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Quotes of the Day:
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance. It is the illusion of knowledge."
– Stephen Hawking
"Nothing disturbs me more than the glorification of stupidity"
– Carl Sagan
"In the world, every addiction is bad, but the worst addiction is the addiction to power. Because its consequences are always suffered by the weaker person."
– Lord Acton
1. American special operations forces get new civilian overseer
2. MI6 chief warns Britain is in new era of 'information warfare'
3. China Is Feeling Strong and Senses an American Retreat
4. Space Force Special Operations Command? Congress has questions, too
5. Irregular warfare threats during multi-domain operations in the Indo-Pacific region topic of latest CASO Panel
6. Jumpmaster who saved paratrooper breaks down viral video
7. The Indian Scouts that forged the legacy of American Special Forces
8. New SOUTHCOM Cdr Nominated (Lt Gen Frank Donovan, Vice Cdr USSOCOM)
9. China and Russia Bolster Their ‘No Limits’ Alliance
10. Opinion | The White House Seeks to Reboot the U.S.-Europe Alliance
11. Exclusive | U.S. Pitches ‘Project Sunrise’ Plan to Turn Gaza Into High-Tech Metropolis
12. U.S. Strikes Syria Targets in Response to Fatal Attack on Americans
13. Civil Affairs, AI, and the Future of Army Readiness
14. Handbook on the role of non-state actors in Russian hybrid threats
15. Washington Is Helping Beijing “Tell China’s Story Well”
16. The Most Powerful Politics Influencers Barely Post About Politics
17. The U.S. is now blocking visas for people who fight misinformation
18. US lawmakers want DeepSeek, Xiaomi added to list of China military-linked firms
19. Rubio swaps hawk for diplomat in year-end pivot on China
20. Will Taiwan’s decentralised military model raise more questions than it solves?
21. Philippine hotel in Davao City says Bondi Beach suspects stayed for a month and were there every night
22. U.S. appears to pour cold water on idea of Japan acquiring nukes
23. Europe’s Taiwan Dilemma: Lessons from a Tabletop Exercise
24. Implementing Policies for Ukrainian Protection of Minority Languages: Been There, Done That, Got the T-shirt
1. American special operations forces get new civilian overseer
Summary:
DefenseScoop reports the Senate confirmed Green Beret Derrick Anderson as assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low intensity conflict. He will provide civilian oversight and advocacy for USSOCOM, amid scrutiny of Caribbean strikes and debates over modernizing SOF with drones and AI.
Comment: Will he be able to fill the role of the "Secretary of Special Operations?" Re: AI, etc. Will he focus on narrative intelligence and cognitive warfare? (per the 2026 NDAA: https://www.congress.gov/committee-report/119th-congress/senate-report/39/1#:~:text=maintains technological superiority.-,Narrative intelligence and cognitive warfare,-The committee recognizes)
It’s time for a third special operations revolution
https://www.militarytimes.com/opinion/commentary/2020/08/01/its-time-for-a-third-special-operations-revolution/
Excerpt: Appoint a secretary of special operations (SSO) with a fully manned service staff to serve as a service secretary equivalent to the existing service secretaries.
From the Shadows to the Summit: Elevating Special Operations to the Joint Chiefs
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2025/05/from-the-shadows-to-the-summit-elevating-special-operations-to-the-joint-chiefs/
Excerpt: At the same time, the ASD SO/LIC’s role would become that of a service secretary, making the position the Secretary of Special Operations (SSO). Together, the Chef of Special Operations and the Secretary of Special Operations would enhance our national defense capabilities by bringing SOF into the 21st Century,
American special operations forces get new civilian overseer
Derrick Anderson was confirmed as ASD for SO/LIC.
By
Jon Harper
defensescoop.com · Jon Harper · December 19, 2025
https://defensescoop.com/2025/12/18/derrick-anderson-asd-solic-dow-special-operations-confirmed/
Former Green Beret and Republican congressional candidate Derrick Anderson was approved by the Senate on Thursday night to serve as assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict.
Anderson was confirmed along with a slew of other nominees for federal jobs en bloc by a vote of 53-43.
The ASD for SO/LIC — which the Trump administration has rebranded as assistant secretary of war — advises the undersecretary of defense for policy and “oversees and advocates for Special Operations and Irregular Warfare throughout the Department of War to ensure these capabilities are resourced, ready, and properly employed in accordance with the National Defense Strategy,” according to a Pentagon description of the position.
The holder of that job has “authority, direction, and control of all special operations peculiar issues relating to the organization, training, and equipping of special operations forces,” and is “in the chain-of-command above USSOCOM for special operations-peculiar administrative matters.”
U.S. Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, is the combatant command in charge of America’s commando forces.
Anderson — who served in senior positions in the National Security Council and the Army earlier this year — was nominated for the ASD SO/LIC position in June by President Donald Trump. His confirmation hearing with the Senate Armed Services Committee was held in September. He received full Senate approval after Republicans pushed a resolution to expedite the confirmation of Trump nominees en bloc.
Trump had previously endorsed Anderson during his unsuccessful campaign for Congress as the Republican nominee in Virginia’s 7th District during the 2024 election cycle.
The new SOF overseer isn’t a newcomer to the special ops community. Anderson served as a Green Beret from 2010 to 2016, including as Special Forces company executive officer and Operational Detachment Alpha commander.
In 2014, he was involved in a friendly fire incident in Afghanistan that resulted in the deaths of five U.S. troops and an Afghan soldier during an American airstrike. Investigators later placed blame on Anderson for what happened, but he and other former service members took issue with their conclusions and faulted a problem with the aircraft’s targeting system, as reported by CBS News.
In his new position at the Pentagon, Anderson will provide civilian oversight of SOF as they continue to battle non-state actors and prepare for potential conflicts against advanced adversaries such as China.
He’ll also serve as a resource advocate for SOCOM, which is moving to adopt new drones, AI and other digital tools to gain an edge over foes.
Anderson will be stepping into his new role amid controversy about the legality of strikes overseen by the commander of SOCOM in September against alleged narco-traffickers in the Caribbean, which reportedly included a so-called “double tap” attack that killed survivors of the initial strike that disabled their vessel at sea.
Those strikes were part of a broader, ongoing military campaign directed by the Trump administration against alleged drug smugglers.
Richard Tilley had been serving as acting ASD for SO/LIC prior to Anderson’s confirmation.
Written by Jon Harper
Jon Harper is Editor-in-Chief of DefenseScoop. He leads an award-winning team of journalists in providing breaking news and in-depth analysis on military technology and the ways in which it is shaping how the Defense Department operates and modernizes. You can also follow him on X: @Jon_Harper_
defensescoop.com · Jon Harper · December 19, 2025
2. MI6 chief warns Britain is in new era of 'information warfare'
Summary:
In her first public speech as MI6 chief, Blaise Metreweli warned Britain is in a new era of information warfare, where trust erodes and lies outrun facts. She said power is shifting from states toward corporations, individuals, and algorithms that can filter reality and amplify fear. Metreweli described Russia as a leading grey zone threat, using cyber attacks, sabotage, and coercive influence operations that sit just below open war. She urged resilience at home, including protecting critical infrastructure and teaching citizens, especially children, to spot manipulation. She cast the fight as vital to democratic cohesion and to safeguard national freedom.
Excerpts:
‘Russia is testing us in the grey zone with tactics that are just below the threshold of war,’ she said, claiming Putin was attempting to ‘bully, fearmonger and manipulate’ through cyber attacks on the UK’s critical infrastructure, drones buzzing airports and bases and aggressive activity in our seas.
Russia is also waging ‘state-sponsored arson and sabotage’ and spreading poisonous propaganda which ‘seeks to crack open and exploit fractures within societies’.
...
In a wide-ranging speech, Ms Metreweli suggested information is being ‘weaponised’, not just by hostile states, but also by algorithms, corporations and tech bosses.
As states race for tech supremacy, she predicted some algorithms will ‘become as powerful as states’, suggesting data tracking and filtering could ‘become a new vector for conflict and control’, while tech bosses such as X’s Elon Musk become ever-more powerful.
Comment: We would all do well to heed her assessment and warnings about narrative intelligence and cognitive warfare.
MI6 chief warns Britain is in new era of 'information warfare'
MI6 chief warns Britain is in new era of 'information warfare' with algorithms and tech bosses becoming 'as powerful as states'
Daily Mail · REBECCA CAMBER, CRIME AND SECURITY EDITOR
By REBECCA CAMBER, CRIME AND SECURITY EDITOR
Published: 11:35 EST, 15 December 2025 | Updated: 04:34 EST, 16 December 2025
Britain faces a new frontier of information warfare where algorithms and tech bosses will become more powerful than states, the new head of MI6 warned today.
In her first public speech, Blaise Metreweli warned of the battle ahead for truth and trust saying we need to ensure our children ‘don’t get duped by information manipulation’ and algorithms that trigger fear.
Speaking for the first time at MI6’s headquarters in London, the new spy chief described how Britain is now ‘in a space between peace and war’ as Vladimir Putin continues to push the West towards war.
Ms Metreweli, who is the first woman to lead MI6 in its history, accused the Russian leader of deliberately ‘dragging out negotiations’ over the war in Ukraine.
‘Russia is testing us in the grey zone with tactics that are just below the threshold of war,’ she said, claiming Putin was attempting to ‘bully, fearmonger and manipulate’ through cyber attacks on the UK’s critical infrastructure, drones buzzing airports and bases and aggressive activity in our seas.
Russia is also waging ‘state-sponsored arson and sabotage’ and spreading poisonous propaganda which ‘seeks to crack open and exploit fractures within societies’.
Blaise Metreweli, the new head of MI6, warns that ‘our world is more dangerous and contested now than for decades’
In a wide-ranging speech, Ms Metreweli suggested information is being ‘weaponised’, not just by hostile states, but also by algorithms, corporations and tech bosses.
As states race for tech supremacy, she predicted some algorithms will ‘become as powerful as states’, suggesting data tracking and filtering could ‘become a new vector for conflict and control’, while tech bosses such as X’s Elon Musk become ever-more powerful.
‘Power itself is becoming more diffuse, more unpredictable as control over these technologies is shifting from states to corporations and sometimes to individuals,’ she said.
‘The foundations of trust in our societies are eroding. Information, once a unifiying force, is increasingly weaponised. Falsehood spreads faster than fact, dividing communities and distorting reality.
‘The algorithms flatter our biases and fracture our public squares. As trust collapses, so does our shared sense of truth - one of the greatest losses a society can suffer.’
The first woman to lead MI6 in its history, Ms Metreweli claims Vladimir Putin is attempting to ‘bully, fearmonger and manipulate’ through cyber attacks on the UK’s critical infrastructure, drones buzzing airports and bases and aggressive activity in our seas
Read More
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She added: ‘Our world is more dangerous and contested now than for decades.
‘We are being contested from sea to space, from the battleground to the boardroom, and even our brains as disinformation manipulates our understanding of each other and ourselves.’
The spymaster, known as C, chose to give her maiden speech in C’s private dining room, the iconic eighth floor, semi-circular room overlooking the Thames which memorably burst into flames in the James Bond movie Skyfall.
As she stood in front of the distinctive green tinted windows, Ms Metreweli told journalists: ‘Welcome to MI6, this iconic building, familiar to movie fans everywhere.’
In an unusually personal speech, the 48-year-old referenced her background and how she hailed from a ‘family shaped by devastating conflict’.
In the summer, the Mail exclusively revealed how Ms Metreweli’s grandfather, who she never met, was a notorious Nazi collaborator who spied and killed for Adolf Hitler's Germany.
The spymaster pledged to make MI6 more open, saying: ‘I grew up with a deep sense of gratitude for the UK’s precious democracy and freedom.’
Daily Mail · REBECCA CAMBER, CRIME AND SECURITY EDITOR
3. China Is Feeling Strong and Senses an American Retreat
Summary:
Li Yuan argues that China is entering 2025 with swelling confidence, amplified by state messaging that showcases megaprojects like the Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge and by Western influencers who echo Beijing’s story. That narrative feeds a widening perception gap: Chinese overconfidence despite economic and demographic weaknesses, and American defeatism. She cites analysts who say POTUS' new national security strategy frames China mainly as a commercial competitor, and points to eased chip sales as reinforcing a transactional approach. The risk, Yuan warns, is miscalculation as each side misreads the other’s strengths and vulnerabilities. Beijing’s triumphalism and Washington’s pessimism could destabilize ties.
Excerpts:
China’s advances in artificial intelligence, robotics and manufacturing pose real challenges for the United States. But the larger risk is the extent to which the American psyche internalizes a Beijing-driven narrative of U.S. decline, often without understanding China’s own weaknesses.
What worries some observers most is not China’s rising confidence but what they say is America’s diminishing faith in its own abilities. To Jianying Zha, a writer in New York City who has chronicled Chinese politics for decades, that shift is the real strategic danger.
“America’s greatest enemy is itself — losing faith in its core values and its fighting spirit,” she told me. “That’s exactly what plays into China’s ancient art of war: defeating you without waging war, because you’ll defeat yourself.”
Comment: Can we compete with China's narrative? Do we have the will and skill to compete with it? (rhetorical questions - I believe we can and must - we have done it before and we can do it again)
China Is Feeling Strong and Senses an American Retreat
NY Times · Li Yuan · December 18, 2025
the new new world
Beijing is using its messaging tools to show off its prowess at building infrastructure and project power, taking advantage of what it says is “deep anxiety” in U.S. policies.
Listen to this article · 7:56 min Learn more
Credit...Dongyan Xu
By
Dec. 18, 2025
阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版
When the world’s tallest bridge opened in China’s Guizhou Province in September, a state-run political talk show filmed an episode from its summit to showcase what it called “the remarkable story of China’s path to modernization.”
A Canadian influencer on the panel marveled, “You have projects like this the West could only dream of.”
CNN and NBC broadcast segments of their own about the bridge, which stands roughly 200 stories above a river. So did Matt Walsh, a right-wing commentator. “Why aren’t we building stuff like this any more?” he asked on his show on YouTube. He lamented that America had “lost the will and desire to do great things.”
It would be a mistake to brush off the story of the Guizhou bridge as simply a victory of Chinese propaganda. The reactions to the bridge point to something deeper than admiration for Chinese infrastructure: a widening imbalance between the self-images of the world’s two largest powers.
China has been buoyed this year by a surge of confidence, convinced that its governance model is ascendant and its rise inevitable. That confidence often overlooks serious vulnerabilities: a slowing economy, a deepening housing crisis and falling birthrates.
The United States, meanwhile, has taken a different tone — one that China experts say exhibits defeatism. President Trump’s national security strategy, released this month, frames China more as a business competitor than as a rival for military, technological and ideological power. That is a shift from the views of prior administrations, including Mr. Trump’s own in his first term. Chinese analysts have interpreted the new strategy as evidence of American retreat.
The document describes China as a “near peer.” It downplays Beijing’s military and technological strengths and reframes the relationship largely in commercial terms — a striking position when China sees itself advancing on every front.
An official Chinese commentary published by the Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy Studies Center argued that the “near peer” phrasing reflects “deep anxiety” within America’s decision-making establishment and amounts to a “painful” acknowledgment that earlier U.S. strategies have failed.
Similarly, Mr. Trump reversed Washington policy this month when he allowed the Silicon Valley giant Nvidia to sell advanced semiconductors to China, as long as the company shares the proceeds with the U.S. government. The move, in effect, cast competition with China as a losing battle best managed through short-term commercial transactions.
The Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge, the world’s highest, in China’s Guizhou Province.
A danger is that Mr. Trump, by downplaying the geopolitical rivalry with China, could give license to pessimism about America’s place in the world.
The gap in superpower perception — overconfidence in the rising power and defeatism in the incumbent — could destabilize U.S.-Chinese relations. It makes it less likely the two sides can view each other’s strengths with clear eyes and heightens the risk of strategic miscalculation.
“Scholars of international relations have long argued that overconfidence and false optimism can intensify conflicts and even contribute to the outbreak of wars,” said Haifeng Huang, a political scientist at Ohio State University. He pointed to how China’s belligerent brand of wolf-warrior diplomacy has alienated key trading partners, including Australia and the European Union. He cited Russia’s underestimation of the challenges it faced when it invaded Ukraine as another example of the perils of geopolitical hubris.
In recent years, the triumphant narrative that China has cultivated in its propaganda has taken root at home and echoed abroad.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, global views of China dipped to their lowest in decades. But the Chinese public, its information filtered by a tightly controlled media, consistently overestimated the country’s international standing, according to two surveys conducted by Mr. Huang. The surveys showed that Chinese people believed that China was admired and endorsed far more widely around the world than Pew Research Center and Gallup surveys indicated.
Beijing could not prevent a crisis of confidence in 2023 and 2024 after it ended its strict Covid policies. The housing market crashed, youth unemployment surged and consumer sentiment plunged. A slump in confidence, largely driven by the decline in real estate values, continues to hang over China’s economy.
But 2025 began differently. In January, DeepSeek announced a big advance in artificial intelligence and became a catalyst for a wave of technological confidence in China.
Over the past two months, I’ve interviewed more than a dozen Chinese tech executives and investors. They said they felt more optimistic than at any point in the previous four years, even as they acknowledged that the wider economy was sluggish and that intense domestic competition was eroding their profit margins.
Market sentiment has shifted, too. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng stock index, heavily weighted toward Chinese companies, is up about 25 percent this year, compared with 16 percent for the S&P 500. The founder of a Shanghai-based A.I. start-up told me that major banks were so busy working on initial public offerings that it had become difficult to get meetings with their senior executives. A year ago, the banks were asking to see him.
China’s confidence is magnified by the acclaim it receives from abroad. Western influencers routinely post videos of China’s megaprojects — from high-speed rail hubs to astonishing urban skylines — that feed a narrative of Chinese competence. American commentators gush at China’s tech and manufacturing advances. State media eagerly amplifies these voices as proof that the world views China as the standard-bearer of modern development.
The scholar Zhang Weiwei, whose political talk show featured the opening of the Guizhou bridge, has advised top leaders on how to shape China’s messaging abroad. In July, he devoted an episode to praising what he called the “wise Americans” who, in his telling, have begun to acknowledge China’s rise and America’s decline.
“Since Trump’s return to the White House,” he said, “more Western voices have been reflecting on what the U.S. has done wrong and what China has done right. Their conclusion: America’s problems are intractable.”
Chinese state media also widely reported a Pew survey showing that views of the United States have worsened this year in 10 high-income countries while views of China have improved.
American elites who visit China typically stay at high-end hotels, visit companies that are making money and meet with officials who have survived under the iron rule of Xi Jinping, China’s top leader. A Hong Kong-based economist I interviewed, requesting anonymity because Beijing had warned the person not to speak ill of the economy, said visitors rarely got to meet with people who had lost their businesses or been detained under Mr. Xi. Americans also rarely encounter ordinary Chinese who face economic pressures that might feel familiar.
A plethora of humanoid robots fought for attention at the WAIC in Shanghai, China, in July.Credit...Qilai Shen for The New York Times
China’s advances in artificial intelligence, robotics and manufacturing pose real challenges for the United States. But the larger risk is the extent to which the American psyche internalizes a Beijing-driven narrative of U.S. decline, often without understanding China’s own weaknesses.
What worries some observers most is not China’s rising confidence but what they say is America’s diminishing faith in its own abilities. To Jianying Zha, a writer in New York City who has chronicled Chinese politics for decades, that shift is the real strategic danger.
“America’s greatest enemy is itself — losing faith in its core values and its fighting spirit,” she told me. “That’s exactly what plays into China’s ancient art of war: defeating you without waging war, because you’ll defeat yourself.”
Li Yuan writes The New New World column, which focuses on China’s growing influence on the world by examining its businesses, politics and society.
A version of this article appears in print on Dec. 19, 2025, Section B, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: China, Feeling Strong, Senses An American Retreat
See more on: Xi Jinping, Donald Trump
NY Times · Li Yuan · December 18, 2025
4. Space Force Special Operations Command? Congress has questions, too
Summary:
Congress is asking why the Space Force needs a special operations service component under USSOCOM. The FY2026 NDAA would bar funds from being obligated to establish or expand a Space Force Special Operations Component Command until DoD submits a report covering timeline, facility needs, staffing, and command relationships with SOCOM, U.S. Space Command, and the Space Force. Space Force says components are standard for services and notes it already has a special operations element at MacDill. Critics argue a new component duplicates Space Command and adds bureaucracy. Some experts question what deployed guardians would do, given the service’s small size.
Space Force Special Operations Command? Congress has questions, too
The service defended its need for a SOCOM component. Defense experts said it’s redundant.
defenseone.com · Thomas Novelly
By Thomas Novelly
Senior Reporter
December 17, 2025
https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2025/12/space-force-special-operations-command-congress-has-questions-too/410245/
U.S. Space Force Tech Sgt. Kyle Yeager adjusts the tilt of the helical antenna in preparation for training exercise at Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico on March 5, 2024. U.S. Air Force / Senior Airman Natalie Vandergrif
The service defended its need for a SOCOM component. Defense experts said it’s redundant.
By Thomas Novelly
Senior Reporter
December 17, 2025
Congress wants to know why the Space Force needs a special operations component command, and wants answers before any taxpayer money is spent on creating it.
The then-head of U.S. Special Operations Command in March told lawmakers that the command had “established the Space Force Special Operations Command.” But no SOCOM service component yet exists, and a Space Force spokesperson said there’s “no definite timeline” for setting one up.
A provision in the National Defense Authorization Act, which passed the House last week and cleared the Senate on Wednesday, states that funds can’t be obligated to establish or expand a Space Force Special Operations component command until a report is submitted to the Armed Services Committees providing more explanation.
Funding for a Space Force Special Operations component command wouldn’t be allocated until 30 days after the report is submitted. Lawmakers want key details such as timeline, facility needs, and “an identification of the military, civilian and contractor personnel required for a Space Force Special Operations Component Command at initial and full operational capability.” The report must also provide an “explanation of the administrative and command relationships” between the component and other entities such as SOCOM, Space Command, and the Space Force, according to the NDAA.
Congressional scrutiny for a Space Force Special Operations Component Command follows the service’s push for an operational focus and warfighting identity. Since November 2022, Space Force has been creating components within Indo-Pacific Command, Central Command, Africa Command, and European Command. It also has created subordinate units focused on Japan and Korea.
These Space Force components were created to mirror how other service branches provide troops and domain experts to combatant commanders who can “integrate space activities into shared operations, activities, and investments,” the service has explained.
While the service says its own components are needed, defense experts said some may seem redundant given the existence of organizations such as U.S. Space Command.
Todd Harrison, a defense budget expert at the American Enterprise Institute, said the provision doesn’t stop the Space Force from standing up the component, but he noted it’s fair for Congress to question the stand-up given the "bureaucratic struggle” between the Space Force and Space Command’s existing operational mission.
“We understand the Space Force, as a service, is doing what the other services do, which is they create components to all of the different geographic commands,” Harrison said. “But the Space Force is different, because we also have a combatant command that completely overlaps with the Space Force. U.S. Space Command actually is supposed to be doing the operations and should actually be the one supporting the other combatant commands.”
Policy and defense experts have repeatedly pointed to the logistical frictions created by having both a Space Force and a Space Command. Rand researchers wrote in a 2024 report that having multiple space-focused organizations “will continue to affect the development and fielding of space capabilities and forces, the execution of operations, and how services and combatant commands unite service components into a joint force.”
A Space Force spokesperson told Defense One in an emailed statement that there’s already a Space Force Special Operations element at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida supporting SOCOM. However, the service still believes it needs a service component at the command.
“The U.S. Space Force is standing up service components to the combatant commands as a critical step in normalizing the presentation of space forces and providing clarity of command relationships, roles, and responsibilities in the Joint Force and across all theaters,” the spokesperson said.
Gen. Chance Saltzman, the chief of space operations, has telegraphed his support for the new service components in his memos to the force, dubbed C-Notes.
“Every military service uses this model,” Saltzman wrote last year. “The Space Force is no different. Every day around the world, the Space Force has units developing capabilities, building readiness, and conducting operations. That’s what it means to be a military service and part of a joint force.”
The Space Force works with special operations during training missions. Last year, Air Force Special Operations Command collaborated with the Space Force’s Special Operations element for an exercise. A Space Force squadron “replicated satellite communication and GPS-based electromagnetic interference to emulate a contested, degraded, operationally limited environment,” according to a March 2024 news release.
AFSOC, which was founded in 1990, presents its commandos and platforms to commands such as SOCOM and theater commands, such as CENTCOM, for use in missions. The last activation of a special operations component command was in 2006, when Marine Corps Special Operations Command, or MARSOC, was created.
While many guardians are “employed-in-place,” meaning they are conducting missions at Space Force bases, the service also has deployable combat detachments that can provide space capabilities to combatant commanders if needed.
Robert Farley, a senior national security lecturer at the University of Kentucky, said it makes sense for the service to be advising and informing special operators of the capabilities available to them. But he questioned what it may look like if guardians had to deploy for special operations missions, and wondered if the service is prepared for that.
“I don’t know how that works on the ground,” Farley said. “If it is actually envisioning guardians operating with special operators, in an offensive context, that seems like a lot. That seems like a lot for a really small service that doesn’t have all the personnel and doesn’t really have the infrastructure for producing the kinds of people who would be operating in a special operations context.”
5. Irregular warfare threats during multi-domain operations in the Indo-Pacific region topic of latest CASO Panel
Summary:
At Fort Leavenworth on Dec. 15, 2025, CGSC’s Area Studies Office convened a panel on irregular warfare in multi-domain operations across the Asia-Indo-Pacific. Col. Ethan Diven said irregular warfare is central to U.S. strategy. Drs. Dan Cox and Luke Herrington warned China blends kinetic moves with cognitive warfare, using TikTok and other apps for data access, distraction, and influence, including near Taiwan. Joseph Donalbain reviewed north Korea’s DMZ conflict tactics and conditions. Lt. Col. J. Thompson argued IW fundamentals must be integrated during competition and crisis, citing Ukraine. The panel supports a CASO-sponsored anthology and is on CGSC’s YouTube channel.
Excerpts:
“Irregular warfare has proven a critical aspect of the United States security policy across a wide variety of conflicts and war,” Col. Ethan Diven, commandant, CGSC, stated during opening remarks.
...
“We quickly discovered that Chinese cognitive warfare was a problem far greater than a single social media platform. We assert that China is offering the United States two forms of warfare, one kinetic and the other cognitive,” Cox stated.
...
“Irregular warfare seeks to disrupt, degrade, or discredit an adversary and sew discord among allies,” Donalbain explained.
...
“IW is not separate or a secondary effort, it is a critical component especially during the competition and crisis phase aspects of the continuum that may precede or accompany open conflict,” Thompson explained.
Comment: Excellent. Good to see this discussion at Leavenworth about irregular warfare and especially cognitive warfare as well as the focus on the Asia-Indo-Pacific.
Irregular warfare threats during multi-domain operations in the Indo-Pacific region topic of latest CASO Panel
army.mil
By Jessica Brushwood, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Public Affairs OfficeDecember 18, 2025
https://www.army.mil/article/289710/irregular_warfare_threats_during_multi_domain_operations_in_the_indo_pacific_region_topic_of_latest_caso_panel
1 / 4 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Panelists from right to left, Drs. Dan Cox and Luke Herrington, instructors, Command and General Staff College's School of Advanced Military Studies, and Dr. Joseph Donalbain and Lt. Col. J. Thompson, instructors, CGSC's Department of Joint, Interagency, and Multinational Operations, during the latest CGSC Cultural and Area Studies Office panel Dec. 15, 2025 on Fort Leavenworth, Kan. (U.S. Army Photo by Jim Shea) (Photo Credit: Courtesy) VIEW ORIGINAL
FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kansas – The U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Cultural and Area Studies Office hosted the second panel of the academic year to discuss irregular warfare threats during multi-domain operations in the Indo-Pacific Dec. 15, 2025.
“Irregular warfare has proven a critical aspect of the United States security policy across a wide variety of conflicts and war,” Col. Ethan Diven, commandant, CGSC, stated during opening remarks.
Moderator and CASO Director, Dr. Mahir Ibrahimov shared a graphic outlining the complexity of military strategy that integrates space, cyberspace, and special operations forces to enhance deterrence and operational effectiveness before turning the discussion to the panelists.
Panelists were faculty members of CGSC who shared their multi-faceted research on IW and discussed military strategy implications.
This panel is part of a seminar series discussing issues of operational and strategic importance to the U.S., which CASO conducts regularly in coordination with CGSC, universities, think tanks, interagency and other partners.
Dr. Dan Cox and Dr. Luke Herrington, School of Advanced Military Studies, CGSC, presented their research on the social media platform TikTok as a potential current and future weapon.
“We quickly discovered that Chinese cognitive warfare was a problem far greater than a single social media platform. We assert that China is offering the United States two forms of warfare, one kinetic and the other cognitive,” Cox stated.
Evidence of intentionality was found around data harvesting, data privacy, and as a weapon of mass distraction that can be used for domestic social control and global information operations.
Dr. Herrington highlighted the variety of data TikTok has been known to access including SIM card content, tax and social security information, and biometric data.
While western social platforms also practice surveillance capitalism, Herrington explained that U.S. adversaries have weaponized this TikTok data, including virtually stalking reporters to identify sources who had spoken critically of the company.
“We know that it has already been used in Chinese multi-domain operations. In particular while the People’s Liberation Army Navy was engaged in kinetic activities off the coast of Taiwan, TikTok was being used to pepper the island with propaganda about the operation at the same time,” Herrington explained.
Cox described additional shopping, gaming, and artificial intelligence apps that have aggressive malware, access to sensitive user information, or feed the user propaganda.
Poison the well operations, such as China’s Operation Shadow Play that occurred on YouTube in 2022/23, make legitimate information hard to find, promote pro-Chinese and anti-American narratives on many political topics.
Mr. Joseph Donalbain, instructor, Department of Joint, Interagency, and Multinational Operations, CGSC, presented a case study of IW tactics used by North Korea during the Korean Demilitarized Zone conflict and the conditions that enabled their effectiveness.
“Irregular warfare seeks to disrupt, degrade, or discredit an adversary and sew discord among allies,” Donalbain explained.
Tactics used by North Korea, including an assassination attempt on the South Korean president at the executive mansion and seaborne attacks on the border, were effective in causing panic in the population and mistrust of the government’s ability to protect them.
Donalbain warned of conditions today that could enable success of similar tactics with potential outcomes, which was underscored by fellow DJIMO instructor Lt. Col. J. Thompson.
Thompson spoke to IW basics such as planning and execution as laid out in a book chapter, he co-authored with Maj. John Wirge titled, “Irregular Warfare within Multi-Domain Operations: Focusing on the Fundamentals.”
“IW is not separate or a secondary effort, it is a critical component especially during the competition and crisis phase aspects of the continuum that may precede or accompany open conflict,” Thompson explained.
The war in Ukraine provides examples of the spectrum of activities found in IW, including civil military operations, information warfare, and proxy actions which shape the battlespace as much as conventional maneuver.
Thompson and Wirge’s chapter will be part of a larger anthology.
The anthology is the third of its kind sponsored by CASO in support of U.S. national security and senior leadership’s priorities.
The full panel can be viewed on the CGSC YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbLdSL03Jak.
army.mil
6. Jumpmaster who saved paratrooper breaks down viral video
Comment: Attention to detail. Jumpasters save lives. Video at the link.
Jumpmaster who saved paratrooper breaks down viral video
taskandpurpose.com · Jeff Schogol
Sgt. Maj. Keith Platt explains why he stopped a paratrooper in a widely seen video whose static line was across his neck. His lesson: “If something isn’t right, say something.”
Jeff Schogol
Published Dec 19, 2025 8:00 AM EST
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/jumpmaster-save-paratrooper-video/
Sgt. Maj. Keith Platt was closely watching as a stream of Army paratroopers hustled out the door of a C-130. As one of the mission’s jumpmasters, Platt stood in the final safety position, closely scanning each of the soldiers for any potential problems in the last moments before they jumped.
After four jumpers safely passed Platt, he saw that the fifth soldier in line had something very wrong: the paratrooper’s static line was cutting across his neck.
Platt knew instinctively that if the paratrooper jumped with the cord over his neck, he could suffer a “catastrophic injury” – an Army term that encompasses loss of limbs and death.
“As the jumper leaves the aircraft, the static line gets tight,” Platt explained to Task & Purpose. “That process of falling away from the aircraft is, ultimately, where the injury would happen. Anything between that static line and the aircraft is soft. Something’s going to happen.”
Video taken from a unit GoPro camera inside the plane captured Platt’s instant reaction: leaping forward from his position and physically stopping the soldier before he could jump, yelling “Stop, stop, stop!”
Since the jump last month, video of the incident has been shared on social media, and Platt has been widely hailed for his quick actions that may have saved the paratrooper’s life.
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An inherently dangerous mission
Military parachuting is inherently dangerous, particularly the missions that paratroopers call “mass tacs,” or mass tactical jumps in which dozens of jumpers parachute at once. Inside tightly-packed planes, jumps are overseen by teams of jumpmasters, each a senior soldier trained in every skill and piece of equipment of the flight and jump. As paratroopers prepare to jump, jumpmasters take up specific positions in the plane’s interior, each with a specific role.
Platt’s position on the jump was vital, the final safety jumpmaster positioned at the door as a last-second set of eyes for each jumper.
In an interview with Task & Purpose, Platt said he was just doing his job.
“The incident does not reflect heroics,” Platt said. “It reflects competent and trained professionals placing themselves at risk areas and then demonstrating an action to ensure the safe exiting of paratroopers.”
Platt is the operations sergeant major for the 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade in Vicenza, Italy. He is also a senior jumpmaster with 56 jumps and previously served as a jumpmaster at 5th Ranger Training Battalion in Georgia.
On Nov. 17, Platt was one of several jumpmasters aboard a C-130 as paratroopers readied themselves to jump on the Juliet Drop Zone in Aviano, Italy.
As the plane made a pass over the drop zone, the paratroopers filed rapidly towards the C-130’s open rear troop doors, each holding tight to their static line, the yellow cord attached inside the plane that activates their parachute. Just before leaping out, their last job was to hand the line to Platt, who would control it to ensure it presented no danger to the jumpers.
But as the jumpers filed past him, Platt saw that the fifth paratrooper was not holding the static line in his hand.
“So, he does not have control of his static line like he should,” Platt said. “The process of him walking towards the door routes the static line across the neck as it’s attached to the anchor line cable above him.”
Sgt. Maj. Keith Platt conducting a door check above Juliet Drop Zone at Aviano Air Base Italy in October 2025. Army photo.
The static line was not wrapped entirely around the paratrooper’s neck, as it may appear in the video of the incident, Platt said.
Paratroopers were jumping out of both the right and left doors of the C-130 in intervals one second apart. That meant Platt had about 2 seconds to recognize the danger the paratrooper was in and respond.
“I stepped in front of the jumper and placed my hand on his right shoulder and giving him the command of ‘stop, stop, stop,’” Platt said. “At the same time, I start pushing him back away from the door, so that way we can address the safety situation.”
The video shows Platt untangling the static line from the paratrooper’s neck as he moved the soldier away from the door. Everything happened so quickly that the soldier initially didn’t realize what the problem was.
“So, in that moment, you know, he was like, what is going on?” Platt said. “There wasn’t a, ‘Hey, you were wrong,’ or anything. There were no fingers pointed.”
Ultimately, the C-130 made a third pass over the drop zone, and the paratrooper successfully jumped, Platt said.
Platt said that one lesson that all airborne soldiers should take away from the close call is, “If something isn’t right, say something.”
The incident also shows the importance of constantly training for and rehearsing drops because airborne operations are inherently dangerous.
“Every time that there’s an operation put together, it’s not just a. ‘Hey, you’re going to jump to earn $200 for your airborne hazardous duty incentive pay.’ It’s a training event to prepare for if we have to do this for real.”
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Jeff Schogol is the senior Pentagon reporter for Task & Purpose. He has covered the military for nearly 20 years. Email him at schogol@taskandpurpose.com or direct message @JSchogol73030 on Twitter.
taskandpurpose.com · Jeff Schogol
7. The Indian Scouts that forged the legacy of American Special Forces
Summary:
U.S. Army Indian Scouts of the 1860s to 1890s were the original American special operators. Recruited from Apache, Crow, Pawnee and other nations, they delivered tracking, reconnaissance, infiltration, survival skills, plus interpreting and diplomacy that regular units could not match. Their intelligence and mobility shaped frontier campaigns and earned at least 16 Medals of Honor. The Army adopted crossed arrows as Scout insignia in 1890, then Special Forces adopted it in 1952 to honor that lineage. The piece also highlights Black Seminole Scouts and notes Florida’s 2024 veteran history education law and BLKOPS Foundation outreach today nationwide.
Excerpts:
The Indian Scouts were not only warriors of their time. They were the originators of an American way of unconventional warfare. Their legacy is preserved in the history of the Seminole and Black Seminole fighters, in the doctrine of the Special Forces, in the education of future generations, and in the work of veterans and organizations committed to telling their story.
They were the first to walk the shadowed trail. Today’s special operators follow in their footsteps.
The Indian Scouts that forged the legacy of American Special Forces
wearethemighty.com
By Daniel Tobias Flint
Published Dec 17, 2025 9:00 AM PST
https://www.wearethemighty.com/history/indian-scouts-legacy-of-americas-special-forces/
For generations, the Indian Scouts served as the essential eyes and ears of the United States Army across the vast, unforgiving landscapes of the American West. Decades before radios, satellites, night-vision devices, drones, or GPS changed warfare, these Indigenous warriors perfected the arts of tracking, reconnaissance, infiltration, and survival.
Their contributions not only shaped the campaigns of the 19th-century frontier but also built the intellectual and cultural foundation of today’s United States Army Special Forces. The crossed arrows worn by every Green Beret are not an abstract symbol. They are a living connection to the Indigenous scouts who pioneered the principles of unconventional warfare in North America.
Masters of the Land and Shadows
(National Archives)
Beginning in the 1860s, the U.S. Army recruited Indian Scouts from many tribal nations, including the Apache, Navajo, Crow, Sioux, Pawnee, Arikara, Cheyenne, and Shoshone. These scouts possessed knowledge and instincts that no amount of formal military training could duplicate. They could read tracks left hours before, identify the weight distribution of a rider’s body from hoof prints in soil, detect alterations in the silence of a canyon, and move through forests or deserts without leaving a trace. Their mastery of water sources, migration routes, and seasonal cycles meant they could navigate regions where entire conventional units might perish.
Their skills were not limited to tracking. The Army relied on them as interpreters, diplomats, informants, cultural guides, and shock troops during fast-moving engagements. Their understanding of terrain, human movement, and tactical deception made them indispensable during the Apache Wars, the Northern Plains campaigns, and operations along the Rio Grande.
Precision and Adaptability
Indian Scouts frequently determined the success of major military operations. During the Apache campaigns, their ability to locate hidden encampments or estimate the direction of a small war party gave U.S. commanders a strategic advantage in an era defined by small, mobile warfare. In the northern plains, Crow and Arikara scouts provided essential intelligence prior to and during the Great Sioux War. Their real-time reconnaissance helped commanders avoid ambushes, select routes, and understand enemy intentions.
Their reputation grew so widely that Army officers often requested specific scouts by name. A small group of scouts could accomplish reconnaissance tasks that would require entire companies of soldiers working for days. Their tenacity, endurance, and stealth formed the earliest template of what modern militaries would later call special operations.
The Medal of Honor Indian Scouts
Between 1870 and 1890, at least 16 Indian Scouts received the Medal of Honor for extraordinary bravery. Although many citations were brief, each reflects acts of courage that saved lives and altered the outcomes of military expeditions. Among the most notable honorees were:
Chiquito, Apache Scout
Recognized for gallant conduct during campaigns in the Arizona Territory. His actions included pursuing raiding parties through extreme terrain and confronting enemy forces at close range.
Kelsay, Apache Scout
Awarded for leading soldiers through the formidable Tonto Basin and fighting in hand-to-hand engagements during the Apache Wars.
Elato, Apache Scout
Cited for repeatedly advancing under hostile fire to provide intelligence on enemy positions.
Nannasaddie, Apache Scout
Honored for bravery during a series of engagements in which he scouted ahead of Army detachments and exposed himself to fire while locating the enemy’s stronghold.
Blanquet, Apache Scout
Recognized for placing himself between soldiers and enemy fire during surprise attacks.
Rowdy, Apache Scout
Honored for extraordinary valor during the 1886 Cherry Creek Campaign and for rescuing wounded troops under fire.
Other recipients such as Kosoha, Machol, and Nantaje served with equal distinction. While not all citations reveal the full story, the historical record shows that these scouts repeatedly risked their lives in environments where even veteran cavalrymen hesitated to operate. Their courage established a standard for reconnaissance units that persists to this day.
The Blueprint for Elite Irregular Forces
Warm Spring Apache scouts. (National Archives)
The Army’s success with Indian Scouts directly influenced the recruitment of specialized units in later decades. No group exemplifies this evolution more than the Black Seminole Scouts, first enlisted in 1870. Their cultural history blended African American resistance traditions with Seminole warrior culture. Their migration from Florida to Indian Territory, then to Texas and northern Mexico, created a community with unparalleled knowledge of the borderlands.
The Army recognized that this unique background made them ideal for frontier service. The structure and tactics of the Indian Scouts had already demonstrated the value of culturally specialized, highly skilled irregular forces. The Black Seminole Scouts followed this model and became one of the most effective small units in frontier history. Their service, combined with that of Indigenous scouts, helped define the ethos of American irregular warfare.
A Symbol of Honor: The Crossed Arrows
In 1890, the Army authorized a new insignia for the Indian Scouts consisting of two crossed arrows. This symbol represented courage, frontier knowledge, and mastery of stealth. The crossed arrows remained the official insignia of the Scouts until their disbandment in 1947.
Five years later, when the U.S. Army Special Forces were formally established in 1952, their founders adopted the crossed arrows as the branch insignia. The choice was deliberate and reverent. The Special Forces were created to perform missions that echoed the work of the Indian Scouts, including deep reconnaissance, unconventional warfare, working with local populations, gathering intelligence, and thriving in environments where traditional forces struggled.
Every Green Beret who wears the crossed arrows is honoring a legacy born in the canyons, plains, and deserts of the nineteenth century. The lineage from Indigenous scouts to modern special operators is one of continuity, shared purpose, and deep respect.
Ashishishe, known as Curly and Bull Half White, was a Crow scout in the United States Army during the Sioux Wars. (National Archives)
Why This History Matters Today
The story of the Indian Scouts, the Seminoles, the Black Seminoles, and all frontier auxiliaries is not simply a chapter in military history. It is the foundation of America’s modern special operations community and a testament to the contributions of Indigenous and Afro-Indigenous peoples whose traditions shaped U.S. military doctrine.
Today, Florida has taken bold steps to ensure that students, veterans, and communities understand this legacy. House Bill 1329, passed unanimously by both chambers of the Florida Legislature in early 2024, mandates the teaching of veteran history, including the Seminoles and Black Seminoles, whose service profoundly shaped American military strategy.
The legislation reinforces Florida’s commitment to honoring veterans by strengthening transition assistance programs, expanding support for veteran employment and small businesses, and establishing the Major John Leroy Haynes Florida Veterans’ History Program to preserve the oral histories of those who served. By requiring schools to teach the importance of Veterans Day and Memorial Day, the state ensures that present and future generations appreciate the sacrifices of the warriors who came before them.
BLKOPS Foundation: Carrying the Legacy Forward
Organizations such as the BLKOPS Foundation are leading the national effort to educate Americans about this forgotten chapter of military history. Through public programming, school outreach, veteran engagement, and online resources at www.blkopsfoundation.org, the foundation preserves the legacy of the Black Seminoles and the Indian Scouts while empowering veterans to tell their own stories.
Their work ensures that the history of irregular warriors, frontier scouts, and culturally distinct military units remains alive. By connecting past to present, BLKOPS helps Americans understand that the tactics, culture, and resilience of these nineteenth-century warriors live on in today’s Special Forces.
An Enduring Lineage of Courage
(National Archives)
From the frontier trails of the nineteenth century to the remote battlefields of the twenty-first, the lineage of the Indian Scouts runs unbroken through American military history. Every mission conducted behind enemy lines, every act of deep reconnaissance, every instance of cultural engagement, and every soldier who carries the crossed arrows on their collar is part of a living tradition.
The Indian Scouts were not only warriors of their time. They were the originators of an American way of unconventional warfare. Their legacy is preserved in the history of the Seminole and Black Seminole fighters, in the doctrine of the Special Forces, in the education of future generations, and in the work of veterans and organizations committed to telling their story.
They were the first to walk the shadowed trail. Today’s special operators follow in their footsteps.
Don’t Miss the Best of We Are The Mighty
Contributor
Daniel Flint resides in Jacksonville, Florida. He is a professional historian specializing in American history, an educator, and a dedicated community servant. Originally from Chatham, New York, He earned his Associate in Arts from Hudson Valley Community College and his Bachelor of Arts from Union College, both with a focus on American history. He furthered his education at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, obtaining his Class A teaching license.
Since 2009, Daniel has been a U.S. History educator for Duval County Public Schools, bringing history alive for his students. He has been honored as the 2022 Westside High School Teacher of the Year and the 2022 Gilder Lehrman US History Teacher of the Year for Florida. He is passionate about inspiring curiosity and a love for learning in his students.
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8.
New SOUTHCOM Cdr Nominated
December 19, 2025 SOF News Marines 0
https://sof.news/marines/new-southcom-cdr-nominated/
A new U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) commander has been nominated – US Marine Corps Lieutenant General Frank Donovan. He is currently the Vice Commander for U.S. Special Operations Command. The Department of Defense formally announced the nomination with a press release on December 19, 2025.
Admiral Alvin Holsey of the U.S. Navy retired early (December 2025) as SOUTHCOM commander due to disagreements with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Some news reports state that the clashes with SecDef included disputes about the legality and execution of strikes on suspected drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean. Holsey had assumed command (southcom.mil) of U.S. Southern Command in November 2024 from U.S. Army Gen. Laura J. Richardson.
SOUTHCOM has been a busy theater the past several months with the targeting of narco-boats carrying drugs in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean. In addition, tensions are high with Venezuela – and the U.S. military has significantly increased its presence in the Caribbean Sea region. U.S. Southern Command’s Area of Responsibility encompasses 31 countries that consists of one-sixth of the landmass of the world. There are five component commands: U.S. Army South, Air Forces Southern, U.S. Marine Corps Forces South, U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command / 4th Fleet, and Special Operations Command South.
In addition to his service in the Marine Corps where he commanded units at the MEU, brigade, and task force level. He is a former commander of the 2nd Marine Division., Donovan has significant experience in special operations – within the Marines as well as in senior joint SOF assignments.
His joint tours include:
- J35, U.S. Special Operations Command
- Branch Chief, Joint Staff, J-5 Trans-regional Theats Coordination Center
- Assisting Commanding General, Joint Special Operations Command
His education includes:
- BA in Geography, Towson University
- Masters from Marine Corps Command and Staff College
- Master from U.S. Army War College
- Advanced Management Program, Harvard Business School
**********
Lt. Gen. Donovan Biography, US. SOCOM
U.S. Southern Command
9. China and Russia Bolster Their ‘No Limits’ Alliance
Summary:
Seth Jones argues China and Russia are tightening their “no limits” partnership to weaken the United States. He cites a Dec. 9 joint bomber flight near Japan and South Korea, and a surge in Chinese dual use exports sustaining Russia’s Ukraine war, from chips and machine tools to missile fuel inputs and drone components. Moscow, he says, repays Beijing with submarine help, Taiwan invasion enabling equipment, and missile warning and satellite navigation cooperation. They run exercises and grew trade to about $245 billion in 2024, with China relying on energy. Despite frictions over north Korea, he warns Washington underestimates the axis.
Comment: Our failure to understand this alignment (along with the entire CRInK) will cause us great pain.
China and Russia Bolster Their ‘No Limits’ Alliance
Xi and Putin have their differences, but they are united in their desire to weaken America.
By Seth G. Jones
Dec. 18, 2025 1:11 pm ET
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/china-and-russia-bolster-their-no-limits-alliance-c6bc6e49?mod=hp_opin_pos_4
Chinese and Russian fighter jets during a joint flight over the sea near Japan, Dec. 10. Handout/Japan's Ministry of Defense/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
China and Russia are deepening their cooperation and taking aggressive actions with profound consequences for the U.S. On Dec. 9, Chinese and Russian bombers and other aircraft flew near Japan and South Korea, forcing the U.S. and Japan to scramble fighter aircraft and bombers. The incident is the most recent example of an emboldened China-Russia axis.
Beijing and Moscow view America as their primary enemy and aim to expand their power at the expense of the U.S. and its allies. Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are deeply revisionist and want to re-establish some semblance of the historical Chinese and Russian empires. They have repeatedly noted that their partnership has “no limits” and have met in person more than 40 times.
The arms trade is among many areas of stepped-up cooperation. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, China has increased exports to Russia of “high-priority items,” a set of 50 dual-use goods that include computer chips, machine tools, radars and sensors that Russia needs to sustain the war. While Russia lacks the capacity to produce many of these goods in sufficient quantities, China’s massive manufacturing sector can produce some of them at scale.
Chinese exports helped Russia triple its production from 2023 to 2024 of Iskander-M ballistic missiles, which Russia has used to pound Ukrainian cities. In 2024 China accounted for 70% of Russia’s imports of ammonium perchlorate, an essential ingredient in ballistic-missile fuel. China has provided Russia with drone bodies, lithium batteries and fiber-optic cables—the crucial components for fiber-optic drones used in Ukraine, which can bypass electronic jamming.
China is benefiting from this cooperation. Russia has likely assisted with the development of China’s next generation Type 096 nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarine by helping provide an advanced propulsion system. Leaked documents indicate that Russia agreed to sell China equipment that could be used in an invasion of Taiwan, such as light amphibious vehicles, self-propelled antitank guns, airborne armored personnel carriers, and special-purpose parachute systems for airdropping heavy loads from high altitudes.
China and Russia have also increased the scope and frequency of exercises and training missions. Between 2017 and 2024, they have conducted roughly 100 joint military exercises in an expanding area that includes Asia, Europe, the Middle East, the Arctic and Africa. They have also conducted numerous training missions, including eight joint bomber flights between 2019 and 2024. In July 2024, China and Russia flew Xi’an H-6 and Tu-95 Bear long-range bombers, respectively, on a joint patrol off the coast of Alaska. The two countries have held live-fire naval drills in the South China Sea and have frequently flown and sailed together near Taiwan, Japan and South Korea.
Beijing and Moscow also are deepening defense industrial base cooperation. They have signed agreements related to space and missile defense technology transfers and increased cooperation between their respective BeiDou and Glonass satellite navigation systems. In the future, Russia could help China develop ground- and space-based missile warning systems that would raise the effectiveness of China’s existing missile-defense systems and speed up the development of new ones.
Outside the military realm, the countries have strengthened economic and technological ties. China-Russia trade reached roughly $245 billion in 2024, up from $190 billion in 2022. China has been Russia’s No. 1 trading partner since 2014. In addition, China relies on Russia for oil and gas, which now make up about 75% of China’s imports.
There are disagreements between the two countries, as there are with all friends. Chinese leaders have expressed concern about Russia’s warming military relations with North Korea, which will likely lead to a strengthening of Pyongyang’s missile capabilities. Beijing has been reluctant to help Pyongyang with its nuclear program, while Russia is actively supporting the program.
But the trajectory is clear. China and Moscow are growing closer politically, militarily and economically. Their aim is to unseat the U.S. Instead of outlining a plan to counter this axis of authoritarian regimes, the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy glossed over the seriousness of the threat. Administration officials need to understand that appeasing dictators will only embolden them.
Mr. Jones is president of the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and author of “The American Edge: The Military Tech Nexus and the Sources of Great Power Dominance.”
10. Opinion | The White House Seeks to Reboot the U.S.-Europe Alliance
Summary:
Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer argues the 2025 U.S. National Security Strategy is forcing a long overdue reset in trans Atlantic security, pushing Europe to take primary responsibility for its own defense as the U.S. shifts burdens. She lays out three imperatives. Europe must rearm quickly and build a posture for a smaller U.S. role, with Ukraine as the key test of alliance credibility and guarantees. The alliance must treat defense innovation as a shared mission, pairing U.S. tech strengths with European industrial capacity and reforming slow procurement. Finally, alignment is no longer automatic, so both sides must build flexible coalitions globally based on interests, not habit.
Comment: Our unconventional diplomacy and radical national security strategy at work. The necessary wake up call? As Nietzsche said, "That which does not kill me makes me stronger." One of POTUS' legacies will be the allied wake up calls around the world.
Opinion | The White House Seeks to Reboot the U.S.-Europe Alliance
WSJ · The White House Seeks to Reboot the U.S.-Europe Alliance
Its 2025 National Security Strategy is helping awaken the Continent to the need for rebalancing defense.
By
Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer
Dec. 17, 2025 3:35 pm ET
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-white-house-seeks-to-reboot-the-u-s-europe-alliance-4558801f?mod=hp_opin_pos_2
Donald Trump, center, during a news conference with Pete Hegseth, left, and Marco Rubio, right, in The Hague, June 25. Omar Havana/Getty Images
The White House’s new National Security Strategy is accelerating a reboot of the trans-Atlantic relationship. Slow to realize the U.S. was serious about shifting its security burden, Europe is now talking with a sense of urgency about its own defense.
European leaders need to plan a credible transition from a U.S.-led security order to one that is European-led. This effort will constitute the backbone of a new trans-Atlantic strategy.
Rebalancing the U.S.-Europe security relationship will take coordinated efforts on defense, innovation and international engagement. Such work, highlighted by a bipartisan task force hosted by the German Marshall Fund of the U.S., will require political leadership from both sides of the Atlantic. It will be far less costly than the alternative, which is a slow unraveling of the trans-Atlantic partnership.
Here are three imperatives shaping the new understanding between the U.S. and Europe:
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First, Europe must rearm, and fast. President Trump has emphasized that European allies are obligated to spend 5% of gross domestic product on defense. The pledge, made at the 2025 North Atlantic Treaty Organization Summit in The Hague, is only a starting point. Given weak growth in Europe’s largest economies, raising defense budgets will require difficult domestic choices. Many leaders are already working to justify these trade-offs, clearly and honestly, to their citizens, and their effort can use the support of Washington.
But spending alone won’t deliver security. Europe needs a defense posture designed for a future in which the U.S. role is smaller. The goal isn’t to replicate U.S. capabilities system by system. Europe can instead build a credible deterrence-and-defense model that reflects its military forces and doctrine, while remaining interoperable with U.S. forces. As NATO prepares for the Ankara Summit, allies can use the months ahead to work toward this ambitious goal.
Many will say the timeline is impossible. They should be proved wrong. In this context, Ukraine will be the defining stress test of future trans-Atlantic credibility: The U.S. and Europe must coauthor a sustainable peace with robust security guarantees to deter aggression and anchor long-term European security.
Second, defense innovation must become a shared transatlantic mission. Neither side of the Atlantic can out-innovate geopolitical rivals alone. The U.S. leads in emerging technologies, but Europe brings industrial capacity and advanced manufacturing. Joint work on protecting critical infrastructure, countering hybrid threats, and developing secure telecommunications and next-generation defense technologies must continue regardless of political noise.
Procurement reform is essential. Washington is expanding its supplier base to include more-agile firms in sectors where speed matters, such as drones and autonomous systems. Europe must follow suit. Its industrial-capacity ambitions will fail if procurement remains slow, risk-averse and closed to new entrants. A European shift toward innovation-friendly models—more startups, less bureaucracy—would enhance capability and competitiveness across the alliance.
Third, Washington and European capitals must accept that their alignment is no longer automatic. They need to build flexible coalitions outside the usual trans-Atlantic circle based on shared benefits, not only historical ties.
To remain influential, the trans-Atlantic allies must offer cooperation that supports resilient supply chains, good infrastructure, technology access and, in some cases, hard security guarantees.
Such offers aren’t cost-free politically, but a flexible, interest-driven coalition-building strategy with pivotal powers in the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and Asia would help shape new global norms.
Both the U.S. and Europe are undergoing profound strategic change. The assumption that the trans-Atlantic relationship can stay the same has lost supporters, even in Europe. This shift doesn’t have to be a crisis. Rebalancing the partnership is an investment in the long-term durability of the alliance.
The path will be politically contentious. A frank discussion on national interests will trigger tensions, and a more capable Europe will sometimes disagree with Washington. That is normal in a relationship between mature powers.
A successful rebalancing will allow the U.S. to maintain focus on global priorities without fearing a security vacuum in Europe. It will give Europeans real agency over their own defense. And it will advance trans-Atlantic security despite political divides.
Ms. de Hoop Scheffer is president of the German Marshall Fund of the U.S.
Review & Outlook: Despite claiming that ‘Donald Trump is the true and rightful heir of Ronald Reagan,’ the administration’s new security document is soft on Russia and China, and while not entirely isolationist, reads more like a declaration that America can no longer afford to bear the burden of global leadership.
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Appeared in the December 18, 2025, print edition as 'The White House Seeks to Reboot the U.S.-Europe Alliance'.
WSJ · The White House Seeks to Reboot the U.S.-Europe Alliance
11. Exclusive | U.S. Pitches ‘Project Sunrise’ Plan to Turn Gaza Into High-Tech Metropoli
Summary:
WSJ reports the Trump White House is shopping “Project Sunrise,” a 32-slide plan drafted by Jared Kushner and envoy Steve Witkoff to rebuild Gaza into a high-tech coastal metropolis with resorts, rail and smart grids. The proposal pegs costs at $112.1 billion over 10 years and envisions the U.S. as an “anchor,” covering about 20% of roughly $60 billion in grants and debt guarantees, with wealthy Gulf states, Turkey and Egypt courted as donors. It assumes Hamas demilitarizes, tunnels are decommissioned, rubble and UXO cleared, and rebuilding proceeds in four phases from Rafah northward, amid doubts about feasibility and timelines.
Comment: See the graphics at the link.
As a BIG aside this is the kind of thinking that South Korea needs with north Korea when they achieve a free and unified Korea. The territory in north Korea needs to develop completely new infrastructure using leap head technologies and concepts and not simply bringing it to current standards.
Exclusive | U.S. Pitches ‘Project Sunrise’ Plan to Turn Gaza Into High-Tech Metropolis
WSJ
The blueprint drafted by Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff could have the U.S. commit to roughly 20% of some reconstruction costs over 10 years
By Alexander Ward
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, Robbie Gramer
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and Peter Grant
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Updated Dec. 19, 2025 9:34 pm ET
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-s-pitches-project-sunrise-plan-to-turn-gaza-into-high-tech-metropolis-ebbd96ae?st=ZfbXiN&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
WASHINGTON—Beachside luxury resorts. High-speed rail. AI-optimized smart grids.
Welcome to “Project Sunrise,” the Trump administration’s pitch to foreign governments and investors to turn Gaza’s rubble into a futuristic coastal destination.
A team led by President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, two top White House aides, developed a draft proposal to convert the bombed-out enclave into a gleaming metropolis. In 32 pages of PowerPoint slides, replete with images of coastal high-rises alongside charts and cost tables, the plan outlines steps to take Gaza residents from tents to penthouses and from poverty to prosperity.
The presentation is labeled “sensitive but unclassified,” and doesn’t go into details about which countries or companies would fund Gaza’s rebuilding. Nor does it specify where precisely the 2 million displaced Palestinians would live during reconstruction. The U.S. has shown the slides to prospective donor countries, U.S. officials said, including wealthy Gulf kingdoms, Turkey and Egypt.
Some U.S. officials who have reviewed the plan have serious doubts about how realistic it is. They are skeptical that Hamas will agree to disarm in the first place for the plan to take effect—and even then that the U.S. could convince wealthy nations to foot the bill for transforming a dangerous postwar environment into a high-tech cityscape.
Others believe it offers the most detailed and optimistic vision yet of what Gaza could look like if Hamas laid down its arms and turned the page on decades of conflict.
“They can make all the slides they want,” said Steven Cook, a senior fellow for the Middle East at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank who just traveled to Israel but didn’t see the draft. “No one in Israel thinks they will move beyond the current situation and everyone is okay with that.”
“Nothing happens until Hamas disarms. Hamas will not disarm, so nothing will happen,” he said.
Asked for comment, a White House spokesperson said Trump continues to monitor Gaza and the peace plan. “The Trump administration will continue to work diligently with our partners to sustain a lasting peace and lay the groundwork for a peaceful and prosperous Gaza.”
The project, according to the draft, would cost a total of $112.1 billion over 10 years, though the U.S. would commit to being an “anchor” supporting nearly $60 billion in grants and guarantees on debt for “all the contemplated workstreams” in that time period. Gaza could then self-fund many projects over the following years of the plan, the proposal projects, and eventually pay down its debt as improvements fuel local industry and the broader economy.
Kushner, Witkoff, senior White House aide Josh Gruenbaum and other U.S. officials pulled the proposal together over the past 45 days, officials said, adding they received input from Israeli officials, people in the private sector and contractors. If the project gets under way, they plan to update and revise the numbers about every two years as it unfolds, officials said.
Supporters of the project insist that allowing Gaza to go undeveloped and let a burgeoning humanitarian crisis fester is a far worse alternative, adding it is better to realize Trump’s vision of turning Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
The hurdles for developing the area are tremendous. After thousands of Israeli strikes on Gaza during the two year Israel-Hamas war, some 10,000 bodies lay under 68 million tons of rubble, officials estimate. The ground is toxic and littered with unexploded bombs. Hamas fighters remain entrenched.
The proposal acknowledges on the second page, bold and in red, that Gaza’s reconstruction depends on Hamas “to demilitarize and decommission all weapons and tunnels.”
If the security conditions allow, Trump officials said they could put the plan into action in as soon as two months.
“You are not going to convince anyone to invest money in Gaza if they believe another war is going to happen in two, three years,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday about the general situation in the enclave.
“We have a lot of confidence that we are going to have the donors for the reconstruction effort and for all the humanitarian support in the long term,” Rubio said.
Kushner, Witkoff and Gruenbaum met with officials from Egypt, Turkey and Qatar in Miami on Friday to discuss developments in Gaza, officials said.
A 20-plus-year road map shows the effort starting with the removal of destroyed buildings, unexploded ordnance and Hamas’s tunnels while residents are provided with temporary shelter, field hospitals and mobile clinics. Once cleared, the construction of permanent housing, medical facilities, schools and religious spaces would begin. Roads would get paved, power lines connected, crops planted. Only after that would the longer-term goals of lavish beachfront properties and modern transportation hubs be realized.
The rebuild would proceed in four phases, starting in the south with Rafah and Khan Younis before moving northward to “center camps” and, finally, the capital Gaza City.
One slide, titled “New Rafah,” sees it serving as Gaza’s “seat of governance” and home to more than 500,000 residents. They would live in a city with more than 100,000 housing units, 200 or more schools, and more than 75 medical facilities and 180 mosques and cultural centers.
The plan estimates the entire effort would cost $112.1 billion, including the public-sector payroll, over those 10 years, with much of it at the start going to humanitarian needs. Just under $60 billion would be financed by grants ($41.9 billion) and new debt ($15.2 billion) in that time period, with the U.S. offering to “anchor” 20% or more of the support. The World Bank would also play a financing role.
Costs are projected to taper off as Gaza makes money heading into the plan’s second decade. The proposal calls for monetizing 70% of Gaza’s coastline beginning in year 10, and estimates the glitzy riviera could lead to over $55 billion in long-run investment returns.
Before entering politics, Kushner built a career in commercial real estate, helping run his family’s property empire. Though he helped broker the Abraham Accords between Israel and Arab countries in Trump’s first term, nothing matches the scale or complexity of the undertaking taking shape in Gaza.
Since leaving the White House in 2021, Kushner has repositioned himself as an investor in a wide range of businesses. He founded Affinity Partners, a Miami-based private-equity firm that has raised more than $3.5 billion, much of it from Middle Eastern sovereign-wealth funds.
Affinity has taken stakes in sectors such as technology, infrastructure, energy and asset management, including investments in companies like an Israeli insurance and asset-management firm, and U.S. and Middle Eastern tech ventures.
Kushner also has been involved in other real-estate projects since leaving the White House. He has pursued a high-profile luxury resort development on Sazan Island in Albania, aiming to transform it into a flagship Mediterranean destination.
In the Middle East, breaking ground on Project Sunrise would only come toward the end of a long and fragile peace process between Israel and Hamas.
A three-phase plan is still in “Phase 1,” as Hamas has yet to hand over its last hostage—the body of Ran Gvili. If that happens, Israeli forces can begin their withdrawal from Gaza in “Phase 2” as Hamas lays down its arms, vowing never to seek power in the enclave again. Only then, with Gaza no longer home to Hamas militants or occupied by Israeli forces, could the multi-year rebuild begin in “Phase 3.”
The U.S. has considered other similar proposals for Gaza, including one called the Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation Trust—or The GREAT Trust. Under this proposal, the enclave would turn into a high-tech, AI-fueled megacity the U.S. would initially help administer while Palestinians could voluntarily relocate.
But that plan, which the Washington Post reported in September, was devised by Israelis supportive of a controversial aid-distribution plan for Gaza while financial planning was done by a team at Boston Consulting Group. It was created before the October cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.
U.S. officials say “Project Sunrise” shows the administration is now directly engaged in nation building in Gaza, even if senior Trump aides reject that characterization.
“If you say something enough people will believe it so if they say they aren’t nation-building, they hope people will believe it,” said Cook, the CFR senior fellow. “But they are nation-building.”
Write to Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com, Robbie Gramer at robbie.gramer@wsj.com and Peter Grant at peter.grant@wsj.com
Corrections & Amplifications
Kushner, Witkoff and Gruenbaum met with officials from Egypt, Turkey and Qatar in Miami on Friday to discuss developments in Gaza, officials said. An earlier version of this article incorrectly included the United Arab Emirates in the list and and omitted Egypt. (Corrected on Dec. 19)
Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the December 20, 2025, print edition as 'U.S. Aims to Turn Gaza into Glitzy Haven'.
WSJ
12. U.S. Strikes Syria Targets in Response to Fatal Attack on Americans
Summary:
The WSJ reports the U.S. launched “Hawkeye Strike” against ISIS targets in Syria after a Dec. 13 ambush near Palmyra killed three Americans, including two Iowa National Guard soldiers and a U.S. civilian interpreter, and also killed a Syrian officer. U.S. officials said more than 70 ISIS weapons and infrastructure sites were hit in central Syria using F-15E and A-10 aircraft, Apache helicopters, and HIMARS rockets, delivering over 100 precision-guided munitions. Jordanian F-16s reportedly participated. The strikes drew on intelligence from earlier U.S. and partner raids that killed militants and detained others, and come amid expanding counterterrorism coordination with Syria’s new government.
Comment: This is a lot of firepower in Syria (or available for our operations in Syria):
A U.S. military official said Friday that more than 70 targets were being struck by U.S. F-15E and A-10 warplanes, Apache attack helicopters and Himars rockets.
U.S. Strikes Syria Targets in Response to Fatal Attack on Americans
WSJ
Over 70 sites struck after three Americans died last weekend in ambush blamed on ISIS
By Michael R. Gordon
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, Lara Seligman
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and Jared Malsin
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Updated Dec. 19, 2025 7:57 pm ET
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-s-strikes-syria-targets-in-response-to-fatal-attack-on-americans-a116f257?mod=hp_lead_pos3
President Trump saluted as the remains of a soldier killed in Syria were returned to the U.S. this week. Julia Demaree Nikhinson/Associated Press
The U.S. military conducted a large-scale attack against Islamic State targets in Syria as the Trump administration retaliated for the killing of three Americans last week.
A U.S. military official said Friday that more than 70 targets were being struck by U.S. F-15E and A-10 warplanes, Apache attack helicopters and Himars rockets.
The operation is being dubbed “Hawkeye Strike” in honor of the Iowa National Guard soldiers who were killed and wounded in an ambush the Trump administration has blamed on ISIS.
The gunman who ambushed the Americans was killed in the original attack. But President Trump on Sunday vowed to take military action against the group. The strikes were the biggest American attack against ISIS in Syria since the fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad late last year.
“Because of ISIS’s vicious killing of brave American Patriots in Syria, whose beautiful souls I welcomed home to American soil earlier this week in a very dignified ceremony, I am hereby announcing that the United States is inflicting very serious retaliation, just as I promised, on the murderous terrorists responsible,” Trump said in post on Truth Social.
Jordan’s F-16 jet fighters were also involved in the operation, according to U.S. officials. A spokeswoman for the Jordanian Embassy in Washington had no immediate comment.
The strikes, which involved the delivery of more than 100 precision guided munitions. were carried out in central Syria and targeted ISIS infrastructure and weapons sites, U.S. officials said.
U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for U.S. forces in the Middle East, in a statement sent after 2.a.m. local time said that a “massive strike” had begun on Islamic State weapons and infrastructure sites in Syria.
“The Dec. 13 attack took place as a local U.S. commander and a Syrian Ministry of Interior official were meeting in Palmyra. That meeting, in combination with related coordination between the U.S. and Syrian government, produced new intelligence on ISIS activities and weapons storage caches about which the U.S. military were previously unaware,” according to a senior U.S. official.
Even before the strike, the U.S. had moved to step up the pressure against the militants. Earlier this week, the U.S. and its regional partners carried out a series of raids in Iraq and Syria that led to the death of three militants and the detention of 20 more. Those operations, a U.S. military official said, yielded intelligence that facilitated the Friday strikes.
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“The Dec. 13 attack took place at a fortified facility of the Internal Security Command, Syria’s main domestic security force, near Palmyra. Two soldiers were killed and three others were wounded, a rare lethal assault against U.S. personnel in the country. A U.S. civilian working as an interpreter was also killed. A Syrian officer was killed and two others injured, according to Syria’s Interior Ministry.
The ambush was widely seen as an effort to disrupt the growing cooperation on counterterrorism between the Trump administration and Syria’s new President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
Syrian authorities last week blamed the ambush on a member of Syria’s security forces who they said was set to be fired for holding extremist views.
The attack was the first major test of a new American security partnership with the government of Sharaa, a former rebel leader who led the overthrow of Assad.
Sharaa, himself a former jihadist who rejected ties with Al-Qaeda nearly a decade ago, is under pressure to remove hard-liners among the rebel coalition that brought him to power and who now make up a large part of Syria’s new military.
Syria’s new government joined the global U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State in November, coinciding with a visit by Sharaa to the White House that cemented ties with the Trump administration.
Trump signed congressional legislation this week that removes a debilitating sanctions law on Syria, the Caesar Act, that had been imposed to punish Assad’s regime for war crimes, completing an important goal of Trump’s push to ease Syria’s path to stability after the fall of Assad.
A spokesman for the Syrian Interior Ministry said the government is evaluating thousands of Syrian security members to get rid of possible extremists.
The Islamic State group, which seized a large portion of Iraq and Syria in 2014, was pushed out of its territory after a campaign by Syrian and Iraqi forces backed by American special operations forces and airstrikes. The militant group persists as an insurgent force.
A report in June from the Pentagon’s inspector general, citing the U.S. military coalition operating on the ground, said Islamic State aims to destabilize the new Syrian government.
Islamic State claimed a separate attack on Sunday that killed four members of the Syrian government security forces in northwest Syria, part of what military analysts say is a concerted attempt to disrupt the new partnership with Washington.
As part of its ongoing mission against Islamic State, the U.S. has about 1,000 troops in northeast Syria, where they work with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, and at the al-Tanf Garrison in the southeastern part of the country.
Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, visited that outpost on Friday to meet with the unit that lost soldiers last week and talked about the U.S. retaliation.
“This shows that ISIS is still active in central Syria,” said Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who served in the first Trump administration. “The U.S., the Sharaa government and the Syrian Democratic Forces are going to be fighting against ISIS for some time.”
Syria’s state-affiliated Al-Ekhbariah news channel said the sound of explosions could be heard in the countryside near the city of Deir Ezzour, in eastern Syria. The area is at the heart of the region where Syrian and American forces battled Islamic State militants for years.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry in a statement posted moments after the U.S. strikes said last weekend’s attack “underscores the urgent necessity of strengthening international cooperation to combat terrorism in all its forms.”
The statement said Damascus is committed to ensuring that Islamic State “has no safe havens on Syrian territory, and will continue to intensify military operations against it wherever it poses a threat.”
“In the statement, the Syrian government also invited the U.S. and other coalition nations that make up the international coalition to defeat ISIS to support the counter-ISIS fight,” the senior U.S. official said.
“That means the U.S. and other militaries fighting ISIS can now move into areas of Syria they had previously not been welcome, under the regime of former Syrian President Bashar Assad.”
Write to Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com, Lara Seligman at lara.seligman@wsj.com and Jared Malsin at jared.malsin@wsj.com
Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the December 20, 2025, print edition as 'U.S. Hits Syria to Avenge Deadly Ambush'.
WSJ
13. Civil Affairs, AI, and the Future of Army Readiness
Summary:
ARSOF Civil Affairs is using artificial intelligence to modernize readiness validation during Exercise Atlas Lion at Fort Bragg and Camp Mackall in October 2025. Two four-person teams from Bravo Company, 91st Civil Affairs Battalion, ran complex, LSCO-style scenarios to confirm core competencies, then expanded to a company-level tabletop exercise with 96th Civil Affairs Battalion. The key shift was certification without human external evaluators. An AI/ML model, supported by Motive International, used doctrine-based indicators and tens of thousands of data points to produce an objective assessment. The article argues AI can standardize training, scale repetition, and reduce resource burdens while keeping Civil Affairs focused on civil networks and governance in contested environments.
Civil Affairs, AI, and the Future of Army Readiness
army.mil
By Maj. Justin ZwickNovember 18, 2025
https://www.army.mil/article/289070/civil_affairs_ai_and_the_future_of_army_readiness
U.S. Army Soldier assigned to 96th Civil Affairs Battalion (Special Operations) (Airborne) takes notes during briefing about Artificial Intelligence training during a tabletop exercise as part of Atlas Lion at Fort Bragg, N.C. Oct. 27, 2025. The Atlas Lion Table-Top Exercise is an AI supported simulation designed to validate Civil Affairs Company’s core competencies in a digital training environment, ensuring readiness for real-world operations by validating their ability to effectively support civilian populations and local governance. (U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Natalia Hernandez) (Photo Credit: Pfc. Kristina Randall) VIEW ORIGINAL
Fort Bragg, N.C. – Soldiers from the 91st Civil Affairs Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group, executed a team-level validation exercise conducted October 20 – 24 2025. This annual training event enhances unit readiness and prepares Soldiers for complex missions worldwide. Following months of individual and collective training, Civil Affairs teams validated their skills in a realistic training scenario, designed to test Soldiers’ skills in a complex and dynamic environment.
Army Special Operations Forces Civil Affairs (ARSOF CA), is a branch of Soldiers specially trained to understand and influence the civil component of the operational environment. Civil Affairs professionals serve as an integral component in providing Commanders with key information about a region’s civilian population, enabling commanders to maintain operational tempo, preserve combat power, and consolidate gains. Capable of operating within the full spectrum of operations, ARSOF CA teams integrate with key populations and organizations to best understand civil networks to support national and theater-level objectives.
During Atlas Lion 26-1, two 4-person teams from Bravo Company of the 91st Civil Affairs Battalion navigated complex scenarios designed to evaluate months of tactical training. From engaging with local nationals to evacuating simulated casualties under hostile conditions, teams worked through multifaceted scenarios in a large-scale combat operations environment to prepare Soldiers for the unforeseen challenges overseas.
U.S. Army Soldiers assigned to 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) improve their interpersonal skills by conducting a mock interview during exercise Atlas Lion at Camp Mackall, N.C., Oct. 23, 2025. Atlas Lion is an exercise designed to confirm Civil Affairs teams' proficiency in technical and tactical skills within a simulated training environment, ensuring readiness for real-world operations by verifying their ability to effectively support civilian populations and local governance. (U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Kristina Randall) (Photo Credit: Pfc. Kristina Randall) VIEW ORIGINAL
“This training environment replicates a large-scale combat operations environment. When we train, we train for the future,” explained Lt. Col. Michael Veglucci, Commander of the 91st Civil Affairs Battalion. “This gets after our core competencies and our Civil Affairs battle drills.”
After a week of validating their CA collective tasks, the 91st Civil Affairs Battalion partnered with Delta Company, 96th Civil Affairs Battalion, to execute a comprehensive tabletop exercise. This exercise leveraged a one-of-a-kind artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) model that enabled leaders to certify their Company in the unit’s critical tasks, a groundbreaking shift in how the Army assesses readiness.
In a first full iteration for the formation, ARSOF CA conducted a company-level certification exercise without using humans as external evaluators. For decades, units relied on observers to monitor training and assess Soldier competencies. Today, that work is being done by AI.
U.S. Army Soldiers assigned to the 91st and 96th Civil Affairs Battalions (Special Operations) (Airborne) receives a briefing about Artificial Intelligence model used during for a tabletop exercise as part of Atlas Lion at Fort Bragg, N.C. Oct. 27, 2025. The Atlas Lion Table-Top Exercise is an AI supported simulation designed to validate Civil Affairs Company’s core competencies in a digital training environment, ensuring readiness for real-world operations by validating their ability to effectively support civilian populations and local governance. (U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Natalia Hernandez) (Photo Credit: Pfc. Kristina Randall) VIEW ORIGINAL
Civil Affairs Soldiers, who typically find themselves engaging with civil populations to solve complex problems, suddenly found themselves interacting with role players and civilian leaders built into the AI model.
In an innovative approach to transform how Soldiers prepare for future conflicts across multiple operational environments, AI is helping standardize training. AI enables commanders to rapidly scale training without proportionally increasing resources. What was once expensive and resource-intensive feat is now being done with the stroke of a keyboard.
U.S. Army Soldiers assigned to 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) conduct a mock interview with a role-playing actor simulating foreign government powers during exercise Atlas Lion at Camp Mackall N.C., Oct. 23, 2025. Atlas Lion is an exercise designed to confirm Civil Affairs teams' proficiency in technical and tactical skills within a simulated training environment, ensuring readiness for real-world operations by verifying their ability to effectively support civilian populations and local governance. (U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Kristina Randall) (Photo Credit: Pfc. Kristina Randall) VIEW ORIGINAL
“What makes this AI model unique is that it is limitless in complexity and cohesion to give the training audience a valuable and effective training opportunity,” said Morgan Keay, CEO and founder of Motive International, who ran the training. “This training provides commanders with an objective assessment of their formation’s ability to execute critical tasks before sending anyone overseas.”
During Atlas Lion, the AI model analyzed tens of thousands of data points using key performance indicators, a task previously impossible for human evaluators. By leveraging thousands of pages of doctrine, documents, and regulations, the model provided an unbiased assessment of the Company’s ability to conduct Civil Affairs tasks critical to mission success.
U.S. Army Soldier assigned to 96th Civil Affairs Battalion (Special Operations) (Airborne) takes notes during a briefing about the Artificial Intelligence training during a tabletop exercise as part of Atlas Lion at Fort Bragg, N.C. Oct. 27, 2025. The Atlas Lion Table-Top Exercise is an AI supported simulation designed to validate Civil Affairs Company’s core competencies in a digital training environment, ensuring readiness for real-world operations by validating their ability to effectively support civilian populations and local governance. (U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Natalia Hernandez) (Photo Credit: Pfc. Kristina Randall) VIEW ORIGINAL
While some express skepticism about the role of AI in evaluating Soldiers whose primary role is to engage with civilian populations, the Army is adapting, modernizing, and transforming how it trains and certifies its troops.
As the Army continues to identify innovative ways to train and certify formations, Civil Affairs Soldiers are shaping the future of training. Through innovation and forward-thinking leadership, ARSOF CA is not only enhancing their readiness but also setting the standard for how the Army will train and certify its Soldiers to meet the demands of tomorrow’s missions.
army.mil
14. Handbook on the role of non-state actors in Russian hybrid threats
Summary:
Hybrid CoE Paper 27 surveys how Russia uses non-state actors to run hybrid operations while preserving deniability. It maps five actor clusters: armed groups and PMCs; cyber actors from teams to hacktivists and criminals; propaganda and disinformation contractors and influencers; social and political vehicles such as think tanks, compatriot networks, and the Orthodox Church; and economic enablers that move money and evade sanctions. The handbook argues these relationships are informal and modular, yet align with state priorities through patronage and intelligence links. It closes with warning signs and countermeasures, including financial controls, security, coordinated attribution, and sanctions across domains today
Comment: The 95 page handbook can be downloaded at this link: https://www.hybridcoe.fi/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Hybrid-CoE-Paper-27-Handbook-on-the-role-of-non-state-actors-in-Russian-hybrid-threats.pdf
For all those with an interest in information and influence activities, operations in the information environment, psychological operations, Information Warfare (IWar), narrative intelligence, and cognitive warfare.
RUEA - recognize our adversaries' strategies, (deeply) understand them, expose them (with prejudice), and attack them with a superior political warfare strategy led by information. Can we learn to lead with influence?
Handbook on the role of non-state actors in Russian hybrid threats
by Eginhards Volāns, Vladimir Rauta, Magda Long, Andis Kudors, Agata Kleczkowska, Eliza Lockhart
https://www.hybridcoe.fi/publications/handbook-on-the-role-of-non-state-actors-in-russian-hybrid-threats/
Russia’s employment of non-state actors is a staple of its approach to hybrid threat operations, whether through attacks on German military and industrial facilities by individuals, sabotage of French rail infrastructure by loosely co-ordinated groups, disinformation campaigns run by private companies, or cyber operations by hacktivist collectives.
This handbook provides an overarching assessment of Russia’s approach to working with and through various NSAs across different operational domains, mapping both the empirical depth and breadth of the phenomenon. It establishes a much-needed baseline for understanding the logic behind Russia’s use of NSAs and lays the groundwork for determining appropriate measures and countermeasures at a time when operations below and above the threshold of war are on the rise.
15. Washington Is Helping Beijing “Tell China’s Story Well”
Summary:
Ohlberg and Chen argue that Beijing’s long-running influence work is gaining traction in 2025 less through a new CCP playbook than through U.S. retreat. They cite cuts to international broadcasting and the dismantling of U.S. counter-disinformation bodies, which create an information vacuum and weaken allied resilience. China then scales AI-enabled wedge narratives, paid influencers, and Sino-Russian messaging aimed at splitting transatlantic unity on Ukraine, trade, and technology rules. The authors warn Taiwan shows the ceiling of these capabilities. They add Washington is also pressuring Europe’s digital regulations, inadvertently amplifying Beijing’s propaganda leverage and risks normalizing talking points inside U.S. debate.
Commentary: Is this how we lose the narrative intelligence and cognitive warfare fight? HAve we ceded the information and influence space to our adversaries? Is that really in our best interests?
Washington Is Helping Beijing “Tell China’s Story Well”
gmfus.org · Mareike Ohlberg
December 16, 2025
by Mareike Ohlberg and Andy Chen
https://www.gmfus.org/news/washington-helping-beijing-tell-chinas-story-well
Beijing has for decades invested significant resources into manipulating Western public opinion, but 2025 marks a significant change. This is not because the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) created a radically new playbook, but because Washington is paving the way for its efforts. As the United States abandons its role in international broadcasting and dismantles the institutions previously at the core of countering CCP propaganda, and as some in the administration even repeat Russian and Chinese talking points, China feels emboldened in promoting AI-backed disinformation campaigns, paid influencer schemes, and divisive narratives. All of this comes at a time when the Western alliance system is already strained as a result of uncertainty about US commitment. China’s amplification of its propaganda is sowing fresh discord at the core of the alliance system.
China’s Newfound Influence in the West
Tasked by Xi Jinping with “telling China’s story well” over a decade ago, Chinese official media, through CGTN, Xinhua, and a plethora of local partner outlets, have accelerated their investment and reach with content tailored to specific Western audiences. Increasingly, they are doing so by leveraging AI to rapidly deploy wedge narratives and target them with precision. Chinese technology and security services use advanced AI to monitor, analyze, and segment US and EU public discourse through tailored narratives and their catalog of influencers. In the first half of 2025, OpenAI disrupted four separate Chinese operations by using ChatGPT to generate bespoke English-language social media content. This content targeted American audiences on social media platforms, stoking controversial debates about foreign aid and the CCP. In September, China’s military parade showcased its new Information Operations Group, featuring AI-integrated digital intelligence-enabling vehicles designed for real-time information warfare. This signaled Beijing’s further commitment to integrating cutting-edge technology into its propaganda capabilities.
China’s priorities go beyond positive publicity, as documented in the 3rd European External Action Service (EEAS) Report. An increasing proportion of Chinese and joint Sino-Russian operations have explicitly aimed to amplify differences over Ukraine, trade, digital sovereignty, and transatlantic leadership. Multilingual campaigns target both populations and policymakers, often exploiting existing social divides to paralyze or undermine collective international response.
Taiwan as a Warning
Yet, when targeting Western countries, China continues to operate below the threshold of its capabilities, especially when compared to its information operations within Taiwan. Beijing’s campaign against Taiwan during its 2024 presidential election offers the clearest picture of what a focused Western information push operation could look like. AI-generated deepfake attacks, rumor flooding, and the spread of wedge content undermined social trust, increased voter confusion, and fractured local consensus. While not all of the strategies are new, the refinement and mass amplification through generative AI points to the risk Western societies face if China chooses to devote its full capabilities to similar campaigns in the United States or Europe during a time of Western retreat.
The United States is Dismantling Its Defenses in the Information Space
Funding freezes, mass layoffs, and program eliminations at US international broadcasters such as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Radio Free Asia eliminated an important source of independent journalism globally. Additionally, the US has broken down its counter-disinformation infrastructure with the shuttering of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center in late 2024 and the closure of its successor organization, the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Hub in April 2025. Other organizations, such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and its partners, continue to face the threat of defunding by Congress, weakening programs that build resilience against malign influence. What made these actions particularly harmful was that the recently dismantled Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) justified its dismantling of US organizations such as USAID and NED by parroting key Russian and Chinese talking points, falsely accusing the organizations of promoting “regime change” abroad.
Besides dismantling its own organizations, the Trump administration is undermining European legislation aimed at countering information manipulation. In August, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a directive to US diplomats to lobby against the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA). While the administration claims that the DSA undermines US users’ free speech, most of the DSA, which has opened investigations into both Chinese and US tech companies, is concerned with enforcing basic transparency from social media platforms about their policies. In fact, in October 2025, the EU Commission found that Meta offers users insufficient means to challenge content moderation decisions. The United States even considered sanctioning EU and member-state officials implementing the DSA. Following US President Donald Trump’s meeting with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in July, the EU Commission delayed and weakened the AI Act’s implementation until at least 2027, removing requirements for high-risk AI practices, including transparency for synthetic content, critical tools to identify AI-enabled disinformation. In November, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick stated that the EU must rethink its digital regulations if it wants the United States to reduce tariffs on steel and aluminum.
US Politics with Chinese Characteristics
Beyond retreating in the information space, elements within the US government and its affiliates have recently begun echoing Beijing’s narratives in policy directives, public statements, and the adoption of US-based technology.
Influential figures within the administration echo CCP talking points on Taiwan. Elon Musk, a former senior advisor to the president, has repeatedly promoted China’s position on Taiwan as a special administrative zone and repeated positions in line with the One China Principle. Musk’s positions persist in 2025 as he deepens his financial relations with Beijing through Tesla’s factory expansion in Shanghai amid Trump’s trade war. Former acting under-secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs Darren Beattie previously denied the Uyghur genocide in China and even praised Chinese policies. The danger is that Beattie and others have the social following to convince their audience that democratic rule is inferior to the type of governance in China.
Trump’s actions have also become invaluable propaganda material for Beijing. In June 2025, the China Media Project found that the recent immigration crackdown and the deployment of the National Guard have allowed CCP propaganda to reach new heights. For years, the Party has marshaled narratives to support China’s core interests and paint US objectives as harmful. The administration’s dismantling of networks that combat information manipulation and its crackdown on protests have provided fodder for China’s claims of US “fake human rights” and “real hegemony”.
The US turn was reflected most emphatically in the recently released National Security Strategy (NSS), which calls for “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations”. In effect, this means working with the same far-right parties across the continent with which China has been cultivating ties for its own ends and which often echo official Chinese talking points. It is therefore no surprise that, while less enthusiastic than Russia’s full endorsement, Beijing’s response to the 2025 NSS was far less critical than toward previous versions.
Washington Doing Beijing’s Work
Despite the sophistication and reach of information campaigns targeting Western countries, China has yet to deploy them fully. Many operations remain exploratory, local in focus, or lacking in lasting traction. What is accelerating the social divide in the West is not just China’s growing investment, but the void left by US disengagement from its allies and the widely shared perception that elements inside the US government are in effect siding with autocracies such as Russia and China. The disregard for established news sources, the neglect of information infrastructure, and the genuine erosion of trust between the United States and its allies all amplify the effects of China’s efforts, resulting in gains far greater than Beijing could have wished for.
The views expressed herein are those solely of the authors. GMF as an institution does not take positions.
gmfus.org · Mareike Ohlberg
16. The Most Powerful Politics Influencers Barely Post About Politics
Summary:
WIRED argues that the most persuasive political messengers online are often creators who rarely post about politics. It cites a Columbia and Harvard study of 4,716 Americans aged 18 to 45, who were assigned to follow progressive creators from August to December 2024. Exposure increased political knowledge and nudged policy and partisan views left, while a control group drifted right, reflecting network bias. The striking finding is that apolitical influencers were about three times more persuasive per politics video than overt political creators, likely because parasocial trust feels authentic. The piece says POTUS’s campaign exploited that dynamic on niche shows.
Comment: I send this out for information and education and not from any partisan position. I think this extends beyond partisan politics. These may provide some important and useful insights for anyone studying information and influence activities, narrative intelligence, and cognitive warfare.
The Most Powerful Politics Influencers Barely Post About Politics
New research shows that social media creators have enormous influence over their audiences' politics—especially those who don't normally share political content.
Wired · David Gilbert · December 17, 2025
https://www.wired.com/story/the-most-powerful-politics-influencers-barely-post-about-politics/
Donald Trump’s appearances on the podcasts of Joe Rogan and Theo Von, among others, were seen by many as a key part of securing his second term in office.
But while Trump was speculating about alien life on Mars with Rogan, he had a team of acolytes appearing on dozens, if not hundreds, of much smaller niche podcasts hosted by right-wing content creators who typically don’t talk about politics.
This is how, just six days before the election, Kash Patel, the man now struggling to run the FBI, ended up appearing on the Deplorable Discussions livestream, a fringe, QAnon-infused show hosted on a platform called Pilled.
“The Deep State exists,” Patel told the audience. “It's a Democratic-Republican uniparty swamp monster machine.”
At the time, there was no hard evidence behind an idea the Trump campaign appeared to understand instinctively: Social media creators, especially those who do not typically speak about politics, have an extraordinary ability to sway their audiences.
Now we have that evidence.
A new report, shared exclusively with WIRED and published today by researchers from Columbia and Harvard, is a first-of-its-kind study designed to measure the impact influencers and online creators can have on their audiences.
The study was conducted with 4,716 Americans aged between 18 and 45, most of whom were randomly assigned a list of progressive content creators to follow. Over the course of five months, from August to December 2024, these creators produced nonpartisan content designed to educate followers rather than explicitly advocate for a specific political viewpoint.
The results showed that exposure to these progressive-minded creators not only increased general political knowledge, but also shifted followers’ policy and partisan views to the left.
In contrast, a placebo group that was not assigned any creators to follow but was allowed to scroll social media as normal “showed significant rightward movement,” which researchers said was related to the right-leaning nature of social media networks.
For the study’s authors, and experts who have reviewed the research, the findings confirm that not only are influencers now potentially more powerful than traditional media, but content creators who rarely share political content may be the most powerful of all.
“The research concretizes what a lot of people have been hypothesizing, which is that content creators are a powerful force in politics, and they are absolutely going to play a big role in the 2026 midterms, and they will play an even bigger role in the 2028 elections,” says Samuel Woolley, an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh who studies digital propaganda and who reviewed the research.
The Politics Paradox
As well as trying to prove that social media influencers can shape public opinion, the researchers also wanted to find out if those creators were more or less influential when their content is more overtly political.
To do this, the researchers randomly assigned the study’s participants a list of creators to follow, with some being assigned creators who mainly post about political issues, while others were assigned creators who are predominantly apolitical in their output.
The researchers found that exposure to content from both types of creator “produced unusually large and durable effects.” But what was most striking about the results for the report’s authors was that it was the apolitical influencers who had the largest impact on survey and behavioral outcomes of their audience—three times more persuasive than political influencers per video focusing on politics or policy.
The report concludes that the reason for this greater impact is likely down to the type of parasocial relationships that those influencers have built with their audiences, which are reliant on trust and authenticity.
“We find that individual [creators]—who cultivate parasocial connections but often lack expertise or formal authority—can shape political preferences by establishing trust,” the researchers write.
And looking back at the rival campaigns, it is clear to see that the Trump campaign appears to have understood that need for authenticity—or at least the appearance of it.
Early Starts
While Patel was waxing lyrical about the threats posed by the deep state to a bunch of QAnon believers, Democrats were blowing hundreds of millions of dollars courting A-list celebrities to endorse Kamala Harris. And the authors of the study agree that in general, the Trump campaign’s engagement with creators was much better thought out.
“It's fairly clear at this point that Republicans have been much more invested in building these relationships over the couple of years preceding the 2024 election,” says John Marshall, an associate professor of political science at Columbia University and co-author of the new report. “The intuitions which seemed to be borne out by our study are ones which many people had—that these smaller scale influencers, who are more accessible, more relatable, more credible, really had quite a lot of influence. People didn't fully understand just quite how many people were on that part of the internet.”
While the non-partisan messages shared by creators in this study are not the types of messages that campaigns will be seeking to share ahead of next year's mid-terms, there are a lot of lessons that campaigns can learn from the study’s findings, including the fact that building relationships with these creators does not happen overnight.
“If I was in a campaign I would say we should start earlier,” says Nathaniel Lubin, a fellow at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University and co-author of the report. “We should treat this more like an organizing problem, or how to work with creators, rather than an advertising problem where you sort of raise money and then dump it in at the last minute.”
Disclosure Optional
But simply engaging with creators is not enough. The study found that equally as important was figuring out how to get those creators to get your message across, which is not always as straightforward as telling people who to vote for.
“What this research is telling us is that the people who are most compelling, most persuasive when you actually consume their content, are the people who are not constantly producing political stuff—and by implication, the people who are not really bashing you over the head with [messages] like you have to vote Democrat,” says Marshall. “It's telling this broader narrative. It's having something which makes you seem independent.”
Harnessing the influence of social media creators is clearly a tantalizing opportunity for campaigns on both sides of the aisle ahead of next year’s midterms, but there are some concerns about how transparent and ethical these relationships will be.
“This is both exciting but also incredibly concerning, because influencers don't work to the same standards as professional journalists,” says Woolley. “In a lot of my research, what we found is that influencers tend to lack any unified, ethical standards, that they feel more compelled to note when they're paid to do a commercial activity because of standing US law than they do when they're paid to do political activity.”
This is an edition of the Inner Loop newsletter. Read previous newsletters here.
Wired · David Gilbert · December 17, 2025
17. The U.S. is now blocking visas for people who fight misinformation
Summary:
The State Department has instructed U.S. embassies to deny work visas to applicants tied to “censorship,” flagging LinkedIn histories that mention misinformation, disinformation, content moderation, fact-checking, compliance, online safety, and trust and safety. The article frames this as the latest step in a multi-year Republican campaign to discredit misinformation research and pressure platforms and watchdogs, citing the collapse of efforts like DHS’s Disinformation Governance Board and the shuttering of Stanford’s Internet Observatory. It argues Meta and other firms have largely gone quiet as they scale back fact-checking and seek regulatory relief abroad.
12-16-2025
TECH
The government says fact-checkers and content moderators are ‘censors’—and Big Tech isn’t saying a word.
https://www.fastcompany.com/91459921/visas-disinformation-trump-zuckerberg-meta
[Source images: The Thunks/Adobe Stock; visuals6x/Adobe Stock]
BY Tekendra Parmar
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Earlier this month, the State Department announced that it was instructing U.S. embassy staff around the world to reject work visa applications from individuals involved in what it described as “censorship” of Americans’ speech online. In a cable that was first leaked to Reuters, consular officers were instructed to review LinkedIn profiles of visa applicants mentioning work history involving “misinformation, disinformation, content moderation, fact-checking, compliance, and online safety.” This work includes journalists and fact-checkers, academics, people working in media literacy, and a broad range of tech workers in a field known as “Trust and Safety.”
This isn’t the first such visa restriction stemming from what the Trump administration views as censorship. Nor is it the first Republican assault on academics and tech workers who monitor online disinformation. Instead, this represents the latest escalation in a five-year campaign by the GOP and its allies to discredit misinformation research, which they’ve long contended silences conservative views.
In April 2022, the Biden administration appointed Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation researcher, to lead the Department of Homeland Security’s Disinformation Governance Board, tasked with aiding government efforts to understand and mitigate false information related to border security, human trafficking, and domestic terrorism. Almost immediately, the board came under attack from Republicans like Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz and far-right pundit Tucker Carlson, who likened the body to a “Ministry of Truth.”
Jankowicz herself endured all manner of abuse, including death threats and threats of sexual violence; she resigned her post in May of 2022 and the entire project was shuttered by the end of that summer. In the years since, she cofounded the American Sunlight Project, a nonprofit aimed at protecting Americans from disinformation, and serves as its CEO.
The Republican attempt to kneecap disinformation researchers, she says, is “part of a broader attack not only on trust and safety or content moderation, but on anybody and any organization that attempts to safeguard our shared reality or the truth.”
‘Woke speech police’
There was a time when combating misinformation and foreign interference in elections was a bipartisan effort. In 2018, Facebook was summoned to congress to answer for the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which a British consultancy was accused of targeting Russian election disinformation to Facebook users. “We’re here because of what you, Mr. Zuckerberg, have described as a breach of trust, “Sen. John Thune (R-South Dakota) said to Zuckerberg.
Meta and other tech companies soon ramped up their fact-checking operations. Meta began partnering with news outlets like Snopes, the Associated Press, and others, to fact-check viral information online. It also tightened its data-sharing policies, expanded its policy teams, and implemented a global trusted partner program to work with nonprofits to monitor harmful content online. It was an imperfect system, but certainly better than what platforms had done prior to 2016.
But those enforcement policies wound up angering Republicans, who felt disproportionately targeted by them. Tech companies were not in fact censoring their freedom of speech. Even if they had been, it wouldn’t be a violation of the First Amendment, which only protects citizens from government censorship.
The problem was Republicans’ tendency to disseminate material that contains misleading content. One study found that conservatives were eight times more likely to spread misinformation than those who lean liberal.
After 2020, conservative ire at tech companies for censoring their posts reached a fever pitch, fueled by the platforms’ attempt to regulate anti-vaccine content during the COVID-19 pandemic and their deprioritizing of reports about allegedly compromising information about President Biden on his son Hunter Biden’s laptop.
By 2023, when Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, became chair of the House Judiciary Committee, his party began subpoenaing Big Tech and research organizations that study online hate speech and misinformation. In tandem, lawsuits from Republican activists against those very research organizations eventually made it politically and financially cumbersome for many of these organizations to continue functioning. The Stanford Internet Observatory, a prominent disinformation watchdog, effectively shuttered its doors due to Republican attacks last year.
“Big Tech is out to get conservatives, and is increasingly willing to undermine First Amendment values by complying with the Biden Administration’s directives that suppress freedom of speech online,” Jordan wrote to Zuckerberg in his 2022 subpoena. “Because of Big Tech’s wide reach, it can serve as a powerful and effective partisan arm of the ‘woke speech police.’”
Capitulation
As it became clear Donald Trump could defeat Kamala Harris in last year’s election, Zuckerberg capitulated—first with reticence, then with enthusiasm.
In August of last year, he sent a letter to Jordan apologizing for letting the platform go too far in censoring posts related to the COVID-19 vaccine—which Republicans have sowed skepticism over its perceived safety. Zuckerberg also admitted that Meta demoted posts about the Hunter Biden scandal.
Then, this January, shortly before Trump’s inauguration, Zuckerberg, wearing a black T-shirt and gold pendant chain, hosted an infamous Facebook Live in which he announced that his company would no longer invest in fact-checking. Echoing Gaetz and Carlson, the CEO attacked legacy media for focusing too much on the threat of misinformation to democracy. “Fact-checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created,” he said.
There’s also a significant financial motivation behind divesting from trust and safety initiatives. “They don’t want to spend all that money on what is a very expensive investment,” Jankowicz says. By Meta’s own estimates the company has spent $20 billion on trust and safety operations since 2016.
It’s one thing for tech companies to fire their fact-checkers and content moderators—for the most part, they’re within their legal right to do so, as long as they figure out an alternative way to remove child abuse material. It’s a very different thing for the government to obstruct tech companies from hiring content moderators, which arguably is a violation of the company’s first amendment rights.
Theodora Skeadas, a former associate on Twitter’s Public Policy team, worries that the new rules will be used to harass trust and safety workers in the same way researchers like Jankowicz have been harassed. “The work we do as trust and safety workers involves ensuring safe experiences for children and women online, and fighting fraud, terrorism, and hate,” she says. ”I observe the irony, too, that this measure entails heavy-handed censorship.” Skeadas says that trust & safety workers are scrubbing their LinkedIn of the keywords the government might find objectionable.
A Faustian bargain
While Big Tech CEOs were quick to speak out against the Trump administration’s blanket $100,000 fees for H-1B workers—which would have disproportionately impacted foreign software engineers working for major tech firms (and now appears to have been dramatically narrowed in scope)—not a single CEO has spoken out against these new rules.
That might be because the newfound allyship with Trump seems to be paying off for the platforms. The Trump administration has spent much of this year attacking foreign tech regulators, including in the EU, which recently passed the Digital Services Act—requiring social media companies to more aggressively police disinformation and other illegal content—and the Digital Markets Act, which was designed to curb Big Tech’s anti-competitive practices.
“Since the administration has been in office, there has been an increasing amount of pressure and, I would say, attacks on regulators, civil servants, and researchers abroad as well,” Jankowicz says.
The administration has even sanctioned foreign officials for attempting to regulate Big Tech companies. This summer, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced very similar restrictions to the H1B memo for foreign government workers who the administration viewed as targeting Americans’ First amendment rights. The administration sanctioned Brazil Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, and, later, his wife, under this new policy in what appears to be politically motivated retribution for ordering Twitter be blocked in Brazil.
For the tech companies, there’s a clear upside to this Faustian bargain: Go along with the administration’s narrative on censorship—even if that means sacrificing the safety of your own workers and risking the further fracturing of American society—and the entire might of the U.S. government will reward you.
The extended deadline for Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas Awards is Friday, December 19, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply today.
18. US lawmakers want DeepSeek, Xiaomi added to list of China military-linked firms
Summary:
Nine Republican lawmakers urged Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to add more than a dozen Chinese firms to the Pentagon’s Section 1260H list of companies alleged to have links to China’s military. Their letter singled out AI developer DeepSeek, smartphone maker Xiaomi, and drug-services firm Wuxi AppTec, alongside chip, battery, robotics, surveillance, and biotech companies. The move follows POTUS signing a $900 billion defense spending bill that restricts some U.S. investment into Chinese tech. Listing does not trigger automatic bans, but it warns U.S. entities and can catalyze wider restrictions. Chinese firms have previously sued over 1260H designations.
US lawmakers want DeepSeek, Xiaomi added to list of China military-linked firms
South China Morning Post
Republicans want to add 19 more entities to the document that already includes tech giant Tencent Holdings and major battery maker CATL
Bochen Hanin Washington
Published: 1:17am, 20 Dec 2025Updated: 5:08am, 20 Dec 2025
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3337138/us-lawmakers-want-deepseek-xiaomi-added-list-chinese-military-linked-firms
Nine Republican lawmakers, including several congressional committee chairs, sent a letter this week urging US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth to add more than a dozen Chinese technology firms to the Pentagon’s list of companies alleged to have links to the Chinese military.
The letter, released on Friday after US President Donald Trump signed a US$900 billion military spending bill restricting US investments into Chinese tech, asks the Pentagon chief to place AI firm DeepSeek, smartphone maker Xiaomi and pharmaceutical services company Wuxi AppTec on what is known as the Section 1260H list.
While placement on the annually updated Pentagon list does not involve immediate bans, it sends a stark warning to US entities about the risks of conducting business with affected companies and could put pressure on other executive branch agencies and Congress to add more restrictions.
Other firms named by the lawmakers include battery maker Gotion High-Tech; chip companies Hua Hong Semiconductor, Kingsemi and Shennan Circuit; display and imaging companies BOE Technology Group and Tianma Microelectronics; sensing, surveillance and robotics firms CloudMinds, LeiShen, Livox, RoboSense, Tiandy Technologies, Unitree Robotics; and biotech firm GenScript Group.
The list, reflecting bipartisan concern that the US is contributing to firms fuelling China’s military rise, was last updated in January 2025. A 2021 defence authorisation act, similar to the one Trump signed this week, mandates that the 1260H list be updated every year until 2030.
US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth at a Christmas service at the Pentagon on Wednesday. Photo: Getty Images
In recent years, multiple Chinese firms placed on the blacklist – including drone maker DJI and lidar maker Hesai Group – have sued the Pentagon for including them, arguing that they do not have military links.
Other firms also already on the list include tech giant Tencent Holdings and major battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL).
“The firms listed below represent the next logical tranche of military-civil fusion contributors whose designation under Section 1260H would directly support Congress’s intent that US taxpayer funds not underwrite PRC military-industrial and internal-security or intelligence capabilities,” wrote the lawmakers from the House of Representatives and Senate.
Letter signatories include House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party chair John Moolenaar, House Homeland Security Committee chair Andrew Garbarino, House Intelligence Committee chair Rick Crawford, and Senate Special Committee on Aging chair Rick Scott.
The Pentagon declined to comment. The South China Morning Post has attempted to reach out to representatives of all the Chinese companies named in the letter and is awaiting responses.
Some of the firms included on the lawmakers’ list – like battery maker Gotion – have been the target of congressional scrutiny for years, while others, like Unitree, have more recently drawn lawmaker attention.
Earlier this year, a plan for Gotion to set up a battery plant in Michigan failed after local officials withdrew support amid political and community opposition over the company’s ties to China.
Last month, Bloomberg reported that the Pentagon was considering adding Alibaba, Baidu and electric vehicle maker BYD to the list.
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Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
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Does the arrival of China’s low-cost DeepSeek mean the end of Nvidia’s chip dominance?
Does the arrival of China’s low-cost DeepSeek mean the end of Nvidia’s chip dominance?
South China Morning Post
19. Rubio swaps hawk for diplomat in year-end pivot on China
Summary:
Secretary of State Marco Rubio used a two-hour year-end briefing to signal a more pragmatic China posture, dropping “pacing threat” language and stressing “responsible statecraft” and “mature” management of tensions. He argued the United States can sustain firm alliances, including with Japan, while still seeking areas to work with Beijing on shared challenges. Rubio framed the shift as role-based: he is now speaking for POTUS and U.S. diplomacy, not as a senator who helped drive rights legislation that prompted Chinese sanctions. He redirected emphasis toward Western Hemisphere security, supply-chain dependence, and defense-industrial capacity.
Rubio swaps hawk for diplomat in year-end pivot on China
South China Morning Post
Top US envoy eschews ‘pacing threat’ label, stressing cooperation and Western hemisphere priorities for 2026
Khushboo Razdanin Washington
Published: 6:52am, 20 Dec 2025Updated: 6:53am, 20 Dec 2025
https://www.scmp.com/news/us/diplomacy/article/3337142/rubio-swaps-hawk-diplomat-year-end-pivot-china
In a wide-ranging, two-hour year-end briefing on Friday, Washington’s top diplomat Marco Rubio offered pragmatic remarks on China, signalling a tonal shift in the administration’s approach towards Beijing amid broader “America first” priorities for 2026. While detailing a recalibration of US foreign policy, Rubio’s comments on China marked a notable evolution from both his own legislative history and the rhetoric of the previous administration.
Rubio, the US secretary of state who also serves as US President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, avoided the “pacing threat” label famously used by his predecessor, Antony Blinken. Instead, he emphasised the need for “responsible statecraft” and “mature” management of the bilateral relationship.
Rubio’s remarks pointed to a reordering of US priorities, with Washington signalling greater focus on its own Western hemisphere rather than casting Beijing as the central threat that anchors US foreign policy.
“China is going to be, is, and it will continue to be a rich and powerful country and a factor in geopolitics,” Rubio told reporters in Washington. “Our job is to find opportunities to work together with the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government.”
He added: “Both sides are mature enough to recognise that there will be points of tension now and for the foreseeable future. Our job … as part of responsible statecraft is to find opportunities to work together because I think if there’s a global challenge that China and the US can work together.”
‘We have a deal’: Trump claims breakthrough after ‘12 out of 10’ talks with Xi Jinping
‘We have a deal’: Trump claims breakthrough after ‘12 out of 10’ talks with Xi Jinping
As a US senator, Rubio was a primary architect of the Uygur Forced Labor Prevention Act and the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, legislative efforts that led Beijing to sanction him twice. He is the first sitting secretary of state to enter the office while under personal Chinese sanctions.
During his own confirmation hearing in January, he had still referred to the Communist Party as a “potent and dangerous near-peer adversary”.
In Friday’s briefing, however, Rubio rejected the idea that the US must choose between its regional allies and a functional relationship with Beijing.
Addressing his evolution, Rubio was blunt about his new role.
“I represent the president ... I think we’ve made good progress with the Chinese,” he said. “I think I’ve been nice to China ... in terms of the work we have to do with them. I had another job then; my job now is to represent the United States in foreign diplomacy.”
Asked about the recent spat between China and Japan, which ignited last month after sharp rhetoric from Tokyo regarding the defence of Taiwan, Rubio asserted that the US could maintain its “firm partnership” with Tokyo while finding “productive ways to work together with the Chinese government”.
This stand diverges from the valedictory warnings of Blinken, who framed China as a “systemic challenge” to the international order and spent his tenure building a “latticework” of security pacts designed to contain Beijing. That overlapping network included the Aukus defence technology-sharing pact between the US, Britain and Australia.
Rubio, by contrast, steered the “threat” focus away from the Pacific and towards the West and domestic industrial vulnerabilities.
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He identified “transnational criminal terrorist groups” in Latin America as the most immediate danger, citing their role in fuelling mass migration. He further characterised US supply chain dependency as a “critical threat”, arguing that the priority for 2026 is rebuilding the domestic industrial base.
Rubio also flagged the US defence industrial base, stating the nation currently lacks the “scale and scope” to produce weaponry fast enough to meet the demands of global allies.
His evolution directly mirrors Trump’s recent “G2” diplomacy. Following their high-stakes summit in Busan, South Korea, in October, Trump has repeatedly referred to President Xi Jinping as a “respected leader” and a “friend”.
Trump has managed to secure a tactical trade truce with Xi, with China agreeing to resume massive purchases of US soybeans and, most critically, suspending its recent export controls on rare earth minerals. In exchange, the US halved its “fentanyl tariffs” to 10 per cent and signalled a more flexible stance on legacy semiconductor chips.
US seizes oil tanker off Venezuela
US seizes oil tanker off Venezuela
When asked about recent US strikes in the Caribbean and the possibility of a regime change war in Venezuela, Rubio was unequivocal in his condemnation of the government of President Nicolas Maduro, though he framed the mission as one of regional stability rather than open conquest.
“The fundamental challenge we have here is that the Maduro regime isn’t just illegitimate. They openly cooperate in terrorism against the United States,” Rubio said, accusing Caracas of partnering with Iran, Hezbollah and narco-trafficking organisations.
Dismissing the idea of future negotiations with Maduro, Rubio cited the leader’s history of breaking deals with the previous administration as proof that he “cannot be trusted”.
On the global stage, Rubio projected an image of the US as a facilitator rather than an imposer of terms. Regarding the Russia-Ukraine war, he noted that while “more work is needed”, progress has been made as Ukrainian officials arrived in the US for new negotiations.
He clarified that Washington is not trying to dictate a settlement, but rather “figure out what Ukraine can live with and what Russia can live with” to nudge them towards an agreement.
While President Volodymyr Zelensky has pointed to a 20-point peace framework and security guarantees already under discussion, Rubio cautioned that “the hardest issues are always the last issues”.
Rubio struck a similarly optimistic but firm chord on the Middle East, expressing confidence that the first stage of the Gaza ceasefire will be completed “very soon”.
He revealed that the administration is focused “like a laser” on the formation of an International Stabilisation Force, a key component of Trump’s 20-point Gaza plan designed to maintain peace as Israeli troops withdraw.
South China Morning Post
20. Will Taiwan’s decentralised military model raise more questions than it solves?
Summary:
Taiwan’s defense ministry is pushing a decentralised “mission command” model so units can act on commander’s intent if communications are jammed or decisions must be made faster than centralised headquarters can respond. Defence Minister Wellington Koo says it applies only after forces come under attack, and it was incorporated into this year’s Han Kuang exercises. Supporters argue the PLA’s speed, saturation, and electronic warfare make lower-level initiative essential. Critics warn decentralisation can become a euphemism for abandonment unless rules of engagement are explicit, logistics and enablers are resilient, and coordination survives disruption. Some observers say drills still test it mainly at higher echelons.
Comment: Mission command is hard. And it is hard because it rests on a foundation of trust - trust in the commander's mission and intent and commander's trust in his subordinate commanders. Units can do all kinds of training but if that training does not create an atmosphere of trust mission command will not be effective. You cannot surge trust - you can create trust after crises occur. It requires a cultural foundation.
Will Taiwan’s decentralised military model raise more questions than it solves?
South China Morning Post
Defence ministry briefs lawmakers on ‘heightened risk’ of sudden strike designed to paralyse command and control systems at start of conflict
Lawrence Chungin Taipei
Published: 10:00am, 20 Dec 2025Updated: 4:49pm, 20 Dec 2025
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3337064/will-taiwans-decentralised-military-model-raise-more-questions-it-solves
Further, if units were to come under sudden attack, they would be authorised to act without waiting for orders, operating under decentralised guidance, according to the ministry.
Defence Minister Wellington Koo Li-hsiung stressed that the approach was “not about abandoning command but about ensuring mission continuity, when communications are disrupted or decisions must be made faster than centralised systems allow”.
“All training programmes incorporate decentralised command-and-control concepts,” he told lawmakers.
Koo described the approach as mission command – ensuring that every unit clearly understood its assigned task and could act on a commander’s intent when faced with an unexpected attack.
The concept had been practised in this year’s Han Kuang exercises, the island’s largest annual war games, he said.
Pressed by opposition lawmakers on whether such authority presupposed that war would have already broken out, Koo said the scenario “applies only after our forces have come under attack” – a worst-case situation in which “the right of self-defence must be exercised immediately”.
Senior officers argued that decentralisation was increasingly essential, given the PLA’s growing emphasis on speed, saturation and electronic warfare.
Lieutenant General Hsieh Jih-sheng, a senior intelligence official at the defence ministry, told lawmakers that PLA “combat-readiness patrols” could rapidly shift from training to drills – or from drills to war – leaving frontline troops with no time to wait for instructions from higher command.
“That is why training must give basic units the knowledge and capability to act independently,” he said on Wednesday.
03:32
Taiwan launches ‘urban resilience’ drills to test war readiness amid PLA pressure
Taiwan launches ‘urban resilience’ drills to test war readiness amid PLA pressure
But the concept has ignited an increasingly fierce debate among Taiwanese security experts, with critics warning it risks becoming a euphemism for abandonment if not matched by clear rules of engagement, resilient logistics and realistic assessments of battlefield conditions.
Ying-yu Lin, a professor of strategic studies at Tamkang University in New Taipei City, said the execution of a decentralised strategy would hinge “less on slogans” than on “clearly defined rules of engagement”.
“The key questions are when units are required to raise readiness levels and under what conditions frontline troops are authorised to open fire,” Lin said.
“Decentralisation only works if rules of engagement are explicit, pre-authorised and understood in advance, so soldiers act according to clear guidance rather than improvisation.”
Shu Hsiao-huang, a researcher at the government-funded Institute for National Defence and Security Research, cautioned that grey-zone operations – which fall below the threshold of open conflict – differed fundamentally from full-scale war.
“Many grey-zone actions carry political intent, whether probing, coercion or attempts to trigger miscalculation,” he said. “Deciding how tightly to hold the reins requires extremely careful judgment. Leaders must distinguish between isolated incidents and the prelude to mobilisation for war.”
Taiwanese military reservists conduct pre-combat training during the annual Han Kuang military exercises in July. Photo: EPA
The most blistering criticism came from Armand Tan, a senior researcher at the Taiwan International Strategic Study Society think tank, who argued that decentralised command risked masking deeper structural weaknesses.
“Some claim that over-reliance on higher command is a weakness of Taiwan’s ground forces,” Tan said. “I believe decentralised command and control, as currently framed, is a deployment for defeat – a fool’s consensus.”
Tan questioned how far decentralisation was meant to extend, warning that Taiwan risked stripping away the operational “transfer function” of higher command before frontline units were capable of fighting independently.
“In theory, decentralisation can go down to the individual soldier, or up through companies, battalions and brigades,” he said. “But where is the line? What is the basic combat unit?”
In a war scenario, the PLA would first establish air, sea and electromagnetic dominance, severing command chains and external communications – including the Global Positioning System – just as assumed in recent Han Kuang exercises, Tan argued.
“An individual soldier would not be facing PLA infantry,” he said. “They would face drones, loitering munitions and ground combat robots. Can a single soldier realistically cope with that?”
Scaling up to company-level operations, Tan questioned how an infantry company under attack by suicide drones and combat robots could request electronic warfare or drone support from other units if command links were severed.
“Similarly, if an electronic warfare company’s equipment were fully jammed, how could it support others – or even request support itself? A battalion commander might nominally have forces, but in wartime he may not be able to direct even one soldier.”
Tan warned that decentralised command without intact coordination could “push combat into civilian areas or force units to surrender, increasing civilian casualties rather than resilience”.
Defence and intelligence officials acknowledged the risks but insisted that decentralisation was a response to the realities of modern warfare, not a substitute for command.
National Security Bureau director Tsai Ming-yen told the lawmakers on Wednesday that PLA pressure had intensified across multiple domains, underscoring the urgency of adaptation.
Tsai said PLA aircraft entered areas around Taiwan more than 3,570 times this year – a record – while almost every month mainland Chinese coastguard vessels had sailed into waters near Quemoy, a Taiwan-controlled offshore island also called Kinmen.
Mainland Chinese coastguard vessels had also been intermittently active in the waters around the Taiwan-held Dongsha Islands – also known as the Pratas Islands – blurring Taipei’s claims over maritime control, he said.
Security in the Taiwan Strait, East China Sea and South China Sea is now tightly interconnected
Tsai Ming-yen, National Security Bureau director
Beijing sees Taiwan as part of China to be reunited by force if necessary. Most countries, including its main international partner the United States, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington is opposed to any attempt to take the self-ruled island by force and is committed to supplying it with weapons.
Tsai said the PLA naval and air operations had raised alarms beyond the Taiwan Strait, citing an encounter in June between PLA fighter jets operating from the Shandong aircraft carrier and a Japanese P-3C anti-submarine aircraft.
Earlier this month, there were further incidents in which PLA J-15 fighters from the Liaoning aircraft carrier twice locked radar onto Japanese F-15 jets in airspace southeast of Okinawa, he added.
“These developments show that security in the Taiwan Strait, East China Sea and South China Sea is now tightly interconnected.”
Observers noted that even within Taiwan’s own exercises, decentralisation remained limited.
04:47
Why have Takaichi’s Taiwan comments sent China-Japan ties into a tailspin?
Why have Takaichi’s Taiwan comments sent China-Japan ties into a tailspin?
In an article published by the government-funded Prospect Foundation, Arthur Ding, a security expert and professor emeritus at National Chengchi University, said decentralised command was “easy to say, hard to do”.
“It involves fundamental challenges, particularly how mid and lower level commanders should operate when command systems are disrupted,” he wrote, adding that the greatest obstacle would be cultivating officers capable of commanding in decentralised environments.
Ding warned that, based on reports by Western media observing this year’s exercises on the ground, the Han Kuang drills had so far tested decentralisation only at higher command levels.
“If the observations were accurate, the level of decentralisation appeared to be confined to the corps level and did not extend further downward,” he said.
“In practice, this meant only that a corps deputy commander replaced the corps commander as the decision-maker. Frankly, this is insufficient – though cultivating such capabilities is undeniably difficult.”
South China Morning Post
21. Philippine hotel in Davao City says Bondi Beach suspects stayed for a month and were there every night
Summary:
A hotel in Davao City told CBS News that Bondi Beach terror suspects Sajid and Naveed Akram stayed there for most of November, checking in Nov. 1 and leaving Nov. 28 after extending their booking week to week and paying cash. Staff said the pair went out during the day but returned every night, often bringing food back, and showed nothing overtly suspicious. The account complicates Australian media claims they received “military-style training” in the Philippines. Manila’s government says there is no validated report the suspects trained there and rejects portrayals of the country as an ISIS training hub.
Excerpts:
The government "strongly rejects the sweeping statement and the misleading characterization of the Philippines as the ISIS training hotspot," Castro said.
There has been an Islamist insurgency in the southern Philippines for many years, but the two main militant groups involved are not affiliated with ISIS, Tom Smith, the academic director of the Royal Air Force College, who studies security and terrorism in the Philippines and Southeast Asia, told CBS News earlier this week.
There is a relatively small splinter group called Abu Sayyaf based on a remote archipelago that is affiliated with ISIS, but Smith said it would be very difficult for foreigners to receive weapons training from the group.
"They would stick out like a sore thumb," Smith said. "When I go there, you know, I'm there with military support. I have a Ph.D. in the area, and even I stick out like a sore thumb."
He said there are "plenty of armed people in Mindanao, in the Philippines, for them to go and practice, you know, firing rifles and what have you. But it's a long way to say that that equals a terrorist camp."
Comment: But what were they doing during the day?
Philippine hotel in Davao City says Bondi Beach suspects stayed for a month and were there every night
CBS News · Haley Ott Reporter
By Haley Ott
December 18, 2025 / 6:50 AM EST / CBS News
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/philippine-hotel-davao-city-bondi-beach-suspects-stayed-every-night/
Authorities investigating the Bondi Beach terrorist attack have been looking into a month-long trip taken by the suspects, father and son Sajid and Naveed Akram, to the Philippines, where there's been a decades-long Islamist insurgency in the south of the country.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said this week that the attack was inspired by ISIS, and there is an ISIS-affiliated militant group operating in a remote area of the Philippines.
But a receptionist at a hotel in Davao City said the attackers never left their room for more than a day.
Jojo, who works at at the GV Hotel in Davao, told CBS News on Thursday that Sajid and Naveed Akram, the elder of whom was killed during the Sunday attack, checked into the hotel on Nov. 1 and then left on Nov. 28.
A view of one of a room at the GV Hotel, where Sajid and Naveed Akram, suspects in the deadly Bondi Beach terror attack, stayed during most of November, as seen on Dec. 18, 2025, in Davao City, Philippines. Ezra Acayan/Getty
He said they extended their stay week by week and paid in cash, and that they would go out during the day, but return to the hotel every night, often bringing food back to eat in their room.
He said there was nothing particularly suspicious about the father and son, who had one piece of luggage and one backpack between them.
Australian public broadcaster ABC previously reported that the Bondi Beach attackers had undergone "military-style training" in the Philippines, citing security sources.
But on Wednesday, Philippine presidential spokesperson Claire Castro, quoting a National Security Council statement, said there was "no validated report or confirmation that individuals involved in the Bondi Beach incident received any form of training in the Philippines," according to French news agency AFP.
A view of the GV Hotel, where Sajid and Naveed Akram, suspects in the Bondi Beach terror attack, stayed during November, as seen on Dec. 18, 2025, in Davao City, Philippines. Ezra Acayan/Getty
The government "strongly rejects the sweeping statement and the misleading characterization of the Philippines as the ISIS training hotspot," Castro said.
There has been an Islamist insurgency in the southern Philippines for many years, but the two main militant groups involved are not affiliated with ISIS, Tom Smith, the academic director of the Royal Air Force College, who studies security and terrorism in the Philippines and Southeast Asia, told CBS News earlier this week.
There is a relatively small splinter group called Abu Sayyaf based on a remote archipelago that is affiliated with ISIS, but Smith said it would be very difficult for foreigners to receive weapons training from the group.
"They would stick out like a sore thumb," Smith said. "When I go there, you know, I'm there with military support. I have a Ph.D. in the area, and even I stick out like a sore thumb."
He said there are "plenty of armed people in Mindanao, in the Philippines, for them to go and practice, you know, firing rifles and what have you. But it's a long way to say that that equals a terrorist camp."
Australian and Indian authorities have confirmed that Sajid Akram, 50, who was killed during the attack, traveled on an India passport, while his son, born in Australia, used an Australian passport.
Naveed Akram, 24, was wounded during the attack, but woke up from a coma earlier this week and was quickly charged with 59 individual offenses, including 15 murder charges.
CBS News · Haley Ott Reporter
22. U.S. appears to pour cold water on idea of Japan acquiring nukes
Summary:
U.S. officials signaled little appetite for Japan acquiring nuclear weapons after a senior adviser to Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi reportedly said Tokyo “should” have them, while calling the idea unrealistic and not under government discussion. A State Department spokesperson avoided the remark directly, instead praising Japan as a leader on nonproliferation and stressing that the United States will maintain a credible, modern nuclear deterrent to protect allies, including Japan. The episode lands amid debate in Tokyo over the three non-nuclear principles and doubts about extended deterrence, as China, Russia, and north Korea drive threat perceptions across the Asia-Indo-Pacific.
U.S. appears to pour cold water on idea of Japan acquiring nukes
Queried about the comments by a senior Japanese government official that Tokyo should acquire nuclear weapons, a U.S. State Department spokesperson did not directly address the remarks, but praised Japan for its stance on nuclear nonproliferation. | Abaca / via Bloomberg
By Jesse Johnson
STAFF WRITER
SHARE/SAVE
Dec 20, 2025
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/12/20/japan/politics/us-japan-nuclear-weapons/?utm
The U.S. has appeared to pour cold water on the idea of Japan acquiring its own nukes, after a senior government official who advises Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on security expressed a personal opinion that Tokyo should possess the powerful weapons.
Queried about the comments by The Japan Times, a U.S. State Department spokesperson did not directly address the remarks, but praised Japan for its stance on nuclear nonproliferation.
“Japan is a global leader and a valuable partner to the United States on nuclear nonproliferation and advancing nuclear arms control,” the spokesperson said in an email Saturday. “As the National Security Strategy makes clear, the United States will maintain the world’s most robust, credible, and modern nuclear deterrent to protect America and our allies, including Japan.”
The U.S.-Japan alliance, the official added, “is the cornerstone of peace and security in the Indo-Pacific.”
The Japanese official, an adviser on national security matters to Takaichi, told reporters in an off-the-record exchange Thursday that Japan should acquire nuclear weapons, but also called the idea unrealistic and noted that there was no discussion within the government on the possibility, local media reported.
The official reportedly emphasized what Japan says is an “increasingly severe” regional security environment, pointing to China’s growing nuclear capabilities, as well as the nuclear threats posed by Russia and North Korea.
Ultimately, it is up to Japan to defend itself, the official was quoted as saying in one report.
A U.S. State Department spokesperson called the U.S.-Japan alliance "the cornerstone of peace and security in the Indo-Pacific.” | REUTERS
Asked at a regular news conference to confirm the reports, Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara declined to comment but said the government upholds its long-standing commitment to its three non-nuclear principles of not possessising, producing or allowing the entry of nuclear weapons.
Opposition parties have urged the government to dismiss the unidentified official.
While Takaichi’s government has said it is abiding by the principles, in November the prime minister herself sidestepped a commitment to maintain them, apparently over concerns about the reliability of the U.S. “nuclear umbrella.”
Takaichi said during questioning in parliament that, as her government gears up to revise the country’s key national security documents by the end of 2026, “it is not yet at the stage” where she could “definitively state” that the wording of the principles will remain the same.
Takaichi’s decision not to explicitly endorse the principles was notable considering she wrote in her 2024 book “Kokuryoku Kenkyu” (National Strength Research) that not allowing nuclear weapons’ introduction into Japan “is unrealistic if we expect the U.S. to offer us ‘extended deterrence,” a reference to the U.S. nuclear umbrella.
“I’m concerned that the phrase ‘upholding the three non-nuclear principles’ could become an obstacle if we were to face an extreme crisis,” she wrote.
Asked Friday about possible revisions to the three principles, Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi told a news conference that the government was committed to upholding them as a policy guideline, but said that all options would be discussed.
“It is only natural for us to explore all options without ruling any out and to engage in discussions to protect the lives and peaceful livelihoods of the Japanese people,” he said.
23. Europe’s Taiwan Dilemma: Lessons from a Tabletop Exercise
Summary:
The CSDS report distills lessons from a November 2025 tabletop exercise on a Taiwan Strait crisis complicated by Russian coercion in Europe. The scenario shows Europe’s constraints fast: limited combat power, high economic exposure to China, fragmented institutions, and reliance on U.S. extended deterrence. Across three phases set in 2028 to 2029, a Taiwan contingency becomes a two-front dilemma as U.S. forces surge to the Asia-Indo-Pacific and Europe must deter Russian opportunism at home. The exercise traces progressive European entanglement, moving from caution to structural involvement via industrial mobilisation, logistics, sanctions, sustainment, and supply-line support.
Comment: Download the entire 34 page report here: https://csds.vub.be/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/212025-IDP-Szatkowski-Manea-et-al-Taiwan-TTX.pdf
Europe’s Taiwan Dilemma: Lessons from a Tabletop Exercise
By Tomasz Szatkowski, Octavian Manea, Luis Simón and Giulia Tercovich
CSDS In-Depth Paper
21/2025
https://csds.vub.be/publication/europes-taiwan-dilemma-lessons-from-a-tabletop-exercise/
This CSDS In-Depth Paper presents findings from a CSDS tabletop exercise conducted in November 2025, examining European decision-making during a simulated Taiwan Strait crisis compounded by Russian coercion in Europe. Unlike most Taiwan-focused exercises, the simulation centred on Europe’s strategic constraints: limited military capacity, economic exposure to China, institutional fragmentation and reliance on US extended deterrence. Across three phases (2028–2029), the exercise demonstrated that a Taiwan contingency rapidly becomes a two-front dilemma for Europe, as US forces prioritise the Indo-Pacific while Europe must deter Russian opportunism. The exercise revealed a dynamic of progressive European entanglement, shifting from initial caution to structural involvement through industrial mobilisation, logistics, sanctions and sustainment. Its central insight is that Europe’s primary contribution to a Taiwan war lies not in expeditionary combat power, but in contributing to the industrial and logistical supply lines of a US-led coalition, binding the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific theatres into an interdependent strategic system.
This CSDS In-Depth Paper is part of a broader “Taiwan Strait Update” series focusing on European perspectives on Taiwan and China’s strategic adjustment in Europe.
Read
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24. Implementing Policies for Ukrainian Protection of Minority Languages: Been There, Done That, Got the T-shirt
Summary:
Dawn Hersey argues that minority-language protections are redundant in Ukraine peace talks because Ukraine's constitution and ratification of the European Charter guarantee protection for indigenous peoples and national minorities. The problem is not new policy but uneven implementation and the politicization of language, especially the contested status of Russian, which is widespread, not endangered, and linked to Soviet migration. She traces how elections and the 2012 language law turned language into a weapon, and how reforms sought to restore Ukrainian as the state language. Ukraine's 2025 removal of Russian from protected status underscores her point: focus on practice, not paperwork.
Excerpts:
In conclusion, it was very surprising to see the inclusion of language policy in the November proposal and then again in the European counterproposal. When we see a peace plan including the implementation of an already established policy for a country whose constitution includes “all” languages and ethnic groups, it becomes more than a bit curious.
Ukraine doesn’t need more policies. Outsiders telling Ukraine to implement redundant policies is not helpful. The human experience of the policies has affected policy actualization and realization, not the need for more policies. Yet the human experience is another, more nuanced and complicated topic for another day.
Implementing Policies for Ukrainian Protection of Minority Languages: Been There, Done That, Got the T-shirt
by Dawn Hersey
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12.20.2025 at 06:00am
https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/12/20/implementing-policies/
Flag of Russia and Ukraine painted on a concrete wall. Relationship between Ukraine and Russia
It was surprising to see the Ukrainian implementation of European Union rules on religious tolerance and protection of linguistic minorities as a piece of the proposed peace deal presented on November 19, 2025. Not only does the Ukrainian Constitution already protect “all indigenous peoples and national minorities”, but Ukraine already adopted the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages about 20 years ago. Why is this even included in peace talks?
Ukraine doesn’t need another policy to ensure fairness. Fair policies exist, and they’ve been affirmed as good policies – in written form. However, the actualization of these policies did not meet the written intention. The policies are not the issue at hand; incongruencies between the policies and societal impacts are the challenge that leaders need to address.
Ukraine’s initial adoption of the European Charter was rife with translation challenges, especially in differentiating a minority language that needed protection, versus a prolific non-state language, such as Russian. Now, Ukraine has removed Russian from “protected minority language” status on December 3, 2025, but was it even a minority language that needed protecting?
Protection of National Minority Languages: It Has Existed Since the Beginning
Protection of national minority languages has been mandated in Ukraine since the beginning: Even the constitution declares “all” indigenous peoples and national minorities of Ukraine as protected. The Ukrainian Constitution states (emphasis added):
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Article 10: Ukrainian is the State Language
- Article 10: In Ukraine, the free development, use and protection of Russian, and other languages of national minorities of Ukraine, is guaranteed.
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Article 11: The State promotes the consolidation and development of the Ukrainian nation… and also the development of the ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious identity of all indigenous peoples and national minorities of Ukraine.
It’s hard to argue that “all” is an insufficient number of those granted protection.
Ukrainian identity has experienced evolution since Ukraine became independent and enshrined its Constitution. Ukrainian society adopted a civic, rather than ethnic, concept of what it meant to be “Ukrainian”, which is actually key to understanding the subsequent frustration along language lines. Language wasn’t divisive, as identity didn’t come from your native tongue. During the first two decades of Ukraine’s independence, Russian and Ukrainian languages began to merge, and bilingualism was increasingly the norm. It was not until the European law to protect minority languages was actualized in conjunction with a Russian power assertion in Ukraine through the Presidential elections (2004, 2010) that language grew into more of an indicator of faction and identity to the point of instigating contention. Regardless of direct causation, there was noted growth in social identification through linguistic alignment upon implementing this law. The increased societal clustering appears to have eaten away at the prior linguistic fusion and civic national identity that had evolved before the law was implemented, setting the stage for subsequent conflict.
The European Charter for Regional or Minority languages was adopted in convention as a condition of becoming a new member state of the Council of Europe in 1998. Ratifying this Charter was formally proposed in the Ukrainian Rada in 1999. Ukraine finally ratified a version of this agreement on September 19, 2003, which came into effect on January 1, 2006. The cumbersome passage of this law reflects the struggle aligning this Charter with the Ukrainian Constitution and mindset; the European language policy was seen as a multilingual model that could set the stage for nationalist revolutions.
The European Charter focused on preserving the historical uniqueness of the many smaller cultures within larger nation-states. The intention was, and remains, to help preserve the heritage of minority populations within member states. Under Article 1, “… ‘regional or minority languages’ means languages that are both:
- Traditionally used within a given territory of a State by nationals of that State who form a group numerically smaller than the rest of the State population; and
- Different from the official language(s) of that state. It does not include either dialects of the official language(s) of the State or the languages of migrants.” (emphasis added)
These regional languages would be eligible to obtain “regional language status”. Hungarian, Romanian, and even the language of Crimean Tatars would all qualify as regional languages according to the language of this Charter. However, Russian was a language of migrants and not “traditionally used” in Ukrainian territory.
The Charter did not clarify what comprised a “regional language” or what rights were included in this designation. According to this law, there was no clear demographic benchmark to determine what would qualify as a regional language; it also did not identify requirements for regional leadership to use (or not use) the regional language. Rather, it merely permitted the use of regional languages in regions where the population demographic justifies the use of that regional language.
How Did the Russian Language and a Hot Wwar Get All Mixed Up Here?
Russian language presented an odd challenge. Russian language speakers were not a minority culture group within Ukraine, like the Roma or the Tatars; Russian was a widely spoken language. While the Tatars’ language was clearly a regionally aligned language in Crimea, Russian language presence was primarily the result of externally imposed cultural alignment with Russia and was strongest wherever the Russians (either the Russian Empire or the United Soviet Socialist Republic, USSR) had established a community. Russian language was the official language of the USSR, and Russia relocated possibly millions of people from sites across the Russian Empire and then USSR to areas like Ukraine’s eastern mining regions and southern port cities. For many Ukrainians, permitting the use of the Russian language was not a concern – continued social dominance of the Russian language and marginalization of the official Ukrainian State language, especially in Russian-dominant regions, was the concern.
Vitaliy Radchuk of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences noted that some of the terminology of the Charter was not compliant with the Ukrainian Constitution. The differences were small, but they further emphasized a balance between language and national identity within the Ukrainian mindset, specifically in the Ukrainian implementation of “language of a national minority” versus “minority language”. Ukrainian legal policies used terms such as “state language” and “languages of the national minorities,” whereas the Charter Ratification used “regional language group”, “language group”, and “minority language”. Small nuances can have huge impacts. However, even though the legal discrepancies were identified, this Charter went into effect on January 1, 2006.
Russian language within Ukraine had an odd position. First, Russian Language did not meet the status, quantitatively, of being a minority language: more people in Ukraine spoke Russian as a first, second, or third language than they did Ukrainian. Second, the spirit of the European Charter was intended to protect endangered languages, and Russian language was not endangered in Ukraine. And third, the term “traditional” ought not, historically, be applied to Russian language for Ukrainians: Russian language was brought to Ukraine by Russians.
Russian was spoken across Ukraine. As neither the state language nor a minority language, by definition, how did Russian language fit into Ukraine within the parameters of this law? Russian language began changing into a “minority” language rather than a language of commerce and trade. Even though Russian was protected as a minority language, this was a step down from its prior status. Following the contentious 2004 presidential election, 2006’s implementation was contentious: he Orange Party, led by President Viktor Yushchenko, sought to increase Ukrainian language use across Ukraine while the anti-Orange group, championed by Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, sought to increase the legal standing of Russian language.
Balanced policies could have enabled unity; however, this unity may not have come through enforcing a “pure Ukrainian” language. Ukraine experienced a nearly 20-year linguistic merging, rather than growth, of Ukrainian language. To commemorate Ukraine’s 19th anniversary, fourteen different Ukrainian ethnic groups performed a brief skit and then sang the Ukrainian national anthem in their own language. Non-Ukrainian language materials received Ukrainian subtitles, and the screen’s text stated, “We are diverse, but we are united.” The Razumkov Center conducted various sociological surveys on “native language” between 2006 and 2008. Over these years, the percentage of Ukrainians claiming Ukrainian as their sole “native tongue” (specifically by asking, “яка мова для Вас Є рідною?” directly translated as “What language is of you naturally?”) decreased by around 8%, and Ukrainians who claimed Russian as their sole “native tongue” also decreased by more than 4%. However, the percentage of those who claimed both languages, together, as their native tongue increased by over 13%. This change was negligible in the Western regions, where Ukrainian was clearly the dominant language. Below are tables, created from survey data directly following the implementation of this law (1), showing native language evolution by regions and (2) emphasizing that Russian language was neither endangered nor a minority in most of the country.
Graph 1: Russian and Ukrainian Language: Evolution in Western Ukraine 2006-2008
Graph 2: Russian and Ukrainian Language: Evolution in Central Ukraine 2006-2008
Graph 3: Russian and Ukrainian Language: Evolution in Eastern Ukraine 2006-2008
Graph 4: Russian and Ukrainian Language: Evolution in Southern Ukraine 2006-2008
In 2011, the Venice Commission (March 25-26, 2011, 86th Plenary Session) upheld the legitimacy and balanced writing of the Law on Ratification of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. However, they also emphasized that a “central state language can be of the utmost importance” in maintaining cohesion between different linguistic groups of a country. The Venice Commission further emphasized, in concern, that “the Russian language was provided the same level of protection as the Ukrainian State language” under several articles. This detracted from the intent of the law.
Russian language marginalization was not a problem in 2004 when the “South-East Ukrainian Autonomous Region” advocated for independence once again. The principal driver for independence (1980s-2000s) was frustration with government corruption, with a perception that the region itself was marginalized. This is the same region that advocated for separation in 2014, but by that time, language and identity politics had become choice weapons to justify regional marginalization.
There was another parallel situation developing in Ukraine: that of Russian involvement in elections. In the 2004 presidential election, President Putin traveled to Ukraine to guide Ukrainians to vote for Viktor Yanukovych; Russia assumed that Ukraine was hers to influence. Election results were divisive: Exit polls demonstrated Viktor Yushenko (Orange Party) won the election while Viktor Yanukovych claimed victory. This triggered the Orange Revolution, a societal push from the Kremlin which apparently insulted President Putin. It was during Viktor Yushenko’s term that Ukraine experienced a notable fusion of language and identity. And it was the 2010 Presidential election, wherein Viktor Yanukovych won, when we started to see language and identity used as a political weapon, using the well-intentioned protections provided by Ukrainian laws shaped into the highly divisive 2012 “On the Principles of State Language Policy in Ukraine” (informally known as the “Kivalov-Kolesnichenko Law” or the “KK Law”).
If Ukraine Has Already Ratified Europe’s Policy, Why is Language Still An Issue?
There was a recent peace plan, admittedly considered a “living, breathing document” by US Secretary of State Rubio, that proposed adopting European rules on religious tolerance and the protection of linguistic minorities. Further, the Europeans also submitted their own proposal, which also included this same stipulation. But why? Not only does the Ukrainian Constitution enshrine protecting national minority languages, but subsequent legislation, inclusive of the ratification of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, has also addressed this same topic.
There are plenty of laws on the books, seeking to create a system of what looks like a nationalistic counterbalance amidst Ukraine’s current politicized linguistic factionalization. The KK Law began digging legal trenches in the battlefield of culture and identity within Ukraine. Authors publicly promoted the idea of Russian Language as a second state language; however, they were aware that such a move could not garner the needed votes to amend the Ukrainian Constitution’s assertion that Ukrainian is the state language of Ukraine. This law used the language of the European Charter but was more directly used to expand the official use and legitimacy of Russian language within Ukraine, marginalizing the Ukrainian language and limiting the expansion of the Ukrainian language in “civil service, justice, education, mass media, culture, and entertainment.”
In 2019, Ukraine passed a law “On protecting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the State language.” This new law replaced the contentious 2012 KK Law, which had been declared unconstitutional in February 201,8 with the justification that “the procedure for the consideration and adoption of the law established by the Constitution was violated.” The intention of this new Law was to “strengthen the role of the Ukrainian language in state-building, ensuring the territorial integrity of Ukraine, and promoting national security.” (emphasis added) Security was perceived as part of a unified national identity; the Ukrainian language was the point of fusion for Ukrainian nationalism. Consequently, the Ukrainian language needed to be preserved and taught even in parts of Ukraine with other dominant languages, “in the exercise of powers by public authorities and local self-government bodies, as well as in other spheres of public life, as defined by” this 2019 law.
A new legal provision to the 2019 law was passed by Ukraine’s Rada and entered into force on January 16, 2022: Article 25, in particular, has been scrutinized by Human Rights watchers through its emphasis on ensuring all official publications should be published in Ukrainian; in the case of regional minorities, such as the Tatars of Crimea, publications would be in both languages. The 2019 Language Law and its 2022 provision were widely viewed as a harsh marginalization of non-Ukrainian language speakers.
Oh, So the Charter Must No Longer Be Active in Ukraine…
On December 3, 2025, Ukraine passed an amendment to the European Charter for the Protection of Regional and Minority Languages, removing Russian language from being listed as a “minority” language. This emerged from the work of the prior year. Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture emphasized, in 2024, that there is a clear difference between a “minority” and a “national minority.” A national minority is a sub-group that is culturally different from the dominant state culture, such as the Tatars of Crimea. However, a “minority” is a numerical association. This numerical allocation does not apply to Russian speakers in Ukraine.
OK, So the Policies as Proposed Requirements in the Peace Plan Already Exist…
In conclusion, it was very surprising to see the inclusion of language policy in the November proposal and then again in the European counterproposal. When we see a peace plan including the implementation of an already established policy for a country whose constitution includes “all” languages and ethnic groups, it becomes more than a bit curious.
Ukraine doesn’t need more policies. Outsiders telling Ukraine to implement redundant policies is not helpful. The human experience of the policies has affected policy actualization and realization, not the need for more policies. Yet the human experience is another, more nuanced and complicated topic for another day.
About The Author
- Dawn Hersey
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Dr. Dawn Hersey defended her doctoral dissertation in Political Science on the Effects of Actualized Language Policy on Ukrainian Stability. Dr. Hersey is using these skills through her role at Ferndon Consulting, a firm that emphasizes providing actionable fusion intelligence from niche expertise within a dynamic and complex environment. Dr. Hersey first studied Russian language in Kyiv between the 2014 “incursion” and the 2022 “invasion”, watching first-hand the effects of language policies on educational material, practices, and media.
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(li) https://www.linkedin.com/in/dawnhersey/
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(w) https://ferndon.com
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
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