Cold War strategists also knew that previous concepts of security were inadequate in an era of long-range bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles. A return to isolationism was the road to a second Pearl Harbor.

They knew that the United States could not hope to win an ideological struggle against Communist adversaries if we were faithless to our own ideals. Among the reasons that President Harry Truman desegregated the armed forces was that the United States could hardly offer itself as a model of freedom and justice while enforcing racist policies in the ranks of those we sent around the world to advance those values.

They knew that deterring the Soviet Union required preserving America’s scientific and technological edge, which in turn called for national investments in research and development and partnerships with American universities. The first modern computer, ENIAC, was developed for the Army at the University of Pennsylvania; the Tomahawk cruise missile was largely developed by Johns Hopkins’s Applied Physics Lab.

They knew that the only enduring form of world leadership came through voluntary followership. Moscow had to coerce Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and other satellites into membership in the Warsaw Pact; their restiveness was the Soviet Union’s undoing. Washington’s key allies, by contrast, mostly chose to be on our side.

Checkpoint Charlie, the crossing point between East and West Berlin during the Cold War, now a tourist draw.

And they knew that shared prosperity was vital to democratic credibility. The people who created the institutions of the postwar world said that they were binding people together economically so that they would stop fighting with one another. It was an explicit rationale for lowering trade barriers, and it worked. We won the Cold War because the lights were brighter on this side of the wall.

None of this is to ignore the furious policy debates of the Cold War. Yet what’s striking about the era is the broad continuity of policy between Republican and Democratic administrations. Dwight Eisenhower adopted the containment policies bequeathed to him by Truman. Richard Nixon embraced the logic of arms control and détente that he inherited from John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Ronald Reagan expanded the defense buildup started under Jimmy Carter. Continuity meant predictability, and predictability helped maintain peace.

This is not the approach of the Trump administration. Mr. Trump believes in cutting deals, not sharing values; in making money, not winning friends. He has waged a funding war against basic research at our leading universities. And he is infatuated with displays of hard power — the power to coerce, in the formulation of the political scientist Joseph Nye — but contemptuous of the value of soft power, which is the power to attract. His latest National Security Strategy, released this month, is notable mainly for its indifference to the distinction between despotism and democracy.

His approach is inadequate for the long-term challenge America faces. A country’s military is only as good as the purpose to which it is harnessed. And the central purpose of American power should be to defend political liberty and the rule of law that undergirds it, against all enemies foreign and domestic.

The White House’s latest National Security Strategy stresses American might in the Western Hemisphere.

That mission may be impossible for an administration whose defining trait is the assault on the rule of law, which is as much a foreign-policy crisis as it is a domestic one. The United States cannot lead the free world, inspire those who want to be a part of it, or oppose those who seek to undermine and destroy it if we cease to be a model democracy ourselves.

What of future presidents? Mr. Trump’s presence in the White House does not erase the reality that Russia seeks to annex one neighbor and probably others. Or that China is eyeing regional hegemony in the Indo-Pacific while it rapidly expands its conventional and nuclear arsenals. Or that America remains threatened by extremist groups that can use A.I., drones, bioweapons or other increasingly ubiquitous and inexpensive technologies to perpetrate future Sept. 11-type attacks.

The horrors that China has visited on the Uyghurs and Russia has imposed on Ukrainians are not only a sign of the immoral core of these regimes; they are also the portents of violent instability to come. A Chinese attack on Taiwan that ends up disrupting or destroying that island’s chip foundries would push the world into an economic crisis. A Russian attack on even a small NATO member state, such as Estonia, would put Europe and America alike on a global war footing.

All this strikingly resembles the challenge America and our allies faced from the Soviet Union at the outset of the Cold War: a contest both ideological and military, requiring a response equal to both. After World War II, the United States met the threat of Russian arms with military investments that yielded some of the most transformative technologies of the century: supersonic aircraft, nuclear-powered submarines, thermonuclear weapons, guided missiles, satellite reconnaissance. They were essential in dissuading Soviet leaders from doing to Western Europe what Vladimir Putin is doing to Ukraine. America must pursue today’s military innovation with equal resolve.

But arsenals alone did not win the Cold War. Just as important were the tools of soft power. Respectful consultation among allies. Mutually beneficial trading ties. Fidelity to democratic ideals. A willingness to face and overcome the moral hypocrisies of democratic states. Strategic firmness matched with diplomatic flexibility toward our foes.

In the end, the power of our military deterrent and the resilience of our global alliances in the 20th century buttressed the most important weapon in the struggle against totalitarianism: patience. From one president to the next, America’s leaders waited out authoritarian challengers until they came apart on their own internal contradictions. The Cold War ended in Berlin, of all places, because ordinary people in the eastern half of the city yearned for a better life in an open society, just over the barbed wire on the other side of the wall.

If the United States is indeed on the cusp of a new Cold War with authoritarian adversaries, these will be the tools we will require to get through another long struggle. We cannot afford the consequences of a world in which dictators can aggress at will, as they did before World War II, and as they have started to do again. Preventing that requires a military that has the right tools, the right tactics and the right culture. It requires a global alliance of like-minded democracies. Most of all, it requires leaders with the wisdom and vision to explain the stakes and rally the free world to the work ahead.

Animation by Justin Metz. Photographs by Kenny Holston/The New York Times; Philip Cheung for The New York Times; Aleksey Kondratyev for The New York Times; Daniel Terna for The New York Times; John MacDougall/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images; and Doug Mills/The New York Times.

The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.

Published Dec. 14, 2025

Overmatched A series by the Editorial Board

NY Times

10. America Needs a New Definition of Service

Summary:

The New York Times editorial board argues the U.S. should broaden the meaning of “service” to rebuild military effectiveness as fewer Americans serve, fewer qualify to enlist, and the Pentagon loses connection to the wider economy. It highlights a surge in defense tech entrepreneurship and venture capital, and urges the Defense Department to make it easier for skilled civilians, start ups, and reservists to contribute, especially as software, AI, cyber, and space missions expand. It cites models like expanded reserves, scholarship for service cyber pipelines, and strengthened ROTC. The piece warns that exclusionary “warrior ethos” recruiting and cutting campus programs are counterproductive. It also flags risks in deeper public private ties, but argues managing them is essential to outbuild China and modernize the force.

Comment: Of course it should go without saying that we need to listen to these voices. I do think one area to focus on is service in our reserve components. I see so many outstanding Americans serving in our reserve components and to me this appears to be an excellent way to serve and contribute to our nation. And we have seen the importance of our reserve components only grow over time with each conflict. But the bottom line is we should be helping our young people to define their culture (a modern culture) of service to our nation.

America Needs a New Definition of Service

NY Times

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/12/12/opinion/editorials/us-military-recruitment-culture.html?unlocked_article_code=1.9U8.m_WG.uvTZj7iLdvNZ&smid=url-share

The U.S. military

is broken. Young

Americans want

to fix it.

Bailey Baumbick traded a

career as a national security

consultant to build tech

solutions

for the challenges

she saw at the Pentagon.

Elias Rosenfeld left a job

in social

impact consulting

to start a career aimed

at revitalizing America’s

industrial base.

Lee Kantowski spent

eight years in the

Army before

switching to defense tech,

where

he hopes to fix the

military’s outdated tools.

Opinion

The Editorial Board

America Needs

a New

Definition of

Service

Bailey Baumbick knew she wanted to serve her country when she graduated from Notre Dame in 2021. Ms. Baumbick, a 26-year-old from Novi, Mich., didn’t enlist in the military, however. She enrolled in business school at the University of California, Berkeley.

Ms. Baumbick is part of a growing community in the Bay Area that aims to bring high-tech dynamism to the lumbering world of the military. As social media companies and countless lifestyle start-ups have lost their luster in recent years, entrepreneurs have been drawn to defense tech by a mix of motivations: an influx of venture capital, a coolness factor and the start-up ethos, which Ms. Baumbick describes as “the relentless pursuit of building things.”

There’s also something deeper: old-fashioned patriotism, matched with a career that serves a greater purpose.

In college Ms. Baumbick watched her father, a Ford Motor Company executive, lead the company’s sprint to produce Covid-19 ventilators and personal protective equipment for front-line health care workers. “I’ve never been more inspired by how private sector industry can have so much impact for public sector good,” she said.

Ford’s interventions during the Covid-19 pandemic hark back to a time when public-private partnerships were commonplace. During World War II, leaders of America’s biggest companies, including Ford, halted business as usual to manufacture weapons for the war effort.

The Covid-19 pandemic drove public-private partnerships, such as Ford’s decision to produce ventilators needed by patients and hospitals.

For much of the 20th century, the private and public sectors were tightly woven together. In 1980, nearly one in five Americans were veterans. By 2022, that figure had shrunk to one in 16. Through the 1980s, about 70 percent of the companies doing business with the Pentagon were also leaders in the broader U.S. economy. That’s down to less than 10 percent today. The shift away from widespread American participation in national security has left the Department of Defense isolated from two of the country’s great assets: its entrepreneurial spirit and technological expertise.

Recent changes in Silicon Valley are bringing down those walls. Venture capital is pouring money into defense tech; annual investment is up from $7 billion in 2015 to some $80 billion in 2025. The Pentagon needs to seize this opportunity, and find ways to accelerate its work with start-ups and skilled workers from the private sector. It should expand the definition of what it means to serve and provide more flexible options to those willing to step in.

The military will always need physically fit service members. But we are headed toward a future where software will play a bigger role in armed conflict than hardware, from unmanned drones and A.I.-driven targeting to highly engineered cyber weapons and space-based systems. These missions will be carried out by service members in temperature-controlled rooms rather than well armed troops braving the physical challenges of the front line.

For all the latent opportunity in Silicon Valley and beyond, the Trump administration has been uneven in embracing the moment. Stephen Feinberg, the deputy secretary of defense, is a Wall Street billionaire who is expanding the Pentagon’s ties with businesses. Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, his “warrior ethos” and exclusionary recruitment have set back the effort to build a military for the future of war.

America has the chance to reshape our armed forces for the conflicts ahead, and we have the rare good fortune of being able to do that in peacetime.

Elias Rosenfeld had been at Stanford for only a month and a half, but he already looked right at home at a recent job fair for students interested in pursuing defense tech, standing in a relaxed posture, wearing beaded bracelets and a sweater adorned with a single sunflower. Rather than use his time in Stanford’s prestigious business school to build a fintech app or wellness brand, Mr. Rosenfeld has set his sights on helping to rebuild the industrial base on which America’s military relies.

It’s a crucial mission for a country that is getting outbuilt by China, and Mr. Rosenfeld brings a unique commitment to it. Born in Venezuela, he came to the United States at age 6 and draws his patriotism from that country’s experience with tyranny and his Jewish heritage. “Without a strong, resilient America, I might not be here today,” Mr. Rosenfeld says. Working on industrial renewal, he says, is a way to “start delivering as a country so folks feel more inclined and passionate to be more patriotic.”

Not on Mr. Rosenfeld’s agenda: enlisting in the military. In an earlier era, he might have been tempted by a wider suite of options for service. In 1955 the U.S. government nearly doubled the maximum size of the military’s ready reserve forces, from 1.5 million to 2.9 million, in part by giving young men the chance to spend six months in active duty training. Today the U.S. ready reserve numbers just over a million.

The Pentagon should broaden its sense of service as fewer younger Americans meet the military’s eligibility requirements.

Other countries provide a model for strengthening the reserves. In Sweden, the military selects the top 5 percent or so of 18-year-olds eligible to serve in the active military for up to 15 months, followed by membership in the reserve for 10 years. The model is so effective that recruits compete for spots, and according to The Wall Street Journal, “former conscripts are headhunted by the civil service and prized by tech companies.”

America’s leaders have argued for a generation that the military’s volunteer model is superior to conscription in delivering a well-prepared force. The challenge is maintaining recruiting and getting the right service members for every mission. There are some examples of the Pentagon successfully luring new, tech-savvy recruits. Since last year, top college students have been training to meet the government’s growing need for skilled cybersecurity professionals. The Cyber Service Academy, a scholarship-for-service program, covers the full cost of tuition and educational expenses in exchange for a period of civilian employment within the Defense Department upon graduation. Scholars work in full-time, cyber-related positions.

The best incentive for enlisting may have nothing to do with service, but the career opportunities that are promised after.

It was a foregone conclusion that Lee Kantowski would become an Army officer. One of his favorite high school teachers had served, and his hometown, Lawton, Okla., was a military town, a place where enlisting was commonplace. Mr. Kantowski attended West Point and, in the eight years after graduating, went on tours across the world. Now he’s getting an M.B.A. at U.C. Berkeley, co-founded a defense tech club with Ms. Baumbick there and works part-time at a start-up building guidance devices that turn dumb bombs into smart ones.

The military needs recruits like Mr. Kantowski who want to support defense in and out of uniform. Already, nearly one million people who work for the Department of Defense are civilians, supplemented by a similar number of contractors who straddle public and private sectors. Both paths could be expanded.

A rotating-door approach carries some risk to military cohesion and readiness. The armed services are not just another job: Soldiers are asked to put themselves in danger’s way, even outside combat zones. America still needs men and women who are willing to sign up for traditional tours of duty.

The Reserve Officers’ Training Corps serves as the largest source of commissioned officers for the U.S. military. For more than five decades, R.O.T.C. has paid for students to pursue degree programs — accompanied by military drills and exercises — and then complete three to 10 years of required service after graduation. In 1960 alone, Stanford and M.I.T. each graduated about 100 R.O.T.C. members. Today, that figure is less than 20 combined. The Army has recently closed or reorganized programs at 84 campuses and may cut funding over the next decade.

R.O.T.C. programs should be strengthened and expanded, not closed or merged.

It remains true that the volunteer force has become a jobs program for many Americans looking for a ladder to prosperity. It’s an aspect of service often more compelling to enlistees than the desire to fight for their country. In the era of artificial intelligence and expected job displacement, enlistment could easily grow.

Most military benefits have never been more appealing, with signing and retention bonuses, tax-free housing and food allowances, subsidized mortgages, low-cost health care, universal pre-K, tuition assistance and pensions. The Department of Defense and Congress need to find ways to bolster these benefits and their delivery, where service members often find gaps.

Standardizing post-service counseling and mentorship could help. Expanding job training programs like Skillbridge, which pairs transitioning service members with private sector internships, could also improve job prospects. JPMorgan has hired some 20,000 veterans across the country since creating an Office of Military & Veterans Affairs in 2011; it has also helped create a coalition of 300 companies dedicated to hiring vets.

When veterans land in promising companies — or start their own — it’s not just good for them. It’s also good for America. Rylan Hamilton and Austin Gray, two Navy veterans, started Blue Water Autonomy last year with the goal of building long-range drone ships that could help the military expand its maritime presence without the costs, risks and labor demands of deploying American sailors.

Blue Water Autonomy, founded and staffed by Navy veterans, is building fully autonomous naval vessels capable of operating at sea for months at a time.

Mr. Gray, a former naval intelligence officer who worked in a drone factory in Ukraine, said Blue Water’s vessels will one day do everything from ferrying cargo to carrying out intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. This summer, the company raised $50 million to construct a fully autonomous ship stretching 150 feet long.

Before dawn on a Wednesday morning in October, military packs filled with supplies and American flags sat piled on a dewy field near the edge of Stanford University’s campus. Some of the over 900 attendees at a conference on defense tech gathered around an active-duty soldier studying at the school. The glare of his head lamp broke through the darkness as he rallied the group of students, founders, veterans and investors for a “sweat equity” workout.

“Somewhere, a platoon worked out at 0630 to start their day,” he said. “This conference is all about supporting folks like them, so we are going to start our day the same way.” The group set off for Memorial Church at the center of campus, sharing the load of heavy packs, flags and equipment along the way.

A group of students, founders, veterans and investors participate in a run during a defense tech conference at Stanford University.

That attitude is a big change for the Bay Area, not just from the days of 1960s hippie sit-ins but also from the early days of the tech revolution, when Silicon Valley was seen as a bastion of government-wary coders and peaceniks. Now it’s open for business with the Defense Department. “The excitement is there, the concern is there, the passion is there and the knowledge is there,” says Ms. Baumbick.

There are some risks to tying America’s military more closely to the tech-heavy private sector. Companies don’t always act in the country’s national interest. Elon Musk infamously limited the Ukrainian military’s access to its Starlink satellites, preventing them being used to help in a battle with Russian forces in 2022. Private companies are also easier for adversaries to penetrate and influence than the government.

Yet in order to prevent wars, or win them, we must learn to manage the risks of overlap between civilian and military spheres. The private sector’s newly rekindled interest in the world of defense is a generational chance to build the military that Americans need.

Portraits by Aleksey Kondratyev for The New York Times; Carlos Osorio/Associated Press; Mike Segar/Reuters; Maddy Pryor/Princeton University; Kevin Wicherski/Blue Water Autonomy; Aleksey Kondratyev for The New York Times (2).

The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.

Published Dec. 12, 2025

Overmatched A series by the Editorial Board

NY Times

11. ‘We’ve Been Let Down’: 11 Gen Z-ers on the Military, America’s Place in the World and Their Generation

Summary:

A New York Times focus group of 11 Gen Z Americans explores how young civilians view the military, U.S. global role, and their own generation amid the administration’s “warrior” ethos, overseas strikes, and domestic National Guard deployments. Many participants associate the country’s condition with storms, feel politically divided, and express uneven patriotism ahead of the 250th anniversary. Those who considered enlistment cite education benefits but were deterred by misalignment with personal beliefs, military culture, and perceptions of foreign conflicts shaped heavily by TikTok. Gen Z is described as “passionate,” “online,” “empathetic,” and “malleable,” with pessimism tied to economic pressure and distrust of institutions. Recruitment challenges are linked to eligibility, opportunity costs, and legitimacy concerns.

Comment: A long read in an interactive format. Please go to the link to read the entire article. So much to parse in this piece. Many of us will dismiss this article as we read it through the lens of our (long) experience. We will chalk up these feelings to woke culture or the decline in values. But we fail to heed and to try to understand their views at our peril.

Opinion

America In Focus‘We’ve Been Let Down’: 11 Gen Z-ers on the Military, America’s Place in the World and Their Generation

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/12/12/opinion/focus-group-gen-z-voters-military.html?unlocked_article_code=1.9U8.2hw2.UDSGBilpjH8u&smid=url-share

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Since President Trump took office, his administration has called up National Guard members and sent them into U.S. cities, conducted airstrikes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, emphasized a new “warrior” ethos and changed the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War. These developments come at a time of continued conflict in Europe and the Middle East, rising tensions in Asia and ongoing worries about the military’s ability to recruit young people.

What do American Gen Z civilians think about the military, America’s place in the world and how their generation might differ from others?

For the latest installment of the America in Focus project, we spoke with 11 young Americans who considered joining the military but did not do so, hadn’t themselves considered joining the military but knew people who did join or, in one case, had already served. This focus group was conducted before Thanksgiving, prior to the tragic shooting of two National Guard members and the heightened scrutiny of the Trump administration’s boat strikes in recent weeks.

Many of the participants who had considered the military had been especially drawn to the educational benefits the military offers, but personal beliefs and concerns about both military culture and conflicts abroad ultimately kept them from joining. The conversation is another reminder that TikTok and other social media are shaping young people’s perceptions of institutions and America’s place in the world to a great extent, particularly around the conflict in Gaza. The group also had opinions on the idea of the American dream and on what distinguishes their generation from others.

Katherine Miller, Kristen Soltis Anderson and Adrian J. Rivera

Ms. Miller is a staff editor in Opinion. Ms. Soltis Anderson is a pollster. Mr. Rivera is an editorial assistant in Opinion.

12. ‘Testing the waters’? US reported to have seized Chinese cargo bound for Iran

Summary:

This South China Morning Post report says the United States may have seized a Chinese cargo shipment allegedly bound for Iran, raising questions about expanded interdiction tactics beyond sanctions and export controls. Washington argues some Chinese firms supply dual use components that could help Iran rebuild ballistic missile capacity, citing recent U.S. Treasury sanctions tied to solid propellant inputs. U.S. INDOPACOM did not confirm the operation, and the ship was not identified. Commentators split sharply: one analyst framed it as Washington “testing the waters” for international reaction, while a former PLA officer called high seas interception piracy. The piece notes precedents involving Iran, north Korea, and Venezuela.

Comet: Putting the DISRUPT act (see NDAA 2026) into action?

‘Testing the waters’? US reported to have seized Chinese cargo bound for Iran

South China Morning Post

The US accuses China of supplying Iran with dual-use components that could potentially support Tehran’s ballistic missile build-up

Seong Hyeon Choiin Hong KongandSylvie Zhuangin Beijing

Published: 10:00am, 16 Dec 2025

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3336545/us-testing-waters-reported-seizure-chinese-cargo-bound-iran

The report did not name the ship or its owner.

The US Indo-Pacific Command did not respond to the South China Morning Post’s emailed request to confirm the operation.

Washington accuses China of supplying Iran with dual-use components that could potentially support Tehran’s efforts to rebuild and modernise its ballistic missile forces.

The US seeks to curb Iranian missile development amid renewed regional tensions and American sanctions on entities linked to the programme.

In April, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on six entities and six individuals based in Iran and China for helping Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a paramilitary organisation, to procure chemical ingredients used to produce solid propellant rocket motors for ballistic missiles.

China has repeatedly voiced opposition to such US sanctions, arguing that they hinder normal cooperation and have no basis in international law.

The reported operation last month appeared to echo previous US actions targeting Washington’s adversaries – including Iran, North Korea and, more recently, Venezuela.

US seizes oil tanker off Venezuela

In January 2024, US Central Command forces operating in the Middle East seized 200 packages containing Iranian-made components that Washington said were used to produce weapons such as medium-range ballistic missiles.

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The shipment, seized in the Arabian Sea off Somalia, was destined for Houthi militants in Yemen to fuel their attacks on Red Sea shipping, the Central Command said.

In 2020, Washington seized four oil tankers transporting Iranian fuel to Venezuela, in what it said was the largest seizure ever at that time.

A similar operation was also conducted during the Biden administration in 2023, when the US Navy intercepted an Iranian-flagged tanker and seized its cargo of nearly one million barrels of sanctioned Iranian oil bound for China.

In 2018, Washington seized the North Korean bulk carrier Wise Honest for sanctions violations involving coal and machinery.

Last month, the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier was deployed in the Caribbean Sea for the first time since 1994, to support American strikes on vessels suspected of smuggling drugs from Venezuela to the United States and dismantle maritime trafficking networks.

US President Donald Trump even threatened land operations as tensions escalated with the South American country.

If confirmed, last month’s seizure would mark the first known US interception of outbound Chinese cargo on suspicion of aiding Iran’s military since the Yinhe incident in 1993.

The US Navy intercepted the Chinese cargo ship Yinhe in the Indian Ocean on suspicions that it was carrying chemical weapons precursors destined for Iran. But inspectors later found no such materials on board.

The US since then focused on using diplomacy, sanctions, and export control regulations to prevent China from proliferating missile technology or selling civil-military dual-use components to countries accused of illegally developing nuclear weapons, such as Iran or North Korea.

Lu Li-Shih, a former Taiwanese navy instructor, said the latest seizure showed Washington was “testing the waters”.

“By acting first, the US is probing how the international community will respond – whether the United Nations or institutions such as the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea will react at all,” Lu said.

More such actions could follow if the US saw no meaningful response, he warned.

If you intercept another country’s vessels on the high seas, that is, by definition, an act of piracy

Fu Qianshao, former PLA Air Force colonel

Dennis Wilder, a professor at Georgetown University and a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official, noted that while intervention against a ship bound for Iran from China for proliferation concerns was not common, it is also “not unprecedented”.

“The degree to which it deters Chinese companies from supplying Iran with WMD [weapons of mass destruction] assistance depends on the quality of intelligence acquired,” Wilder said. “If intelligence is only episodic, it will not deter the proliferators.”

Fu Qianshao, a former Chinese air force colonel, described the US move as unlawful.

“If you intercept another country’s vessels on the high seas, that is, by definition, an act of piracy. Smaller countries may be forced to tolerate it, but that does not make it lawful,” he said.

“We are now seeing US carrier strike groups in the waters off South America intercepting numerous vessels and even sinking several of them.

“These are outright acts of piracy that violate international law. A country cannot elevate its domestic law above international law. International law must prevail.”

South China Morning Post

13. In Search of a China Strategy (analysis of the 2025 NSS)

Summary:

Ryan Fedasiuk argues Washington lacks a theory of victory in its rivalry with China, and tactical detentes cannot substitute for clear objectives. He says policy oscillation imposes costs on U.S. industry and allies, while delivering only temporary stability and eroding leverage. The 2025 National Security Strategy, he contends, outlines principles but dodges four decisions: what outcomes the U.S. seeks from China, the bounds of economic and technology competition, the role China should play in global order, and what kind of China America can live with. He warns “small yard” controls are expanding to nearly every supply chain, risking de facto decoupling without admitting it. He urges defining red lines, safe zones for limited coordination, and the costs America will bear.

Conclusion:

Succeeding in competition with China does not require choosing maximalist confrontation or total accommodation, nor does it demand perfect foresight about how competition will unfold—but it does demand making difficult choices about what outcomes America seeks and what costs it is willing to bear to achieve them. The four questions posed here do not exhaust the complexity of US-China relations. But answering them would give American policy what it desperately needs: a theory of victory in the most consequential contest of our time.

Comment: What is the acceptable durable political arrangement that will sustain, protect, and advance US national security and national prosperity interests?

In Search of a China Strategy

By Ryan Fedasiuk

The American Enterprise

December 15, 2025

https://www.aei.org/op-eds/in-search-of-a-china-strategy/

Four questions will determine whether America wins or loses its rivalry with China.

The world exhaled when President Trump and Xi Jinping struck their tactical détente in South Korea in October, slashing tariffs, pausing restrictions on exports, and reopening diplomatic channels. For the sixth time in as many months, Washington and Beijing both claimed victory, markets rallied, and pundits lauded efforts to “stabilize” the relationship.

Yet no amount of diplomatic choreography can substitute for an answer to the most essential question: What does the United States want from China?

It is the defining question of 21st-century geopolitics. Every other alliance, market, and security calculus orbits around it. The Biden administration maintained that US-China competition “is simply not going to resolve in a neat and decisive end state.” Trump has offered no clearer answer, oscillating between provocation and accommodation as different factions within his administration temporarily seize the reins of American foreign policy.

This evasion has consequences. The United States has assembled the most sophisticated apparatus for economic competition in its history—export controls that can reshape entire industries, investment restrictions that redirect global capital, and alliance networks spanning every continent. Yet Washington cannot articulate what this machinery is meant to produce. It alienates allies asked to bear economic costs for undefined objectives and inflicts tremendous pain on American industry, which must restructure supply chains for goals that shift monthly.

Refusing to set goals is not strategy—it is abdication. The 2025 National Security Strategy was supposed to impose coherence on a fractured policy. Instead, it articulated broad principles about American strength while sidestepping four choices that will define the future of global power.

What Should the United States Want from China?

The Biden administration pursued managed competition with China, which included limited areas of compelled cooperation. Some in Trump’s orbit now push for a far different strategy—a comprehensive confrontation that can weaken China’s relative power. Others support a transactional approach, which accepts and makes room for China’s rise in exchange for concrete economic concessions from Beijing.

Each answer carries costs that its advocates are often reticent to acknowledge. A competitive posture means bearing the economic pain of restructured supply chains, accepting that allies will not always follow America’s lead, and enduring China’s inevitable retaliation. Managed coexistence requires defining areas where cooperation serves US interests and defending them against domestic opposition. A purely transactional approach demands explaining why American values take a back seat to dealmaking—and accepting that deals with Beijing have lifespans measured in months and are liable to change.

Comprehensive cooperation between superpowers is difficult, perhaps impossible, to achieve in practice. Even during the height of the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union were able to sustain only limited cooperation in human spaceflight, nuclear nonproliferation, and confidence-building measures at sea. The cooperative agenda between the United States and China today is even less ambitious.

In the absence of clearly defined “safe zones,” no form of cooperation between the United States and China survives contact with domestic politics. A goal as noble as cancer research necessarily raises concerns about applications in bioweapons and custody of sensitive data. The path to one of the Biden administration’s most significant objectives—addressing climate change by capping methane and CO2 emissions—rested on solar cells made with forced labor in Xinjiang and electric vehicles banned from the US market on national security grounds. Under Trump, resuming even milquetoast exchanges between Chinese and American students and scholars risks implicating inbound Chinese students in espionage and political influence and making Americans and their affiliates in China unwitting hostages to great power politics.

Where Washington and Beijing have been able to carve out narrow areas of cooperation—on counternarcotics, agricultural trade, and deepening communications between their militaries—both capitals have kept expectations low. China remains on the US list of Major Drug Producing Countries despite commitments to curb the sale of fentanyl precursors. Beijing cycles through soybean boycotts and record purchases as negotiating leverage rather than stable commerce. And on military communications, leaders from both countries seem to acknowledge that the meeting is the deliverable.

Yet pure competition carries its own costs. Export restrictions on advanced semiconductors have forced the restructuring of global supply chains at enormous expense to US industry and alienated allies who depend on Chinese markets. These costs could be justified if Washington consistently articulated what strategic objectives they serve. Instead, the United States has repeatedly traded away hard-won leverage for temporary market stability.

The US-China détente in South Korea exemplifies this pattern: Tariffs were slashed, and export controls eased for commitments that will expire the moment Beijing’s calculus shifts. This is not strategic competition but the worst of both worlds, paying the costs of confrontation while accepting the risks of accommodation.

The Trump administration should define clearly what the United States wants from China beyond demands to cease its repressive measures at home and destabilizing activities abroad. If there are still narrow areas where cooperation is not just possible but desirable—be they nonproliferation, counterterrorism, health, or food security—then senior administration officials will need to identify what they are, and muster the political courage to defend them. But if there is truly no common ground left to stand on, Washington should pursue forthright competition while acknowledging its costs.

What Are the Bounds of Economic and Technology Competition with China?

Trade has long served as a ballast to the fraught US-China political relationship. The Biden administration consistently maintained that the United States sought to derisk, not decouple, from China’s economy—a position then-Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen articulated repeatedly. Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has echoed this language, stating, “We don’t need to decouple from China. We just have to derisk”—despite campaign rhetoric that included revoking permanent normal trade relations with China.

The disintegration of US-China trade has evolved in ways that neither side intended or anticipated. For example, the boundaries of the US “small-yard, high-fence” approach to technology competition have stretched beyond their initial preoccupation with national security and human rights. What began with targeted controls on advanced semiconductors and surveillance technology has since expanded to electric vehicles, pharmaceutical supply chains, port cranes, and consumer drones.

No industry today is insulated from concern that it may be used in China’s military modernization, implicated in egregious human rights violations, or enabled by unfair economic and trade practices. The Trump administration should decide whether to accept this reality or rein in the impulse to securitize every supply chain. If technology competition truly encompasses every sector where China seeks leadership—from quantum computing to biotechnology to clean energy—then America should be prepared to bear the economic costs of its slide toward full decoupling. If there are limits to this competition, Washington should articulate them clearly enough that American companies and allied governments can plan accordingly.

There is a defensible argument for either approach. Advocates of decoupling recognize that, under China’s strategy of military-civil fusion, nearly any advanced technology can and does contribute to Chinese military capabilities. It acknowledges that Beijing has systematically refused to play by market rules and worked assiduously to unlock asymmetric capabilities that threaten the United States and its allies. The risk is that broad restrictions alienate allies who depend on Chinese markets and force the issue of China’s technological self-sufficiency.

The narrower alternative—truly limiting controls to technologies with direct military applications and egregious human rights uses—requires painful trade-offs. It means accepting that China will lead in some civilian technologies. It means distinguishing between economic competition (where the goal is American competitiveness) and security competition (where the goal is Chinese incapability). Most difficult of all, it requires explaining to domestic constituencies why some forms of economic interdependence serve American interests even as others threaten them.

What the United States cannot sustain is the current incoherence: a policy that expands or retracts controls based on the demands of whichever faction has gained temporary ascendancy, without a theory of what we are trying to achieve or what costs we are willing to bear. The Trump administration’s record on technology competition will be defined by whether it imposes discipline on this process or succumbs to it.

What Role Should China Play in the World?

China has simultaneously become the linchpin of an “axis of upheaval”—deepening ties with Russia, Iran, and North Korea in ways that threaten the international order—and positioned itself as a world leader with an extraordinary capacity for statecraft that wields tremendous influence over America’s declared enemies.

Among these US adversaries, the most urgent challenge is Russia. Chinese companies have largely succeeded in reconstituting the Russian defense industrial base, supplying everything from machine tools and drone components to empty artillery shells and the nitrocellulose required to fill them. Most in Washington now seem to acknowledge the futility of trying to drive a wedge between the two countries—their authoritarian solidarity and shared anti-Americanism have only deepened under pressure. But this does not mean Beijing’s role is fixed or that American policy should treat it as such. If the Trump administration is serious about ending the war in Ukraine, it should force Xi to carry the price of Putin’s war effort. This means secondary sanctions on Chinese firms enabling Russia’s defense production and coordinated restrictions on dual-use technology flows.

The calculus grows more complex when considering China’s role beyond Ukraine. Beijing holds unique leverage over Pyongyang, Tehran, and various regional conflicts. Some cases—such as preventing nuclear proliferation or containing regional conflicts that could spiral—present a limited but genuine alignment of Chinese and American interests. This is coordination, not cooperation—parallel action by powers that remain competitors but share specific vulnerabilities. The challenge is distinguishing between areas where Chinese influence serves American interests and where it categorically undermines them.

The contradiction runs deeper still. China has positioned itself as a responsible steward of global governance—increasing funding for the United Nations, securing leadership roles in key international organizations, and championing BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank as alternatives to Western-led institutions. These moves force Washington to decide whether the United States should welcome China shouldering more of the burdens of global governance, consistent with the transactional view that America is overextended, or if it should view any expansion of Chinese influence in international institutions as a threat.

The National Security Strategy gestures at this tension through its rhetoric about “burden-sharing” and allies assuming “primary responsibility for their regions,” yet never clarifies what role China should or should not play in this reconfigured order. The result is drift: allowing Beijing to present itself as a reliable partner to the developing world while America vacillates between leading, following, and exiting.

The Trump administration should articulate where it will defend to the hilt an American sphere of influence, where it will contest Chinese attempts to supplant American leadership, and where it can tolerate or welcome Beijing shouldering burdens of global governance. The alternative is to cede these complexities to Beijing, which excels at exploiting American ambiguity.

What Kind of China Can the United States Live With?

This final question is the most difficult to answer because it demands that we define America’s purpose in a changing world. During the Cold War, American strategy evolved from containment to détente to a hope that the Soviet system would ultimately reform or collapse. With China, the objective has always been more ambiguous. The engagement era assumed that economic integration would liberalize Chinese politics. That assumption is now resoundingly dead.

To replace it, some voices call for a comprehensive confrontation aimed at weakening the Chinese Communist Party. Others advocate a purely realist competition focused on capabilities rather than values. Still others maintain that defending human rights in Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet, and Taiwan remains a core American interest worth significant cost.

The Trump administration cannot avoid this choice. How it responds when Beijing moves to control the Dalai Lama’s succession will reveal whether Tibetan religious freedom warrants sustained confrontation. Whether it imposes lasting costs for Hong Kong’s crushed autonomy will clarify whether political repression is negotiable. Its approach to Taiwan will demonstrate whether the United States will risk escalation to defend democratic sovereignty.

The United States does not need to resolve the internal debate about Chinese governance. But it should define the conditions under which it can coexist with an authoritarian China that rejects liberal norms. It should distinguish between behaviors America will grudgingly tolerate, behaviors it will actively contest, and behaviors that constitute red lines for which it will impose some cost.

Without this clarity, American policy will remain a collection of tactical responses to Chinese actions, held together by bureaucratic inertia and the lowest common denominator of factional agreement.

The Case for a China Strategy

President Trump entered office promising coherence in America’s China policy after years of drift. One year on, he is failing—not from poor execution of a strategy but the absence of one.

The National Security Strategy offers a framework for thinking about China without resolving the hard choices competition requires. The document calls for allies to “counteract predatory economic practices” while deepening relations with India and organizing burden-sharing arrangements—but provides no mechanism for adjudicating when these objectives conflict. They inevitably do: Allies who counter China economically also depend on Chinese markets, and burden-sharing demands can alienate the partners needed for collective action. This rhetoric papers over rather than resolves the fundamental contradictions between economic nationalism, hard-power competition, and transactional restraint that have come to dominate the Trump administration’s approach.

Succeeding in competition with China does not require choosing maximalist confrontation or total accommodation, nor does it demand perfect foresight about how competition will unfold—but it does demand making difficult choices about what outcomes America seeks and what costs it is willing to bear to achieve them. The four questions posed here do not exhaust the complexity of US-China relations. But answering them would give American policy what it desperately needs: a theory of victory in the most consequential contest of our time.

14. Pax Silica can reshape supply chains for greater economic security

Summary:

John Coyne argues Pax Silica, launched in Washington on 12 December, is a US-led effort to secure the full silicon stack, from minerals and energy through chips, computing, and data infrastructure, because AI makes economic security inseparable from national security. He says the initiative usefully frames supply chains as a systems problem and gathers trusted partners with complementary strengths, giving Australia a chance to integrate its advantages in energy, minerals, and logistics into allied tech ecosystems. Coyne warns, however, that implementation is the constraint: declarations must become demand certainty and bankable projects. He highlights missing mechanisms like long-term offtake, coordinated procurement, price supports, or reserves, and notes risks from state-subsidised overcapacity and coordination complexity.

Conclusion:

Pax Silica is best understood not as a solution, but as an enabling framework. It creates political permission to tackle the hard problems that have stalled allied supply-chain resilience for years. Whether it succeeds will depend less on how many countries sign on, and more on whether participants are willing to make uncomfortable trade-offs on capital, coordination and industrial policy.

Comment: Seems like a very important initiative iof we get it right. Prior to the announcement I had not heard anything about its development.

Pax Silica can reshape supply chains for greater economic security | The Strategist

aspistrategist.org.au · John Coyne · December 16, 2025

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/pax-silica-can-reshape-supply-chains-for-greater-economic-security/

Pax Silica sounds like the future because, in many respects, it is. In an era where artificial intelligence is reorganising the global economy, control over the silicon supply chain—from minerals and energy through to chips, computing and data infrastructure—has become a determinant of national power. The question now is whether Pax Silica will become another well-intentioned declaration, or a mechanism that actually reshapes supply, demand and investment behaviour at scale.

Launched at a summit in Washington on 12 December, Pax Silica is a US-led strategic initiative aimed at building a secure, prosperous and innovation-driven silicon supply chain across trusted partners. Australia joined the United States, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Britain and Israel as signatories, with additional engagement from the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates, Taiwan, the European Union, Canada and the OECD.

All the group’s members have seemingly been selected for strategic purposes, for their specific strengths and the general need to compete with China. For example, Japan, which has led the economic security approach to strategic competition, has longstanding experience facing economic and supply chain coercion from Beijing and is investing in critical technology at scale. Together, these economies host many of the world’s most important firms across semiconductors, AI infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, logistics, energy and critical minerals.

At its core, Pax Silica reflects a growing geopolitical consensus that economic security is inseparable from national security. Artificial intelligence is no longer a discrete technology sector; it is a general-purpose capability that pulls demand through every layer of the global economy. Computing power requires chips; chips require refined minerals; minerals require energy, logistics, water, labour, capital and social licence. Pax Silica’s central strength is that it recognises this reality and frames the challenge as a full-stack problem rather than a narrow technology or trade issue.

This systems-level framing is a genuine advance on earlier critical-minerals and supply-chain initiatives. Pax Silica explicitly encourages coordination across software platforms, foundation models, connectivity and network infrastructure, semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, logistics, minerals processing and energy.

For Australia, that matters. Our comparative advantage doesn’t sit at the top of the AI stack, but at its foundations: energy, minerals, space, land and proximity to Indo-Pacific partners. Pax Silica provides a narrative architecture that, in theory, allows those strengths to be integrated into allied technology ecosystems rather than treated as upstream commodities of convenience.

The initiative is also notable for its explicit acknowledgement of market distortion and coercive risk. Pax Silica doesn’t pretend that supply chains fail accidentally; it recognises the role of non-market practices, overcapacity, dumping and subsidy-driven price suppression in shaping today’s strategic vulnerabilities. That clarity is important, particularly as many previous frameworks avoided confronting the economic coercion problem directly.

Yet Pax Silica’s weaknesses are just as important as its promise—and they are familiar.

First, Pax Silica joins a crowded ecosystem of more than 30 critical-minerals, technology and economic-security agreements to which Australia is already a party. The strategic challenge is no longer alignment; it is implementation. Diplomatic capacity to sign declarations isn’t the constraint. The constraint is whether partners can convert political intent into demand certainty, investment discipline and delivery speed in markets where commercial signals remain distorted.

Second, Pax Silica doesn’t, by itself, solve the supply and demand problem at the heart of allied industrial strategy. On the supply side, projects face long approval timelines, infrastructure gaps, high energy costs and capital intensity. On the demand side, downstream manufacturers want reliable inputs at globally competitive prices. Without credible mechanisms, such as long-term offtake agreements, coordinated procurement, price floors or strategic reserves, private capital will remain cautious. Strategic rhetoric doesn’t close funding gaps; bankable revenue does.

Third, the initiative implicitly asks participants to withstand sustained economic pressure. Competing with state-subsidised overcapacity requires patient capital that can tolerate volatility and engineered price shocks. This isn’t just a finance problem; it’s a policy credibility problem. Investors need confidence that governments will hold their nerve when markets turn, not retreat at the first sign of political or fiscal pressure. Pax Silica gestures toward co-investment and coordination, but it doesn’t yet specify how that patience will be structured or protected.

Fourth, there’s a coordination risk embedded in Pax Silica’s ambition. The broader the stack, the greater the number of veto points across jurisdictions, agencies and regulatory regimes. Diversity of partners is a strength only if it produces a division of labour. Without clear role differentiation—who refines, who manufactures, who anchors demand—Pax Silica risks becoming a forum that discusses everything and delivers little.

For Australia, the strategic test is therefore not whether Pax Silica is well designed, but whether we use it to do fewer things better. That means identifying a limited number of Pax Silica-relevant pathways where Australia can anchor allied value chains, particularly in critical minerals processing, energy-to-computing power infrastructure, and trusted logistics and connectivity corridors. It means pushing beyond principles to negotiate concrete offtake and co-investment arrangements that de-risk projects for industry. And it means aligning domestic approvals, infrastructure sequencing and energy policy with the timelines that global technology markets demand.

Pax Silica is best understood not as a solution, but as an enabling framework. It creates political permission to tackle the hard problems that have stalled allied supply-chain resilience for years. Whether it succeeds will depend less on how many countries sign on, and more on whether participants are willing to make uncomfortable trade-offs on capital, coordination and industrial policy.

aspistrategist.org.au · John Coyne · December 16, 2025

15. Hegseth: Pentagon Won’t Release Full Video of Sept. 2 Boat Strike

Summary:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon will not publicly release the full, unedited video of the Sept. 2 boat strike tied to the administration’s Caribbean campaign against alleged “narco-terrorists.” Lawmakers briefed on the footage say it shows two survivors of an initial strike clinging to wreckage before a second attack kills them in the water, fueling accusations of a possible war crime. Hegseth argued declassification would expose sources, methods, and aircraft details, though he pledged to show the full video to armed-services members in secure session.

Comment: Karl Rove's timeless advice: "Get it out early. Get it out completely. Get it out yourself." Also described as “tell it early, tell it often, tell the truth.” But we all violate this because we always think we can do damage control in a better way. THIS time it will be different. And then afterward we think, "Why didn't I listen to Rove in the first place?"

Hegseth: Pentagon Won’t Release Full Video of Sept. 2 Boat Strike

WSJ

Defense secretary was speaking after briefing senators on the administration’s operations against what it calls ‘narco-terrorists’

By Lara Seligman

, Anvee Bhutani

and Shelby Holliday

Updated Dec. 16, 2025 3:03 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/pete-hegseth-boat-strike-video-no-release-28feb869?mod=hp_lista_pos3

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth arriving for a briefing on Capitol Hill. Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

The Pentagon won’t release the full, unedited video of a lethal Sept. 2 strike on alleged drug traffickers, said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, despite bipartisan calls to do so.

“In keeping with longstanding Department of War policy, Department of Defense policy, of course we’re not going to release a top secret, full unedited video of that to the general public,” Hegseth said Tuesday on Capitol Hill after he and Secretary of State Marco Rubio briefed senators on U.S. operations in the Caribbean on Capitol Hill.

The video shows two survivors of an initial U.S. airstrike in the Caribbean clinging to the remnants of their boat, before being killed in the water by a second attack, according to lawmakers and other people familiar with its contents. The footage has become a flashpoint in the debate over whether the operation constitutes a war crime. Supporters of the action say the two men remained a threat and were possibly radioing for help.

The Pentagon will share the full, unedited video with members of the Senate and House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday, Hegseth said.

“The Department of War has a longstanding policy of protecting classified videos, especially those depicting extended versions of kinetic lethal actions,” said Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell, when asked if the Defense Department would release an edited version of the video.

“Declassifying the top secret video of the September 2nd follow-on strike for public consumption would directly endanger ongoing operations, personnel, and assets in the SOUTHCOM AOR [the U.S. military in South and Central America]. Moreover, releasing it would reveal sources, methods, and tactics, which we will not do. The current operations in the Caribbean remain in accordance with the law and have been highly effective.”

Both Republican and Democratic senators have called on the Pentagon to release the full video. The annual must-pass defense spending bill coming through Congress this week includes a provision that would withhold some Pentagon funds until Hegseth turns over the footage.

In private, Trump administration officials have told some lawmakers that releasing the Sept. 2 video risks revealing what model of aircraft was used in the attacks, which could demonstrate sensitive information about U.S. military operations, a congressional aide said. Democrats view the explanation as an excuse to resist disclosure that could be addressed with edits to the video, the aide said.

Some information has been blurred in the videos that have been released, but other sensitive details remain visible on screen. For example, in some cases different crosshair markings can reveal which weapon was used in a strike, and the munitions themselves are visible in some of the clips.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) said DoD should release the footage because the strikes are “lawful.”

“The least of my concerns is this friggin video. Release it,” Graham said after Tuesday’s briefing, comparing the administration’s campaign against alleged drug smugglers to former President Bush’s invasion of Panama. “I have every confidence of what they’re doing is no different than what Bush did.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), left, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.). Andrew Harnik/Getty Images; Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said the administration’s reason for not showing the video was that “it might give things away.”

“I respect classification,” Schumer said, but “when you do it in the SCIF”—a secure room for sensitive briefings—“that argument is undercut.”

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R., Okla.) suggested lawmakers would leak information about the video to journalists if they saw it.

“Do you think Omar should have all this information? I will say no,” he said, referring to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.), who President Trump recently called “garbage.”

Sen. Chris Murphy (D., Conn.) said Tuesday’s briefing only lasted 50 minutes, with most of the time taken up by presentation, leaving little time for senators to ask questions. He added that nothing the officials said “justifies what they’re doing legally or tactically.”

“This is basically boys with toys, wasting billions of dollars on a mission that doesn’t make us any safer,” Murphy said.

Both Republican and Democratic senators said the end goal of the operation was still unclear.

“Every indication by President Trump is that the purpose of this operation is to shut down the Maduro regime,” said Graham. “What I want is some clarity going forward. Is that, in fact, the goal?”

The administration has published 20 video clips of strikes since the operation against alleged drug traffickers began in September. So far 26 boats have been attacked and at least 95 people have been killed.

Write to Lara Seligman at lara.seligman@wsj.com, Anvee Bhutani at anvee.bhutani@wsj.com and Shelby Holliday at shelby.holliday@wsj.com

Appeared in the December 17, 2025, print edition as 'Pentagon Won’t Release Full Boat Video'.

WSJ

16. Senior US and Chinese defence officials continue ‘military-to-military’ dialogue

Summary:

Senior U.S. and Chinese defense officials met in Washington December 15 to 16 for the 19th Defense Policy Coordination Talks, signaling a continued restart of mil-to-mil engagement. Pentagon official Alvaro Smith said wider communications with the PLA are intended to bolster strategic stability, enable crisis deconfliction, and support de-escalation, while asserting U.S. interests remain “scoped and reasonable” and will be defended. The session followed Defense Secretary Hegseth’s October 31 meeting with China’s Defense Minister Dong Jun in Malaysia, which reopened channels after years of disruption. Despite renewed dialogue, core disputes persist, especially over Taiwan, and “G2” framing has drawn U.S. domestic backlash.

Comment: I have not seen any other reporting on this. I surveyed the WSJ, NYTIMES, WAPOST, FOX, and CNN and there are no reports of these talks.

Senior US and Chinese defence officials continue ‘military-to-military’ dialogue

South China Morning Post

Talks follow Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s meeting with China’s Minister of National Defence, Admiral Dong Jun, to help stabilise ties

Bochen Hanin Washington

Published: 6:58am, 17 Dec 2025Updated: 7:52am, 17 Dec 2025

https://www.scmp.com/news/us/article/3336686/senior-us-and-chinese-defence-officials-meet-military-military-dialogue-continues?utm

Senior US and Chinese defence officials met in Washington this week in the latest sign of renewed military-to-military communication as the two countries seek to stabilise ties.

Alvaro Smith, a deputy assistant secretary of defence for China, Taiwan and Mongolia at the Pentagon, met with China’s Major General Ye Jiang, Deputy Director of the Central Military Commission Office for International Military Cooperation, for the 19th annual US-China Defence Policy Coordination Talks from December 15 to 16, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.

The talks this week follow Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s meeting with China’s Minister of National Defence, Admiral Dong Jun, on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Defence Ministers Meeting Plus in Malaysia on October 31.

That was the first face-to-face meeting between the two countries’ defence chiefs during the second term of the Donald Trump administration.

China’s Minister of National Defence, Admiral Dong Jun, attends the Asean meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on October 31. Photo: AFP

After those talks, which were followed by a phone call, Hegseth said the two countries had agreed to “set up military-to-military channels to deconflict and de-escalate any problems that arise”.

Smith reiterated that message this week. In a Tuesday statement, the Pentagon said Smith highlighted the department’s “support for a wider range of military-to-military communications” with the People’s Liberation Army “with the goal of supporting strategic stability as well as crisis deconfliction and de-escalation, more broadly”.

Smith also explained that such lines of communication reinforce ongoing efforts by Trump “to achieve a stable peace and respectful relations” between the US and China, according to the statement.

The assistant secretary of defence also stated that US interests in the Indo-Pacific were “significant, but also scoped and reasonable”, and that the Pentagon stood ready to defend them.

The forum, traditionally held annually, alternates between Beijing and Washington and provides a channel for the two sides to raise concerns and coordinate further engagements throughout the year.

The previous two rounds were held in January and September last year, following a multi-year pause after China severed military talks in response to former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022.

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

The messaging from the Defence Department to Beijing since Hegseth’s meeting with Dong has emphasised stabilisation and engagement, even as core disputes over regional security remain unresolved.

Hegseth, in November, called the October summit between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea a historic “G2 meeting” that “set the tone for everlasting peace and success for the US and China” – a departure from his remarks at a defence forum in Singapore earlier in the year that angered Beijing.

The G2 term, first used by the US President to describe the two countries, has drawn backlash from some US lawmakers.

The G2 – or the Group of Two – is a concept depicting a bipolar world order dominated by the US and China. While the term has occasionally been used to describe the two as twin global economic and military powers, it has rarely been used in American political circles, as it implies peer status for China relative to the US.

Dong, for his part, has sent similar messages in recent weeks, urging more communication between the two sides while stressing that Beijing would safeguard its national security interests.

“We hope the US will take concrete action to support its statements of not containing China and not seeking conflict,” Dong said, according to a Chinese defence ministry statement after his meeting with Hegseth.

“The two countries should strengthen decision-making level communication to increase trust and eliminate suspicion … and encourage universities, academia and the strategic community to provide support for the two militaries to explore the correct way of coexisting.”

South China Morning Post

17. Newcomers in charge at PLA’s corruption-hit command overseeing Taiwan

Summary:

Two newly visible senior officers appear to be running the PLA Eastern Theatre Command, which is responsible for Taiwan and has been shaken by corruption investigations. CCTV footage from the Dec. 13 Nanjing Massacre commemoration showed PLAAF Lt. Gen. Yang Zhibin and Lt. Gen. Zhang Jichun representing the command, suggesting they have assumed acting commander and political commissar roles after former commander Lin Xiangyang was expelled and prosecuted in October and former commissar Liu Qingsong vanished from view. Yang brings operational experience from multiple theatre commands and Fujian-facing aviation units, while Zhang has deep political-work credentials and Rocket Force roots. Analysts say the shift preserves continuity and readiness despite the purge.

Newcomers in charge at PLA’s corruption-hit command overseeing Taiwan

South China Morning Post

State media shows Yang Zhibin and Zhang Jichun at official event, suggesting they are heading the Eastern Theatre Command

William Zheng

Published: 5:49pm, 17 Dec 2025Updated: 6:48pm, 17 Dec 2025

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3336778/pla-division-overseeing-taiwan-sees-newcomers-charge?utm

The mainland Chinese military’s Eastern Theatre Command, the corruption-hit division that oversees Taiwan, appears to be headed by two recent additions to the command.

The appointments will enable the command to maintain continuity of operations despite the corruption cases among its leadership, according to an analyst.

PLA Air Force Lieutenant General Yang Zhibin, 62, and Lieutenant General Zhang Jichun, 57, stood alongside other senior officials at mainland China’s annual commemoration of the Nanking massacre in Nanjing, in eastern Jiangsu province, on Saturday, according to footage aired by state broadcaster CCTV.

01:33

PLA anti-graft chief Zhang Shengmin promoted to vice-chair of Central Military Commission

While official reports did not refer to Yang and Zhang by title, they did say that top officials from the Eastern Theatre Command were present. The two men, together with General Liu Zhenli, the People’s Liberation Army chief of staff of the Joint Staff Department, were the only senior military officers present.

At the same event last year, both the commander and the political commissar of the theatre command were in the same positions. The commander at the time, Lin Xiangyang, was expelled from the Communist Party on corruption charges and handed over to prosecutors in October, while former political commissar Liu Qingsong has not been seen in public for months.

The tightly scripted annual commemoration is regarded as an important national event to remind the public of the 1937 massacre in which China says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. The ranks and positions of civilian and military officials attending follow strict procedures.

Shi Taifeng, head of the party’s organisation department and one of 23 Politburo members, was the highest-ranking official to attend the 88th anniversary commemoration.

Yang and Zhang also represented the theatre command at an event in September, months after Lin and Liu disappeared.

Between 2021 and 2023, Yang was a deputy commander of the Southern Theatre Command, which oversees the South China Sea, before being named deputy commander of the Western Theatre Command with oversight of the region that includes the border with India.

Yang last appeared in official coverage in the Western Theatre Command position as late as March, meaning his assignment to the east only came later this year. He is believed to be the acting commander of the Eastern Theatre Command due to his experience.

He started his career in the PLA Air Force at the 26th Division of the 8th Air Force Corps stationed in Fujian, an elite unit facing the Taiwan Strait, where he rose to commander.

In 2010, he was promoted to commander of the air force’s Wuhan base and was reassigned to the same role in Fuzhou, capital of Fujian province, a year later in a position key to Beijing’s military pressure on Taiwan.

In December 2014, he headed southwest after being promoted to deputy chief of staff of the Lanzhou Military Region, and in April 2017, he was appointed commander of the Shaanxi Military District.

Lieutenant General Zhang Jichun is pictured at the annual commemorations for the Nanking massacre. Photo: CCTV

Lieutenant General Zhang Jichun, the other representative of the command on Saturday, has years of experience in political work, a requirement for a political commissar.

Zhang started his career in the army’s first surface-to-surface conventional missile brigade where he rose to commander, but official coverage suggests he later moved to political work at various divisions of the PLA Rocket Force.

During the 2019 military parade, Zhang was one of two generals to lead the DF-26 nuclear and conventional dual missile formation through Tiananmen Square in an inspection overseen by President Xi Jinping.

Zhang was transferred from the rocket force to the former strategic support force, serving as the political commissar of the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre in 2021.

A Chinese military analyst said the appearance of Yang and Zhang showed that there had been little interruption to the PLA’s command chain despite the abrupt removal of top commanders such as Lin Xiangyang in the sweeping anti-corruption campaign.

Highlights of China’s military parade marking the 80th anniversary of Japan’s WWII surrender

“The Eastern Theatre Command was one of the hardest-hit areas in this major military reshuffle. Yang and Zhang face a dedicated job of eradicating the factions of Miao Hua and He Weidong while keeping the troops’ war readiness,” the Beijing-based analyst said, declining to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.

“They need to maintain the morale of the troops who are tasked with the critical Taiwan front. They must make sure things [will not] go wrong.”

In the past two years, Miao, former head of the political work department of the PLA, and He, former vice-chair of the Central Military Commission, have been expelled from the military on corruption charges.

South China Morning Post

18. Anchoring Intelligence: Ground Truth in an Age of Synthetic Deception

Summary:

AI-enabled military intelligence is only as trustworthy as its inputs, and agentic AI will flood open sources with convincing synthetic content. Today’s platforms excel at mapping enemy forces and generating kinetic options, but they lack comparable understanding of human terrain and second-order political effects. The author proposes a two-part fix: machine versus machine tools to detect manipulation, disrupt bot networks, and counter-message at AI speed, plus a ground truth pipeline that turns first-hand observations into structured analytic products. He urges training, mandated deliverables, and embedded academics so AI gains context, not just targets. Otherwise, AI risks winning battles while losing wars.

Excerpts:

The U.S. military stands at a decision point. One path leads to AI-enabled excellence in traditional military operations rooted in ground truth and informed by genuine understanding of context and consequences: faster targeting cycles, more efficient operations, better force protection, and superior kinetic effects, all underpinned by AI-enabled situational understanding anchored in structured and consistent human insights.

The other path leads to AI-enabled tactical brilliance combined with strategic blindness: an exquisitely optimized machine for winning battles while losing wars and for achieving lethal kinetic effects while remaining deaf to their reverberations across society and through time. The choice is not binary, between AI-enabled speed and scale versus human insight and understanding. The question is whether the U.S. military will invest in fusing the two, or watch its newest capability become a dangerous liability.

Anchoring Intelligence: Ground Truth in an Age of Synthetic Deception

warontherocks.com · December 17, 2025

Nicholas Krohley

December 17, 2025

https://warontherocks.com/2025/12/anchoring-intelligence-ground-truth-in-an-age-of-synthetic-deception/

It’s almost cliché but nonetheless true: The U.S. military’s AI-enabled platforms are only as good as their inputs.

Across the force, these systems are transforming how to analyze threats, develop targets, and plan operations. From Palantir’s Maven Smart System to various service-specific initiatives, these systems promise unprecedented speed and precision in processing vast amounts of battlefield data. The impact of this technology is hailed as revolutionary, transforming the way the military thinks, plans, and fights.

But right now, the vast preponderance of data and analysis feeding these systems is oriented toward one thing: enemy forces. The U.S. military is building an extraordinarily sophisticated machine for understanding military capabilities, tracking enemy forces, and developing kinetic targeting options.

What it is not building is a system that understands how adversaries are embedded in the human terrain where competition and conflict occur, how actions will reverberate through complex social, cultural, and political systems, or why certain populations may respond to these actions in unexpected ways.

Concurrently, emerging agentic AI capabilities are poised to transform the digital information environment from which the military pulls much of its data and analysis on contextual dynamics into a corrupted and distorted hall of mirrors. It will do so by automating and radically accelerating the production of synthetic content and “fake news” at unprecedented speed and scale.

A two-pronged response is urgently needed to tackle the challenge.

The first prong is “machine-versus-machine” — deploying the U.S. military’s own agentic AI capabilities to detect and counter adversarial attacks. This line of effort will identify synthetic or manipulated content, take down bot networks, and generate counter-messaging at the speed of AI.

The second prong is profoundly human. As AI-created “slop” becomes increasingly sophisticated, compelling, and omnipresent online, the value of first-hand, human-sourced insight will skyrocket. If the military wants to make sense of this new information ecosystem — online and offline alike — it should anchor its understanding in ground truth. This can be achieved by feeding its AI-enabled central nervous system with structured, consistent, human-generated inputs.

Unless both efforts succeed, the AI revolution risks catalyzing a surge in kinetic military activity that is detached from substantive understanding of the real-world effects that it will generate.

BECOME A MEMBER

War of the Machines: The Agentic AI “Fake News” Deluge

Agentic AI represents a fundamental leap beyond previous AI systems. Unlike traditional AI, which responds to queries and processes data, agentic AI systems can autonomously set goals, develop strategies, and execute complex, multi-step operations with minimal human oversight. These systems can operate continuously, learning and adapting in real-time, making decisions about how to achieve their programmed objectives while navigating complex digital environments.

China has emerged as an early and aggressive adopter of agentic AI for influence operations. In recent months, Chinese state-sponsored actors have deployed sophisticated agentic AI attacks that exponentially scaled operations that were previously labor intensive. Whereas bot farms once required teams of human operators to create content, manage accounts, and coordinate messaging across platforms, agentic AI now automates the entire pipeline. These systems can generate synthetic personas complete with coherent posting histories, create contextually appropriate content in multiple languages, engage in seemingly natural conversations with real users, and coordinate campaigns across dozens of platforms simultaneously.

The scale is unprecedented. A single agentic AI system can manage thousands of synthetic accounts, each with unique characteristics and posting patterns. These systems can monitor trending topics in real-time, identify influential voices, and craft targeted responses designed to amplify divisive narratives or suppress inconvenient truths. They can detect when specific accounts or messages are gaining traction, and automatically deploy coordinated swarms of synthetic engagement to boost or suppress them.

Perhaps most concerning is the capacity for micro-targeted operations. Agentic AI enables campaigns that operate simultaneously at multiple levels — from macro-level narratives targeting entire demographic cohorts to micro-level operations focused on key individuals. Chinese influence operations have demonstrated the ability to build detailed profiles of military personnel, policymakers, and journalists, then craft personalized influence campaigns delivered through multiple touchpoints. A targeted individual might thus encounter seemingly unrelated content across different platforms, all subtly reinforcing the same narrative, without ever noticing the coordinated nature of the campaign.

The technology also enables unprecedented sophistication in multimedia content generation. Agentic AI systems can create convincing synthetic images, videos, and audio tailored to specific contexts. They can generate fake news articles complete with fabricated sources and quotes, create synthetic satellite imagery suggesting military deployments that never occurred, or produce doctored video footage showing events that never happened. These operations increasingly blend synthetic and authentic content so seamlessly that even sophisticated users struggle to distinguish between them. The result is an information environment where the provenance and veracity of information becomes fundamentally uncertain.

For the U.S. military, this transformation poses an existential challenge to one of its most critical intelligence sources: the open-source information environment. Military planners have grown increasingly dependent on information gleaned from social media, online news sources, and digital communications to understand civilian populations, track adversary narratives, and gauge public sentiment. As agentic AI floods these channels with synthetic content that is potentially indistinguishable from reality, the signal-to-noise ratio collapses. The internet becomes a place where one can ever be certain whether what they are looking at reflects reality or is synthetic manipulation designed to deceive.

This is not a theoretical future threat — it is happening now. As such, the U.S. military should urgently field its own agentic AI systems to sift through this noise. Human-centric capabilities risk being rapidly overwhelmed by the scale and speed of the coming deluge, so machines will be vital. Absent success in this endeavor, the U.S. military’s own AI-enabled intelligence platforms (fed on data scraped from an increasingly corrupted information environment) risk making recommendations based on synthetic realities that bear little resemblance to facts on the ground. The result could be disastrous.

Ground Truth: Essential for Understanding

The coming machine-versus-machine competition to detect and filter synthetic content will be essential to manage the challenge described above. But it will not be sufficient. To reliably establish reality in the information environment — and to make sense thereof — the U.S. military will need direct access to ground truth.

For the past two decades, the U.S. military has had a tortured relationship with the value of contextual social, cultural, economic, and political insights. In the midst of counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations across the Middle East and beyond, prevailing wisdom held that “the population is the center of gravity.” Landmark publications like Field Manual 3-24: Counterinsurgency set out the primacy of understanding and engaging with the human terrain.

As argued elsewhere, however, these theories were never translated into consistent action. Instead, the operational force paid lip service to the dogmas of counter-insurgency, while focusing ever more narrowly on mapping and targeting enemy networks. Using advanced intelligence platforms of the pre-AI era, the U.S. military conceptualized opponents as molecules — collections of nodes and linkages that could be methodically dismantled through precision targeting. The results were tactically impressive, but strategically ineffective.

The failure was structural. The U.S. military’s intelligence architecture separated enemy-centric analysis from efforts to understand the civilian and information environments. Enemy networks were viewed in isolation, as molecules suspended in a petri dish, rather than as organic outgrowths of the societies in which they operated. While eliminating nodes and pruning branches, the root structures that sustained these networks went largely untouched because they existed outside the U.S. military’s primary analytical aperture.

Within the fielded force, capabilities responsible for understanding social and cultural context faced an impossible mandate: They were tasked to understand all things civilian and informational with a fraction of the resources, training, and personnel allocated to core intelligence functions. The analytical frameworks prescribed by doctrine provided reductive, fill-in-the-blank templates that were fundamentally unfit for purpose. More importantly, there were no signature deliverables or consistent outputs that these capabilities were required to produce.

These problems persist to the present day. Fundamentally, the U.S. military has never been fully comfortable relying on tactical-level personnel to make sense of facts on the ground. Instead, it has used field personnel as a network of sensors to collect data. The mantra “every soldier is a sensor” captures this approach: The U.S. military calibrated its sensors to gather data points, not to interpret what they saw before them.

A paradigm shift is needed in how the U.S. military thinks about and employs its own people. Those with direct access to ground truth should be empowered not merely to collect data, but to generate structured analytical products that feed directly into the U.S. military’s AI-enabled central nervous system. This means developing consistent frameworks for analysis, training personnel in their application, and establishing signature deliverables that units are required to produce.

The military-adjacent academic community has a critical role to play as well, but it should transform how it operates. Historically, the U.S. military has funded a vast ecosystem of academic research. Notwithstanding recent budget cuts, there is no shortage of Ph.D.s at the Pentagon, within the geographic combatant commands, or at various military-sponsored think tanks and research institutions. These entities generate an abundance of reporting. Yet, their outputs have not typically been oriented toward real-time operational decision-making, and they have not been structured in a consistent manner.

Instead, military-funded academic research has mirrored the outputs of conventional academia, with lengthy publication lags and emphasis on methods and theory over operational utility. This should change. The operational force requires academic partners who can deploy to contested environments, work alongside front-line units, and generate timely, structured analytical products that directly feed AI systems. Academics should serve not as distant theorists but as embedded analysts who bring rigor to the investigative work conducted by military personnel. What is required is a partnership model where academic expertise leverages the access and enhances the organic analytical capabilities of the operational force, which could create an essential and professionalized insight-producing engine within the military.

This integrated approach — combining tactical-level human observation with academic rigor and AI-enabled processing — is an essential step toward compensating for a digital information environment increasingly saturated with synthetic content. When AI systems can generate convincing synthetic content at scale, when bot networks can simulate grassroots movements, and when fake satellite imagery can suggest military deployments that never occurred, the only reliable way to cut through the noise is human observation of ground truth.

What Happens Next?

Without a direct pipeline that delivers structured, consistent ground truth at scale, the U.S. military’s AI intelligence systems will optimize what they can based upon the inputs fed to them. This will mirror the failures of the past two decades, wherein the U.S. military mastered the targeting process but lost war after war. AI-enabled intelligence systems will get exponentially better at identifying nodes, mapping networks, and developing kinetic strike packages while creating an increasingly compelling illusion of understanding. The sheer volume of data, the speed of processing, and the visual sophistication of the outputs will suggest that users know what they are looking at.

But this apparent mastery will mask a deepening ignorance of context and meaning. Decision-makers will not be able to reliably vet machine-generated outputs against a robust human-generated understanding of ground truth. Indeed, the reliability of digital inputs into AI-enabled intelligence platforms extends beyond the information environment into the core of the targeting process, where uncertain data quality and adversarial data poisoning are mounting concerns.

Within the digital environment, the U.S. military’s agentic AI systems will be battling to distinguish authentic content from synthetic manipulation. But even if this problem is adequately addressed, current systems will struggle to reliably explain why a targeted network regenerates within months. They will fail to anticipate how action in one location might cascade through social and economic systems to produce unexpected second- and third-order effects elsewhere. They will be poorly positioned to identify the contextual dynamics that explain why certain populations are receptive to adversary influence while others resist it.

These are precisely the sorts of insights that military personnel and their academic partners should provide — but only if empowered, trained, dispersed, and made accountable to do so.

The U.S. military stands at a decision point. One path leads to AI-enabled excellence in traditional military operations rooted in ground truth and informed by genuine understanding of context and consequences: faster targeting cycles, more efficient operations, better force protection, and superior kinetic effects, all underpinned by AI-enabled situational understanding anchored in structured and consistent human insights.

The other path leads to AI-enabled tactical brilliance combined with strategic blindness: an exquisitely optimized machine for winning battles while losing wars and for achieving lethal kinetic effects while remaining deaf to their reverberations across society and through time. The choice is not binary, between AI-enabled speed and scale versus human insight and understanding. The question is whether the U.S. military will invest in fusing the two, or watch its newest capability become a dangerous liability.

BECOME A MEMBER

Nicholas Krohley, Ph.D., is the founder of FrontLine Advisory. He has over 15 years of experience working with governments, corporations, and civil society groups worldwide, with a specialization in intelligence analysis and resistance. He leads the Resistance Hub for the Irregular Warfare Initiative — Europe, and holds Ph.D. and M.A. degrees from King’s College London and a B.A. from Yale University.

Image: Midjourney

warontherocks.com · December 17, 2025

19. Black Boxes and Broken Mirrors: Iran, Israel, and the New Geography of Instability

Summary:

Siamak Naficy argues U.S. Middle East strategy is stuck in a Cold War binary that casts Iran as the prime destabilizer and Israel as the stabilizing counterweight, but Gulf perceptions are shifting. He cites Oman’s foreign minister at the Nov. 1, 2025 Manama Dialogue and Türkiye’s foreign minister on Nov. 30 asserting Israel is now viewed as the main source of insecurity. Naficy says Washington has relied on a “black box” narrative of Iranian aggression that no longer fits regional intervention patterns since 2015, while Israel’s expanding strikes and the Gaza war have eroded its credibility as an anchor of order. He urges an inclusive regional security architecture that reduces dependence on perpetual containment.

Excerpts:

Conclusion: Mistaking Projection for Policy

The Middle East has always been a hall of mirrors and the U.S. has spent decades gazing at its own reflection, mistaking projection for policy. The region, meanwhile, has moved on. The Gulf is no longer asking who destabilized it, but how to stabilize itself. And in that shift, Iran’s black box deterrence and Israel’s black box impunity have become twin symbols of a deeper truth: uncertainty is now the region’s only constant.

The U.S. can either learn to navigate a region defined by shared uncertainty, or remain trapped in a mirror of outdated assumptions.

Black Boxes and Broken Mirrors: Iran, Israel, and the New Geography of Instability

by Siamak Naficy

12.17.2025 at 06:00am

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/12/17/black-boxes-and-broken-mirrors/

For nearly half a century, U.S. foreign policy has been conducted through a single prism: Iran is the Middle East’s most destabilizing actor, and containing it is synonymous with securing the region. This logic, born in the twilight of the Cold War and sustained through bipartisan inertia, produced a foreign policy architecture so rigid that it came to resemble a kind of theology — with Iran as the chief source of instability in the Middle East, and Israel as its counterweight — the stabilizer in an otherwise volatile region. This binary has guided every major American decision from the Gulf War to the Abraham Accords.

That theology is now collapsing.

On November 1st at 2025’s Manama Dialogue, addressing both Arab leaders and a large American audience, Oman’s Foreign Minister, Badr al-Busaidi, declared something unthinkable a decade ago: “We have long known that Israel, not Iran, is the prime source of insecurity in the region.” His statement did more than invert a talking point. It exposed how deeply the geopolitical compass of the Persian Gulf has shifted and how far U.S. policy has drifted from the realities of the region it claims to manage.

Then, on the last day of the same month—November 30th—Türkiye’s Foreign Minister, Hakan Fidan, speaking in Tehran, repeated the same argument: that Israel was the primary security “threat ” to regional peace and stability. These statements do more than invert a talking point. They expose just how deeply the geopolitical compass of the Persian Gulf has shifted — and how far U.S. policy has drifted from the realities of the region it claims to manage.

The implications are enormous. If Washington continues to operate on Cold War reflexes — seeing Tehran as the epicenter of instability and Israel as its stabilizing counterweight — it risks anchoring its strategy to a world that no longer exists.

From Red Lines to Black Boxes

In my Small Wars Journal article, “Red Lines and Black Boxes,” I argued that Iran’s deterrence strategy depends not on transparent red lines but on calculated opacity — the weaponization of uncertainty. Tehran’s approach has always been to manipulate the boundaries of risk and restraint, making adversaries question both its capabilities and its intentions. That ambiguity — the black box — has been its shield against stronger foes.

But the United States, too, has weaponized uncertainty — not to deter, but to justify. Washington’s Iran policy has long relied on a similar ambiguity: a fog of moral clarity masking strategic incoherence. The constant invocation of “Iranian aggression” serves as a catch-all explanation for instability across Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, and beyond. It’s an elegant simplification but one that increasingly fails to explain the data.

The reality is that since 2015, Iran’s regional activism has been declining, while other powers — notably Turkey, Israel, and the UAE — have become far more interventionist. A 2020 study by Trita Parsi and Matthew Petti mapped regional interventions over the past decade and found that Iran, once the most active external player, had been overtaken. The black box of “Iranian destabilization” obscured a larger truth: the Middle East’s conflicts had multiplied and diversified, no longer orbiting a single gravitational center.

Badr al-Busaidi’s declaration should be read as a broken mirror moment — a break in the narrative. The Gulf states are not naïve about Iran; they have lived within its reach for decades. But they are also realists. They can see that Israel, emboldened by impunity and enabled by Washington, has launched attacks across at least six countries in two years, while waging what a U.N. commission has called genocide in Gaza. They can see that the instability now radiates not from Tehran’s ideological ambitions, but from Jerusalem’s unrestrained militarism.

This is not a matter of moral equivalence. It’s a matter of strategic arithmetic. The same states once persuaded to normalize relations with Israel as a hedge against Iran now find themselves absorbing the political and security costs of that alignment. When Israeli strikes hit targets in Qatar — a key U.S. partner — the fiction that Israel was a guarantor of regional order became impossible to sustain.

Hence the Omani statement: the finger that once pointed north, toward Iran, now points west. And that reorientation has profound consequences for Washington.

The Strategic Drift

For forty years, America’s Middle East policy has followed the logic of “dual containment.” Under Clinton, both Iraq and Iran were cast as twin threats, with Israel as the lone pillar of stability. That logic hardened into orthodoxy: isolate Iran, arm Israel, and the region would stabilize by default. The Obama administration’s brief détente through the 2015 nuclear deal was the only serious deviation and even then, it was undone before its logic could mature.

The Trump first and second administrations’ Maximum Pressure campaigns and their successor, the Abraham Accords, claimed to innovate but did nothing of the sort. Both rested on the same assumption: that Iran was the region’s lodestar of chaos and that Arab-Israeli normalization was the path to equilibrium. Instead, the Accords produced a brittle coalition of convenience — one that collapsed the moment Israel’s war in Gaza began to consume regional stability wholesale.

Now, Gulf capitals are recalculating. They see that forty years of U.S.-Israel alignment against Iran have not produced security, but addiction — a self-perpetuating dependency on American military presence and Israeli deterrence that has left the region unable to build its own architecture of peace.

[F]orty years of U.S.-Israel alignment against Iran have not produced security, but addiction.

Ironically, the United States now finds itself trapped in the very paradigm it once ascribed to Iran. It no longer knows what the boundaries of deterrence or partnership truly are. It cannot predict whether Israel’s actions will serve or sabotage its interests. Its allies are hedging, its enemies adapting, and its military posture increasingly divorced from political reality.

In strategic terms, this is the ultimate black box: a policy so dependent on inherited assumptions that it can no longer be recalibrated without risking collapse.

Washington has spent decades preaching deterrence through clarity — but clarity has become its own illusion. The region is asking new questions, and the U.S. has no new answers.

The Gulf states’ emerging position — led by Oman, Qatar, and increasingly Saudi Arabia — is not born of sympathy for Tehran, but of exhaustion with perpetual containment. Their message is clear: security cannot be sustained through exclusion. A stable Middle East requires an inclusive architecture that brings Iran, Iraq, and Yemen to the table rather than treating them as pariahs.

In practice, that means returning to a concept once flirted with but never realized: regional integration. The irony is that a less isolated Iran might also be a less dangerous one. Economic interdependence, energy cooperation, and multilateral diplomacy could achieve what decades of sanctions and airstrikes have failed to: a region in which deterrence is mutual, not imposed.

This is what Al-Busaidi was articulating — not an ideological defense of Iran, but a realist appeal for inclusivity. It is a strategic critique, not a moral one.

For Washington, the hardest truth to face may be that the region’s perception of Israel has changed permanently. The image of Israel as the Middle East’s only democracy, the bulwark of stability against the chaos of Arab politics, has shattered under the weight of Gaza. The mirror that once reflected moral clarity now shows moral exhaustion.

For many in the Gulf, the weaponization of uncertainty has simply changed hands.

Israel has become what Iran once was in American discourse — a source of unpredictability and escalation. Its actions are no longer read as defensive but as destabilizing; its deterrence no longer stabilizes but provokes. For many in the Gulf, the weaponization of uncertainty has simply changed hands.

If the United States refuses to adapt to this new perception, it will find itself increasingly isolated — tied to an ally that no longer commands the moral or strategic credibility it once did.

There is still an opportunity here. The U.S. could take Al-Busaidi’s cue and pivot toward an inclusive regional framework — one that emphasizes dialogue, mutual security, and reduced military dependence. Doing so would not mean abandoning Israel or embracing Iran but acknowledging that neither can dominate the region’s future.

It would mean retiring the black-and-white grammar of “good allies” and “bad actors” in favor of something more complex — a grammar of coexistence that treats uncertainty not as a weapon, but as a shared condition to be managed collectively.

In strategic terms, that would be the most profound recalibration of U.S. policy since the end of the Cold War. It would also be the most realistic.

It would mean retiring the black-and-white grammar of “good allies” and “bad actors” in favor of something more complex.

Conclusion: Mistaking Projection for Policy

The Middle East has always been a hall of mirrors and the U.S. has spent decades gazing at its own reflection, mistaking projection for policy. The region, meanwhile, has moved on. The Gulf is no longer asking who destabilized it, but how to stabilize itself. And in that shift, Iran’s black box deterrence and Israel’s black box impunity have become twin symbols of a deeper truth: uncertainty is now the region’s only constant.

The U.S. can either learn to navigate a region defined by shared uncertainty, or remain trapped in a mirror of outdated assumptions.

Tags: Middle East security

About The Author

Siamak Naficy
Siamak Tundra Naficy is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School. An anthropologist by training, he brings an interdisciplinary perspective to the study of strategic culture, conflict resilience, and the human dimensions of security. His work draws from both naturalist and classical realist traditions, emphasizing how power, interests, the history of ideas, and human nature shape conflict. His research interests span conflict theory, wicked problems, leadership, sacred values, cognitive science, and animal behavior—viewed through an anthropological lens. The views expressed are his own and do not represent those of the Department of Defense, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Army, or the Naval Postgraduate School.

20. Next Fight Nigeria: An Introduction to the Central Nigerian Operational Environment

Summary:

Mack Gage frames central Nigeria as a dense operational environment where multiple conflicts overlap inside Africa’s largest economy and a key arena for great power competition. Beyond Boko Haram and ISWAP in the northeast and “bandit” kidnapping networks in the northwest, he highlights the Middle Belt farmer-herder conflict as the most politically combustible and most associated with violence against Christians. The fight is rural, localized, cyclical, and often misattributed because bandits and extremists exploit communal signatures. Fulani herders’ mobility and arms give them tactical initiative while farmers’ fixed routines create vulnerability and slow state response. Drivers include resource scarcity, climate stress, disrupted grazing routes, and easy weapons access. He warns punitive actions can fuel “accidental guerrillas,” and urges information operations and stabilization options mindful of China and Russia.

Excerpt:

Conclusion

The farmer-herder conflict in Nigeria cannot be understood in isolation; it is deeply impacted within a broader landscape of overlapping insurgencies, criminal organizations, and instability. This conflict is more complex than the traditional Sahelian focused counter-terrorism fight and closer to great power interests of China, Russia, and the US. The issue at hand spans from Ghana to Chad at varying levels of violence, impacting the most powerful West African nations. In Nigeria’s Middle Belt, localized grievances over land and livelihood are exacerbated by ethnic and religious tensions. Further easy access to weapons and periodic exploitation by powerful non-state actors amplifies the scale of violence. Interventions must recognize the hyper-localized nature of disputes while accounting for regional dynamics, external influence, and the risks of driving communities closer to extremist/criminal organizations. Great power engagement will seek to shape the future balance of power in West Africa, especially in the face of ECOWAS political fractures since coups in Niger, Chad, Guinea, and Burkina Faso.

Next Fight Nigeria: An Introduction to the Central Nigerian Operational Environment

by Mack Gage

12.17.2025 at 06:00am

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/12/17/next-fight-nigeria/

If the US joint force and its allies were directed to conduct operations in any portion of the competition spectrum related to Nigeria it will encounter a complex operating environment. Nigeria is simultaneously Africa’s largest economy, one of the most violence afflicted countries in the world, and a crossroads for great power competition. The following article provides a primer for tactical leaders and operational planners unfamiliar with the operating environment.

Nigerian farmers and herders have been fighting for years. This is one of several simultaneous conflicts occurring in Nigeria but is the one most often associated with violence against Christians. While many Global War on Terror veterans may be familiar with the Boko Haram/Islamic State West Africa (ISWAP) conflict in Nigeria’s Northeast, the farmer-herder conflict occurs in Central Nigeria in a region known as the Middle Belt. This is the contact area where major ethnic and religious divisions mix, specifically the predominantly Muslim north and Christian south of the country. Escalation in the Middle Belt can have an outsized impact on national identity and political cohesion. Conflict in Africa is exceptionally complex and what follows is intended to aid as a primer on the operational environment that Military Leaders would encounter.

General Context-Overlapping Patterns of Instability

Boko Haram (JAS) and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) are the threat actors readers may be most familiar with from the Global War on Terror. Although there is some overlap with extremist violence reaching many regions in Nigeria, Boko Haram and ISWAP are concentrated in northeast Nigeria where they pseudo-govern areas. These groups have committed numerous atrocities to include targeted killings of Christians, suicide bombings, and mass hostage taking. Although activity is focused on the northeast, violence spills into central and northwestern Nigeria as well. These groups are trans-national, exploiting a porous border between Nigeria, Chad, Niger, and Cameroon to move freely between sanctuaries established in regions with inconsistent government presence, even in the face of a coordinated, but largely ineffective multi-national JTF effort. Difference in their approach to governance led to a 2016 split between Boko Haram and ISWAP contributing to increasing violence as the two sides often do more damage to each other than government forces are capable of.

In the country’s northwest, secular insurgent groups (known as bandits) have terrorized the country with a reign of abductions. These armed groups also operate in the Middle Belt to rustle cattle and conduct attacks on farming communities to seize resources as kidnapping profitability declines. Further these groups have increasingly turned to mass kidnappings for increased profit and attention. Bandit group have varying levels of capability, ranging from hundreds of fighters backed by active air defense to a common gang, with shifting alliances among themselves and extremist groups (JAS/ISWAP). Many groups are capable enough to represent a credible threat to the Nigerian Armed Forces and overwhelm any local militias they encounter.

At any given time, Nigeria has military operations occurring in 30 of 36 states. There are a multitude of violent actors—Boko Haram, ISWAP, Biafran Secessionists, Bandits—with overlapping operating areas and a variety of conflict drivers from economic to religious to political. Violence has been increasing among these groups, especially in the delta region. It is a core concern of the Nigerian government given its roots in the 1967 Nigerian Civil War and the groups’ coastal location. The government went as far as banning Twitter in 2022 connected to insurgent activity in the southeast. However, the conflict most frequently referenced related to violence against Christians and with the most latent potential to disrupt Africa’s largest economy is not discussed above.

Relevant Actors in the Farmer-Herder Conflict

Separate from all the above conflicts is the farmer-herder conflict occurring in the Middle Belt. This conflict divides Nigeria along national level geographic and religious fault lines and has been ongoing for generations. However, violence has intensified significantly since 2001 due to a multitude of reasons with the states of Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa, and Kaduna being most impacted. This conflict is the one most often cited when discussing violence against Christians in Nigeria. It often consists of raids and reprisals between communities of farmers and herders. There is a massive range of violent acts from outright massacres to gang style individual killings. The conflict is inherently rural, dispersed, and highly localized because of its communal nature tied to opposing agricultural ways of life.

Due to this conflict’s decentralized/overlapping nature, it is critical to separate localized farmer-herder violence from Islamist insurgents or bandit groups. All these attacks are well organized and coordinated. Most farmer-herder attacks are localized and retaliatory occurring during the planting season from May to October. Farm crop damage from livestock or rustling of cattle are common triggers for the cycle of violence between pastoralists and farming communities. Both sides maintain self-defense militias ranging in size based on the community from a dozen up to a few hundred. Herder militias often burn the farms/villages they seize while farmers kill the cattle remaining in the herd. Bandit groups and insurgents by contrast often steal and sell cattle and leave villages damaged but intact. Bandits and insurgents can withdraw further and much faster than farmer/herder groups tied to their pastoral/agricultural lifestyles. Herder-farmer violence occurs in cycles of reprisals that are often openly discussed by the aggrieved parties.

Herders are often seen as aggressors. They are primarily of the Fulani ethnicity and Muslim religion. They are nomadic and transient, giving them a substantial mobility advantage over farming communities. As a result of this advantage they maintain the initiative, often dictating the tempo of the conflict and fighting on their terms. They mass to attack villages at night and then withdraw before dawn to protected forest bases or use motorcycles to quickly move through the raid’s objective area. They maintain ethnic/communal militias to protect themselves from Nigeria’s persistent instability, frequently armed with AK-47s, swords, bows and arrows. Often associations can represent their interests but can’t speak for all such as the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria.

Farmers bear the brunt of the violence due to their fixed locations and schedules. They comprise numerous ethnic groups such as Berom, Tiv, Irigwe, and Hausa. Although primarily Christian, there are numerous Muslim farming communities as well. They also maintain communal militias for protection, however they are limited by farming requirements. Lightly armed with swords, spears, hunting rifles, bows and arrows they are limited in size based on the men available in a community. Farmers’ immobility and task-saturated routines mean they cannot easily abandon their fields to maneuver or mass forces; instead, they depend on communal early-warning networks and often meet attacks from a defensive, reactionary position. Farmers, with a settled lifestyle, have more formal power structures with governors and traditional ethnic chiefs able to speak for highly localized interests. However, this has not resulted in responsive government security forces with attacks on farming communities lasting multiple hours without intervention.

The Nigerian military and law enforcement maintain a weak presence in the Middle Belt. Few perpetrators are apprehended, and security forces often arrive after attackers have departed. Despite the military being equally unresponsive to both sides, the government has stood up a federal joint task force and sponsored militia—the Forest Guards. It’s unclear how effective this approach has been with the complex multi-actor conflict in Central Nigeria. Forest Guards have been specifically targeted by bandit groups with substantial losses. However, Nigerian military operating alongside local organizations have also inflicted losses on bandit groups.

The core of the farmer-herder conflict is among farmers and herders. It has both ethnic and religious implications as well. In addition to this, the Middle Belt region is subjected to activity from bandits (NW) and extremist organizations (NE). The overlapping presence of violent actors has blurred the lines between communal defense, targeted killings, organized crime, and terrorist activity.

Drivers of Conflict- Complex and Interlocking

Resource scarcity is the central driver pushing farmers and herders into direct competition across the Middle Belt. There is less accessible arable land for both sides with disrupted traditional migration routes and depleted farmland compressing options for both communities. This scarcity is rooted in several environmental factors: Lower rainfall, longer droughts, expanding desertification and unsustainable farming practices depleted once-productive farmland tying farmers’ livelihoods to smaller plots of land. At the same time, the Sahara’s southward advance and stricter border control across Sahelian states have reduced available grazing corridors pushing herders south. Improved veterinary medicine and Tsetse fly control programs had the unintended consequence of enabling herds to move further south in the Middle Belt, where these groups have not historically co-existed. These areas also happen to be weakly governed fuelling conflict potential resulting from anti-grazing laws. Currently, although the violence and resource competition manifests as a larger trend, it may just be a conglomerate of numerous localized disputes.

Weapons—both imported and locally manufactured—are easily obtained despite severe poverty in the Middle Belt. Well-armed actors on all sides create a powder keg for confrontation between communities. Attributing an attack and understanding its context is incredibly challenging. Bandits have leveraged this to obfuscate themselves by imitating Fulani dress to mis-attribute attacks. Further, the scale of violence, access challenges, and variety of actors add additional complexity. A cycle of violence may be spiraling between raids on a community by any actor and a reprisal against the actor most easily attributed. This exacerbates generations old grievances between farmers and herders which often aligns with religious cleavages between Muslims and Christians.

Spectrum of Options & Considerations

The spectrum of options for a Nigerian or third nation intervention range from purely punitive approaches to stabilization operations. Punitive approaches may look like decimating the farm/herds of groups attributed to criminal violence imposing significant communal risk on those using it for economic gain. On the other end of spectrum, stabilization operations may be applying sustainable farming/herding practices and incentivizing job transition pathways to create space between incompatible communities. This could include training combined with buying cattle or farmland at a price aimed at relocating groups. However, other west African nations, and even communities in Nigeria, have demonstrated dispute resolution and symbiotic relationships between herders and farmers. Unfortunately, stabilization-oriented options such as sustainable farming/herding have been recommended by the national government in the past and were turned down by the local power brokers.

Across the entire spectrum, the role Operations in the Information Environment (OIE) should be significant. OIE can engage non-government organizations and grassroots initiatives to maximize effects while minimizing government resources required. Further, this crisis is only covered episodically in the media and local information may be biased by the source. OIE can change this through straight forward media engagements via public affairs and other means providing platforms that promote key narratives. Specifically, OIE can reach across borders into areas that may not be politically accessible in Niger, Chad, and Cameroon that have large Fulani herder populations that migrate between these nations along the porous borders.

If a government where to select a punitive-oriented option it is critical to consider second and third order effects such as the Accidental Guerilla, Kilcullen’s term for insurgents mobilized in response to coercive actions impacting them. The farmer-herder conflict is already a fertile recruiting ground for violent extremist organizations and bandit groups. Punitive measures may nudge farmer groups towards banditry or expand herder networks available to JAS/ISWAP. 70% of Nigeria’s rural population rely on agriculture to survive and the Middle Belt is a corridor from the Lake Chad Basin to the Gulf of Guinea. These communities turning to insurgency in mass may set conditions for a second Nigerian Civil War as hybrid criminal-insurgent organizations may be more willing to cooperate against the central government than current armed groups. Further, from a US and European perspective, Russia exploits Nigerian instability to recruit civilian laborers for its military industrial complex. Increased population vulnerability in Nigeria increases workers available for the Russian plants building Shahed attack drones in Alabuga.

For a US or allied nation to pursue a stabilization-oriented option it is behind the power curve. Just days after Nigeria entered the US news cycle, China announced a $450 million agricultural investment in Kaduna. Deepening dependence on China is not new for Nigeria with substantial economic ties however it is important to note how closely this investment aligns with the farmer-herder areas of greatest concern. Chinese political warfare and competition with the US related to Nigeria goes back almost two decades, despite Nigeria’s unclear strategic value to the PRC. Options should consider how third country competitors may respond given both China and Russia have aggressively competed in West Africa for years.

Conclusion

The farmer-herder conflict in Nigeria cannot be understood in isolation; it is deeply impacted within a broader landscape of overlapping insurgencies, criminal organizations, and instability. This conflict is more complex than the traditional Sahelian focused counter-terrorism fight and closer to great power interests of China, Russia, and the US. The issue at hand spans from Ghana to Chad at varying levels of violence, impacting the most powerful West African nations. In Nigeria’s Middle Belt, localized grievances over land and livelihood are exacerbated by ethnic and religious tensions. Further easy access to weapons and periodic exploitation by powerful non-state actors amplifies the scale of violence. Interventions must recognize the hyper-localized nature of disputes while accounting for regional dynamics, external influence, and the risks of driving communities closer to extremist/criminal organizations. Great power engagement will seek to shape the future balance of power in West Africa, especially in the face of ECOWAS political fractures since coups in Niger, Chad, Guinea, and Burkina Faso.

Please check out all the Small Wars Journal has to offer.

Tags: Africa, AFRICOM, Boko Haram, communal violence, Farmer-Herder conflict, information warfare, insurgency, irregular warfare, ISWAP, JAS, militia, Nigeria, Sahel, Violent Extremist Organizations

About The Author

Mack Gage
Mack Gage is a Major in the United States Marine Corps currently leading Information Operations in III Marine Expeditionary Force. He studied West Africa at the University of Rochester and previously served in a Special Operations unit regionally aligned to AFRICOM. He has previously been published in the Marine Corps Gazette.

21. Sabotage as a “New Normal”

Summary:

Rick Chersicla argues that state-sponsored sabotage has become a persistent feature of the European security environment rather than a temporary spike linked to the war in Ukraine. He documents Russian-backed attacks on energy, transport, arms production, and undersea cables, emphasizing their low-cost, high-impact value and reliance on proxies and criminals to preserve plausible deniability. Although recent reports suggest a decline in incidents, Chersicla warns against complacency, noting sabotage’s utility in distracting governments, undermining public confidence, and testing NATO resolve. He urges clearer definitions, stronger resilience measures, integration of counter-sabotage into steady-state campaigning, and credible deterrent signaling, treating sabotage as a “new normal” requiring sustained strategic response.

Excerpt:

It behooves the defense community to accept state-sponsored sabotage as part of the new normal and consider deterrent options for sabotage. Some NATO experts already assess that select Russian defense officials question NATO’s Article V commitment, a perspective that may change with a more robust response to Russian sabotage. While Moscow would likely continue to leverage plausible deniability, NATO messaging (or a precisely worded declaration categorizing sabotage as an offensive action) could serve as a red line that would deter more malign activity. The integration of counter-sabotage planning into Western collective defense strategy will mitigate the alarming trend of sabotage aimed at weakening Ukraine and fracturing NATO and contribute to long-term stability in Europe.

Comment: Thanks to our IWI-SWJ partnership we can read important articles a second time.

Sabotage is a central element of irregular warfare. It is also the "old normal." We ignore or neglect it at our peril.

Sabotage as a “New Normal”

by Rick Chersicla

12.17.2025 at 06:00am

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/12/17/sabotage-as-a-new-normal/

Editor’s Note: this article is being republished with the permission of the Irregular Warfare Initiative as part of a republishing arrangement between IWI and SWJ. The original article was published on November 19, 2025 and is available here.

“Efforts will be made in such countries to disrupt national self-confidence, to hamstring measures of national defense, to increase social and industrial unrest, to stimulate all forms of disunity.”

George Kennan, The Long Telegram

Since 2022, there has been a spate of high-profile sabotage attacks across Europe: a suspicious fire in Berlin, explosions at a Bulgarian arms factory, and damage to undersea communications cables chief among them. This brazen campaign of sabotage, presumably perpetrated or sponsored by Russian security services, proxies, and the occasional unwitting, manipulated recruit, are at a “level previously unseen” according to German foreign intelligence service director Bruno Kahl. Similarly, Ken McCallum, the head of Britain’s MI5, said that “The GRU in particular is on a sustained mission to generate mayhem on British and European streets.” Russian-backed attacks on energy and transportation infrastructure are not limited to Ukraine, but now also extend across Europe.

While the frequency of incidents has slowed, neither NATO nor Ukraine are likely to see a total cessation of events given the relatively low risk, high reward nature of modern sabotage. Acts of sabotage are likely to persist as a characteristic of the European security environment and anticipate upticks leading to elections and other key events. Sabotage is the new normal.

Positive but Misleading Trends

Sabotage has, as of late, been used synonymously with the somewhat murky and contentious term Russian hybrid operations, inviting ambiguity and vagueness. “Hybrid warfare” can range from the spectacular—such as the 2024 attempted assassination of Germany’s Rheinmetall CEO—to the disruptive but more criminal in nature, such as the acts of arson against property of former British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in addition to sabotage. However, it is important to isolate the growing pattern of Russian-backed sabotage with a precise definition in order to identify its distinctive effects and purposes.

The term sabotage is best used in the traditional sense: to refer to attacks or incidents that cause physical damage to, or the destruction of, military (and, increasingly, civil) infrastructure and equipment. The inclusion of civilian infrastructure is the most concerning characteristic in a departure to what has long been a primarily military endeavor. However, currently nothing appears to be off-limits as undersea telecommunications cables that enable the global economy by way of transporting gas, data, and power across bodies of water and borders become targets.

In what might be perceived as a positive trend, two recent reports indicate a decline in Russian sabotage attacks. Leading American political scientist and author Seth Jones noted in a March CSIS report that Russian attacks in Europe quadrupled between 2022 and 2023, then nearly tripled again between 2023 and 2024. But, Mr. Jones noted a precipitous drop-off in the first six months of 2025, with only four incidents qualifying as sabotage or attempted sabotage by Russia. The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) also said in an August 2025 report that sabotage operations this year had declined, but that the threat remained as Europeans struggled to coordinate a response.

The West has not been totally passive, and the decline is likely due at least in part to the reinvigorated efforts to counter this threat. As Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty notes, some European powers have “expelled dozens of Russian intelligence officers, many working under diplomatic cover, dating back to before the Ukraine invasion.”

Proving that Western actions are driving the decline in sabotage activities is difficult , however. Measuring deterrence is particularly challenging, as it requires correlating actions taken or messages issued to successfully deterring an actor. In short, it is inherently difficult to prove a negative. The downwards trend in sabotage could just as likely be tied to the increased role President Donald Trump is playing during Ukraine-Russia negotiations, given the enmity between Presidents Zelensky and Putin.

While these reports reflect a positive trend for the West, it would be wrong to be lulled into a false sense of security. Increased coordination may have already helped Europe move beyond the high-water mark of Russian-sponsored sabotage, but the threat remains. Sabotage will likely prove to be too tempting to ignore for a revisionist power such as Russia, given its proven track record of disrupting the West for what is a relatively low cost.

The Siren Song of Sabotage: Low Risk, High Reward

Russia simply gets too much from this bad behavior to stop. Even without knowing the inner workings of the Kremlin, it is a safe assumption that the primary aim of the post-2022 sabotage campaign has been to diminish the West’s support for Ukraine. This goal, at least, appears to still be unrealized, but the disruption has secondary effects that benefit Moscow. Acts of sabotage, regardless of their size or efficacy, keep European governments off-kilter as constituents question leaders who fail to protect the power grid. As a result, sabotage distracts Western powers even if it doesn’t achieve the larger strategic aim of sapping the West’s support for Ukraine. These attacks target Allied unity as they undermine Western resilience and coherence between Allies regarding what constitutes an appropriate response. While intelligence sharing has increased, it is difficult to coordinate a unified response, even between treaty allies.

In addition to the political benefits of diminishing support for Ukraine, Moscow’s sabotage campaign serves concrete military ends as well. In some cases, sabotage has the tactical impact of destroying military resources intended for Kyiv, or at least slowing their delivery. In some cases, Moscow may be setting conditions for any potential military eventuality, such that the destruction of military and some civilian infrastructure certainly serves that purpose. Moscow will see little downside to accelerating in any post-deal future.

Implausible Deniability: A Golden Age of Sabotage?

Using criminals or “gig” saboteurs as assets or cut-outs increases deniability. Incidents of sabotage, whether they’re executed by agents, criminals, freelancers, or the unwitting, fall under the umbrella of the larger “shadow war” against the West. Given the countries effected by sabotage and its timing during the war in Ukraine, there is no real denying Moscow’s involvement, no matter how vociferously the Kremlin denies it. By publicly denying involvement and still sponsoring these acts, Moscow participates in implausible theater on the international stage. Aided by modern technology such as encrypted messaging apps, however, implausible deniability still serves as deniability in the eye of the beholder.

The New Normal

Sabotage is a way for Moscow to test the West’s red lines. It is possible that Putin’s regime is aiming to normalize these disruptions so that they’re accepted as the status quo while avoiding entanglement into a wider conventional war. While NATO is coalescing around the challenge, there is little incentive for Moscow to stop enabling and funding acts of sabotage against both military and civilian infrastructure.

The West will need to incorporate thinking about counter-sabotage into steady-state campaigning efforts such as Baltic Sentry that dedicate multi-national efforts to respond to sabotage and build resiliency. For example, strengthening electrical grids and other infrastructure redundancies would fortify European nations against disruption and limit catastrophic risks. If sabotage events are not already incorporated into military and interagency exercises, they should be—their inclusion could improve Europe’s response to these events if the challenges to a unified response are first defined and overcome in fictional scenarios. Precision of language—calling out physical sabotage separate from propaganda, cyber-attacks and other “grey zone” activities—would help draw a line in the sand and mitigate effective sabotage.

The United States took a risk in disclosing details of Moscow’s invasion preparations in 2022 and intelligence assessments that could serve to spoil some sabotage operations. While Moscow would likely continue to deny accusations of sabotage, publicly linking support to actions that counter Russian objectives—such as supplying Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine—could also serve as an indirect way to coerce Moscow into decreasing support for sabotage.

It behooves the defense community to accept state-sponsored sabotage as part of the new normal and consider deterrent options for sabotage. Some NATO experts already assess that select Russian defense officials question NATO’s Article V commitment, a perspective that may change with a more robust response to Russian sabotage. While Moscow would likely continue to leverage plausible deniability, NATO messaging (or a precisely worded declaration categorizing sabotage as an offensive action) could serve as a red line that would deter more malign activity. The integration of counter-sabotage planning into Western collective defense strategy will mitigate the alarming trend of sabotage aimed at weakening Ukraine and fracturing NATO and contribute to long-term stability in Europe.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Army, Department of Defense, or the United States Government.”

Check out all that Small Wars Journal has to offer.

Tags: Gray Zone, Hybrid Warfare, IW, IWI Republish, plausible deniability, Sabotage

About The Author

Rick Chersicla
Rick Chersicla is an active-duty Army Strategist and 2025 non-resident fellow with the Irregular Warfare Initiative's (IWI) Project Europe. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Army, Department of Defense, or the United States Government.

22. Training Like It’s 1993: We’re Still Not Doing Enough to Integrate Drones

Summary:

John Spencer argues US Army training still resembles 1993 because drones are not integrated at scale. He recalls Robert Scales’s anger after a 2007 ambush and outlines three drone layers: strategic, intermediate overwatch, and intrusive scouts. Ukraine and the IDF in Gaza adapted fast, fielding hundreds of commercial drones and refusing to move or clear buildings without them, often pairing scouts with explosive drones for immediate kills. Yet Spencer watched an elite US unit execute a live fire urban attack with no drones, citing rules and constraints. He warns this gap is strategic risk and costs lives in the future.

Excerpts:

We cannot wait for the next war to force us to learn these lessons under fire. The units I have seen in Ukraine, in Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan, in Israel, and across multiple battlefields are adapting faster than the institutions meant to support them. They are building drone architectures on the fly. They are rewriting tactics during combat. They are learning in weeks what should have been taught in years. Meanwhile, some of our most elite formations are training as if the sky above them is empty.

Again, this test is simple. If nothing about how we conduct a mission has changed since the 1990s, then we are doing it wrong. If nothing about how we integrate drones into the platoon and company fight has changed, then we are ignoring one the most important enhancements to warfighting in our era. If we do not change it now, we will ask the same question Scales asked about a Taliban ambush in 2007. Why was nothing over that unit?

Because in modern urban warfare, if we do not see first, and kill first, we do not survive.

Comment: I miss General Scales. And we should heed his and John Spencer's wise counsel.

Training Like It’s 1993: We’re Still Not Doing Enough to Integrate Drones - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · John Spencer · December 17, 2025

https://mwi.westpoint.edu/training-like-its-1993-were-still-not-doing-enough-to-integrate-drones/

In 2010, as he watched the Medal of Honor being placed around the neck of Staff Sergeant Salvatore Giunta, retired Major General Robert Scales was in tears. They were tears not of happiness or pride, but of anger. He was furious that Giunta’s squad, in 2007, had walked a ridgeline without anything overhead to detect, deter, or defeat the enemy. The Taliban, undetected, approached dangerously close to the Americans before initiating an ambush, killing three soldiers, and nearly overrunning the formation. Scales asked the question that still hangs in front of every modern army: Why was there nothing over that unit? The American military had the technology. It had the money. It had the need. What it lacked was the institutional will to flood the tactical edge with the tools of survival and lethality. Scales outlined three simple layers: the strategic drone collecting intelligence that directly informs the platoon or squad leader, the intermediate drone that orbits above a unit to defeat threats from a few meters to kilometers ahead, and the intrusive drone that goes through a window, climbs a stairway, and finds the enemy before the soldier does. None of this was science fiction. None of it required billion-dollar programs. It was Walmart technology. It was Popular Mechanics. It was a model airplane.

And yet nearly twenty years after Giunta’s squad was ambushed, we are still talking about drones. We are still acknowledging the need to integrate them into US Army formations and operations. And we are still failing to do so, institutionally, at the scale that is as imperative as it is possible.

Consider the war in Ukraine. I walked the battlefields in 2022 and 2023 as Ukrainian soldiers were struggling to halt a massive Russian advance. They rapidly adapted because they had no choice. They integrated drones into every warfighting function, from intelligence to sustainment to fires. What began quadcopters purchased in an ad hoc fashion at electronics stores became a layered architecture of strategic, operational, and tactical drones. This was not theoretical change. It was survival. Ukrainian units learned to find the enemy first or die. They learned to strike the enemy first or be struck seconds later. They learned to move only under drone overwatch because not doing so made them vulnerable. This adaptation was not clean or uniform. It was messy, urgent, uneven, and driven entirely by battlefield necessity. But it was real. And it changed everything.

Those same lessons resurfaced with even greater clarity when I stood in southern Israel in early 2024. I spent time with an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) brigade commander who had just come out of Gaza after fifty-five days of the most intense close combat any modern military has faced. The IDF was not short on technology. Few Western militaries have invested more in digital networks, a common operational picture, and the ability for every platoon commander to access drone feeds on a tablet. Above the IDF were layers of drones providing real-time intelligence. Yet when the brigade first entered Gaza, it had no drones at the tactical edge. The brigade’s soldiers had nothing to send ten meters ahead. Nothing to send down the street. Nothing to send through a doorway. They were facing one of the most prepared and lethal urban defenses any modern military has encountered. Hamas fighters emerged from tunnels at the last possible second, often within a hundred meters of an IDF element, sometimes inside the same building. The drone layers above the brigade could see some of the Hamas fighters close to the IDF formations, but could rarely rapidly translate that information into timely, lethal action because the pace, proximity, and concealment of urban combat erased the advantage of altitude and range.

So the IDF adapted. Within two months, the brigade went from zero tactical drones to more than 250. The unit bought commercial, off-the-shelf drones wherever it could find them. Its members modified them with tape and zip ties. Unit leaders assigned soldiers whose sole task was to fly them. They integrated them into every formation. And they refused to enter a home, a courtyard, a stairwell, a street corner, or a rooftop without a drone going first. They built a manning structure and a task organization because they learned the same lesson Ukrainian soldiers had learned: The enemy is always closer than expected, and the unit that sees first lives longer. When I returned to Israel in 2025, that adaptation had become doctrine. No IDF unit, from platoon to brigade, moved into a fight without all three layers of Scales’s drone architecture supporting it. The intrusive drone was also either equipped with explosive charges or followed by an explosive-laden drone to kill the enemy within seconds rather than the minutes it might take to call for fires.

Which brings me to 2025. I was recently standing with a battalion commander from one of the most elite ground forces in the United States Army. We were watching a daytime company live-fire attack on a small urban objective. Four buildings. Multiple rooms. A wire obstacle. Artillery initiated the attack. Smoke followed. In the distance, a controlled explosion marked the breach of the wire. Machine guns opened up to suppress the enemy. Infantry flowed forward, maneuvered through the obstacle, stacked in four-man teams on each building, and cleared rooms with live fire. It was well rehearsed, well executed, and safely controlled. It was also nearly identical to what I did as a private in the 1990s.

In daylight, with no aerial threat and no electromagnetic threat, the attack looked like something from a different era. There was not a single drone overhead. Not one drone observing the breach of the wire. Not one drone overwatching the sprint from the breach to the buildings. Not one drone flying inside the buildings ahead of the entry teams preparing to flow into rooms. There were many explanations for this. Training constraints. Acquisition rules. Electronic warfare considerations. Range restrictions. Funding. Planning. Safety. I have heard every one of them for more than two decades.

To be sure, steps are being taken to procure and use drones in training. But the steps are incremental, simply adding drones onto long-held doctrinal and institutional ways of doing things is insufficient, and drone fielding remains far too limited across the force. Range restrictions, installation policies, doctrine, and the many other constraints continue to make far too many training events look like the one I witnessed, where the bottom line was unmistakable. This attack looked exactly like something we would have executed on a company objective in 1993.

Earlier this year, Secretary Pete Hegseth offered what he called the 1990 test—essentially, an effort to identify specific ways the military has changed over the past thirty-five years and determine whether each change was driven by operational requirements (and should therefore be retained), or by some other force (and able to be discarded). But a sort of inverse, battlefield-centric version of this test is also valuable. If a platoon or company attack today looks identical to the way we did it in the 1990s, that is a failure. And if any unit charged with fighting tonight looks this way, that is a strategic risk.

During the company live-fire attack, the first artillery round on that objective would have eliminated any element of surprise if it were a real battle. No soldier in Ukraine, Nagorno-Karabakh, or Gaza stacks neatly outside a doorway once the enemy has been fully alerted. The moment modern combat begins, soldiers are observed by multiple drones. Every movement is tracked. Every casualty is mapped. Every piece of terrain is contested. And long before any soldier approaches a breach, all three drone layers should already be in the air. A strategic drone observing the broader environment. An intermediate drone identifying likely enemy positions, weapons systems, and movement corridors. And a tactical drone clearing the next ten meters, the next doorway, the next corner. This is not a luxury. It is not a niche capability. It is the basic requirement for modern close combat.

We should apply this test to every mission set we train. This company attack vignette is just one example. Urban operations are the most lethal environment a soldier can enter. The cost of not adapting is measured in lives. If a unit can deploy tomorrow, then its training cannot mirror the techniques of a world without drones, ubiquitous sensors, precision munitions, or adaptive enemies who fight from tunnels, from basements, from rooftops, and inside the electromagnetic spectrum.

We cannot wait for the next war to force us to learn these lessons under fire. The units I have seen in Ukraine, in Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan, in Israel, and across multiple battlefields are adapting faster than the institutions meant to support them. They are building drone architectures on the fly. They are rewriting tactics during combat. They are learning in weeks what should have been taught in years. Meanwhile, some of our most elite formations are training as if the sky above them is empty.

Again, this test is simple. If nothing about how we conduct a mission has changed since the 1990s, then we are doing it wrong. If nothing about how we integrate drones into the platoon and company fight has changed, then we are ignoring one the most important enhancements to warfighting in our era. If we do not change it now, we will ask the same question Scales asked about a Taliban ambush in 2007. Why was nothing over that unit?

Because in modern urban warfare, if we do not see first, and kill first, we do not survive.

John Spencer is chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute, codirector of MWI’s Urban Warfare Project, and host of the Urban Warfare Project Podcast. He served twenty-five years as an infantry soldier, which included two combat tours in Iraq. He is the author of the book Connected Soldiers: Life, Leadership, and Social Connections in Modern War and coauthor of Understanding Urban Warfare.

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

Image credit: Spc. Carlos Marquez, US Army

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mwi.westpoint.edu · John Spencer · December 17, 2025

23. The Red Séance: How Xi Jinping Is Soft-Burying the Deng Era

Summary:

Youlun Nie argues Xi’s lavish commemoration of liberal-leaning former CCP leader Hu Yaobang is not a reform signal. It is a calculated act of “speaking through the dead,” where the party rewrites Hu as a loyal cadre and “reform executor,” while erasing his liberal themes like tolerance for dissent and party state separation. The real target is Deng Xiaoping’s monopoly on “reform and opening up.” By elevating Hu, whom Deng purged, Xi dilutes Deng’s authority and clears ideological space for “Xi’s New Era.” The piece warns analysts not to mistake symbolism for liberalization.

Comment: From the grave Deng Xiaoping is asking, "Do you miss me yet?"

The Red Séance: How Xi Jinping Is Soft-Burying the Deng Era

The CCP’s resurrection of Hu Yaobang is not about greenlighting new reforms. It is about undermining Deng Xiaoping’s place in history.

By Youlun Nie

December 16, 2025

https://thediplomat.com/2025/12/the-red-seance-how-xi-jinping-is-soft-burying-the-deng-era/

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary Xi Jinping addresses Chinese and foreign journalists at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing during the 20th Party Congress, Oct 23, 2022.

Credit: Screenshot/中国新闻社

In November 2025, as China’s economy sputtered and its ideological controls tightened, Beijing staged a political spectacle that baffled many outside observers. At its center was a lavish commemoration marking the 110th anniversary of the birth of Hu Yaobang, the former Communist Party general secretary, widely remembered as the most liberal figure in the party’s modern history. For some China watchers, this high-profile tribute became a “weather vane” for change, sparking speculation that Beijing, under economic duress, might be signaling a return to Deng Xiaoping’s reformist path or at least a moderated political stance.

This linear interpretation, however, is a profound misjudgment. The grand commemoration was not an embrace by Xi Jinping of Hu’s liberal legacy; it was a meticulously orchestrated political séance. In this ritual, the ruling establishment appropriated a historical symbol, stripping Hu of his political soul as a “liberal vanguard” and preserving only the hollow shell of a “reform executor.”

More crucially, this event signals a deliberate soft burial of the Deng era. Unlike the violent purges or open repudiations of the Maoist period, “soft burial” is a far more sophisticated form of political stratigraphy. It does not overtly dismantle past monuments but rather, through layer upon layer of new interpretations and narratives, quietly suffocates and buries the substantive meaning of “reform and opening up,” allowing it to sink into oblivion.

The Politics of the Dead

In the distinctive political culture of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), deceased leaders rarely retain their status as independent historical figures. Instead, their legacies are systematically transformed into fungible political assets, to be defined, dissected, and reconfigured at will by the current leadership, serving the party’s perpetual need to legitimize its rule and adapt its narrative. This tradition of “speaking through the dead” is, at its core, a profound power struggle among the party elite. It represents a potent means to seize the moral high ground, define doctrinal orthodoxy, and establish narrative hegemony, which in turn directly underpins leadership authority. Whoever controls the commemorative ceremonies and the drafting of eulogies asserts absolute dominion over these historical assets, shaping not just the past, but the present and future political trajectory.

CCP history demonstrates that such strategic leverage is common and often pivotal at critical junctures. In 1976, Deng himself capitalized on the immense public grief following Zhou Enlai’s death to morally isolate the ultra-left. In 1977, Hua Guofeng attempted to wield Mao Zedong’s political testament to block Deng’s resurgence. And in 1989, Zhao Ziyang sought to harness the popular sentiment ignited by Hu’s passing to pressure conservative party elements into political reform concessions.

This clear historical trajectory confirms that high-level CCP commemorations are never mere emotional expressions or nostalgic tributes to past achievements; they are inherently political acts, direct projections of current leadership imperatives, and potent tools in ongoing power dynamics. Xi’s tribute to Hu is not only a continuation and deepening of this realist political tradition, but his execution is demonstrably more nuanced and dialectical than that of his predecessors, deploying sophisticated tactics of selective memory and reinterpretation.

Protocol and Sanitization

Deconstructing this recent commemoration reveals a deliberate project of sanitization and reconstruction of Hu’s image. Through the lens of the CCP’s politics of protocol, the official arrangements reveal a strategic elevation. While the tribute did not reach the apex of full Politburo Standing Committee attendance reserved for Mao or Deng’s birth anniversaries, it is crucial to note that other elders of comparable or even higher political standing than Hu – such as Ye Jianying or Li Xiannian – were not granted the honor of a symposium on their 110th birth anniversaries.

Far from being a mere personal gesture – an interpretation some observers might draw from historical anecdotes of the deep friendship between Hu Yaobang and Xi Zhongxun, Xi Jinping’s father – this exceptional courtesy reveals a profound political logic at work. Xi does not seek to overturn the party’s established historical pecking order. Rather, he strategically elevates Hu as a political instrument. By granting Hu an unconventional commemoration, Xi aims to exploit his symbolic legitimacy as a reformer. In ostensibly honoring Hu, Xi implicitly chips away at Deng’s absolute monopoly over the interpretation of reform and opening up. This is a gradual strategy of doctrinal replacement, designed to orchestrate a seamless transition from “Deng-era reforms” to “Xi’s New Era” by redirecting the spotlight without crossing existing party redlines.

Concurrently, the official narrative underwent thorough sanitization. The most iconic – and for the current leadership, most sensitive – aspects of Hu’s political legacy – including his calls for party-government separation, emancipation of thought, and tolerance for dissent – vanished from official texts. Instead, the narrative emphasized his loyalty, hard work, and integrity. The Hu Yaobang celebrated by Xi Jinping is a figure stripped of his liberal colors, a party-obedient reformer, not the system challenger who once sought to alter the party’s mode of leadership. This exercise in selective memory transformed a onetime outlier into a moral exemplar for cadres of the New Era.

Diluting the Deng Era

Western observers attempting to decipher Beijing’s strategic intentions must recognize that Xi’s deeper motivation in commemorating Hu is to end the doctrinal monopoly of the Deng era and solidify the construction of “New Era” legitimacy. This is not merely about policy shifts but about the very architecture of power and historical narrative within the CCP.

Mao Zedong occupies an unassailable, almost divine position within the pantheon of CCP leaders. For any successor, the ultimate path to supreme, unquestioned authority involves aligning with, or at least approaching, Mao’s legendary stature. Xi has already sidelined his more immediate predecessors – Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao – through anti-corruption campaigns and ideological re-centralization. Now, he confronts Deng Xiaoping as the last significant ideological and historical anchor.

Deng, despite his critiques of Mao’s excesses, established post-Mao legitimacy for the party centered on economic growth and collective leadership. His “reform and opening up” narrative became foundational dogma for over three decades. For Xi to fully erect his “New Era” as China’s definitive future, Deng’s foundational narrative – and thus his individual authority – must be de-monopolized, if not outright diminished. By challenging Deng’s singular claim to the reform mantle, Xi creates the historical and ideological space necessary to project his own vision as the natural, inevitable culmination of China’s socialist journey.

For decades, Deng has been revered as the sole totem and absolute authority of reform and opening up. By ostentatiously commemorating Hu – whom Deng himself deposed – Xi effectively reallocates and dilutes the “achievements of reform.” He implies that reform is a relay race among generations of Communist Party leaders, not Deng’s singular invention. Politically, elevating the victim (Hu) inevitably diminishes the sanctity and unquestionability of the perpetrator (Deng). This maneuver clears a historical path for Xi to transcend Deng Xiaoping Theory and establish himself as the grand synthesizer of reform, cementing his own unparalleled authority and vision for China’s future.

Furthermore, this strategy involves co-opting liberal symbols. Hu has long served as a crucial spiritual weapon for liberal factions and dissidents, who invoke his name to subtly critique the prevailing order. Through high-level official commemoration and redefinition, Xi asserts ownership over the interpretation of Hu. This is a clever political beachhead tactic: once commemorating Hu becomes an official act of “upholding the core,” liberals lose one of their most significant spiritual totems. Consequently, any discourse invoking Hu to challenge the current party line will be neutralized by the official grand narrative.

No False Hope

In sum, Western policymakers and analysts must reject any false hope. Mentioning “reform” or commemorating Hu should not lead to the miscalculation that China is poised to revert to its pre-2012 trajectory or undergo fundamental economic liberalization.

Crucially, the very concept of “reform” in Xi’s lexicon has undergone a radical redefinition. Unlike the Western understanding – and indeed, Hu’s own practice – of reforms centered on marketization, rule of law, and pluralism, Xi’s version of “reform” aims fundamentally at strengthening state capacity and governing for party purity. He invokes Hu’s courage and resolve to drive an inward-looking “self-revolution,” intent on forging a more efficient and tightly controlled Leninist party. This subtle, yet decisive, reshaping of historical narratives and ideological precepts mirrors the strategies employed by other authoritarian leaders, such as Kim Jong Un, who has incrementally sought to downplay the towering legacies of his father and grandfather to solidify his own distinct brand of leadership and authority.

The true signal emanating from this political séance is stark and unwavering: the current leadership possesses sufficient political confidence to appropriate any historical figure – even once-sensitive ones – to serve its contemporary agenda. Commemorating Hu is not a nostalgic gesture toward the past; it is a decisive act of “soft burial” for the old era that the West often yearns for – an era characterized by decentralization and a pragmatic “hide and bide” foreign policy.

Authors

Guest Author

Youlun Nie

Youlun Nie is a commentator on Chinese affairs and a former professor at East China Normal University, where he specialized in Chinese constitutional law and political institutions. He holds a Ph.D. in Law and has published extensively in academic journals on China’s legal reforms. Currently based in California, he focuses his research on the political rhetoric of the Chinese Communist Party and the instrumentalization of law in China.

24. Microinsurgency: Introducing and Defining a Distinct Category of Intrastate Conflict

Summary:

Michael Trevett argues “microinsurgency” deserves its own category of intrastate conflict. He defines it as a long duration, at least ten years, armed struggle between an aggrieved minority and the state over natural resources, with no meaningful external support or internationalization. Unlike classic insurgencies or civil wars, microinsurgents seek autonomy or secession inside traditional lands, not control of the national government, and death counts are a poor filter because these conflicts are often omitted from major datasets. Trevett stresses resources can be actual or perceived, and that neglecting microinsurgencies blinds analysts to early warning and policy design. He cites West Papua, Balochistan, and the Moro conflict.

Comment: Again, the SWJ-IWI partnership allows us to read important essays a second time. Graphics at the link.

Microinsurgency: Introducing and Defining a Distinct Category of Intrastate Conflict

December 17, 2025 by Michael F. Trevett Leave a Comment

https://irregularwarfare.org/articles/microinsurgency-introducing-and-defining-a-distinct-category-of-intrastate-conflict/

Editor’s Note: this article is being republished with the permission of Small Wars Journal as part of a republishing arrangement between IWI and SWJ. The original article was published on 11.12.2025 and is available here.

Introduction

Microinsurgencies, small-scale armed conflicts over natural resources internal to one country, are not necessarily new. Although such conflicts involving natural resource wealth occurred in ancient times, little seems to have been studied and published about the interaction of these conditions and variables until the late 1900s. For example, the King Scorpion settled and united ancient Egypt in approximately 3150 BC, after centuries of fighting by “dozens of independent chieftains” over control of the Nile River. Whoever controls the Nile still controls the wealth of modern Egypt today. Other examples from the distant past are those of Portugal and Spain with their avarice for gold, silver, precious stones, silks, and spices, even slavery and human trafficking. According to Charles Chasteen, “the Iberian invaders…came to [the Americas] seeking success in the terms dictated by their society: riches, the privilege of being served by others, and a claim to religious righteousness.” Jasper Humphreys offers another example below.

The Portuguese adventurers often faced stiff local opposition to their gathering of the commodities they sought; to deal with this, the Portuguese frequently resorted to the tried-and-tested economics of capturing and ransoming local chiefs and notables. Sometimes these and other people were brought back to Portugal where they could make an economic contribution to the costs of the expedition [and resource exploitation] by being sold.

The article “Scarcity and Abundance Revisited: A Literature Review on Natural Resources and Conflict” explains, since the 1990s, the “body of literature devoted to analyzing the relationship between resources and conflict can be broadly divided into two groups: studies which focus on resource scarcity and conflict and studies that analyze the relationship between resource abundance and conflict.” The resource scarcity and conflict group has many more qualitative works using case studies. The resource abundance and conflict group instead overwhelmingly employs quantitative analysis and studies. Each of these groups has its own proponents and critics, but none identifies the unique category of microinsurgency.

Definitions

Intrastate Conflicts

The focus of research on microinsurgencies begs the initial task to define the categories and concepts of intrastate armed conflicts. A hierarchy of all categories of armed conflict is depicted in Figure 1 below. This hierarchy is defined in terms of the size, range, participants, and magnitude of the conflict in question. Microinsurgencies are at the left or lower end of this scale. At the higher and larger end of the conflict scale are civil wars and international conflict. Examples of most are provided in Figure 1 in parentheses.

Civil wars serve as the dividing line between intrastate and international armed conflicts, because they can be in either category more often than insurrections. The focus regarding microinsurgencies is within the realm of intrastate conflict. According to Nicholas Sambanis, “most civil war lists [including insurrections] rely heavily on the Correlates of War (COW) project.” Unfortunately, “since the first COW list was published, there has been little peer review of COW coding rules.” Furthermore, “most projects do not conduct original historical research and depend heavily on COW. For these reasons, and others outlined below, existing databases of conflicts are not reliable or sufficient for the analysis and research of smaller-scale armed conflicts because these are often excluded from those databases.”

Figure 1: Hierarchy of Armed Conflict from Lower Violence and Size to Higher[1][1] This hierarchy is not meant to be all-inclusive. Instead, it is used to illustrate where microinsurgencies fit within the scale of armed conflict in terms of size and violence. Additionally, this hierarchy does not dismiss the fact that smaller armed conflicts can have very violent actions and tactics, but in general, smaller armed conflicts do not meet the higher levels of violence observed and recorded in large-scale civil wars and international conflicts.

Karl DeRouen Jr. offers perhaps the best examinations of the concept of civil wars. In An Introduction to Civil Wars, DeRouen presents many viewpoints and definitions, most of which require 1,000 battle related deaths in at least one year of the conflict, but he does not identify or define smaller-scale conflicts, such as microinsurgencies. Finally, in “What Is Civil War?” Sambanis offers a definition of civil war that is extremely long, in which he also outlines nine distinct aspects or characteristics of civil wars, but which are not applicable to microinsurgencies.

Microinsurgency

Neither the DOD Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms nor Operational Terms and Graphics (FM1-02) provides a definition of microinsurgency, and no other sources identified or defined the concept or term microinsurgency. Consequently, the specific elements and an initial definition of microinsurgency are first offered here. In sum, a microinsurgency is a long-term intrastate conflict between an aggrieved minority and a recognized state or ruling authority. The conflict involves fighting over natural resources and has no appreciable or measurable international or external influences or support. The primary objective of the insurgents is an end state ranging in degree of autonomy from semiautonomous rule to complete secession.

All microinsurgencies are intrastate armed conflicts, in which no appreciable or measurable international or external influences contribute to the onset, duration, or outcome of the conflict. While many microinsurgencies might fit within various definitions of civil wars, most civil wars are not microinsurgencies. As explained below, the microinsurgency is also distinct from traditional insurrections.

The microinsurgency conflict is a dyad with one side being a government or ruling authority and the other an organized, armed opposition, typically an ethnic minority, to that authority or government. The duration of a microinsurgency is defined as at least 10 years. One reason for the selection of the 10-year mark is that many studies of insurgency and counterinsurgency (COIN) identify that the average duration of post-World War II counterinsurgencies is over nine years.

The definition employed for this research uses no threshold for annual deaths or total deaths from conflicts, as do most of the accepted databases. Attempting to calculate annual or total battle deaths is often misleading and always skews results or makes for awkward lists and definitions of civil wars and insurrections, which otherwise, might not even be categorized as armed conflicts. Others have often categorized these microinsurgencies as civil wars, regular to full-blown insurrections, or neither, because they do not meet their thresholds of battle related deaths. Consequently, these intrastate armed conflicts are frequently excluded from databases covering armed conflicts, even though microinsurgency durations are at least 10 years.

Seemingly, most intrastate conflicts have similar characteristics. However, the strategic objectives of microinsurgencies are distinct. The key objective of the insurgents is not to overtake or overthrow the national-level government, but to attain some degree of local control, or a certain measure of separation within their traditional lands from the established government. Microinsurgencies can be large in terms of geography or population relative to the size of the country in which the conflict is fought, such as the Moro conflict in the Philippines. In this sense, the size of the insurgent organization does not matter, neither do the numbers of those killed, civilian or militant.

Civil wars, insurgencies, and microinsurgencies are the three primary types of intrastate armed conflict, even though there are other types, such as coups. Of these three, only microinsurgencies always fall within the definition of an intrastate conflict. Civil wars and insurrections can be internationalized or can become interstate conflicts. For example, ISIS and the current conflict in Yemen are international in nature and scope. Historically, the Spanish Civil War and Vietnam War are two large-scale and classic examples. However, microinsurgencies, even when misclassified as civil wars or insurrections, are never internationalized. This is another one of the key distinguishing features setting microinsurgencies apart from most other insurgencies and civil wars.

Civil wars and full-scale insurrections are generally larger in scale and range than microinsurgencies, larger in the sense of the number of participants and in the geographic area under conflict. Civil wars and traditional insurrections are concerned with which group or organization will govern and control the entire country, whereas microinsurgencies never have this objective. See Figure 2 below for a Venn diagram displaying the logical and set relationships among intrastate armed conflicts, including civil wars, insurgencies, and microinsurgencies.

Figure 2: Microinsurgencies vs. Other Intrastate Conflicts.[2]

[2] This Venn Diagram displays the overlap among the three most significant intrastate conflicts: civil wars, insurgencies, and microinsurgencies. It also illustrates one of the key defining characteristics of microinsurgencies. They are always within the geographical boundaries of a single state, unlike many civil wars and larger insurrections, which often become international in scale and scope.

Although they are not about defeating national militaries, this does not prohibit the insurrectionists in a microinsurgency from attacking government facilities or forces in regions of the country other than contested areas. Attacks and fighting may often occur in capitals and other large urban areas in which the insurgents have no chance of controlling. Examples of this include the Southern Philippines, Northern Ireland, and Malaya. Importantly and more precisely, microinsurgencies are concerned with a range of issues and outcomes from various levels of local autonomy to complete secession from national-level governments.

Natural Resource Wealth

Microinsurgencies involve natural resources, actual or perceived, and conflict over them. The research has not identified any microinsurgency in which natural resources did not play a key role or motivating factor in the conflict. In microinsurgent conflicts, resource wealth may take the form of natural resources, such as petroleum, highly arable land, or precious gems and metals. These may be raw resources unique to a country or region used to produce something of high value, such as cocaine or opium. However, finished products, such as cocaine, heroin, furniture, etc., are not considered natural resource wealth. Additionally, resource wealth may also be derived from perceived, valuable resources, such as the potential presence of oil in the South China Sea or something as simple as traditional lands. Perceived resources must be believed or provable and feasibly exploitable in order to garner revenue and support. The relative distribution and exploitation of resources, regardless of what the resources are, contribute to the complexity and duration of microinsurgencies. Where these exploitable resources are relatively equally distributed between the two sides, microinsurgencies tend to be longer in duration.

Finally, it is important to note that, similar to characterizing and defining intrastate civil wars, microinsurgencies do not fit within existing political theories, and no international relations theory even begins to address this type of conflict. Being small-scale, intrastate conflicts, microinsurgencies cannot be described or explained by any of the various forms of realism. For similar reasons, the various forms of liberalism cannot adequately explain the phenomena of microinsurgencies either. In fact, microinsurgencies are not accounted for or explained by any theories of international relations or foreign policy. There does not appear to be a single theory, source, or concept that addresses the various aspects of these small-scale, intrastate conflicts.

Cases of Microinsurgency

West Papua

West Papua, Indonesia is an example of an ongoing microinsurgency. The Dutch granted independence to Indonesia in 1949. However, the Dutch first transferred Irian Jaya (West Papua, New Guinea) to the United Nations (UN) in 1962, and then the UN transferred it to Indonesia in 1963. Although the transfer was completed in 1963, it was thoroughly opposed by the indigenous population of West Papua.

The resource wealth exploited in West Papua is actual and entirely beneficial to Indonesia. The West Papuans receive practically nothing from the copper, gold, and other resources taken out of their land and surrounding sea. The resource wealth lost by the West Papuans ensured their demise and contributed significantly to the Indonesian economy. Additionally, Indonesia has committed numerous human rights violations against the indigenous Christian population of West Papua, including large numbers of murders.

Balochistan

The second example is that of Balochistan, an ongoing microinsurgency within the sovereign territory of Pakistan. The Province of Balochistan also borders Afghanistan and Iran. In 1876, the British established a treaty with Balochistan, known then as Kalat. As the British withdrew from the region immediately after World War II, Kalat sought independence, declaring so on 12 August 1947. However, Pakistan asserted its power and control over the region, which resulted in a backlash by the Baloch population. The conflict was short lived, with Pakistan gaining control over most of Balochistan in 1948. From 1948 to present, Pakistan has faced at least four other insurrections in Balochistan, including the current conflict that began in 2005.

One of the primary causes of this longest insurgency in Balochistan is exploitation of resource wealth from the province by the state of Pakistan. For example, Balochistan contains the largest natural gas fields in Pakistan, which according to Maliha Tariq “account for nearly 36 percent of Pakistan’s total gas production. Balochistan also produces more than 40 percent of Pakistan’s primary energy consisting of coal, oil, natural gas, and electricity.” The province also has an abundance of copper, gold, silver, platinum, and uranium. However, it remains the poorest of all Pakistan’s provinces. Clearly, this is a motivating factor for the insurgents.

Southern Philippines

A third example covers the temporarily terminated microinsurgency in the Southern Philippines. The modern conflict with the Muslim Moros in the Southern Philippines began in the late 1800s when forces from the United States ousted the Spanish government in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. The United States forced the integration of Moros into the greater Philippine population, erasing centuries of voluntary segregation. After the United States granted independence to the Philippines on 4 July 1946, the Moros shifted their fight for autonomy against the Philippine government in part due to forced migration of non-Muslims from other regions in the country to the traditional Moro lands (Information was obtained from in-person interviews of and emails with former MILF fighter: 2019-2023).

In terms of intensity and grievances, this conflict has ebbed and flowed until today. The primary resources sought by the Moros are their traditional lands and any wealth produced from them. Of course, any marine resources would be included in these, as all their traditional lands are islands, or regions of large islands. The Philippine government does not receive much resource wealth from the traditional lands in which the Moros live. However, the perceived resource wealth by the Moros is tremendous, while that which is perceived by the national government is moderate (The author has conducted field research in and lives on Mindanao Island in the Southern Philippines). For example, the Philippine culture abounds in rumors, such as large caches of gold left behind and hidden by the Japanese after their occupation of the Philippines during World War II and offshore oil fields yet to be located and identified, but claimed by many, including China.

Conclusion

To recap, a microinsurgency is a long-term intrastate conflict between an aggrieved minority and a recognized state or ruling authority. The conflict involves fighting over natural resources and has no appreciable or measurable international or external influences or support. The primary objective of the insurgents is an end state ranging in degree of autonomy from semiautonomous rule to complete secession.

No definition of microinsurgency has been identified in extant literature. An extensive review of the literature yielded little about small-scale intrastate conflict, while microinsurgencies are essentially ignored. This research fills gaps in the existing literature by defining and explaining the dynamics of microinsurgencies and associated resource wealth. Although this type of intrastate conflict is positioned on the low end of the conflict intensity scale, studying microinsurgencies is important for four reasons. First, findings about microinsurgencies can inform and clarify the understanding of small-scale, intrastate and ethnic conflict. Second, almost all larger-scale intrastate and many interstate conflicts began as smaller-scale conflicts, such as these. Third, more accurate understanding of microinsurgencies can permit accurate causal analysis and precise development of proper policies, strategies, and tactics for conflict termination. Through the identification of such root causes, counterinsurgency operations, policies, and solutions can be developed to sufficiently address grievances of ethnic groups forming the insurgency and to pressure national governments into reasonable conflict termination agreements, preferably before armed conflict begins or increases in duration, intensity, or scale. Civilian and military analysts, planners, and policymakers should be better equipped to identify and understand these long-term conflicts and their associated grievances and issues. Finally, once identified, microinsurgencies can serve as an indication and warning of potential larger-scale conflicts, because almost all traditional insurrections began as microinsurgencies.

LTC Michael Trevett served 30 years in three branches of the US military. He was an accredited diplomat in two countries and has worked with and trained intelligence, military, and police forces in dozens of countries. He earned a Ph.D. in International Development and Security Studies from the University of Southern Mississippi, an MS in Strategic Intelligence from the National Intelligence University, and an MA in Global History from American Military University and published the declassified book Isolating the Guerrilla.

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25. What the Disappearance of the ‘One China’ Policy From Trump’s 2025 NSS Means for Taiwan

Summary:

POTUS’ 2025 National Security Strategy quietly shifts Taiwan policy by omitting the standard reference to the U.S. “One China” policy. He says the administration has stayed low key on Taiwan to avoid derailing trade negotiations, while pushing burden sharing and offshore balancing that urges Taiwan and allies to spend more and prepare. The omission, plus language about denying a seizure and opposing unilateral changes, may signal tougher intent to Beijing without public escalation. Chen notes Japan’s Taiwan-linked tensions with China and cites the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, but warns POTUS may treat this as bargaining leverage.

What the Disappearance of the ‘One China’ Policy From Trump’s 2025 NSS Means for Taiwan

Is Washington moving away from the formula that has governed the tenuous Taiwan Strait equilibrium for 50 years?

By Dean P. Chen

December 15, 2025

https://thediplomat.com/2025/12/what-the-disappearance-of-the-one-china-policy-from-trumps-2025-nss-means-for-taiwan/

U.S. President Donald Trump greets Chinese President Xi Jinping before a bilateral meeting at the Gimhae International Airport terminal in Busan, South Korea, Oct. 30, 2025.

Credit: Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok

Before the October summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in Busan, South Korea, China’s President Xi Jinping was reportedly “chasing his ultimate prize”: to press Trump to formally announce his opposition to Taiwan independence. Despite his professed admiration for powerful authoritarians, Trump declined to grant Xi’s wish.

Although the second Trump White House has, thus far, stayed low-key on Taiwan to avoid derailing trade negotiations with Beijing, the administration’s latest National Security Strategy (NSS) is notable for failing to reiterate the United States’ “One China” policy, an anomaly from previous NSS papers – even the one released by the first Trump administration in 2017. This deviation may suggest Washington’s tacit move away from a half-century old declaratory formula that has governed the tenuous Taiwan Strait equilibrium since the Nixon-Kissinger era.

This may be Trump’s clearest signal yet to Xi about U.S. relations with Taiwan.

Between Competition and Accommodation

Since his second inauguration, Trump’s nonchalance on the United States’ security commitments to allies and partners has been consistently observed. He appears to be more interested in reaching some type of “great power concert” with China’s Xi and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. This arrangement calls for Washington to treat strong autocracies not merely as peer competitors but as working partners to preserve order and stability in their respective regions or spheres of influence.

The NSS clearly advocates a “predisposition to non-interventionism” guided by “flexible realism” in which U.S. foreign policy would act pragmatically based on “what is possible and desirable.” The “timeless truth” of great power politics in international relations requires the United States to maintain good relations with other great powers to address challenges and threats to their common interests. Under the NSS, the post-Cold War endeavors of promoting democratic values and institutions universally should be curbed while U.S. military alliances are expected to assume primary responsibility for their own defense, with more spending and contributions to rectify the “enormous imbalances accrued over decades” at the expense of the United States.

Unlike the 2017 NSS from Trump’s first term and the 2022 NSS from the Biden administration, which both depicted China as a “revisionist” geopolitical competitor, the 2025 NSS largely describes the country from an economic perspective. There is a strong emphasis on the need to “rebalance” the unfair China-U.S. trade relationship.

However, the almost yearlong trade battle between the worlds’ two largest economies saw both sides firing bruising tariffs along with retaliatory measures at each other. Xi has taken a page from Trump’s playbook of weaponizing economic and supply chain chokeholds to get his way. Beijing’s near monopoly of the world’s refined rare earth materials – indispensable for the production of advanced modern technologies from smart phones, laptops, cars to military armaments like missiles, drones, and fighter jets – has empowered Beijing to coerce Washington into ameliorating tariffs and other high-tech restrictions on China.

The Non-Barking Dog

At the same time, Xi sought to extract a Taiwan concession from Trump. But U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio firmly rebuffed it on the eve of the Busan meeting: “No one is contemplating [getting] favorable treatment on trade in exchange for walking away from Taiwan.”

Indeed, there was no mention of the Taiwan Strait in the Trump-Xi meeting in South Korea. Neither Washington nor Beijing talked about it in their respective press releases. Days later in an interview with the CBS 60-Minutes, Trump confirmed that Taiwan “never came up” during his meeting with Xi, adding Beijing “knows the consequences” if they take military actions against the island.

Trump has repeatedly declined to give away what his administration would do if a military conflict were to erupt across the Taiwan Strait, unlike his predecessor Joe Biden who pledged on numerous occasions to use military force to help defend the island from Beijing’s attacks. Yet some analysts have pointed out that, notwithstanding Trump’s seeming reticence, his administration is resorting to an offshore balancing strategy – asking Taiwan to accelerate its defense spending and self-defense capabilities while delegating the security of the island democracy collectively to U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific. It is a burden-sharing approach as Washington restrains and watches on the sidelines.

China-Japan Spat Over Taiwan

The recent flare-up in tensions between China and Japan over Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae’s “survival-threatening situations” remarks, however, calls into question whether the Trump administration is retrenching from the Taiwan Strait.

The Japanese leader suggested a Taiwan Strait contingency could potentially trigger Japan’s military involvement given collective self-defense with allies like the United States. Beijing is infuriated, stressing its recovery of the self-governed island as China’s internal affair and lambasting Tokyo’s candid stance by drawing parallels to Imperial Japan’s militaristic aggressions prior to 1945. The Chinese government demanded Takaichi’s retraction of the statement, dialing up diplomatic, economic, and military actions to pressure Tokyo.

Although Takaichi has not recanted her position, she sought to deescalate the tensions by promising to act more circumspectly on this sensitive issue going forward. But what frustrates Japan the most is the long silence coming from Trump himself and his top national security officials. Washington has provided some modicum of support and flew bomber planes alongside with Japanese fighter jets over the Sea of Japan in a show of unity in the face of Chinese belligerence. But there has not been any official statement of support for Japan or disapproval of Beijing’s pressure campaign.

Xi, in a phone conversation with Trump on November 24, “underscored that Taiwan’s return to China is an integral part of the post-war international order.” From China’s readout, Trump noted that Washington “understands how important the Taiwan question is to China.” There was no mention of that topic of conversation in Trump’s own social media post of the call.

Going Public on “One China, One Taiwan”?

The U.S. leader’s eagerness for a lasting trade agreement with Beijing might have driven his reluctance to amplify the Taiwan issue and provoke Xi. Similar consideration was seen in August when Washington urged Taipei to put off its proposed transit visits in the United States for President Lai Ching-te’s planned trip to Latin America.

Nevertheless, the 2025 NSS seems to have presented Trump’s reply to Xi: “The United States does not support any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.” The NSS also noted that the island’s vital role in cutting-edge semiconductor production and the First and Second Island Chains require the reinforcement of the “U.S. and allies’ capacity to deny any attempt to seize Taiwan or achieve a balance of forces so unfavorable to us as to make defending that island impossible.”

The NSS’s exclusion of “One China” – which appeared in both the 2017 and 2022 NSS documents – is probably the most potent pushback on Beijing. Whereas the U.S. “One China” policy, built on the Taiwan Relations Act, three U.S.-China joint communiqués and Reagan’s Six Assurances, is vastly different from Beijing’s “One China” principle, the United States’ long adherence to this policy framework is deemed by Beijing as fundamental to Washington’s steadiness on the Taiwan Strait impasse. Skipping the language implies the Trump administration may be promoting a more overt “one China, one Taiwan” formulation.

In fact, a day before the release of the NSS, Trump signed the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act into law. The act requires the State Department to regularly reassess and update guidelines on official contacts with Taipei. Is the timing coincidental? Unlikely, given the intense situation across the Taiwan Strait.

Capriciousness, however, is Trump’s modus operandi. Transactional calculation is fueling many of his major national security policy decisions, such as greenlighting the sales of Nvidia’s high-end H-200 AI chips to China. The bigger stress test for Taipei will come in 2026 when Trump is expected to have at least four meetings with Xi. We shall see, by then, whether the 2025 NSS’ eschewing of “One China” is a policy change or ploy to maximize Trump’s bargaining space with his Chinese counterpart.

Authors

Guest Author

Dean P. Chen

Dean P. Chen is a professor of political science at Ramapo College of New Jersey. He is the author of “U.S.-China-Taiwan in the Age of Trump and Biden: Towards a Nationalist Strategy.”

26. Exclusive | Panama Ports Deal Hits Impasse as China Makes New Demands for Its Approval

Summary:

Beijing is threatening to block a $22.8 billion BlackRock and Mediterranean Shipping Co. deal to buy CK Hutchison’s port network, including Balboa and Cristóbal at the Panama Canal, unless China’s state-owned Cosco gets a majority stake and veto power. BlackRock and MSC were reportedly willing to offer Cosco an equal role, but say majority control is unacceptable. The White House also signaled it would not accept terms that amount to Chinese control, arguing it would endanger U.S. security and violate the U.S.-Panama treaty framework. With China able to use regulatory leverage, talks are stalled, leaving Hutchison operating the ports while Panama pursues separate port concessions.

Comment: How does the Trump corollary of the NSS suggest we handle this issue?

Exclusive | Panama Ports Deal Hits Impasse as China Makes New Demands for Its Approval

WSJ

Beijing threatens to block BlackRock-led deal to buy ports unless state-owned Cosco gets a majority stake

By Costas Paris

Dec. 16, 2025 12:57 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/business/logistics/panama-ports-deal-hits-impasse-as-china-makes-new-demands-for-its-approval-ff741523?mod=hp_listb_pos2

A Cosco container ship in the Panama Canal earlier this year. Daren Fentiman/Zuma Press

President Trump’s push to loosen China’s influence in the Panama Canal has hit a wall now that Beijing is demanding that China’s largest shipping company get a controlling stake in a deal to sell dozens of ports to a BlackRock BLK -1.30%decrease; red down pointing triangle-led group.

The proposed sale includes two ports at the Panama Canal and more than 40 others around the world, all controlled by Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison 1 -0.28%decrease; red down pointing triangle. BlackRock and containership operator Mediterranean Shipping Co. reached a $22.8 billion agreement in March to buy them after Trump raised security concerns about Hutchison’s—and the ports’—connection to China.

That deal angered Beijing and, after initially pushing for China’s Cosco to be brought in as an equal partner, it has now upped its demands, according to people familiar with the talks. China is threatening to block the deal unless Cosco gets a majority stake, they say.

BlackRock and MSC had been open to offering Cosco an equal stake, but the demand for majority control and veto rights in running the ports is unacceptable, those people say. The White House signaled Monday that it, too, wouldn’t accept such conditions.

“The President has made clear that Chinese control of the Panama Canal is unacceptable, violates the U.S.-Panama Treaty, and jeopardizes our national and economic security,” a White House official said.

The deal is now at an intractable impasse, people involved in the talks say. A senior Chinese official said that Beijing aims to make control of the ports a negotiating point in the U.S. and China’s broader talks over trade and tariffs.

Meanwhile, Hutchison continues to own and operate the Panama ports. The Trump administration had originally threatened to take control of the canal, saying China had too much influence because Hutchison is a Hong Kong-based company and that could threaten U.S. access to the waterway.

Hutchison and Cosco didn’t respond to requests for comment on the latest demands from Beijing, and MSC and BlackRock declined to comment. In August, Hutchison’s co-managing director Frank Sixt told analysts and investors that “a deal of this size and complexity” wouldn’t be completed until 2026. Though it was taking longer than expected, he wasn’t troubled, he said.

“The ports group are having a very good year,” he said at the time.

Hutchison’s ports revenue rose 9% from a year earlier in the first half of 2025, buoyed by higher shipping volumes around the world as customers stocked up on goods before U.S. tariffs kicked in. The conglomerate’s shares have climbed more than 30% in Hong Kong this year.

Millions of U.S.-destined containers are unloaded and reloaded every year at Hutchison’s Balboa and Cristóbal ports on the Canal. Overall, more than 40% of all U.S. container traffic uses the waterway to ship goods between Asia and the Americas, according to the Panama Canal Authority.

Chinese officials have told BlackRock, MSC and Hutchison that if Cosco is left out of the deal, Beijing would take steps to block Hutchison’s proposed sale, according to people familiar with the deal talks.

In past global mergers, China’s Commerce Ministry has asserted rights to review a deal, sometimes insisting on changes that can appear politically motivated. China also has significant leverage over the parties involved in the Panama Canal ports deal. BlackRock and Hutchison have business interests in China, and MSC is one of the biggest movers of Chinese exports around the world.

In 2014, Beijing blocked three Western companies from forming a shipping alliance that could have hurt its trade interests. In that case, China scuttled a deal between MSC, Denmark’s A.P. Moller-Maersk and France’s CMA CGM in which the companies would have shared vessels and port calls worldwide.

The Panama Canal Authority, meanwhile, is proceeding with plans to sell two plots of land on either side of the waterway to be developed into container ports. The head of the authority, Ricaurte Vásquez Morales, said he expected the bidding to be completed by January and for bids to come in from some of the world’s biggest shipping operators.

APM Terminals, the port unit of A.P. Moller-Maersk, and CMA CGM will both make offers, according to people familiar with the process. In April, Maersk bought the Panama Canal Railway Co., which operates a 47-mile line along the waterway and moves containers between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

Vásquez said he estimated the new concessions would add around $500 million to the Panama Canal’s roughly $5 billion in annual revenue. Cosco, which operates terminals in a number of ports, including in Hamburg, Athens, Rotterdam and Genoa, is barred from bidding for the new Panama ports because it is a government entity, he said.

Write to Costas Paris at costas.paris@wsj.com

Appeared in the December 17, 2025, print edition as 'China’s Terms Threaten Deal for Panama Ports'.

WSJ

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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

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

Access NSS HERE

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