Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"Nationalism appeals to our tribal instincts, to passion and to prejudice, and to our nostalgic desire to be relieved from the strain of individual responsibility which it attempts to replace by a collective or group responsibility."

– Karl Popper, "The Open Society and its Enemies"

“If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die under tyranny”

– Timothy Snyder

"Words are one of our chief means of adjusting to all the situations of life. The better control we have of our words, the more successful our adjustment will be."

– Bergan Evans

1. Chain of Command, American Values Guide US Military Profession

2. Japan Has Changed How the World Must Think About Taiwan.

3. Air Force leaders axe major China-focused organizational efforts

4. Pete Hegseth And Adm. Mitch Bradley Belong In Prison

5. A Newly Confident China Is Jockeying for More Global Clout as Trump Pulls Back

6. Marathon Russia-U.S. Meeting Yields No Ukraine Peace Deal

7. The Afghan Shooter and the Limits of Vetting

8. Hegseth’s Decadeslong Quest to Rewrite the Rules of Engagement

9. Ukraine Goes After Moscow’s Shadow Fleet in International Waters

10. A Korean-Style Freeze in Eastern Europe

11. Tomorrow’s Wars, Today’s Problems

12. The Taiwan Crisis of 2025 Is Here

13. Why I Declined Brigade Command

14. Attacking Drug Boats: Bending or Breaking the Law?

15. Europe’s New Lines of Defense Are Not Maginot 2.0

16. Three Months, Two Thousand Meters: A Snapshot of the War in Ukraine

17. Pentagon fails to give Congress clear view of Indo-Pacific deterrence spending, GAO says

18. How America can outproduce and outlast adversaries

19. Foreign Aid With Chinese Characteristics – Where Beijing Is—and Isn’t—Seeking Influence

20. The India Trump Made

1. Chain of Command, American Values Guide US Military Profession

Summary:

Debates over unlawful orders should focus less on junior troops and more on commanders and civilian leaders in the chain of command, who bear primary responsibility to ensure orders and rules of engagement are legal. Because life is the “coin of the realm,” using force can never be amoral; how America fights manifests national values. Leaders must limit violence to what is militarily necessary, mitigate harm to civilians, and avoid revenge, torture, and wanton destruction, both to comply with law and to protect soldiers’ moral and spiritual health and their long-term reintegration at home, effectively.

Conclusion:

The issue of whether American service members are bound to follow illegal orders really is an issue highlighting two enduring and foundational aspects of the American military profession. First, when acting in war, in any of its many forms, the American chain of command—civilian and military—is responsible to ensure the orders and rules of engagement it issues are legal. Second, use of force cannot be conducted in an amoral way because life itself is the coin of the realm, and because American values are at stake once its military forces are deployed or employed for action.

Comment: A very important essay that we should reflect on from one of our nation's experts on military ethics and leadership.

Chain of Command, American Values Guide US Military Profession

ausa.org · December 2, 2025

Lt. Gen. James M. Dubik, U.S. Army retired

https://www.ausa.org/articles/chain-command-american-values-guide-us-military-profession

Lately, there’s been talk about soldiers not being bound to follow illegal orders. The talk mostly is among some academicians, media personalities and political leaders. It’s usually associated with one side of the political aisle trying to score points against the other. I don’t want to use this essay to engage in that kind of partisan political discussion. Rather, I’d like to point out two of the enduring and foundational aspects of our profession that are relevant to the current discussion.

First, military commanders in the chain of command, with advice from staff judge advocates, are responsible for ensuring their orders are legal. Putting the primary focus on soldiers, or any other service members for that matter, misses this essential point. Those lower along the chain of command must be able to trust that those at higher levels have done their jobs. And “higher levels” is a relative term. To some, “higher” may mean a company, battalion or brigade commander. To others, a division, corps or joint task force commander. And to still others, “higher levels” may mean a geographic combatant or service component commander.

Inherent Responsibility

Commanders at each level have inherent responsibilities for those they command. Some of these responsibilities are tactical and operational—to place their units, and the men and women in them, in the best position relative to the enemy to increase the probability of success. Other responsibilities are logistical—to ensure the arms, ammunition, supplies and equipment needed for mission success either are on hand or within supporting distance to units in the fight. Still others are protective—to make certain both the battle and campaign areas, as well as lines of communication, are protected from enemy interference.

The current discussion swirls around another command responsibility—to guarantee, again, as much as is possible, that a commander’s orders and rules of engagement are legal. This is the context within which American service members operate.

And this context is an indicator of a second enduring and foundational aspect of the military profession: that war, or any use of military force, is not an amoral affair. How a war is fought or how forces are used is a physical manifestation of the values America stands for.

Why? Because using force necessarily involves taking, risking or changing a human being’s life—normally large numbers of human beings. Those who send America’s uniformed citizens to fight on behalf of the U.S. are ordering them to be ready to kill another and to risk being killed. Life itself is the coin of the realm in any variety of using force. How leaders spend those “coins” have moral and spiritual consequences on American citizen-soldiers.

Lt. Col Christopher Cristiana, commander of Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion, U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, Africa, salutes the color guard during a change of responsibility ceremony at Caserma Ederle, Vicenza, Italy. (U.S. Army/Spc. James Robinson)

The Right Thing

An American citizen-in-uniform who pulls a rifle trigger, drops a bomb from a plane, fires a warhead from a ship or launches a missile from some type of platform, manned or not, wants to reasonably be assured they are doing the right thing.

“The right thing,” from the perspective of the young private, grizzled sergeant or junior officer, is simple: What I’m doing is justified as a legitimate act of war, not murder. These young Americans, and the officers commanding them, must be able to trust not only their immediate commanders but also those more senior civilian and military leaders who employ them. That is, they have to trust that senior leaders have done their duty to ensure the legitimacy of the orders and rules of engagement they have issued. Absent such trust, the American military profession is at risk.

Americans in uniform are our sons and daughters. A large part of taking care of them, in return for their service, is making sure they are physically fit, part of a cohesive and reliable team, and properly trained, equipped and led. This aspect of leadership aims to increase the probability that those under the care of their sergeants and commanders will come home alive. It focuses on the physical well-being of citizen soldiers.

However, as important as this responsibility is, it is not the only responsibility of those in the chain of command. Another is making sure the killing done and the risks taken on behalf of the U.S. are justified. This responsibility attends to the moral and spiritual well-being of citizen soldiers. It increases the probability each of those under a chain-of-command leader’s charge can return from war in the best psychological, moral and spiritual shape and be proud of what they accomplished on behalf of the nation.

Leaders in the U.S. military chain of command are responsible for being as certain as they can that U.S. forces engage in only legitimate acts of war. While military necessity grants a wide berth, it is not absolute permission to do anything. The permission is limited and rightly so. It does not permit inflicting suffering for the sake of suffering, nor does it permit acts of revenge, torture or other acts of wanton death, destruction or pillage.

Necessary Limits

The Law of Armed Conflict and service manuals and the principles of “just war theory” (all taught in the U.S. professional military education system), spell out the limits of “necessity.” They also recognize the harsh reality of war: Leaders may lawfully order actions with the knowledge that noncombatants, the innocent, may be harmed or killed. Leaders, of course, are charged with mitigating such collateral damage. The innocent always have been caught up in the fighting of every war. It’s a sad, but unavoidable, reality of war. It’s why the same wartime acts can be, simultaneously, legitimate and justified on one hand and morally repugnant on the other.

Larry Dewey, who worked as a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs psychiatrist treating combat veterans and their families for over 20 years, takes up this issue in his book War and Redemption: Treatment and Recovery in Combat-related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. He has treated vets from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. He sees a pattern. Whether an infantryman or artilleryman on the ground, a pilot in the air or service member sitting at a terminal guiding a far-distant drone, killing leaves a moral and spiritual wound, even when it occurs as a legitimate act of war. Killing the innocent—again, even if necessary and not intended or wanted—leaves an even deeper wound. Killing often leads veterans to ask, “What kind of human could do something like that? What kind of monster am I deep inside?” Dewey wrote in his book.

The effects are more pronounced when acts go beyond what is legitimately permitted. Wanton violence, unrestricted rules of engagement, “taking the gloves off,” as some put it, killing or wounding beyond what is militarily necessary—even if the acts do not qualify as war crimes—put our sons and daughters who wear the uniform at increased psychological, moral and spiritual risk. The job of leaders in the chain of command—civilian and military, whether close to the fighting or distant—is to reduce such risk. This aspect of the moral and legal dimensions of war is real, it is present in every kind of war or use of force, and it matters.

Second Guessing

It matters to the veterans trying to return from war and assimilate into normal life. It matters to families and communities. In his book, Dewey quotes a World War II soldier who said, “When I first returned home, I could hardly look at the women and children walking around. They reminded me of what I had seen and done in Europe. We had killed so many and destroyed so much while fighting the Germans. How could we explain it to ordinary folks at home?”

The quoted veteran, like those from many other wars, returned home to networks that literally created him: parents, siblings, teachers, pastors, coaches, extended family and friends. War had changed the veteran; he was not the same person who went off to fight on America’s behalf.

Upon returning, every service member faces communities whose image of them is “pre-war.” Sometimes the gap is too great, and assimilation, at least initially, is not possible. This is an illustration of the communal dimension of moral and spiritual injury—an injury that can result from executing even legitimate acts of war. The communal aspect of war’s moral dimension goes even further. For how a war is fought is a physical manifestation of the values of the political community that sent its fellow citizens to fight. As a political community, the American people will not sanction rape as a tool of war, will not allow torture on our behalf and will not permit deliberate and direct attacks targeting schools, hospitals or apartment buildings.

In 1968 in the Vietnam village of My Lai, the gang rape of women and the deliberate killing of innocent men, women and children at the hands of U.S. soldiers caused a social uproar when the incident became known. Adding to the uproar and making it worse, some in the chain of command covered up the massacre. In 2004, the torture and prisoner abuse at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison came to light and caused another social uproar. As did the 2006 rape of a young girl in Mahmudiya, Iraq, then the murder of her family. These are just three incidents that illustrate that the American people, as a society, are tolerant but have a limit when it comes to crimes committed in their name.

The issue of whether American service members are bound to follow illegal orders really is an issue highlighting two enduring and foundational aspects of the American military profession. First, when acting in war, in any of its many forms, the American chain of command—civilian and military—is responsible to ensure the orders and rules of engagement it issues are legal. Second, use of force cannot be conducted in an amoral way because life itself is the coin of the realm, and because American values are at stake once its military forces are deployed or employed for action.

* * *

Lt. Gen. James Dubik, U.S. Army retired, a former commander of Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq, is a senior fellow of the Association of the U.S. Army. He holds a doctorate from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and is the author of Just War Reconsidered: Strategy, Ethics, and Theory.

ausa.org · December 2, 2025

2. Japan Has Changed How the World Must Think About Taiwan

Summary:

Japan’s new prime minister has declared that any Chinese attack or blockade of Taiwan would threaten Japan’s “survival,” legally opening the door to overseas military deployments and signaling Tokyo’s willingness to help defend Taiwan. Beijing’s fierce reaction reflects anxiety that its long-term strategy to isolate and coerce Taiwan is failing and that allies are treating Taiwan’s security as a shared responsibility. China may intensify gray-zone coercion, trade pressure, and cyberattacks, raising escalation and miscalculation risks. With Japan hardening and POTUS backing Taiwan militarily, coordinated allied signaling and contingency planning are essential to deter China and manage crisis dynamics.

Comment: Will our silk web of friends, partners, and allies stand strong in the face of Chinese coercion to deter war and keep Taiwan safe?

Japan Has Changed How the World Must Think About Taiwan

Japan Just Made Taiwan Everyone’s Business

NY Times · Craig Singleton · December 2, 2025

Guest Essay

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/opinion/china-us-japan-security-taiwan.html

Listen to this article · 6:11 min Learn more

Mr. Singleton is senior director of the China Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

A single word can crack the facade of a great power’s confidence.

That’s what happened last month when Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi of Japan told lawmakers in Tokyo that a Chinese attack or blockade against Taiwan would constitute a threat to Japan’s “survival,” a term that, under Japanese law, would permit the country to deploy its military overseas.

Ms. Takaichi merely said aloud what has long been understood — that a crisis involving Taiwan would threaten Japan’s national security. But her comments were among the clearest public signals yet that Tokyo could help defend Taiwan from potential Chinese aggression.

Beijing reacted as if Ms. Takaichi, a conservative politician, had declared war. Chinese state media has portrayed her as reviving the militarist rhetoric used to justify Japan’s aggression during World War II, and a senior Chinese envoy posted what amounted to an online threat to behead Ms. Takaichi. China has halted some Japanese imports, discouraged Chinese tourism to Japan and stepped up coast guard patrols around islands claimed by both countries.

Beijing routinely lashes out at Tokyo because of lingering resentment over Japan’s wartime past, which included a brutal invasion and occupation of China. This time, however, the fury is rooted in something more dangerous: China’s growing anxiety that one of its bedrock goals — isolating Taiwan and forcing it to submit to unification on Chinese terms — is slipping away.

The Chinese Communist Party has long assumed that time and pressure would slowly wear Taiwan down. If President Xi Jinping of China concludes that bet has failed, he may escalate to sharper forms of pressure sooner than planned. It is vital for regional security that Tokyo and Washington stand firm and signal clearly that increased Chinese coercion of Taiwan will trigger a coordinated response.

For years, China has applied a slow diplomatic and economic squeeze on Taiwan, paired with near-daily military drills and disinformation campaigns. These hover just below red lines that might cause the United States and its allies to get involved. China’s goal is straightforward: to persuade Taiwan’s people that resistance is futile and capitulation is the only way to avoid a disastrous conflict.

Ms. Takaichi’s remark punctures that logic. Because Japan hosts U.S. bases that would be central to any response to Chinese aggression, her comment serves as a warning to Beijing that dramatically increasing pressure on Taiwan is likely to draw a joint allied response. That prospect is deeply unsettling for Beijing, which has spent decades trying to prevent Taiwan’s security from becoming viewed as a shared regional responsibility.

The timing of Ms. Takaichi’s statement compounds another, deeper worry for China.

Taiwan’s next presidential election is scheduled for early 2028. If the ruling Democratic Progressive Party — which resists Beijing’s unification ultimatums — wins again, it would extend a run that started in 2016 and, in Beijing’s eyes, entrenches a distinct Taiwanese identity and normalizes the island’s defiance. If that happens, China may feel it has no choice but to squeeze Taiwan even harder.

That does not mean an invasion would be inevitable. But it does raise the likelihood that China would restrict trade with Taiwan — which is extensive, and economically vital for the island, despite the tensions — and increase cyberattacks on critical infrastructure and military feints around Taiwan. This could significantly raise the odds of an accidental clash.

Beijing’s need to control the story with the Chinese public adds even more volatility. Whenever the Communist Party faces a foreign challenge it gins up Chinese nationalist outrage. That this involves Japan, a particularly combustible source of Chinese resentment, is especially fraught. Whipping up nationalism — as China is doing now — boxes the Communist Party into a corner where any future compromise with Japan would look like a betrayal of the public fury it had encouraged.

In a sign of Beijing’s alarm over the issue, Mr. Xi has sought to drive a wedge between Washington and Tokyo, appealing directly to Mr. Trump to rein in Japan. Mr. Trump does not appear to have taken the bait. According to the Chinese readout of the call, he offered only a polite acknowledgment that Washington “understands” how important Taiwan is to China.

Mr. Trump’s muted response and his recent approval of about $1 billion in additional arms for Taiwan seemingly dashes — for now — any hope Beijing may have had of persuading Mr. Trump to soften his support for Taiwan in exchange for Chinese cooperation on trade. Mr. Xi now faces a combination he had hoped to avoid: an American president who does not seem ready to trade away Taiwan and a Japanese leader who is willing to state plainly that a crisis could ensnare her country.

This a pivotal moment for regional stability. Japan should hold firm, and the United States should stand with it. If either backs down, Beijing will treat it as proof that pressure pays. But if Washington, Tokyo and their partners signal that continued coercion by China against Taiwan will trigger coordinated countermeasures, they can change the calculus for China, making clear that further escalation could spark a wider confrontation that Beijing may not be able to control.

Ms. Takaichi did not create this situation; years of relentless Chinese coercion did. Her remark merely made explicit what has long been implicit — that if Beijing keeps tightening the screws on Taiwan, it will inevitably pull in other democracies because the island’s fate now bears directly on their security.

Airing out the shared stakes faced by all the players in this equation, as Ms. Takaichi has done, is a surer path to stability than pretending that silence will keep the peace.

Craig Singleton is senior director of the China Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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NY Times · Craig Singleton · December 2, 2025

3. Air Force leaders axe major China-focused organizational efforts

Summary:

Air Force Secretary Meink and Gen. Wilsbach are dismantling key “Reoptimization for Great Power Competition” reforms aimed at a China fight, cancelling new commands, centers, base-wing concepts and assessment offices, and keeping AETC and ACC largely unchanged. Some integration and modernization elements survive, but critics warn diluted structures could undercut long-term competition with China.

Comment: Is the headline accurate? Or is it meant to be provocative? It would seem to imply that the Air Force is backing away from China and great power competition. Or is it just altering its ways and means while remaining focused on the objective?

Air Force leaders axe major China-focused organizational efforts

defenseone.com · Thomas Novelly

https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2025/12/air-force-leaders-axe-major-china-focused-organizational-efforts-new-memo-reveals/409883/?oref=

Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink delivers a keynote address during the Air, Space and Cyber Conference at National Harbor, Md., Sept 22, 2025. U.S. Air Force / Andy Morataya

The service continues to unravel its “reoptimization for Great Power Competition” strategy.

By Thomas Novelly

Senior Reporter

December 2, 2025 05:15 PM ET

Air Force leaders are axing more major organizational changes started under the Biden administration such as reorienting commands, creating new offices, and shifting combat forces for a potential fight with China, the service’s top leaders said Tuesday.

The service will no longer stand up Air Development Command, which aimed to subsume Air Education and Training Command and further combine the service’s force-development efforts, consolidate its functional managers, and create several new centers of excellence for certain career fields. Instead, AETC will retain its name and responsibilities, Air Force Secretary Troy Meink and Chief of Staff Gen. Ken Wilsbach said in a press release that described a memo sent to their service the previous day.

Nor will the service reorient Air Combat Command to “focus on generating and presenting ready forces,” but rather keep it working to “organize, train, and equip combat ready Airmen,” the release said.

The service will:

Stop establishing its Air Base Wing concept.
Cancel plans for a new Program Assessment and Evaluation Office to handle resource analysis.
Not create an Air Force Materiel Command Information Dominance Systems Center, Air Force Nuclear Systems Center, or an Air Dominance Systems Support Center to sustain and improve aircraft and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

These steps are the latest in Meink and Wilsbach’s efforts to undo “Reoptimization for Great Power Competition," a 24-point plan released in early 2024 by then-Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall. Execution of the plan, which aimed to prepare the Air Force for a potential fight against China, was put on hold in February by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

For months, it wasn’t clear what initiatives Meink, who took office in May, would keep or gut. In September, the Air Force secretary told reporters that he was “getting close” to making decisions on the reorganization plans tied to China, but hinted that he wasn’t “a big believer in the competition side of the house.”

In the press release, he and Wilsbach appeared to allude to the Trump administration’s decisions to shift national-security focus to the Americas.

“As our adversaries and the strategic environment continue to evolve, our approach to ensuring a credible and ready force must also adjust. Air superiority is not guaranteed,” the service leaders wrote. “Through flexibility and clear-eyed assessment, our Air Force will continue to fly, fix, and fight now and into the future.”

In October, the service spiked plans for a new Integrated Capabilities Command intended to speed up the acquisition of new technologies and weapons.

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One former defense official familiar with the past efforts said it wasn’t clear how the current Air Force leaders intend to improve such integration.

“There's different ways to solve that problem and it is not shocking to me that they would choose a different way than what was chosen by the previous team, but the question remains. How are you going to do it?” the former defense official said. “The announcements that I've seen do not explain how it's going to be done, and so my concern would be if they just don't do it, if they don't provide that integration function, it will knock back our ability to compete with China.”

The official added that Hegseth’s mandate to reduce the number of general and flag officers across the military services likely sealed the fate for many of those commands and centers the Air Force hoped to create.

The memo also scraps a plan to to change Air Forces Central Command and Air Forces Northern Command/Air Forces Space from numbered Air Forces into Service Component Commands that report to the Air Force Secretary through the Air Force Chief of Staff.

Those will remain as numbered Air Forces. Similarly, Air Forces Southern Command will remain the air component to U.S. Southern Command and the 12th Air Force will be re-established as a numbered Air Force inside Air Combat Command, the release said.

The memo noted that Meink and Wilsbach were keeping some elements of the reoptimization plan, including keeping warrant officers focused on cyber missions, wing units of actions, large-scale exercises and keeping various smaller integrated development and capabilities offices.

The former defense official said it was encouraging to see some of those ideas kept, and believes some of those smaller offices could take on some roles that those centers would have taken on for the service’s integration efforts.

“They can beef up those organizations to perform more of the functions that you would have seen, for example, in the system centers,” the former defense official said. “That's certainly a possible solution, and I hope they do that.”

4. Pete Hegseth And Adm. Mitch Bradley Belong In Prison

Summary:

Spencer Ackerman SECDEF/SECWAR Pete Hegseth and USSOCOM commander Adm. Mitch Bradley personally ordered unlawful “no survivors” boat strikes off Venezuela, including a drone “double-tap” on visible survivors, amounting to mass murder or clear LOAC violations. Author links this to decades of SOF impunity, degraded ethics, and “maximum lethality, not tepid legality” culture. He warns that absence of criminal accountability will erase limits on force, encourage further atrocities, and create constitutional risk if leaders use militarized violence domestically or to overturn elections. He urges criminal prosecution of Hegseth and Bradley and robust congressional investigation, not mere political censure.

Comment: It pains me to read this. Please keep in mind I don't agree with or support every piece I send out. And of course the jury is still out on what actually took place. But until there is a thorough investigation we will continue to read these kinds of articles (both for and against). This article, as provocative as it is, synthesizes a lot of what I am seeing in various social media commentary.

Pete Hegseth And Adm. Mitch Bradley Belong In Prison

The South American boat strikes are plainly murders. Now we have the names of the murderers. Do we have the political will to lock them up?

Spencer Ackerman

01 Dec 2025 • 7 min read

https://www.forever-wars.com/pete-hegseth-and-adm-mitch-bradley-belong-in-prison/

Edited by Sam Thielman

MORE THAN a decade ago, Adm. Eric Olson, then the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), warned that his elite forces were "fraying around the edges." It had already been nearly a decade of relentless deployment across the global battlefield of the War on Terror. While general-purpose forces were in the process of drawdown in Iraq and would soon begin one in Afghanistan, special operations forces remaining behind—and would soon be ordered onto other battlefields—aswere their functional replacement. Whatever Olson's concerns, his troops’ operational tempos were only going to keep pace or increase.

Olson didn't mention the moral degradation that spec ops had engaged in since the outset of the war, like the corpse mutilations known gruesomely as "canoeing." He spoke generically of relieving the "pressures on the force" that come from relentless deployment, and left unsaid what the wages of continued pressure would be. Over time, we've seen those wages cash out, in the form of Eddie Gallagher's executions, the SEAL murder of Green Beret Sgt. Logan Melgar, and everything Seth Harp reported in his excellent recent book The Fort Bragg Cartel. Less than two years after Olson's well-publicized remarks, Green Berets in Nerkh, Afghanistan, backstopped by the Afghans working for them, disappeared and murdered locals, as Matthieu Aikins recently investigated. Five years after that, in the southern Somali town of Bariire, reporter Christina Goldbaum revealed that U.S. special operations forces killed ten civilians, including at least one child, in one of the worst massacres of an invisible war.

One of the other defining features of this generation of intense special-operations activity has been minimal accountability for battlefield atrocities. That lack of consequence creates a climate of permissibility for the next atrocity—and, should that atrocity prove too egregious to avoid criminal penalties, as in Melgar's murder, confusion over what is impermissible. This speaks to the essence of command responsibility; or, in this case, irresponsibility.

The wages of that irresponsibility and lack of accountability have compounded to produce a new and appalling reality: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the then-leader of the Joint Special Operations Command—now Olson's successor at USSOCOM—directly ordering open murders at sea.

The Washington Post reported on Friday that Hegseth ordered that there be no survivors on the first of what now stand at 22 strikes on boats off of Venezuelan waters that the Trump administration claims without evidence were smuggling drugs. I said at the time on TV that such a strike was murder. But the Post reveals that not only did Hegseth directly order the strike, but Adm. Mitch Bradley, then the commander of JSOC—the elite command throughout the War on Terror—ordered a "double-tap," a follow-on attack after a drone feed from above positively identified two survivors clinging to the remains of the boat.

There are many layers to this crisis. The strikes are a blatant attempt at provoking a war with Venezuela or a coup against Nicolas Maduro, who rules over a country that just so happens to possess the world's largest oil reserves. And then the strikes operate under the invented pretext of combatting narcotrafficking while Trump plans on pardoning a convicted narcotrafficker and former right-wing president of Honduras in order to bolster the campaign of that country's conservative presidential candidate. I spoke about the many-layered Venezuela crisis with al-Jazeera's "Listening Post" magazine show about all this for a segment that aired this weekend:

I was interviewed for that segment on Wednesday, before the Post revealed the layer of this crisis that has to do with military degeneracy and the long legacy of impunity during the War on Terror. If you caught this morning's episode of Democracy Now!, I addressed this point there, but only briefly. Unless Hegseth and Bradley face criminal penalties for their illegal order, the bottom will drop out of military ethics. There will be no order too blatantly criminal for officers and enlisted personnel in the world's largest and most forward-deployed military to refuse. Those are the stakes of an investigation that the congressional armed-services committees have ordered, though political responses will not suffice. Only criminal reprisal can.

A working group of former Judge Advocates General—convened after Hegseth's ominous action earlier this year to fire senior Army and Air Force JAGs—put it like this in a statement on the strike: If the U.S. is at "war" in the waters near Venezuela, as Hegseth insists, then the double-tap ordered by the commander of JSOC is an unambiguous violation of the Law of Armed Conflict's prohibition on killing survivors of a military operation. But if the U.S. is not in such a state of war, as the Justice Department insists for the purpose of denying congressional authority over war, then Hegseth, Bradley and "everyone from SECDEF down to the individual who pulled the trigger" are simply murderers. In Hegseth's case, by this point, we're talking 83 people killed, which should qualify as mass murder. And more may be on the way as President Trump declares Venezuelan airspace closed, suggesting further strikes at larger scale may be imminent.

Leaving Trump aside for a moment, Hegseth never should have been permitted to hold one of the most powerful offices in the world. Ever since he inserted himself in the Iraq debate to lobby for the 2007 troop surge that began his public career, Hegseth has shown himself to be a grifter, a narcissist, a man of petty resentments, and an abuser of his power. His adulation of violence translated into his successful televised lobbying for clemency for those accused and even convicted of war crimes. If ever there was a disqualification for being secretary of defense, it is that, and yet 50 Republicans and Vice President Vance voted him into the Pentagon.

Their ranks included Mississippi's Roger Wicker, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee who now vows to investigate the Sept. 2 boat strike. Wicker should as well examine his own complicity in enabling a patently unqualified, unfit and immature man to lead the Pentagon. He should examine why he did nothing as Hegseth fired the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. C.Q. Brown, simply for being black. He should examine why he did nothing when Hegseth fired the JAGs, and why he did nothing when Hegseth pledged his commitment to "maximum lethality, not tepid legality." If there was any doubt what that pledge meant, it's this: going from war-crimes fanboy to war-crimes practitioner, all while Republicans like Wicker looked the other way.

On Saturday, the Pentagon emailed a pugilistic statement from Hegseth to reporters that included the standard non-denial denials. The operative part of it was this assertion: "Our current operations in the Caribbean are lawful under both U.S. and international law, with all actions in compliance with the law of armed conflict—and approved by the best military and civilian lawyers, up and down the chain of command." That is an unambiguous indication that Hegseth intends to fight for his right to commit murder, approved by the rubber-stamp JAGs that remain after his purge. Who will stop him?

Bradley as well cannot remain in command in Tampa. He has to be escorted to the brig, or everyone within the USSOCOM chain of command, which indisputably has a claim to the "maximum lethality" part of Hegseth's coinage, will receive the message that there is no impermissible action. Why not kill civilians here in the United States as well, should a superior in the chain of command order it?

For so many years, in military fora I have been a part of, I have heard the virtues of professional military education extolled, and not unreasonably, as a crucial check on lawlessness in the legally and ethically ambiguous realm of the War on Terror. (This was an alternative to abolition of the War on Terror, which would have performed that work far more thoroughly and efficiently, but usually that perspective has not been welcome in such fora.) If ever there is a bright-line example for the insufficiency of that approach, it is here. There is no way to teach officers and enlisted personnel not to attack civilian boats with lethal force, to say nothing of vaporizing survivors, when the secretary of defense and the since-promoted commander of JSOC do it without consequence.

There are clearly those within the military who know that Trump, Hegseth and Bradley have plunged them into an abyss. They are the ones who brought their commanders' involvement to the Post. They likely include the outgoing U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) commander Adm. Alvin Holsey, who announced his retirement weeks into the boat attacks. (JSOC is a separate command, so, while we await Holsey's account, Bradley would not have answered to the SOUTHCOM commander, even though the SOUTHCOM commander is nominally in command of the military assets in theater.) Holsey's last day at SOUTHCOM is Dec. 12, and he is a crucial witness for investigations both congressional and criminal.

It should not diminish the seriousness of previous episodes of military lawlessness to say that the Venezuela boat strikes are a five-alarm crisis. Permissibility for prior lawlessness created the conditions for the current crisis. But it does mean that neither Hegseth nor Bradley can remain at their posts—at the absolute minimum!—without deepening that crisis, and perhaps creating a point of no constitutional return.

From the moment Hegseth arrived at the Pentagon, the specter of a new Jan. 6, this time aided by the military instead of ignored by it, arrived with him. If a man personally implicated in war crimes can remain atop the Pentagon, why would he stand by and risk his freedom should Vance (or, perhaps, Trump again) lose the 2028 election?

I WROTE about the shooting of the West Virginia National Guardsmen by a former CIA death squad member for Zeteo on Friday. Normally, I'd be presenting that column here, for paying subscribers, but the Hegseth/Bradley story has to take precedence. Buy a FOREVER WARS subscription and tomorrow, you'll join the many—but not enough!—who'll receive the paywalled column free of charge. You should also subscribe to Zeteo, while you're at it.

THROUGHOUT IT ALL, the U.S. still had time for a drone strike in Yemen.

WALLER VS. WILDSTORM, the superhero spy thriller I co-wrote with my friend Evan Narcisse and which the masterful Jesús Merino illustrated, is available for purchase in a hardcover edition! If you don't have single issues of WVW and you want a four-issue set signed by me, they're going fast at Bulletproof Comics! Bulletproof is also selling signed copies of my IRON MAN run with Julius Ohta, so if you want those, buy them from Flatbush's finest! IRON MAN VOL. 1: THE STARK-ROXXON WAR, the first five issues, is now collected in trade paperback! Signed copies of that are at Bulletproof, too! And please pre-order IRON MAN VOL. 2: THE INSURGENT IRON MAN here!

No one is prouder of WVW than her older sibling, REIGN OF TERROR: HOW THE 9/11 ERA DESTABILIZED AMERICA AND PRODUCED TRUMP, which is available now in hardcover, softcover, audiobook and Kindle edition. And on the way is a new addition to the family: THE TORTURE AND DELIVERANCE OF MAJID KHAN.

forever-wars.com · December 1, 2025

5. A Newly Confident China Is Jockeying for More Global Clout as Trump Pulls Back

Summary:

Beijing reads POTUS’ inward “MAGA” pivot and retreat from strategic competition as a historic opening to gain global clout and near-peer status. Chinese elites see the October tariff truce and POTUS' G-2 rhetoric as proof Washington now “respects” China’s power while de-prioritizing allies and Taiwan. China’s confidence rests on military buildup, tech advances, and clean-energy leadership, even amid economic strains and domestic pressures that fuel nationalism. Beijing is testing red lines around Taiwan, Japan, India, and the Global South, exploiting allied disarray and U.S. coercive trade policies to expand influence while probing whether America will still defend the liberal order.

Comment: The reporting seems to be all over the map on China. Is it strong or is it weak? Is it confidence or is its economy failing? Is Beijing reading a MAGA "inward pivot" correctly?

A Newly Confident China Is Jockeying for More Global Clout as Trump Pulls Back

WSJ

Feeling empowered after a clash over trade, Beijing looks to exploit America’s inward turn

By Yaroslav Trofimov

Dec. 2, 2025 9:00 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/world/china/a-newly-confident-china-is-jockeying-for-more-global-clout-as-trump-pulls-back-5cc3be4e?mod=hp_lead_pos8

Trump and Xi’s October meeting in South Korea was a turning point in U.S.-China relations, Chinese observers say. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

BEIJING—China is flexing its muscles, showing new confidence fueled by a belief that President Trump’s retreat from overseas commitments and his focus on the Western Hemisphere and trade deals create unique opportunities for Beijing.

As bonds between the U.S. and other democracies come under strain, Beijing’s new assertiveness also stems from pride over China’s prowess in future-defining technologies, from artificial intelligence to high-speed rail and clean energy. Those achievements come in parallel with a rapid military buildup.

“Trump is pragmatic, and he sees China rising in hard power and also in soft power. By concentrating on the Americas rather than doing a pivot to Asia and spreading too thin on every front, by retreating while being on good terms with China, the Americans can still maybe maintain their dominance of global affairs for 20 or 30 years,” said Wang Huiyao, founder and president of the Center for China and Globalization think tank in Beijing.

The turning point, the consensus in China’s foreign-policy establishment holds, came after a confrontation over trade tariffs, rare earths and export restrictions ended with a temporary truce struck by Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea in October.

This climbdown from what one U.S. official described as “an economic equivalent of nuclear war”—barriers that would have deprived China, and the U.S., of vital materials and components—has ushered in a new era in Sino-American relations, many Chinese analysts believe: By striking back hard, China has demonstrated its might, earning peer status for the first time and forcing America to retreat.

Innovations in technologies such as high-speed trains have added to China’s self-belief. Cfoto/Zuma Press

“The U.S.-China relationship has experienced structural change,” said Wang Yong, director of the Center for American Studies at Peking University. “The American side has realized the power of China, and has learned to be realistic in dealing with China, showing more respect.”

This celebratory mood may be premature, China’s more cautious strategists say, pointing to the slowdown in the country’s economic growth and the tensions bubbling under the surface of its tightly controlled society. Despite the rise of MAGA isolationism under Trump, some of them say, the fundamental nature of the U.S.-China rivalry remains intact even in the current thaw.

In South Korea, Trump surprised China’s leadership by speaking of a “G-2” condominium with China in world affairs—language that Xi floated at the Sunnylands summit in 2013, just to be rebuffed by President Obama, who viewed it as an abandonment of American allies and of Washington’s global role.

Xi, at his 2013 summit with Obama in California, advocated a new model of U.S.-China cooperation. REUTERS

Trump’s endorsement of the G-2 concept signals a recognition of China’s new status, said Wang Dong, executive director of the Institute for Global Cooperation and Understanding at Peking University.

If MAGA prevails and the Trump administration follows through by formally renouncing the idea of strategic competition with China in the new national defense strategy, such a pivot would mark the most fundamental shift in American strategic thinking since the end of the Cold War, if not even the end of World War II, he added.

“MAGA ideology is about saying farewell to the liberal internationalism, dismantling the liberal order, withdrawing from overcommitment all around the world, putting forces back into the Western Hemisphere—that’s the new operating concept. And it’s going to be the new normal for years to come,” Wang said.

China couldn’t be happier if that happens, of course. In this new environment, where Trump appears more interested in selling American soybeans than in protecting Taiwan, the takeover of the island democracy by Beijing becomes a much more achievable goal, perhaps without a fight, many Chinese officials believe.

Spooked by the destruction of Russia’s war on Ukraine, some Taiwanese are already turning toward Beijing. Cheng Li-wun, the newly elected leader of the island’s Kuomintang party, which holds a plurality in the Taiwanese parliament, has taken a more pro-Beijing line than her predecessor, citing the example of Ukraine as the reason for seeking closer ties to the mainland.

She even described Russian President Vladimir Putin as a democrat who had been dragged into war by NATO’s expansion. A Kuomintang victory in the island’s next presidential elections, slated for 2028, could make peaceful absorption by China more likely in following years, especially if the Taiwanese conclude they can’t count on America to defend them.

Cheng Li-wun, leader of Taiwan’s Kuomintang, has taken a friendlier stance toward Beijing. Ann Wang/Reuters

Xi has ordered his military to be ready for a military takeover of Taiwan by 2027, according to U.S. intelligence estimates. Beijing believes that “China’s reunification with the island is not a question of ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ but an unstoppable reality and a question of how and when,” said Beijing-based political commentator Shen Shiwei, founder of the China Briefing newsletter. While China prefers to achieve that goal peacefully, he added, it requires foreign nations to stop interfering.

During his phone conversation with Trump on Nov. 24, Xi stated that “Taiwan’s return to China is an integral part of the postwar international order” that was created when China and the U.S. jointly defeated Japan in 1945, a worldview that puts Washington, Beijing—and Moscow—on the same side. There was no mention of the island in Trump’s statement on Truth Social, which noted: “Our relationship with China is extremely strong!”

A perception that Taiwan no longer matters as much to relations with Washington, diplomats say, explains why Beijing has reacted so forcefully to Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s suggestion that Tokyo may use its military in case of a Chinese invasion of the island. China has imposed a slew of economic and diplomatic sanctions on Japan, demanding a retraction, and state media started questioning Japanese sovereignty over Okinaw and described it as ancient Chinese land. In recent weeks, China also stepped up its territorial claim on India, barring transit to Indian passport holders from Arunachal Pradesh, a territory that Beijing considers part of China.

The belligerence partially stems from China’s own problems, such as slowing economic growth, a real-estate bubble, flagging domestic consumption and rising unemployment, especially among the young. “In China, there is mounting domestic pressure, and some people want to resort to nationalism, to hawkishness, to seek an outcome that deals with that pressure,” said Shen Dingli, a Shanghai-based international relations scholar.

China’s new confidence comes amid disarray in the democratic world. Trump’s embrace of Russia has frustrated European allies, and his new opening to Beijing spurred fresh alarm in Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and South Korea. Asked in a Fox interview about a social-media post by a Chinese diplomat suggesting that Japan’s Takaichi should be beheaded, Trump said on Nov. 10 that “a lot of our allies aren’t our friends…Our allies took advantage of us on trade more than China did.”

Coercive American policies toward other nations, especially on trade, open new economic and political opportunities for China around the world, said Wu Xinbo, dean of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai.

China’s grip on the global rare-earths industry has been a flashpoint in the U.S. trade war. hector retamal/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

China’s own rapid development plays a role, too: “In the past technologies flowed to the global South from the West, but now more and more comes from China, especially in the clean energy area. This facilitates China’s trade and investment ties,” Wu said. “Then, political influence follows, of course.”

This new sense of confidence means that many Chinese who used to look up to the West as the source of inspiration and ideas increasingly feel they have little to learn—and more to teach.

“China for 18 centuries was leading the world, and only in the last two centuries was left behind Europe and the West. It’s normal that with the great rejuvenation, it’s leading again,” said Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Affairs at Renmin University. “We have so many people who work so hard, while the Europeans, they enjoy too much freedom, with their vacances. The young Europeans are playing postmodern art, while the Chinese young people work hard in the laboratory.”

The success of DeepSeek, China’s own AI model that uses much less computational power than American rivals—a result, in part, of restrictions on importing top-grade chips—is portrayed by China’s establishment as a validation of the Chinese Communist Party’s rule. So is the emergence of blue skies in Beijing and other major cities, where pollution has been dramatically reduced, in part thanks to the adoption of electric vehicles and tough emission standards.

“Beijing used to be known as the capital of smog. And now I myself am a bit surprised when I smell diesel exhaust in a city in America or Europe, because you no longer smell that on the roadside in China,” said Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs in Beijing. “I hope it can serve as a compelling example to the world.”

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

WSJ

6. Marathon Russia-U.S. Meeting Yields No Ukraine Peace Deal

Summary:

A five-hour Kremlin meeting between Putin and U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner produced no Ukraine peace deal, with territory the main obstacle. Moscow demands all of Donbas, while Zelensky refuses to surrender land Russia has not seized. Toughened U.S. proposals, amended after European objections, still diverge from Russian terms and its insistence on addressing NATO and Ukraine’s Western alignment. Putin criticizes Europe and threatens readiness for war if attacked, while continuing offensive operations. Kyiv and European allies fear Moscow is using talks to lock in gains, slow-roll negotiations, and fracture the transatlantic coalition supporting Ukraine.

Comment: Pretty bold on Putin's part - demanding land he could not seize. On each of these areas of disagreement it seems to come down to one fundamental issue: Putin seems to refuse to respect the sovereignty of Ukraine. Are we going to let Putin get away with that? Which country is next? Where will he stop? At the English Channel?

Marathon Russia-U.S. Meeting Yields No Ukraine Peace Deal

WSJ

A senior Kremlin official called the talks useful and constructive, but Ukrainian territory that Moscow covets remains a sticking point

By Matthew Luxmoore

Follow and Robbie Gramer

Updated Dec. 2, 2025 8:11 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/trump-envoys-to-meet-putin-to-push-u-s-peace-plan-for-ukraine-173ac10c?mod=hp_lead_pos2

Steve Witkoff, center left, and Jared Kushner met with Russian President Putin at the Kremlin on Tuesday, along with his foreign-policy aide Yuri Ushakov, fourth from right, and Kremlin confidant Kirill Dmitriev, at right. Alexander Kazakov/Kremlin/Reuters

A five-hour meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. envoys concluded without an agreement to end the war in Ukraine.
Territory remains a major sticking point, with Russia demanding Donbas and Ukraine refusing to cede land not already taken in four years of fighting.
Putin criticized European leaders for trying to sabotage peace efforts and stated Russia is prepared for war with Europe if attacked.

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

A five-hour meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. envoys concluded without an agreement to end the war in Ukraine.

KYIV, Ukraine—A five-hour meeting at the Kremlin between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner concluded without reaching an agreement to end the war, but the talks were “useful” and “constructive,” a senior Russian official said.

The official, Kremlin foreign-policy aide Yuri Ushakov, who attended the meeting, said territory was one of the most important issues for Moscow, but the sides hadn’t been able reach a compromise yet.

“Some American groundwork looks more or less acceptable, though it needs to be discussed,” Ushakov told reporters in Moscow. “Some wording that was proposed does not suit us. That is, the work will continue.”

Territory has emerged as one of the main stumbling blocks to a deal. Russia has demanded that Kyiv cede all of the eastern Ukrainian region of the Donbas. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has rejected surrendering territory that Russia hasn’t taken in nearly four years of fighting.

Ahead of the meeting Tuesday, Putin accused European leaders of trying to sabotage peace efforts, calling recent proposed changes to a U.S. peace plan for Ukraine “absolutely unacceptable.” He said Russia was prepared to fight a war with Europe if attacked.

“We do not plan to fight Europe, I’ve already said it a hundred times. But if Europe wants to fight us, and starts it, then we’re ready right now,” Putin said at an investment forum in Moscow on Tuesday, when asked about Europe’s defensive buildup.

The remarks represented some of Putin’s most pointed criticism of Europe as he seeks to fuel divisions in the trans-Atlantic alliance.

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaking at an investment forum in Moscow on Tuesday. Sergei Ilnitsky/EPA/Shutterstock

The U.S.-led peace process has unnerved close European allies following the leak of a draft peace proposal last month that appeared to heavily favor Russia.

A senior NATO official dismissed Putin’s comments about Europe, saying that the alliance is united. Russia doesn’t have the troop numbers or military capability to defeat the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Europe, the official said.

Photos released by Russian state media showed Witkoff and Kushner meeting on Tuesday with Putin and Kremlin confidant Kirill Dmitriev, who contributed input to a 28-point plan drafted by Witkoff and Kushner. That earlier plan was revised in negotiations led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio with Ukrainian officials in Geneva after European and Ukrainian officials objected that it was too favorable to Russia.

Ukrainian officials met with Witkoff, Kushner and Rubio on Sunday and further refined a plan that already had been amended in Geneva the weekend before, Zelensky said Tuesday. He said Kyiv was waiting to learn the results of the Moscow meeting, and that robust security guarantees and questions relating to control of Ukrainian territory remain core issues for Kyiv.

Putin said European leaders were trying to prolong the war but added that they were mistaken if they thought Russia could be dealt a strategic defeat. “All these changes are meant to do one thing,” Putin said of the changes to the U.S. proposal that were made ahead of the meeting. “To block this entire peace process.”

The multiple rounds of revisions illustrate the difficulty of drafting a plan that will satisfy both sides. On Tuesday, the Kremlin said it was willing to work off the U.S. proposal but reiterated the long-stated Russian position that any negotiated end to the conflict must address its “root causes”—Moscow’s shorthand for opposing Ukraine’s Western tilt and NATO’s eastward expansion.

“We want peace. Why aren’t we immediately signing a peace deal?” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday. He said the answer was the root causes, which were central to Putin’s decision to launch the invasion in 2022.

The aftermath of a Russian attack on Kyiv, Ukraine, last week. Serhii Korovayny for WSJ

Kyiv and its European allies have accused the Kremlin of trying to slow-walk the peace process, continuing to fight while holding out for a better deal. They say Moscow has sought to engage the Trump administration over the heads of European officials.

The original 28-point plan called for limiting the size of Ukraine’s military to 600,000 personnel, blocking the country’s path to joining NATO and prohibiting the military alliance’s troops from stepping foot on Kyiv’s territory. It also called for the surrender of heavily fortified Ukrainian land—a provision that Ukraine’s European allies said rewarded Moscow for its invasion.

European officials have had some success pushing back on the original U.S. plan, including increasing the cap on Ukraine’s armed forces to 800,000 personnel, closer to their current strength, and deferring the issue of land to discussions between the leaders of the U.S. and Ukraine, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

But skepticism in Europe has deepened as more information has emerged about how the plan was drafted, including a leaked call in which Witkoff appeared to be advising a top Kremlin aide on what Putin should say to President Trump in a phone call, according to a transcript published by Bloomberg News.

Speaking to reporters on board Air Force One, President Trump said the war in Ukraine was ‘moving in one direction.’ Photo: Pete Marovich/Getty Images

Putin has signaled that Russia’s recent battlefield advance will continue. If Kyiv doesn’t yield to his terms, he has said his troops eventually will seize the land he covets. His generals have been inflating their successes on the battlefield in Ukraine’s east, where they now appear poised to take two large cities.

On Tuesday, Putin threatened: “If Europe suddenly wants to start a war with us and does so, then we can quickly get to a situation where we have no one to negotiate with at all.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry on Monday announced the capture of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine, which it has been fighting to seize since the fall of 2024. The Defense Ministry posted a video showing troops walking through the devastated city center and raising a flag in the central square.

Ukraine denied Russia’s claim of capturing the city. The armed forces said that they were holding the northern part of Pokrovsk, and that Russia was suffering heavy losses there.

The 7th Rapid Reaction Corps of Ukraine’s air assault forces on Monday said Russian units had become bogged in urban warfare for the city. “Despite the tough situation, the defense forces are continuing to repel the enemy advance,” it said on social media.

Write to Matthew Luxmoore at matthew.luxmoore@wsj.com and Robbie Gramer at robbie.gramer@wsj.com

Appeared in the December 3, 2025, print edition as 'U.S. Envoys, Putin Discuss Groundwork for Ending War'.

WSJ

7. The Afghan Shooter and the Limits of Vetting

Summary:

Jeff Stein highlights the limits of security vetting. Lakanwal, a highly regarded former CIA Zero Unit fighter, passed multiple vetting layers yet later unraveled in the US under PTSD, unemployment, bureaucratic failures, and abandonment of Afghan allies. Author argues vetting databases cannot predict future violence, warns against politicized blame on Allies Welcome, and notes unproven claims of jihadist radicalization. The likelier drivers mirror US veteran suicides: moral injury, isolation, economic stress, and unanswered pleas for help. The deeper failure is not vetting, but long-term duty of care to partners we recruited into our wars.

The Afghan Shooter and the Limits of Vetting

For former CIA soldier Rahmanullah Lakanwal, life just got too hard

https://www.spytalk.co/p/the-afghan-shooter-and-the-limits?utm

Jeff Stein

Dec 02, 2025

∙ Paid

Rahmanullah Lakanwal, looking at peace somewhere, sometime. (instagram)

Many decades ago in South Vietnam, I was running a spy targeted on communist troops headquartered in the jungles about 15 miles away from my office in Da Nang, a bustling former French colonial port on the central coast. When I arrived on scene in late 1969 we didn’t know much about Mr. Dao, a man twice my age, other than he’d worked for the French before us and was a fervent anticommunist. That was good enough for my predecessor, who had hired him a month or so before I arrived. I assumed Dao had been vetted, starting with a records check with the South Vietnamese police, and mission testing to see if he would carry out an assignment without question or raising suspicion. Frankly, I don’t remember whether I asked in my nervous first days. My job was to keep him and his network of informants gathering information on the enemy—and they were good at that—and to elicit more about him during our first secret meetings in ramshackle downtown hotels.

It turned out, though, he’d never been polygraphed, so we started with that.

“Are you a communist?” he was asked. “No,” he said, and the so-called lie detector showed no deception.

“Are you loyal to the government of Nguyen Van Thieu?”—the president of South Vietnam—he was next asked. “Yes,” he answered, but this time the machine went a little crazy, scratching a jitter of red ink on the rolling white paper. The Green Beret polygrapher doing the test for me didn’t know what to make of the apparent contradiction. Nor did his bosses, who let it go. Nor did I—until several months later, when I saw him in a newspaper photo of protesters demonstrating against the powerful, anti-Thieu An Quang Buddhists, who favored negotiations with the Viet Cong to end the war. It would turn out that Dao had dual loyalties: he was secretly a member of a militantly nationalist group, the Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng, which virulently opposed any steps that could help the communists, including, of course, the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam.

Present Tense

I immediately sent a warning cable to Saigon headquarters. The answer? Dao’s intelligence was so good they were keeping him on. And so I continued to work with him until the end of my tour, always wondering how Dao’s duel loyalties might be playing us. It would take the intervention of my boss, an Army major who would later rise to become commander of the Defense Intelligence Agency, to discover more Dao deceptions and adroitly wean him from the net.

“Are you a communist?” he was asked. “No,” he said, and the so-called lie detector showed no deception.

All this is a long way around the issues of vetting and Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the former Afghan paramilitary who attacked the two West Virginia National Guard troops in Washington last Wednesday, killing one of them, leaving the other clinging for his life. The Trump administration is using the vetting issue to cast suspicion on every Afghan who managed to escape the Taliban in 2021.

By all accounts Lakanwal, who worked with one of the CIA’s vicious hunter-killer Zero units, infiltrating villages to ID Al Qaeda operatives and knock down doors, “quickly gained a reputation as a stellar soldier,” The Washington Post reported. A former commander said he “had to go through multiple layers of vetting: to see if he was good at following orders, reliable during what were often chaotic firefights and loyal to the U.S. advisers who joined them on the missions.”

All too predictably, President Trump and his minions were quick to blame the Obama administration for a failure to vet Lakanwal properly (even though his own officials had awarded the Afghan amnesty in April, after “multiple, in-person asylum meetings at a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in 2024,” a case worker told CBS.

“Let’s be clear on what the vetting system is and it isn’t,” Samantha Vinograd, a top counterterrorism official in the Obama administration also told CBS. “The vetting system is a system in which an individual’s identifiers — their biographic information, iris scans, fingerprints, facial images — are run against data sets of information about individuals with ties to terrorism and criminal history. The vetting system is not predicative of whether an individual with no derogatory information is or is not going to become violent.”

Dark Clouds

Depression struck Lakanwal not long after his arrival in the U.S. with his wife and five sons following the chaotic exit from Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport in August 2021. “He entered the United States in 2021 through Operation Allies Welcome, a program that evacuated and resettled tens of thousands of Afghans after the American withdrawal. Many had worked alongside U.S. troops and diplomats,” according to The Associated Press.

“But his grant of asylum did not come with a renewed work authorization card, which made it difficult to find a job,” a former U.S. intelligence officer told The Post, “citing conversations with Lakanwal’s fellow Unit 03 fighters after the shooting. The inability to support his family weighed heavily on Lakanwal.”

No one would be surprised to learn Lakanwal was suffering from post traumatic stress, for himself and the plight of his fellow Afghan veterans, including relatives. Some 76,000 Afghan allies and their families had been evacuated, but last January the Trump administration “abruptly halted services for refugees in the United States, including Afghans,” CNN reported at the time. As of last March, another 64,552 Afghan applicants for Special Immigrant Visas “remain[ed] trapped in processing purgatory,” it said.

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Lakanwal “had been unraveling for years, unable to hold a job and flipping between long, lightless stretches of isolation and taking sudden weekslong cross-country drives, the A.P added. His “behavior deteriorated so sharply that a community advocate reached out to a refugee organization for help, fearing he was becoming suicidal.”

In that, he was hardly different from his American cohorts. A 2021 study by Brown University estimated that 30,177 veterans of post-9/11 conflicts had died by suicide. “At least four times as many active duty personnel and war veterans of post-9/11 conflicts have died of suicide than in combat,” it said. We don’t have figures for our Afghan allies, either those who managed to get here or, of course, those back home desperately hiding from Taliban killers.

Turn Toward Jihad?

On Sunday, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem claimed without evidence that Lakanwal had been “radicalized since he’s been here in this country. We do believe it was through connections in his home community and state…” Perhaps she’d been handed a LinkedIn post by Sarah Adams, a former CIA counterterrorism targeter, Republican congressional staffer and co-author of Benghazi: Know Thy Enemy, a controversial account of the 2012 terrorist attacks on the U.S. consulate and CIA Annex in Libya, which posited that the Biden administration covered up Al Qaeda’s leading role in the assaults.

Kristi Noem asserted Lakanwal was “radicalized” in the U.S.:

Adams also claimed last week that after the attack on the two Guardsmen in Washington, “ISIS channels were the first to praise the incident largely because Lakanwal’s half-brother (the son of his father’s second wife) had been a recruiter for ISKP [Islamic State–Khorasan Province]. His brother, Muawiyah Khurasani aka Hayatullah … previously worked with Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in Orakzai Agency, Pakistan, before formally joining ISKP.”

That family allegiances were divided and complex during the decades-long war is a fact, (as was the case in Iraq and South Vietnam) but hardly evidence of a secret Lakanwal affiliation with the terrorists he’d long bravely fought. Her LinkedIn post, however, naturally brought out the conspiracy minded, including, perhaps Noem & co.

Adams also claimed—again, without citing evidence—that after the fall of Kabul, the ISKP “sought either to blackmail or recruit” former members of Lakanwal’s unit. “Both groups targeted these units specifically because of their close relationships on U.S. soil, particularly with former CIA officers. . . “ she wrote. “In addition, both groups, along with al-Qaeda, saw value in impersonating these units. A couple thousand fake documents and ID cards were produced so terrorists could claim affiliation with KPF/01/02 and other special units.”

No one has corroborated such alarmist reporting. In the end, the explanation for what drove the onetime highly regarded—but now cast off—Afghan ally to drive into D.C. locked and loaded may be the simplest. As veteran war reporter Kevin Maurer put it in Rolling Stone: “Rahmanullah Lakanwal was struggling with mental illness, his ability to support his family, and, according to an Afghan veteran who fought with him, his pleas for help to the CIA went unanswered.”

8. Hegseth’s Decadeslong Quest to Rewrite the Rules of Engagement

Summary:

SECDEF/SECWAR Pete Hegseth built his career attacking “stupid” rules of engagement and championing pardons for accused war criminals, a stance that helped make him Pentagon chief. That long campaign now underpins scrutiny of the Sept. 2 Caribbean boat strike, especially the second “double tap” that killed two shipwrecked survivors whom law-of-war doctrine deems hors de combat. Firing top JAGs and rebranding DoD as a “Department of War,” Hegseth has pushed a “maximum lethality, not tepid legality” ethos critics say invites abuse. Congress, lawyers, and commanders now question both the strike’s legality and his effort to shift blame to Adm. Bradley.

Hegseth’s Decadeslong Quest to Rewrite the Rules of Engagement

Former Army National Guard major and TV personality endeared himself to Trump by defending troops accused of war crimes

By Michael R. Gordon

Follow, Alexander Ward

Follow and Vera Bergengruen

Dec. 2, 2025 9:00 pm ET

WSJ

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/pete-hegseth-military-commentary-career-56727e2e?mod=hp_lead_pos1

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is under scrutiny for a September Caribbean strike that killed 11, including two survivors.
Hegseth’s past advocacy for looser rules of engagement and pardons for soldiers accused of war crimes is central to the debate.
Law-of-war experts question the legality of the second strike on the alleged drug boat, especially regarding the killing of shipwrecked survivors.

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

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is under scrutiny for a September Caribbean strike that killed 11, including two survivors.

WASHINGTON—Pete Hegseth built a national profile defending troops accused of violating the laws of armed conflict, a trait that won over President Trump in his first term and put him atop the Pentagon in his second.

But the defense secretary who has complained about “stupid rules of engagement” is now at the center of a Washington debate about whether a September strike against a suspected drug boat in the Caribbean amounts to a war crime, testing Hegseth’s standing with lawmakers and his leadership of the military.

The controversy was a long time coming.

In books and on television, Hegseth argued for years that U.S. military leaders should relax rules for American forces, allowing them to fight unburdened by concerns of future courts-martial. More freedom to operate, he insisted, and less regulation by military lawyers would make troops more lethal and effective, and could be justified under the laws of war.

“Maximum lethality, not tepid legality. Violent effect, not politically correct,” Hegseth said in September during a rebranding event of the Defense Department to the Department of War.

It was a worldview shaped by his deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan as a soldier in the National Guard, where he told his platoon to ignore legal advice on rules of engagement he considered “nonsense.” He persuaded Trump in his first term to pardon Army First Lt. Clint Lorance and Maj. Mathew Golsteyn, both implicated in the death of unarmed Afghans, and to reverse the demotion of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, who was accused of killing a wounded ISIS prisoner and ultimately was convicted only of posing for photos with the corpse.

Hegseth at his confirmation hearing in January before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

“Rules of engagement are a huge problem, as you know,” Hegseth said on a podcast last November, as Trump was considering his nomination. “All they do is take one incident and yell ‘war criminal.’”

Hegseth’s views once again have become relevant as he defends himself against the charge, from lawmakers of both parties and law-of-war experts, that he bears some responsibility for the Sept. 2 strike.

Many of the details of the attacks, which killed 11 in what was the first of 21 strikes that the Pentagon says killed 82 people total, have yet to be made clear.

Hegseth said during a cabinet meeting Tuesday that he never ordered Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley, a special operations commander, to carry out the second strike that destroyed the boat and killed two survivors, though he defended the officer’s actions. Hegseth didn’t explain why the U.S. made no effort to spare the survivors in September but rescued and repatriated two survivors from Ecuador and Colombia following a strike on a semi-submersible drug vessel a month later.

A senior administration official said in the September attack, the U.S. struck the boat twice in the initial attack, and twice more in the second.

While lawmakers and experts debate whether the boat strikes are legal, the death of the two survivors clinging to the boat’s wreckage raises special concern because the Defense Department Law of War Manual makes clear that the deliberate killing of a shipwrecked crew would be unlawful.

Hegseth with President Trump at an event rebranding the Defense Department as the Department of War. Francis Chung/Pool via CNP/Zuma Press

“Persons who have been rendered unconscious or otherwise incapacitated by wounds, sickness, or shipwreck, such that they are no longer capable of fighting, are hors de combat,” the manual reads, using a term for people clearly rendered out of action.

Even if the goal of the second strike was to complete the destruction of the vessel, the military would need to take the fate of the two survivors into account before attacking again, law-of-war experts say. The survivors could have been rescued and apprehended, for example, before the boat was sunk.

While Hegseth says he is bringing a long-needed “warrior ethos” to a Pentagon that he says elevated diversity over hard-nosed military capability, his critics say his decision in February to fire top Judge Advocates General for the military services and his arguments against strict constraints on the use of force has created an atmosphere in which abuses can occur.

“American officers are highly professional and very proud of the fact that they are operating within the rule of law,” said Frank Kendall, who served as the Air Force secretary during the Biden administration. “Hegseth has been consistently undermining that fundamental professional value.”

Sen. Jim Justice, a West Virginia Republican, applauded Hegseth’s overall approach to the Pentagon this week, while adding that he was troubled by the decision to carry out a second strike on the alleged drug boat. “I think he’s a warrior,” Justice said. “I think he’s absolutely the right choice to be leading our military.”

Trump selected Hegseth as defense secretary partly because of his views on loosening the rules of engagement, two people familiar with the presidential transition said. Hegseth, over the course of conversations and television appearances, persuaded Trump that troops such as Gallagher were unfairly targeted for being tough on the enemy. Trump told Hegseth during an interview for Pentagon chief that he wanted troops to act without fear that lawyers would be looking over their shoulder, the people said.

Pete Hegseth, of Fox News, shakes hands with Army First Lt. Clint Lorance during his appearance on 'Fox & Friends' in 2019. Mark Lennihan/AP

Army Maj. Mathew Golsteyn arrives for a court hearing at Fort Bragg in 2019. Andrew Craft/The Fayetteville Observer/AP

Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher celebrates in 2019 after being acquitted in San Diego. Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images

Then-Fox News personality Pete Hegseth shakes hands with Army First Lt. Clint Lorance during his appearance on 'Fox & Friends' in 2019. Army Maj. Mathew Golsteyn arrives for a court hearing at Fort Bragg in 2019. Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher celebrates in 2019 after being acquitted in San Diego. Mark Lennihan/AP; Andrew Craft/The Fayetteville Observer/AP; Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images

Trump had already echoed Hegseth’s language ahead of those discussions. “We train our boys to be killing machines, then prosecute them when they kill!” he tweeted in October 2019, tagging Hegseth. A year later, he pardoned four Blackwater contractors convicted in the 2007 Nisour Square massacre in Iraq for whom Hegseth had advocated on his show.

But the questions about the use of force in the September strike pertain not only to Hegseth and Bradley but to other military officers in the chain of command, including the legal advisers who are supposed to ensure that the use of force is lawful.

Speaking at the cabinet meeting, Hegseth said he watched the first September strike as it happened from the Pentagon, but didn’t see the second strike or immediately know about the two survivors.

He defended Bradley, saying the admiral had made “the correct decision” after giving him full authorization to conduct the strikes. Alluding to his pre-Pentagon days, Hegseth noted that he had written “a whole book” about restrictions he said had been placed unnecessarily on warfighters. Trump “has empowered commanders, commanders to do what is necessary, which is dark and difficult things in the dead of night on behalf of the American people,” Hegseth added, referring to the use of military force in the counterdrug campaign.

But Hegseth’s remarks left many questions about the incident.

Adm. Frank Bradley Mariam Zuhaib/Associated Press

“What was so urgent about the second strike at that moment?” asked Geoffrey Corn, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who was the service’s senior law-of-war adviser in 2004 and 2005. “It’s not like it was a hostile ship that was firing on us,” added Corn, who is now a law professor at Texas Tech University. “If the boat was deemed to be a threat to navigation, then fine, go rescue the survivors and then sink it.”

Hegseth’s views were shaped by his own experience in the Army. He was deployed to Iraq in 2005, in the northern city of Samarra, which was a counterinsurgency hotbed. The regiment’s Charlie Company, which included Hegseth, employed such aggressive tactics that it was referred to by some soldiers as the Kill Company. Four of its soldiers were later court-martialed on charges of killing unarmed Iraqis. Three of them were convicted; one case was thrown out on appeal.

Hegseth has cited a JAG briefing on “legal and proper engagement” that he says he and fellow troops received when they deployed. Hegseth says his soldiers were told they couldn’t fire on an armed man unless it was clear he posed a threat.

Hegseth pulled his platoon aside and told them to ignore the legal advice. “I will not allow that nonsense to filter into your brains,” he says he told them, according to his 2024 book “The War on Warriors.” “Men, if you see an enemy who you believe is a threat, you engage and destroy the threat.”

Hegseth brought such convictions to the Pentagon. In February, when he fired the top JAGs, he said they could be potential “roadblocks” to lawful to orders “given by a commander in chief.”

Senior U.S. military officers listened to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s remarks in September at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va. Alex Wong/Getty Images

In September, he summoned U.S. military commanders from around the world to attend his speech at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va., in which he argued that the military shouldn’t be bound by “politically correct” rules of engagement.

“We’re training warriors, not defenders,” he said. “We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country.”

Some defense officials said that Hegseth’s effort to shift the onus for the second September strike to the admiral might make his commanders more cautious about carrying out orders, particularly because some U.S. lawmakers already have condemned the killing of the survivors.

Bradley will have the chance to address outstanding issues about the strikes when he speaks with lawmakers Thursday behind closed doors. Some lawmakers have said the Trump administration appears to be making Bradley into something of a scapegoat.

“Looks like they’re throwing him under the bus,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.), often a critic of the administration, “but these kinds of decisions go all the way to the top.”

Write to Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com, Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com and Vera Bergengruen at vera.bergengruen@wsj.com

WSJ

9. Ukraine Goes After Moscow’s Shadow Fleet in International Waters

Summary:

Ukraine is escalating its campaign against Russia’s energy lifelines, striking “shadow fleet” tankers and the Novorossiysk oil terminal that handles over 1% of global exports. Naval Sea Baby drones have damaged sanctioned, Russia-linked tankers off Turkey and infrastructure on Russia’s Black Sea coast, raising insurance costs and operational risk. The strategy aims to squeeze Kremlin war revenues, force diversion of exports to longer Baltic routes, and shift Russian air defenses away from the front. It also widens the conflict in busy international waters, alarms Turkey and Kazakhstan, and risks broader maritime disruption and diplomatic blowback even as peace talks unfold.

Comment: If Ukraine does not do it, who will? Who is enforcing sanctions on Russia? Of course escalation is a concern but those concerns cause strategic paralysis which of course gives the advantage to Russia.

Ukraine Goes After Moscow’s Shadow Fleet in International Waters

WSJ

Recent strikes hit core of Russia’s economy but are risky, and their ultimate impact is uncertain

By Georgi Kantchev

Follow and James Marson

Dec. 2, 2025 11:00 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/ukraine-russia-energy-attacks-1cec032d

An image taken from a video that Ukraine says shows an explosion on a ship off the Turkish coast last week. SECURITY SERVICE OF UKRAINE/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Ukraine has expanded its campaign against Russia’s energy infrastructure, targeting its shadow fleet and oil terminals in the Black Sea.
Ukrainian drone strikes have hit two sanctioned, Russia-linked oil tankers off the Turkish coast and a major oil terminal handling over 1% of global oil shipments.
The attacks aim to increase costs for Russian oil exports.

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

Ukraine has expanded its campaign against Russia’s energy infrastructure, targeting its shadow fleet and oil terminals in the Black Sea.

The sun was setting over the Black Sea on Friday as a naval drone sped toward an oil tanker headed for a Russian port. The Sea Baby drone, developed by Ukrainian security services, slammed into the vessel’s hull moments later, triggering a fireball that lit up the pink-hued sky.

The grainy footage—which Ukrainian intelligence says shows a strike on a Russia-linked oil tanker—offers a glimpse into Kyiv’s widening campaign against Russia’s energy architecture. Ukraine is now targeting the Kremlin’s shadow fleet, which relies on an opaque web of ships to skirt sanctions on its oil exports and reap funds for its war in Ukraine.

In recent days, Kyiv has acknowledged drone strikes on two sanctioned, Russia-linked oil tankers off the Turkish coast in the Black Sea. It is the first time this year that Ukraine has taken responsibility for such blasts, of which there have been around half a dozen others since January.

In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to expand strikes on Ukrainian ports and the vessels entering them.

“The most radical option is to cut Ukraine off from the sea, then piracy in general will be impossible,” Putin said on Tuesday.

Kyiv last week also hit a major oil terminal on Russia’s Black Sea coast that handles more than 1% of global oil shipments. The attacks augment Kyiv’s monthslong campaign against Russia’s oil refineries that is designed to drive up the cost to the Kremlin of its nearly four-year war in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian offensive against the Moscow’s shadow fleet comes during an intense period of shuttle diplomacy, with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff in Moscow to negotiate a potential peace framework with Russia. Those talks come after Witkoff and Kushner met Ukrainian officials on Sunday together with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

While the recent Ukrainian strikes are aimed at the very heart of the Russian economy—its ability to export oil—ultimate success for Kyiv remains uncertain. The strategy also comes with diplomatic risks, because the attacks widen the theater of conflict and encroach on marine territory and assets belonging to third countries.

“The war between Russia and Ukraine has clearly begun to threaten navigation safety in the Black Sea,” said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Monday. He issued a warning to “all relevant parties” without elaborating.

Russia’s shadow fleet relies upon the fragmented patchwork of national ship registries to allow it to transport sanctioned crude via often-aging vessels that switch flags to evade international penalties for ferrying Russian oil.

The Kremlin didn’t respond to a request for comment. Moscow has previously rejected characterizations that it uses a shadow fleet and has called Western sanctions illegitimate.

Moscow has proven resilient to assaults on its infrastructure and export network, and it has managed to restore damaged refineries and secure more vessels to maintain the flow of oil to international buyers.

Still, the Ukrainian attacks raise the stakes for Russia of moving its crude, as the raids increase insurance premiums for the ships and ultimately chip away at the revenues funding Putin’s war.

Ukrainian attacks on refineries have already forced Russia to divert air defenses from the front and triggered domestic fuel shortages in several Russian regions, bringing the war’s effects to the homes and workplaces of ordinary Russians.

“That is the best strategy Ukraine has; they can hit the economy to put pressure on Russia in the negotiations,” said Adi Imsirovic, energy lecturer at the University of Oxford and former London-based global head at Russia’s Gazprom Marketing & Trading.

Ukraine’s navy and SBU security service used Sea Baby drones in Friday’s attack on two tankers that have been sanctioned for carrying Russian oil, according to a Ukrainian official. The naval drones were developed by the SBU and carry explosive payloads.

The 900-foot Kairos and the 820-foot Virat tankers, which were on their way to the Russian port of Novorossiysk, came under assault by the drones along Turkey’s Black Sea coast. Both tankers, which collectively have a capacity to transport oil worth up to $70 million according to the Ukrainian official, were empty of oil at the time.

They were sailing under the Gambian flag and belonged to Moscow’s murky shipping network that is estimated to include several hundred vessels, many of which have patchy safety records. Kairos is under European Union and U.K. sanctions, while Virat has been blacklisted by the U.S. and the EU.

Blasts have taken place on at least six other Russia-linked vessels this year, with the incidents generally bearing the fingerprints of Ukrainian operations, according to security experts and maritime and open-source intelligence analysts. Kyiv didn’t respond to a request for comment on the incidents. No fatalities have been reported from the explosions.

In a separate incident, an oil tanker suffered “four external explosions” off the coast of Senegal last week, according to Besiktas Shipping, the ship’s Turkish managing company. The vessel, which hasn’t been sanctioned, has visited several Russian ports this year.

This week, a Russian-flagged tanker carrying sunflower oil from Russia to Georgia was attacked in the Black Sea, Turkish authorities said, without attributing responsibility. The ship didn’t request assistance and its 13 crew were unharmed. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said Kyiv had no involvement in the incident.

Some of the explosions could also be due to collisions with drifting naval mines in the Black Sea or hits by other actors, experts say.

In one suspected attack in July, an explosion on the Eco Wizard tanker led to a leak of ammonia.

Following a June explosion on a tanker named Vilamoura, which was carrying a million barrels of crude oil, Ukraine’s military intelligence reported on the incident on its website without commenting further.

Ukraine has developed a potent fleet of long-range naval and aerial drones capable of striking Russian warships, ports and infrastructure deep in the Black Sea, offsetting its lack of traditional fleet power.

Besides taking out some of the vessels, the Kyiv strikes increase the costs and logistical challenges for Russian oil exports. If shipping through the Black Sea—a major exporting node for Russian crude—becomes too risky, Moscow would have to divert more oil exports to the Baltic Sea, which would significantly increase the length and cost of its route to market.

“If Ukraine intensifies its attacks on shadow fleet tankers, it could choke off one of the most important shipping routes for Russian oil,” said Janis Kluge, a Russia expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. “This could lead to a decrease in export volumes and have a significant impact on the Russian budget.”

Although Moscow has sidestepped Western insurers with its shadow fleet, it still buys policies from Chinese or Russian domestic insurers—and such attacks are making them costlier. It comes as Russian crude is trading at a deep discount to international grades due to U.S. sanctions, eroding the Kremlin’s revenues.

Hours after the attacks on the Kairos and Virat tankers, Ukrainian long-range drones hit Novorossiysk itself, which is also home to a Russian Black Sea Fleet base. The Ukrainian official said Kyiv’s forces had hit oil infrastructure as well as Russian air-defense systems in the area.

A satellite image shows the damage at Novorossiysk. Vantor/Reuters

The attack damaged one of the moorings at a Caspian Pipeline Consortium terminal, whose shareholders include Russia and Kazakhstan as well as U.S. majors Chevron and Exxon Mobil.

Brent crude prices rose around 1% on Monday following the attack, propelled by supply concerns over reduced export volumes.

Kazakhstan’s Foreign Ministry said the attacks on the CPC, which the country uses to export its oil, harm bilateral relations and urged Kyiv to halt its campaign. Ukraine said its actions weren’t directed against Kazakhstan and were aimed at repelling Russian aggression.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

What will be the effect of Ukraine’s attacks on Russia’s energy architecture? Join the conversation below.

In recent weeks, Ukraine has also struck Russia’s refinery infrastructure, hitting facilities in central Russia and on the Black Sea coast. As a result, Russia’s crude processing has recently fallen to around 5 million barrels a day, compared with up to 5.5 million barrels a day typical for this time of the year, according to data provider Kpler.

Russia, for its part, has been hammering Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in recent weeks as winter sets in, seeking to knock out power and heating, strain air defenses and sap civilian morale.

Write to Georgi Kantchev at georgi.kantchev@wsj.com and James Marson at james.marson@wsj.com

Appeared in the December 3, 2025, print edition as 'Kyiv Hits Moscow’s Shadow Fleet'.

WSJ

10. A Korean-Style Freeze in Eastern Europe

Summary:

The emerging U.S.-brokered Ukraine deal is not a real peace but a Korean-style armistice that freezes the war along current lines. Russia keeps most occupied territory and gains phased sanctions relief. Ukraine gets security guarantees short of NATO, plus limits on its own forces and politics tied to Western conditions. This locks in Russian gains, weakens Ukrainian deterrence, and turns Kyiv’s domestic politics into an enforcement tool. The result would resemble Korea in 1953: a militarized line, divided sovereignty, and a cold peace ripe for future conflict, signaling globally that persistence in conquest can pay.

Comment: The Korean War - the gift that keeps on giving. Is an armistice the "easy button" or is it the most logical outcome of these tough conflicts. We will have to see in about seven decades how it turns out (Hopefully Ukraine will be as strong and prosperous as South Korea).

A Korean-Style Freeze in Eastern Europe

By Mike Lyons

December 02, 2025

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/12/02/a_korean-style_freeze_in_eastern_europe_1150632.html

The Real Shape of the Ukraine Deal

The emerging U.S. brokered framework to end the war in Ukraine is being sold in some circles as the beginning of peace. It's not. At best, it's an armistice - a pause button on a brutal conflict that leaves more questions unanswered than resolved. If anything, it looks far more like the Korean War ceasefire of 1953 than the Dayton Accords that ended the Bosnian conflict.

That distinction matters. Because when the shooting stops but the politics don't, the war doesn't really end, it just changes uniforms.

A Freeze, not a Peace

The central idea on the table is straightforward: halt large-scale fighting roughly along today's front lines, limit Ukraine's military, and postpone final decisions on borders, occupied territories, and sovereignty into a future diplomatic process that could stretch on for years.

That's not a settlement; it's a freeze.

Russia would keep most of what it holds, which includes Crimea, large parts of Donbas, and territory seized since 2022, while receiving a phased path toward sanctions relief. Ukraine, in return, would gain stronger Western security guarantees, but only if it accepts territorial concessions and restrictions on its own military posture.

In plain terms: Kyiv trades land and long-term freedom of action for immediate relief from a grinding war and the promise of Western backing. Moscow trades diplomatic isolation and economic pain for recognition of gains achieved by force.

That's an armistice, not victory on either side.

Security Guarantees Without NATO

One of the major selling points in Washington and Brussels is a U.S. backed security framework meant to replace the broken Budapest Memorandum. On paper, it offers Ukraine more assured Western support. But it stops short of what Kyiv has asked for from the beginning: full, rapid NATO membership.

Instead, Ukraine would receive a written non-aggression structure and arms-control limits that would govern the size and posture of its forces. For Moscow, this is the real prize; a strategic buffer secured in writing, plus a path back into Western political and economic forums as sanctions phase out.

The critics see the trap: this kind of arrangement risks locking in Russian gains while structurally weakening Ukraine's long-term deterrent.

Sanctions, Reconstruction, and Politics

This draft deal intertwines foreign policy with domestic politics in all three capitals. Frozen Russian assets would be partially tapped for Ukrainian reconstruction. Sanctions would ease over time. And Ukraine's internal political reforms and elections would be tied directly to the implementation timeline.

That gives Washington leverage. It also creates a situation where Ukrainian politics become part of the enforcement mechanism. Ukraine's domestic stability and democratic reforms would be explicitly linked to the deal's success, creating pressure on Kyiv to maintain Western-approved governance standards as a condition of continued support. This transforms internal Ukrainian political decisions into international obligations, reducing Kyiv's sovereignty in practice even as the deal claims to protect it in principle. It's another echo of Korea, where domestic politics on both sides of the DMZ shaped the "cold peace" more than any clause in the armistice.

This deal is being shaped as much by Trump, Zelensky, and Putin as by diplomats. Trump wants a quick, visible diplomatic win. Zelensky would have to sell painful concessions to a war-weary but fiercely proud electorate. Putin needs the optics of strategic success, not retreat.

Those competing narratives will decide whether this agreement holds or fractures immediately.

The Korean Analogy

The closest historical parallel here is 1953. The Korean Armistice froze the conflict along roughly the existing battle lines, created a demilitarized zone, and promised a future political settlement that never materialized. Seven decades later, Korea remains divided, militarized, and technically still at war.

A Ukraine deal built on the same model would likely reproduce the same outcomes:

A heavily militarized line of contact
A divided country and a frozen sovereignty dispute
A "cold peace" vulnerable to future flare-ups
An unresolved political conflict that shapes European security for generations

The armistice stopped the killing, but it didn't end the war.

The Hard Truth

To be clear: ending the daily carnage would matter enormously. Ukrainian cities would no longer face missile strikes. Soldiers could return home. Refugees could begin rebuilding lives. The human case for any ceasefire is powerful and shouldn't be dismissed.

But relief from immediate suffering is not the same as sustainable peace. If this proposed deal becomes reality, the shooting may stop, yet the fundamental dispute - the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine - would remain unresolved. This would not be the end of the war. It would be the beginning of the next phase.

A Korean-style freeze in Eastern Europe might stabilize the front and quiet the battlefield. But unless the West recognizes it for what it is - not peace, but a pause - the consequences will extend far beyond Ukraine. Every revisionist power will learn that territorial conquest, if held long enough, can be legitimized through "armistice." Every U.S. security guarantee will carry an implicit asterisk: we'll defend you, but maybe not all of you, and maybe not forever. The entire post-Cold War security architecture in Europe, already strained, would be fundamentally rewritten around the principle that force can work if you're willing to outlast Western attention spans.

Freezing a war is not the same thing as ending one. And the cost of confusing the two will be paid in future conflicts we haven't yet imagined.

Mike Lyons is a Class of 1983 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, a combat veteran, business leader, and frequent contributor to national media outlets including CNN and CBS News. This document reflects only the opinion of the author and not the United States Military Academy or the Department of the Army.

11. Tomorrow’s Wars, Today’s Problems

Summary:

The Army must treat transformation and training as one enterprise, embodied in the new Army Transformation and Training Command, to achieve “transformation in contact” rather than in peacetime isolation. Infantry OSUT is beginning to condition soldiers for FPV drone-saturated battlefields, but true lethality demands specialized 11W/19W drone-operator MOSs, mobile forward “drone factories,” and robotics-centered experimentation and competitions. The authors warn that fundamentals must be rethought, not abandoned, and that we are in an interwar period that requires Leavenworth-style intellectual rigor. Data literacy must be cultivated from the generating force upward so future leaders can exploit multidomain command-and-control.

Conclusion:

Transformation is not a project that can be deferred until the next conflict – it must occur now, in contact with the changing character of war. T2COM enables this by ensuring Soldiers experience realistic battlefield threats from their first days in uniform, by institutionalizing mastery through new specialties like the proposed 11W and 19W drone operators, by sustaining operational reach with mobile drone repair and production systems, by using competition as a vehicle to drive innovation, and by cultivating data-literate leaders who can guide doctrinal evolution as instructors. Just as the interwar Army built the intellectual foundation for victory in WWII, today’s Army must align transformation with training at every echelon. Put differently, we must train for the known, while educating for the unknown. By doing so, T2COM ensures the Army does not merely prepare for tomorrow’s war, but that it prepares in contact, with the urgency that tomorrow demands of today.

Tomorrow’s Wars, Today’s Problems

by Larry Kay, by Christopher Hanes

12.03.2025 at 06:00am

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/12/03/tomorrows-wars-todays-problems/

“To maintain our edge on the battlefield, our Army will transform to a leaner, more lethal force by adapting how we fight, train, organize, and buy equipment.”

The character of war is shifting faster than traditional defense institutions can adapt. Autonomous systems are proliferating, sensors are everywhere, and dual-use technologies evolve at a pace that continually threatens to outmatch U.S. forces. To remain dominant and decisive, the Army must transform not only how it fights, but also how it trains and develops Soldiers and leaders. The recent consolidation of Army Futures Command and Training and Doctrine Command into the Army Transformation and Training Command (T2COM) signals that transformation and training can no longer be treated as separate enterprises. Instead, transformation must be embedded in the way Soldiers are trained, units are organized, and leaders are educated. T2COM enables Transformation in Contact (TiC) by reshaping training at the tactical level, institutionalizing new capabilities, sustaining operational reach, blending innovation with competition, and cultivating data-literate leaders who can think and adapt in real time.

Always Begin With the Cognitive

“Hell is not fire; that would be the ultimate in suffering. Hell is mud.”

Attributed to a British Soldier who spent nearly every moment in the mud of trenches during World War I (WWI), this quote describes the misery and hellish conditions nearly all experienced. The psychological effect mud had on troops in WWI was haunting, and Soldiers returning from the trenches following the war often had visceral reactions to mud based on the trauma they experienced. For many Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, the fear of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) hidden on, beneath, and beside roads or in culverts provoked similarly visceral reactions when they returned stateside. Today’s fear is the menacing sound of a first-person view (FPV) drone hunting for its next target. The whizzing and buzzing sound signals near-certain death for troops in the open on the battlefields of Ukraine. YouTube abounds with videos of Ukrainian and Russian Soldiers running for their lives from the FPV drones. This is the harsh reality our current and future generations of Soldiers are likely to experience, and for which the Infantry School is currently preparing.

“So, one morning, I wondered: How would you train Soldiers for combat in the future? I didn’t bother thinking of new land-based weapons systems – what was on my mind…was space. Soldiers and commanders would have to think very differently in space, because the old ideas of up and down simply wouldn’t apply anymore. I had read in Nordhoff and Hall’s history of World War I flying that it was very hard at first for new pilots to learn to look above and below them rather than merely to the right and left, to find an enemy approaching them in the air. How much worse, then, would it be to learn to think with no up and down at all?”

Focusing on cognitive and behavioral conditioning, Infantry One-Station Unit Training (OSUT) can enable transformation in contact by changing the way it introduces trainees to tactical movement formations. Assuredly, Soldiers moving tactically will be threatened by small, unmanned aviation systems (sUAS), and therefore, how Soldiers move in tactical formations must fundamentally transform to address this threat. The conditions in which many tasks are trained must include the threat of sUAS. During all BCTs, Soldiers navigate the night infiltration course, the intent of which is to introduce trainees to the sights and sounds of the battlefield during limited visibility. The lesson plan clarifies further, “…this course is meant to give you the most realistic experience as possible to combat…You will be crawling under machine gun fire like many Soldiers before you in such battles as D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge during WWII.” History demonstrates that battlefield environments create deep psychological imprints, and it will remain instructive to expose Soldiers to direct fire, instilling in them the fear that cultivates the requisite instinct to avoid getting shot, but it begs the question: how best to prepare Soldiers for future threats?

The night infiltration course must change to reflect the chaos of future battlefields. However, there are immediate challenges that arise when considering the incorporation of sUAS in the night infiltration course. Despite this, Infantry OSUT recently included a “React to sUAS” course, which immediately precedes the night infiltration course. Following this first exposure to sUAS, the trainees are placed on a crawl-walk-run training trajectory, which incorporates sUAS and C-sUAS in all field training leading up to graduation. While this does not fully realize the vision General Brito described, it does “expose them [trainees] to operational threats that they may see if they were to deploy tomorrow, and also so they haven’t seen it for the first time when they join whatever unit they’re going to…” In short, Infantry OSUT is beginning to condition Soldiers to think and move tactically under new realities, much like the “Battle Room” in Battle School in the book Ender’s Game.

Despite this, Infantry OSUT must never let the desire to incorporate sUAS eclipse the importance of Soldiering and the focus on the fundamentals. Abrupt changes in the focus of the Army can creep into the basics of basic training, and while it is important we expose trainees to the menacing threats of sUAS, survival in battle will continue to depend on mastery of the fundamentals. Unless, of course, it is the fundamentals that must be reevaluated to ensure they remain the foundation of an anticipated future war. Therefore, it is imperative that sUAS realities and capabilities become inextricable to small unit tactics but never become the sole focus – unless, perhaps, there is a military occupation specialty entirely dedicated to sUAS.

Lethality requires Mastery; Mastery requires Focus: The 11W & 19W MOS’s

“Victory will belong to those who integrate unmanned systems into the very core of their tactical thinking, not just by issuing drones, but by rewriting doctrine.” Mastery of a skill requires thousands of hours of training. Given how units are currently organized and the subpar lethality that can be achieved from a task relegated to an additional duty, it is time for the Army to establish a new military occupational specialty for drone operators. Small, unmanned aviation systems (sUAS) must belong to tactical ground units to avoid aero-centric predilections.

In fact, it is key that this position is within Infantry or Cavalry formations, and not within the aviation branch, because it is fundamentally meant to create drone operators at the squad, platoon, and company level. This military occupational specialty (MOS) would require them to become Infantry or Cavalry Soldiers first, and then all-type, drone operators. Much like our 11C mortar Soldiers, who certify as Infantryman first, this drone operator or an “11W/19W” would conduct one-station unit training (OSUT) at Fort Benning and then become sUAS operators at companies across the Western Hemisphere Command.

The requirement to perform security and reconnaissance functions did not disappear with the inactivation of the units assigned to perform these functions. Based on the recent reductions in manned reconnaissance across light and Stryker formations, the “11W” MOS enables small unit reconnaissance, call for fire training, advanced communications training, and training on how to use 3D printers, so they can rapidly fabricate pieces for the sUAS. The “19W” MOS will focus on supporting the BCT to enable its ability to gain and maintain contact with the enemy without direct human involvement. The 19W training will be like the 11W, but it will focus on informing commanders of enemy positions and providing eyes on employing an array of indirect weapon systems and enabling domination in the close fight. The drone operator course is not enough – there must be an MOS dedicated to this, otherwise we risk operating in the delusion of lethality. Neither exposure nor familiarity is enough. To win, we require overwhelming mastery at scale, because mastery is the essential preliminary to lethality. Furthermore, the military occupational specialty (MOS) cannot be bound by programs of record for sUAS. Rather, since sUAS technology is rapidly advancing, the MOS must be focused on the fundamentals of sUAS and drone fabrication, operation, and tactics as opposed to training on a single piece of material through a program of record.

A recent concept, the Amor Strike Platoon, is a zero-growth reorganization of existing capabilities that could be made remarkably more effective by including 19Ws. Additionally, the 198th Infantry Brigade in Fort Benning is about to begin a pilot program during which recently graduated 11Bs and 11Cs remain at Fort Benning for an additional ten days to learn how to use drones. However, this is admittedly a discrete solution to a systemic problem, for which the development of an MOS would systemically solve.

Consider Operational Reach for Small Unmanned Systems (sUAS)

Transformation also requires sustainment solutions that extend operational reach. Armor Brigade Combat Teams have long appreciated the critical importance of forward repair systems (FRS) as part of the company trains and battalion trains. The FRS is essentially a mobile maintenance shop designed to enable military mechanics to repair battle-damaged vehicles and systems “on-site” or as far forward of the rear area as possible to help sustain the operational reach of units. As an element of operational art, operational reach is the distance and duration across which a force can successfully employ a military capability. Operational reach balances the natural tensions among endurance, momentum, and depth. Like the FRS in an ABCT, which enables operational reach, light infantry units will need an analogous capability for sUAS, which are essentially mobile drone building and repair factories.

Recent conflicts illustrate this need. During Israel’s “Operation Rising Lion” in June 2025, pre-positioned drone teams played a crucial role in disrupting Iranian defenses and facilitating Israeli airstrikes. Many lessons can be learned and mislearned from this incredibly daring operation, most notably that human-machine integration cannot be mistaken for human-machine supersession. As it turned out, to get the sUAS positioned to strike critical, high-payoff targets, Israel still required troops (in this case, Mossad agents) on the ground, deep in Iranian territory, to release the sUAS, which operated below the threshold of detection for larger air defense capabilities. The point is that even the most advanced systems require personnel in contested terrain to launch and recover drones. A mobile drone factory manned by 11 and 19 Whiskey’s could provide this capability for light infantry, allowing them to sustain reconnaissance, security, and dynamic targeting missions deep in contested space. The mobile drone factory, operated with 11 and 19 W’s who can rapidly manufacture and repair drones in the battlefield will help us achieve the goal of always having robots, not Soldiers, gain and maintain first contact with the enemy.”

Innovation Through Trial, Error, and Competition

“Thomas Edison’s approach was one of trial and error, hard work, and persistence, being methodical, rigorous, and purposeful, and using prepared minds and careful monitoring. He believed innovation arose not from individual genius but collaboration, and this capacity to work together and across boundaries resulted from a supportive culture, environment, and social and industrial relations.”

The essence of training is to allow error without consequence. In August 2000, two men organized an event in which competitors designed and operated remote-controlled armed and armored machines to fight in an arena. The show, BattleBots, continues to air on the Discovery Channel today – for entertainment. While active conflicts provide fertile ground for observers to conjure ideas about future war and warfare, all two-star commands within both T2COM and FORSCOM should develop and participate in a competition like BattleBots – for lethality and robotics dominance. The 18th Airborne Corps’ Dragon’s Lair successfully introduced the force to home-grown, bottom-up ideas in a variety of arenas. Likewise, major commands should consider developing teams and leagues where land, sea, and air-based sUAS are created to fight each other in a competition like the best warrior, best squad, and best Ranger competitions. Consider the value of having many teams attempt to conduct a combined arms breach with robotics. Many installations already have innovation labs and centers with massive 3-D printers. Applying a lethality-focused, competitively driven purpose to them will expedite further efforts to transform in contact.

The next step in robotics dominance is preparing Soldiers to enter the Army already possessing the STEM skills necessary to drive TiC from the ground up by supporting robotics programs in our nation’s schools. An example is VEX Robotics, which holds the world’s largest robotics competition every year. Children in elementary grades through high school form teams and work to build creative solutions through real-world innovation. On any given weekend you can encounter a group of children who can fabricate, code, drive, and fight a robot to accomplish a task and complete its mission. These are exactly the critical thinkers and collaborators that we need to serve in the previously described whiskey MOSs. Robotics programs can be easily incorporated into existing JROTC and ROTC programs. Additionally, community partnerships with local innovation driven partners like the FISTA Innovation Park found outside the gates of Fort Sill, Oklahoma, can provide a state-of-the-art facility committed to supporting these future Soldiers as they learn the skills needed to foster innovation, collaboration, and triumph in the dynamic landscape of defense and security, resulting in recruits that enter the force today with the skills needed to dominate the battlefield tomorrow.

Leading Transformation is Learning and Teaching Transformation

“A military historian recently asked me how the United States, indifferent and even contemptuous of the military in peacetime, had been able to produce a group of generals proficient enough to lead armies successfully against German might…I am now convinced that the intensive and imaginative training at the Command and General Staff College had a great deal to do with it…Most of us saw Armageddon as a certainty.”

We are in an interwar period, and there is no denying it. Interwar periods are marked by the absence of large-scale conflict but underscored by rapidly evolving threats, and despite the overconfidence of many who claim the U.S. Army is the best in the world, we stand at an inflection point. The Chief of Staff’s call for “transformation in contact” reflects an urgent imperative: to restructure the force for the future while simultaneously maintaining readiness for combat today. Central to this transformation is the cultivation of intellectual and tactical excellence among the Army’s officer corps. Prioritizing instructor assignments for high-potential officers is a historically grounded and strategically sound means of achieving this aim. This approach mirrors the U.S. Army’s successful practices between WWI and WWII, as detailed in Peter Schifferle’s America’s School for War and in Military Innovation in the Interwar Period by Williamson Murray and Allan Millett. To transition an organization as large and complex as the United States Army, there must be a group of selected individuals who help teach and train those who will execute the transformation.

As noted in his book, America’s School for War, Dr. Schifferle emphasizes the role of the Command and General Staff School (CGSS) at Fort Leavenworth in shaping the Army’s operational competence during the 1920s and 1930s. He illustrates how a cadre of intellectually curious, forward-thinking officers—many of whom were identified as high-potential—were selected to serve as instructors stating, “assignment as an instructor at Leavenworth became a plum assignment during the interwar years, with selection routinely coming from the highest rated graduates of the school; assignment as an instructor was highly regarded by army officers at large”. These officers not only refined their own understanding of doctrine and tactics through teaching but also played a formative role in educating a generation of leaders who would go on to command in World War II. Of the thirty-four corps commanders in World War II, over half served as instructors at Fort Leavenworth. The instructor role, far from being a career detour, was a deliberate investment in future operational excellence. Replicating this model today would create a force that is intellectually agile and capable of leading transformation into a fast-changing operational environment.

Murray and Millett’s Military Innovation in the Interwar Period further supports this argument by showing that meaningful military transformation is driven by a culture of experimentation, critical thinking, and education. Their case studies demonstrate that militaries that encouraged debate and analytical rigor within their educational institutions were far better prepared for the next war. The U.S. Army’s ability to rapidly adapt its combined arms doctrine and integrate emerging technologies before World War II was not accidental—it was the result of deliberately assigning top-tier officers to educational and doctrinal development roles. Selecting leaders who are naturally innovative will not be enough. We must create generations and cohorts of leaders who will endure multiple leadership positions in both the operating and generating force. Prioritizing high-potential officers for instructor duty today would similarly foster this mindset and generate the professional excellence required of the spirit and the intent to transform in contact.

As the U.S. Army transforms amid new domains of warfare—cyber, space, and information—it needs leaders who are both tactically grounded and intellectually adaptive. Instructors have a unique opportunity to shape these leaders, both by teaching and by driving doctrinal evolution. Officers who have been successful in command and other CSL positions should be prioritized as instructors at the Captains’ Career Course and Command and General Staff School. By making instructor duty a competitive, high-prestige assignment for top-performing officers, the Army signals its commitment to transformation not as a future goal, but as a present, contact-driven imperative. In doing so, it builds the intellectual foundation for a force capable of prevailing in the uncertainty of tomorrow’s battlefields.

Achieve Data Literacy by Incubating it in the Generating Force

“Going digital is a mindset, it’s culture change…it’s about how we can fundamentally change how we operate as an Army through transformative digital technologies, empowering our workforce, and re-engineering our rigid institutional processes to be more agile…”

The Army is woefully behind in data literacy. We are, in effect, data illiterate. Data literacy is more than building a dashboard on Power BI. It’s about understanding the meaning and significance of the numbers represented on the dashboard. Put differently, data literacy is one of the key vehicles for moving at the speed of relevance. All our efforts to procure the most advanced command and control equipment for winning in a multi-domain environment will amount to nothing more than extravagant expenditures if our Soldiers and leaders do not remotely understand how the expensive software and hardware came to give them the answers. Consequently, we must evolve our strategic approach to institutionalize the data literacy required to thrive in a multidomain environment. Pressing the matter further, the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army most recently emphasized that, “there needs to be a common set of understanding amongst all leaders, regardless of branch, on data literacy.”

Recently, the U.S. Army, in conjunction with Carnegie Mellon University, developed the Army Data Driven Leadership Program, which aims to inform leaders on how best to leverage data and drive transformative changes across the Army enterprise. As an enterprise-leader level course, however, it does not fully operationalize the skills required to generate momentum at the platoon and company level, which is what is necessary right now. In fact, we need to educate today’s junior leaders, who will become tomorrow’s future commanders on how to leverage data to enhance Soldier performance and lethality. This must be a generative approach. This approach must also smartly integrate the institutional, operational, and self-development domains to foster continuous leader development as leaders advance in the Army. Effectively, data literacy should become a thread that binds every component at every echelon.

In fact, there is no greater assignment for educating leaders on data than in generating force assignments such as basic training and advanced individual training, where tens of thousands of newly arrived trainees and newly minted Soldiers cycle through these organizations. While drill sergeants focus on indoctrinating trainees on the fundamentals of soldiering, the senior drill sergeants, first sergeants, platoon leaders, and company commanders focus on collecting, organizing, refining, understanding, and analyzing training, biometric, and demographic data. This introduction to data fundamentals will pay dividends when they advance to future operational assignments, which will similarly require data literacy, albeit with much more risk to readiness. However, there must be a formal education curriculum preceding this informal on-the-job training (OJT), which introduces data literacy basics to these leaders. This curriculum should be crafted based on the echelon of leaders and professional military education.

Transformation is not a project that can be deferred until the next conflict – it must occur now, in contact with the changing character of war. T2COM enables this by ensuring Soldiers experience realistic battlefield threats from their first days in uniform, by institutionalizing mastery through new specialties like the proposed 11W and 19W drone operators, by sustaining operational reach with mobile drone repair and production systems, by using competition as a vehicle to drive innovation, and by cultivating data-literate leaders who can guide doctrinal evolution as instructors. Just as the interwar Army built the intellectual foundation for victory in WWII, today’s Army must align transformation with training at every echelon. Put differently, we must train for the known, while educating for the unknown. By doing so, T2COM ensures the Army does not merely prepare for tomorrow’s war, but that it prepares in contact, with the urgency that tomorrow demands of today.

(The views and ideas expressed here are solely those of the authors and do not represent the United States Army, the United States Department of War, or the United States Government).

Tags: Future warfare, military innovation, military leadership, robotics

About The Authors

Larry Kay
Lieutenant Colonel Larry Kay currently commands the 2nd Battalion, 54th Infantry Regiment in Fort Benning, GA. Before command, he was the Assistant Chief of Staff – G5, Chief of Plans of the 3rd Infantry Division. He is a graduate of the School of Advanced Military Studies’ Advanced Military Studies Program. He authored numerous articles, including “Lessons from LSCO, part 1 – 3,” which can be found in From The Green Notebook & “Putting the Enemy Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Multidomain Operations in Practice,” with the Modern War Institute.
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Christopher Hanes
Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Hanes currently commands the 1st Battalion, 31st Field Artillery Battalion in Fort Sill, OK. His previous assignments include serving as a tactics instructor at the Command and General Staff College, the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, the 1/25th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, and the 1st Infantry Division. He is a graduate of the School of Advanced Military Studies’ Advanced Military Studies Program.

12. The Taiwan Crisis of 2025 Is Here

Summary:

The China–Japan clash over Taiwan triggered by Prime Minister Takaichi’s “Taiwan equals Japan’s security” remark has become the long-anticipated regional showdown. Beijing is using trade coercion and threats to force a retraction and establish rhetorical dominance that would push others, especially South Korea and the Philippines, toward accommodation. Tokyo cannot afford to back down without undermining the US–Japan alliance and regional balancing against China. Smaller states try to hedge, but China’s hard line is shrinking their room to maneuver. South Korea faces the starkest choice: side openly with the US and Japan over Taiwan or erode the logic of its alliance.

Comment: Will we look back on the PRC-Japan "spat" of 2025 as the inflection point in the Asia-Indo-Pacific? Is this the "regional showdown?" Where will things go from here? Will it escalate or will the Japanese, backed by the silk web of allies, partners, and friends, put the PRC in check.

The Taiwan Crisis of 2025 Is Here

nationalsecurityjournal.org · Robert E. Kelly · December 2, 2025

https://nationalsecurityjournal.org/the-taiwan-crisis-of-2025-is-here/

Key Points and Summary: A diplomatic spat between China and Japan over Taiwan is escalating into a regional showdown, forcing smaller Asian nations to pick sides.

The Spark: Beijing is using trade coercion to bully Japan’s new Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, into retracting statements linking Taiwan’s security to Japan’s survival.

H-6 Bomber from China. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

The Stakes: A Japanese capitulation would signal dominance to the region, but Tokyo cannot afford to blink.

The Dilemma: South Korea faces an acute crisis; maintaining neutrality on Taiwan threatens the very logic of its alliance with the United States.

Japan and China Lock Horns over Taiwan: What Happens Now?

Japan and China are now locked in a protracted spat over China’s claims to Taiwan.

What started as a minor flap is growing into a major contest in which regional players are desperately trying to avoid taking sides between the two rivals and are increasingly staking out opposed positions.

China’s designs on Taiwan are well known, but Beijing appears to have suddenly decided to force the issue in the region.

Beijing is using new Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s words—that a Chinese assault on Taiwan would inevitably become a security issue for Japan—to bully the region to accept the Chinese position on Taiwan, namely, that it should be permitted to invade and conquer it with no outside intervention.

Japan is China’s primary antagonist in the region. No other economy is large enough to compete with China, and the US alliance with Japan is the linchpin of the US position in East Asia.

The Showdown East Asia Has Been Waiting For

This position is turning into a major showdown. If Beijing can humble Japan—if it can force Takaichi, via trade coercion and military threats, to retract her words—then it will establish rhetorical dominance over its regional rival.

A Japanese capitulation will signal to other regional powers, such as South Korea and the Philippines, that they, too, should find an accommodation with Beijing.

For this reason, Japan is unlikely to back down. It cannot afford to swerve in a direct chicken contest with its primary competitor. This stalemate will therefore likely continue for a while.

That Japan and China might fall into a cold war over the future of East Asia is not a new observation.

The chill began under the premiership of Shinzo Abe in Japan and the presidency of Xi Jinping of China. But both sides had strong economic incentives to keep security competition muffled.

Their trade relationship is substantial. Both would suffer from a prolonged fallout. When the history of this standoff is written, much focus will be on why China chose this moment to plant its flag. Does it now feel ready to take Japan on directly?

Forcing East Asia’s Smalls to Pick a Side

That Japan and China would be the ‘poles’ in any bipolar regional security competition was foreordained.

Trickier is the position of the smaller states in the region that wish to maintain working relationships with both poles and avoid being sucked into their standoff. If pressed, states like Vietnam and Australia will likely choose Japan over China. China is far more threatening than Japan.

China Type 076 from Chinese Weibo Screenshot.

But ideally, the region’s small states would like to stay out of this showdown altogether and trade with all regional players to pursue their development goals.

Southeast Asian Muslim states Malaysia and Indonesia have done a particularly good job of this. They are politically and culturally distinct enough from northeast Asia to claim some distance from the Sino-Japanese/Taiwanese/American standoff.

And they are distant enough to avoid being chain-ganged into a northeast Asian conflict, at least initially.

Far more challenging will be South Korea’s position. It has tried vigorously for decades to walk between the raindrops, desperately avoiding a public choice for or against China. As a US ally, South Korea is ostensibly aligned against China in a showdown.

But its governments have pointedly avoided saying as much. South Korea’s left-progressives, in particular, have been careful to avoid antagonizing China.

The current South Korean president even stated, as a candidate last year, that South Korea should not participate in a Sino-US war over Taiwan.

South Korea’s second-largest trading partner, after the US, is China. And the South Korean left is traditionally hostile to Japan. Alignment with Japan against China would cause a deep fissure in South Korean society.

On the other hand, if South Korea does not aid the US and Japan in what could become a major war, then there is no reason for the US to be allied with South Korea.

Seoul does not need US assistance to tackle the North Korea problem. It is capable of doing that alone.

The alliance only makes sense to the US if South Korea helps America with regional issues—most obviously Taiwan. The South Koreans are stuck with a tough choice.

The Decision Fork is Approaching

South Korea’s dilemma is only the most acute of what all the region’s small states face.

If Sino-Japanese tensions worsen and the region slides into an overt cold war, most smaller powers will feel pressured by the larger players to choose a side.

Dithering strategies have worked surprisingly well for them. But China’s surprising recalcitrance in the current dispute suggests the long-awaited decision fork is approaching.

Author: Dr. Robert Kelly, Pusan National University

Dr. Robert E. Kelly is a professor of international relations in the Department of Political Science and Diplomacy at Pusan National University in South Korea. His research interests focus on Security in Northeast Asia, U.S. foreign policy, and international financial institutions. He has written for outlets including Foreign Affairs, the European Journal of International Relations, and the Economist, and he has spoken on television news services such as the BBC and CCTV. His personal website/blog is here; his Twitter page is here.

nationalsecurityjournal.org · Robert E. Kelly · December 2, 2025

13. Why I Declined Brigade Command

Comment: Tough decision. Selfless service comes in many forms. Are you married to the Army or to your wife and family? I am sure that every senior officer who pressured him was doing it for all the right "Army reasons" recognizing the strength of character and leadership ability and potential to continue to continue the Army. I know that I have counseled many officers and my default point was always stay in and contribute because he or she was an officer with tremendous potential. Yet only he can weigh his entire situation. Ironically it is this officer's strength of character that we want in the military yet it is also the same trait that allowed him to make the right decision for himself, his family, and the Army. I thankfully did not have to face his situation and our daughter was able to complete high school after I retired because she was (unexpectedly) born 4 months before I assumed command of a battalion - which had many different challenges.

Why I Declined Brigade Command

Matt Jamison

Div Chief @ The Joint Staff | U.S. Army Missile Defense

December 2, 2025

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-i-declined-brigade-command-matt-jamison-gns7e/?trackingId=6GElJPArhyo0dawX%2BrLFBw%3D%3D

Last year I published an article in which I studied what I referred to as the “Battalion Command Crisis within the U.S. Army Air Defense Artillery.” I completed my own battalion command in June 2023 and loved it. The job was the highlight of my career, and my departure was truly bittersweet. To this day, I can honestly say that I would happily do it all over again. After successfully completing what was then known as the Colonel’s Command Assessment Program (CCAP) last year, I deferred competing for brigade command. This year I declined entirely. In this article, I will explain why.

When I decided to make the Army a career, my general vision of what success looked like was twenty years of service and a successful battalion command. As I approached battalion command, I never thought about retiring at its conclusion. My career had been a success by any measure and battalion command was no different. I was a first-time select for Senior Service College and knew that I wanted to get my family back to the Washington, D.C. area and take a specific job that would be available at the Pentagon. I had never been certain that I would enjoy brigade command – the transition to organizational leadership might remove much of what I enjoyed as a direct leader – but I had always taken the next hard job.

Something changed for me at the end of battalion command. For the first time, my wife indicated that she was tired of moving. I had always said that it was my decision to join the Army but at twenty years, it would become a family decision. Our conversations about command were substantively different than those about any other assignment or opportunity that had come my way. As my oldest daughter prepared to enter high school, my wife made it abundantly clear that I could take any job that I wanted but that she would not go with me. Every military family must make decisions at one time or another about what is best for them based on any number of different criteria. But for us, the thought process had always been that it didn’t matter where we went as long as we could go together.

I knew several senior officers who had made the decision to “geo bach” – voluntarily separating from their families for an assignment while the family stayed home. For the first time, we considered this option. I nudged my wife about a particular command in Japan – we had loved our prior assignment in Okinawa – but there was no way she would let me move our daughter to Japan for her last two years of high school. The closest tactical command would be in Oklahoma, which was a non-starter for me, so I deferred. I had a decision to make, compete a year later for a brigade at Fort Bragg in North Carolina – where I had completed battalion command – or choose not to compete at all.

I felt immense pressure. Within the family, there was none. My wife continued to fully support me, and the decision was mine alone. I could do what my last brigade commander had done – leave my family in DC and make the five or so hour drive back and forth on weekends when possible. Would anyone get 100% of what they needed from me in that scenario? It was inevitable that I would deploy at some point, which was fine, as I always found that to be the best part of the job anyway. But this also meant generally missing my daughter’s last year of high school. I would miss soccer games and big events – and what about school visits?

Outside of the family was a different story. Conversations with leaders about geo baching generally began as questions or discussion but grew into what seemed like expectations. Friends made their own decisions to retire or stabilize their families but counted on me to take command. Deep down I knew that I didn’t owe anyone anything. I had served the Army and our Nation honorably for more than twenty years. But I also knew that the Army had invested in me and senior leaders had mentored and supported me for years. Friends and mentors expected me to continue to serve, and I did not want to let them down.

As the time drew near to let my career manager know what I would do, I ruminated over my decision. Over many conversations with my wife, I felt like I inherently knew what I was going to do but just was not yet ready to make the decision. Then something clicked for me. I don’t recall whether I was listening to a podcast or reading an article or a book, but what I heard or read suggested that by the time children graduate from high school, parents have spent 90% of the time they will ever spend with them. I knew instantly that there was only one choice I could make. Years from now, my most important memories will be the ones I share with my family. It’s my family who will be by my side then, and it’s those relationships that need to be nurtured.

I am a husband, a father, and an Army officer. It is clear to me that my identity has probably been too intertwined with my role in the Army. I care deeply about my work – it’s never been just a job. In key and developmental assignments, I never mastered work-life balance. Eventually my service will end, and that can’t be the only thing that defines me.

I called a mentor when I was comfortable that my decision was final. It was silly, but I dreaded the call because of the pressure and expectations that I had placed on myself. He was warm and supportive, asking only if I intended to transition to retirement. When I indicated that I still enjoyed the work, thought I could serve the Army well in the Pentagon, and wanted only to keep my family in place, he agreed and helped me map out the future.

A separate discussion with another senior leader whom I ran into went very differently. Though he may have been joking, this officer expressed his disappointment about my choice and reserved the right to continue to try to change my mind.

This was the hardest decision in my now 22-year Army career, and I’m finally comfortable with it. I still feel compelled to explain it. I can’t or won’t just say that I chose not to compete for command. I continue to serve because I still enjoy the job and the people, but my family is now my priority. I don’t think I could ever truly say that before – it was always the Army that “won”.

My kids will attend one high school, which is rare among our senior leaders. I see how important it is for them at this time in their lives, and I’m glad to be able to give them the opportunity. I don’t long for retirement, but I do think about what will come next. I miss the opportunity to lead and develop young Soldiers who are rarely present on the Joint Staff, but I’m excited about the future and the years I have left with my children at home.

Colonel Matt Jamison is currently the Chief of the Missile Defense Policy Division in the Joint Staff J-5. He holds a BA from Hampden-Sydney College and MAs from the University of Texas at El Paso and Johns Hopkins University. See his other articles here: Matt Jamison | LinkedIn

14. Attacking Drug Boats: Bending or Breaking the Law?

Summary:

US missile strikes on alleged narco-trafficking boats rest on a fatally flawed claim that groups like Tren de Aragua constitute an “armed attack” justifying national self-defense and armed conflict. Cartels are criminal enterprises, not organized armed groups challenging U.S. governance, so wartime targeting rules do not apply. Treating drug smuggling like chemical warfare distorts Article 51 and erodes the boundary between law enforcement and war, inviting arbitrary killing and dangerous precedents other states may copy. Existing maritime law enforcement authorities are adequate; expanding naval law enforcement, not inventing a “war,” is the lawful course.

Excerpts:

There Is a Better (and Legal) Way

No one has suggested that existing legal frameworks short of armed conflict provide insufficient authority to board and challenge stateless vessels such as cartel boats. If during such operations the crew demonstrates deadly hostile intent, the use of deadly force in response would be completely justified. Such operations are legal and have been conducted by the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard for years. They have been carried out with support from other countries, including Canada. U.S. counter-drug operations should remain within this maritime law enforcement legal framework. They do not qualify as armed conflicts even pursuant to the most generous interpretation of that concept. Some may see convenience in abandoning the crucial law enforcement role at sea long performed by naval forces in favor of claiming that an armed conflict exists. But convenience does not equal legal justification, and in doing so the United States is significantly destabilizing regional security and undermining norms of acceptable state behavior.

The way to address the drug trafficking problem is not to define cartels as a proverbial nail in order to justify wielding the military hammer in response. Such an approach ignores the legal, moral, and human consequences of security overzealousness, and violates the most fundamental principle of international human rights law: the protection of human life (even the lives of suspected criminals). Instead, these interests can all be advanced by continuing to apply the widely accepted legal authority and operational means to address criminal activity at sea. This may necessitate expanding the role of U.S. naval forces in direct law enforcement operations. But the need to enhance the resources involved in such operations does not justify the leap from law enforcement to armed conflict.

Attacking Drug Boats: Bending or Breaking the Law?

warontherocks.com · December 3, 2025

Geoffrey Corn and Ken Watkin

December 3, 2025

https://warontherocks.com/2025/12/attacking-drug-boats-bending-or-breaking-the-law/

U.S. attacks on alleged narcotics trafficking boats continue unabated with little apparent concern for near-unanimous legal condemnation. The Trump administration justifies these attacks as an exercise of national self-defense against a non-state group engaged in armed conflict against the United States — two inherently defective legal assertions. The result is the targeting of drug cartels like Tren de Aragua with missile strikes. This is not bending the law, it is breaking it.

And now we know addressing what is inherently a law enforcement threat with wartime authority has led to an emerging scandal over a reported “double tap” strike that killed survivors of an initial attack, allegedly responsive to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s directive to “kill them all.” Further investigation is necessary to establish the ground-truth of what may have been an illegal attack — even in the context of an armed conflict. But it is the invalid assertion of wartime attack authority that set the conditions for this latest scandal. Had this boat been dealt with through the law enforcement framework, there would not have been a first strike, much less the reported double tap.

Nonetheless, at least two international law commentators have endorsed this theory of legality, specifically the legitimacy of treating the activities of narco-trafficking groups as an “armed attack” triggering the inherent right of self-defense. Another editorial asserted invocation of “wartime” legal authority represents an arguably logical evolution of international law. This argument is premised on the theory that the administration’s interpretations of international law merely build upon previous invocations of analogous authority by the United States to engage in hostilities against non-state groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.

Like the administration’s legal invocation of the right of self-defense and that this situation constitutes an armed conflict, these opinions seek to push a legal square peg into an operational round hole. It is, of course, accurate to focus on an actual or imminent armed attack to justify military action in self-defense. This right is enshrined in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter and is an important aspect of customary international law. And while the meaning of armed attack — the trigger for self-defense — must be pragmatically responsive to emerging threats, its malleability is not unlimited. Indeed, by invoking the international legal language of self-defense, it is clear the United States has not abandoned the view that its use of military force must “fit” within an international legal framework. It is, however, the Trump administration’s effort to advance its policy agenda by continuing to distort what constitutes an armed attack that lies at the heart of the legal invalidity of this campaign.

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A Flawed Interpretation of International Law

The fundamental flaw of both these assertions of international legal authority is that they seek to transform what is into what isn’t: what is fundamentally a law enforcement challenge into what isn’t a war by any objective measure. This conclusion is not based on a “restrictive” or overly formalistic view of international law. Indeed, we have both been strong advocates for acknowledging the right of self-defense and the existence of armed conflicts in the post-9/11 period. It is undeniable that interpretations of the law to deal with the threat posed by al-Qaeda and similar groups expanded beyond a traditionally more restrictive approach, which only accepted that self-defense could be exercised against attacks by states. The very term “transnational” armed conflict — an armed conflict against a non-state organized armed group operating beyond national borders — was first suggested by one of us in a 2005 Army Law article.

But acknowledging such an evolution is not an invitation to transform every national security threat into an armed conflict. Unless such a threat manifests in a manner that effectively overwhelms normal law enforcement response capabilities, it is legally and functionally overbroad to treat it as an armed conflict. When dealing with a non-state group, that line is crossed only when the group has military-type organization, engages (or is about to engage) in armed attacks against the United States or its personnel or interests abroad, and brings to bear a military-type capability that cannot be effectively addressed within the normal law enforcement legal framework. In short, only when common-sense dictates a genuine threat-based necessity to resort to combat power is it legitimate to assert the existence of an armed conflict.

This is almost certainly why the Trump administration frames the current situation as war, asserting that members of Tren de Aragua “have unlawfully infiltrated the United States and are conducting irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actions against the United States,” and drawing an analogy between the deadly impact of illegal narcotics and a chemical weapons attack.

None of these analogies, or the legal theories built upon them, are plausible. Comparing the drug cartel threat to the conflict with al-Qaeda and subsequently with the Islamic State is like comparing a rifle with a cruise missile. Those earlier campaigns responded to organized armed threats to governance in the states where they operated, and internationally in their desire to create a broader caliphate or force — through armed violence — the United States to abandon engagement in certain Middle Eastern countries. This is entirely consistent with the concept of armed conflict, whether against threats posed by states or non-state organized armed groups: Violence is used to achieve some political purpose whether it be gaining control of territory or challenging lawful state authority. Even when two non-state armed groups engage in hostilities — for example the hostilities in and around Mogadishu in 1993 between the organized armed groups that fought for control of the city — the goal is to gain control over the areas where they operate.

This doesn’t mean it is legally impossible for the United States — or any country — to be engaged in an armed conflict against a drug cartel. Such a situation would be plausible if Tren de Aragua was engaged in armed operations seeking to challenge U.S. governing authority. But there is no objective basis for such a conclusion. Instead, like most criminal syndicates, this is an organization that operates as a commercial enterprise, using sporadic violence to advance its commercial agenda. Nothing indicates use of force on the scale of al-Qaeda or the Islamic State to gain control of U.S. territory or challenge its ability to govern by conducting organized armed hostilities against it.

This is the same reason the invocation of self-defense is invalid. While not discounting the harmful or deadly effect of illegal narcotics, chemical substances, even when illegally introduced into the United States, do not amount to an armed attack the way flying commercial airliners into skyscrapers packed with civilians did. It is its use as a weapon to conduct an attack — meaning an intentional act of violence — that matters. And that intent and corresponding attack is absent in this situation.

Were a non-state armed group attempting to attack the U.S. homeland with a chemical or biological weapon the invocation of self-defense would be both essential and justified. However, asserting drug smuggling poses an identical threat as chemical warfare is a gross distortion that fundamentally misrepresents the threat posed by such weapons used during World War I, by Iraq in the 1980s against Iran and its own Kurdish population, and most recently by the Syrian government against its own people. This is why the American, British, and French rationales for their 2018 strikes against Syrian chemical weapons facilities focused on the deliberate use of chemicals as a weapon with the accordant intent to inflict mass casualties. Those strikes were made to stop the horror of chemical warfare, an intentional use of chemical weapons not remotely close to the collateral risk posed by Venezuelan drug cartels feeding a demand for narcotics originating from within the United States.

Why It Matters

This all leads to an important question: Why does determining the existence of “armed conflict” even matter? At the core of the answer lies a more fundamental question: What justifies the state to use lethal force? The answer turns on the existence or absence of legal justification: When life is taken deliberately without such justification, it amounts to an arbitrary killing under either domestic or international law. Outside the context of armed conflict, legal justification is based on — and of equal importance limited by — principles of individual self-defense associated with law enforcement, most notably the requirement that only the minimum necessary and proportionate force be used as a measure of last resort in response to an actual or imminent threat. This is the “ordinary” framework for use of force. It is why police officers are armed with less than lethal weapons like Tasers. This is the basis for the condemnation of excessive uses of police force.

During an armed conflict, however, this “ordinary” use of force framework is altered. Pursuant to the law of armed conflict’s principle of military necessity, military forces may employ deadly force as a first resort based not on an assessment of imminent threat, but on the “enemy belligerent” status of the target. Thus, a reasonable assessment of enemy belligerent status justifies the use of deadly force, providing the requisite legal justification. However, even in this context arbitrary or unlawful killing can occur, such as when deadly force is used against an individual who is not assessed to be an enemy belligerent or a civilian taking a direct part in hostilities, and does not pose an actual or imminent deadly threat.

Understanding this equation reveals why the prohibition against arbitrary killing would become hollow if a state could simply characterize every security threat as an armed conflict. International law has not evolved in such a direction. To the contrary, the law has consistently reinforced that armed conflict — even against emerging or unconventional security threats — requires those threats to have some characteristic of military organization (e.g. a command-and-control structure) and present a threat to government authority of protracted and intense combat that is beyond the normal law enforcement response. Arguing that the evolution of international law creates an armed conflict and justifies the attendant use of deadly force against a criminal gang — whose objective is not challenging government authority but rather trafficking in an illicit commodity — misinterprets the way law has evolved.

Reports that National Security Council lawyers, CIA lawyers, civilian Department of Defense legal counsel, and military lawyers in the chain of command have all questioned the legality of this military campaign is therefore unsurprising. Equally unsurprising, albeit unprecedented, has been the reaction of various partner nations limiting intelligence sharing with the United States due to concerns about becoming complicit in internationally invalid military operations. The Trump administration is apparently unconcerned about these decisions or, arguably, the broader perception of disregard (or invalid interpretations) of international law. We believe this campaign is undermining U.S. credibility across the globe. We also believe it will set a precedent that the United States may come to regret when invoked by other governments, including U.S. adversaries, seeking to transform what are fundamentally law enforcement challenges into matters to be dealt with by using deadly force.

This campaign ignores a foundational pillar of international law: that invocation by a state of the inherent right to act in self-defense enshrined in the United Nations Charter represents an exceptional authority to use force, and in particular military force. It has always been understood as exceptional, requiring genuine security necessity, because it was adopted during the postwar period when the international community under U.S. leadership sought to avoid the scourge of future war. The right to act in self-defense is not a blank check to use force. This is why invocation of self-defense — individual or collective — must be limited to situations that genuinely indicate imminent threat, a necessity to act, and a response that is proportionate to the threat. Since the legal criteria for the United States acting as it is not met, the United States is — as it was for decades preceding this campaign — obligated to use the minimum force required to achieve the goal of interdicting and preventing the flow of illegal narcotics into the country.

There Is a Better (and Legal) Way

No one has suggested that existing legal frameworks short of armed conflict provide insufficient authority to board and challenge stateless vessels such as cartel boats. If during such operations the crew demonstrates deadly hostile intent, the use of deadly force in response would be completely justified. Such operations are legal and have been conducted by the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard for years. They have been carried out with support from other countries, including Canada. U.S. counter-drug operations should remain within this maritime law enforcement legal framework. They do not qualify as armed conflicts even pursuant to the most generous interpretation of that concept. Some may see convenience in abandoning the crucial law enforcement role at sea long performed by naval forces in favor of claiming that an armed conflict exists. But convenience does not equal legal justification, and in doing so the United States is significantly destabilizing regional security and undermining norms of acceptable state behavior.

The way to address the drug trafficking problem is not to define cartels as a proverbial nail in order to justify wielding the military hammer in response. Such an approach ignores the legal, moral, and human consequences of security overzealousness, and violates the most fundamental principle of international human rights law: the protection of human life (even the lives of suspected criminals). Instead, these interests can all be advanced by continuing to apply the widely accepted legal authority and operational means to address criminal activity at sea. This may necessitate expanding the role of U.S. naval forces in direct law enforcement operations. But the need to enhance the resources involved in such operations does not justify the leap from law enforcement to armed conflict.

BECOME A MEMBER

Geoffrey S. Corn is the George R. Killam Jr. Chair of Criminal Law and director of the Center for Military Law and Policy at Texas Tech University School of Law. Prior to joining academia, he served as an Army officer for 21 years, retiring as a lieutenant colonel. He served one additional year as the civilian senior Army law of war advisor.

Ken Watkin served for 33 years in the Canadian Armed Forces, including four years (2006-2010) as the judge advocate general, retiring as a brigadier general. He also served as the Charles H. Stockton Professor of International Law at the U.S. Navy War College (2011-2012). Ken has written extensively on state self-defense, international humanitarian law, and human rights law issues related to armed conflict. He is the author of Fighting at the Legal Boundaries: Controlling the Use of Force in Contemporary Conflict (Oxford, 2016), which was awarded the 2017 Francis Lieber Prize by the American Society of International Law as “an exceptional published work in the field of armed conflict,” and with Geoffrey Corn and Jamie Williamson is co-author of The Law in War: A Concise Overview (Routledge, 2nd ed., 2023).

**Please note, as a matter of house style War on the Rocks will not use a different name for the U.S. Department of Defense until and unless the name is changed by statute by the U.S. Congress.

Image: Petty Officer 2nd Class Tajh Payne via DVIDS

warontherocks.com · December 3, 2025

15. Europe’s New Lines of Defense Are Not Maginot 2.0

Summary:

Europe’s new defensive lines are not “Maginot 2.0” but a practical way to make deterrence by denial real with too few brigades and a continental manpower crisis. Projects like the Baltic Defense Line, East Shield, and an Eastern Flank Deterrence Line fuse obstacles, sensors, drones, and precision fires into a “digital shield” that slows, channels, and exposes Russian forces for counterattack. These fixed defenses buy time, economize scarce maneuver units, and turn the eastern flank into a laboratory for networked, multi domain defense. Success will hinge on resilient C2 networks, industrial mobilization, and sustained political will.

Excerpts:

Conclusion

Europe’s new defensive lines have sparked predictable skepticism. Some see Maginot ghosts, others see technological overreach, and still others see symptoms of political weakness. These critiques mistake momentum for myopia.

The Maginot Line failed because it was static. Today’s defenses are dynamic. Far from speculative, the technology is the proven toolkit of Ukraine’s survival. And rather than political theater, the strategy offers the only operational way to make current troop levels viable.

Recent Russian drone incursions, the launch of Eastern Sentry, and the rapid construction of border defenses from Finland to Romania all point in the same direction. Europe is learning to deter at the speed of modern war. This collective, layered, and networked planning is the best strategy Europe has.

Europe’s New Lines of Defense Are Not Maginot 2.0

warontherocks.com · December 3, 2025

Sam Rosenberg

December 3, 2025

https://warontherocks.com/2025/12/europes-new-lines-of-defense-are-not-maginot-2-0/

Across Europe, nations have signaled a desire to dig, wire, and network their frontiers. From the Baltic Defense Line and the European Union’s proposed “drone wall” to Finland’s pilot barriers and Poland’s East Shield, the continent has embarked upon its most significant defensive hardening since the Cold War. Rather than nostalgia for the trenches, this effort represents a calculated adaptation to the war in Ukraine, one designed to ensure aggression is neither quick nor cheap.

That strategic shift began at NATO’s Madrid Summit in 2022, when the alliance moved from deterrence by punishment to deterrence by denial. The old idea accepted that territory might be lost before being recaptured. The new concept aims to prevent that loss in the first place. The following year, at Vilnius, the alliance made this real through new regional defense plans, aligning national barriers, forward-deployed forces, and reinforcement corridors under a single theater-wide framework.

However, a gap remains between political announcements and physical reality. Allies possess the right vision, yet resourcing lags rhetoric. While nations have agreed to scale the eight forward-deployed multinational battlegroups from battalions to brigade-size units, the war in Ukraine demonstrates the sheer density of forces required for a proper defense. As Kyiv employs over 100 brigades to counter Russia’s advance, it becomes clear that eight brigades are far too few.

To be sure, the alliance’s plans call for mobilizing follow-on forces far larger than these eight initial brigades. Yet, even this reinforcement strategy collides with hard reality. Europe is facing a continental manpower crisis. Major powers, particularly Germany and the United Kingdom, simply lack the personnel to fully staff the formations needed to backstop NATO’s eastern flank.

Europe’s new defensive lines are the solution to this problem. They are the force multiplier required to make deterrence by denial a credible reality, enabling the forward-deployed brigades and subsequent follow-on forces to hold the line rather than just avenge its fall.

I have worked on one of the concepts born from this approach, the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line, and I have heard every critique now aimed at Europe’s broader defensive momentum. Commentators warn that these efforts risk becoming another Maginot Line, that the technology is too futuristic, or that this effort is just a cheap substitute for raising real armies. Each of these claims misinterprets the threat, the technology, and the politics driving today’s defenses.

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The Maginot Fallacy

The Maginot Line remains military history’s most powerful symbol of false security. Some critics of Europe’s plans claim it is reminiscent of the Maginot Line and that fixed fortifications create complacency, absorb scarce resources, and are ultimately bypassed.

That analogy is appealing but historically inaccurate. In reality, the Maginot Line worked as intended, acting as a “shield” to hold the German border. But it was only a part of the plan. The catastrophe lay instead with the “sword” — the French mobile army. Far from passive, French commanders aggressively rushed their best units north into Belgium, driving straight into a German trap. This maneuver left them exposed when a command structure too rigid to pivot failed to react to German armor outflanking them through the Ardennes. The lesson of 1940 is that defenses are useless without a command structure fast enough to manage the battle, target the enemy, and adapt to changing conditions.

Current planning reflects these lessons. Today, NATO does not view defenses as walls to hide behind, but as sensors to enable action. This starts with the command structure itself. Under the new regional defense plans, command and control is growing more streamlined. In the Central Region, where the bulk of fighting would occur, U.S. Army Europe and Africa is fully integrating with NATO Allied Land Command. Instead of two separate headquarters operating in parallel, they will function as a single command positioned in two locations, unified under one commander. This ensures that a sensor trigger on the frontier is translated instantly into a decision at the NATO corps and theater levels.

Furthermore, the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line operationalizes this convergence through a specific division of labor. The concept deliberately prioritizes autonomous and optionally-crewed systems to hold the physical, creating a “digital shield” that absorbs the initial shock of an attack. This economy-of-force measure is designed to preserve the most valuable asset: the human combatant. By assigning the bulk of the static defense to machines, commanders can keep manned maneuver units uncommitted and concentrated in the rear, ready to launch decisive counterattacks to restore the integrity of the border.

In this sense, the new defensive lines would function as multi-domain enablers. The Baltic Defense Line, Finland’s obstacles, and NATO’s theater plans all envision layered, maneuver-integrated defenses. Bunkers, anti-tank ditches, and “dragon’s teeth” are merely physical nodes in a much larger web of sensors, drones, and precision fires designed to shape the enemy for the kill.

The purpose is to buy time. Russia’s way of war depends on momentum and surprise: saturate defenses, punch through gaps, and achieve psychological shock before the West can respond. Fortifications buy hours and days, which in modern war is the difference between collapse and reinforcement.

Recent Russian drone incursions into Polish and Estonian airspace show how quickly Moscow probes for weakness. In a world where such violations occur within minutes, delay is deterrence. NATO’s Eastern Sentry activity, launched in September 2025 after those incursions, is already demonstrating how fixed defenses, sensors, and air defenses combine to deny that momentum.

If the Maginot Line represented the Industrial Age’s illusion of permanence, Europe’s new defense lines represent the Information Age’s demand for agility. They are not walls but filters designed to slow, channel, and expose an aggressor to multidomain fires.

The “Futurism” Critique

Some skeptics describe these projects as technological fantasy, imagining promises of AI-enabled networks and robotic defenses that will never materialize. The claim is that NATO should rely on proven tools, not chase dreams.

Evidence from Ukraine suggests otherwise. Small drones, loitering munitions, and software-assisted targeting have already transformed warfare. Ukrainian gunners link smartphone apps to artillery, cutting the sensor-to-shooter cycle to minutes. Cheap quadcopters destroy multi-million dollar armored vehicles daily.

Rather than betting on science fiction, European defense planners are scaling what already works. The Eastern Flank Deterrence Line, for instance, does not require autonomous swarms. It will rely on affordable, connected mass: thousands of commercial-grade drones, networked sensors, and digital command posts that can see and strike in depth.

This mirrors the kind of innovation envisioned in the U.S. Army’s Transformation Initiative and captured by a recent piece published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which notes that modernization today means accelerating the fielding of proven technologies, not waiting for perfect ones.

The deployment of the Merops counter-drone system in Poland and Romania offers a concrete preview. In November 2025, U.S. soldiers began training allied forces at Nowa Dęba on this AI-enabled interceptor, which fits in a pickup truck and neutralizes hostile drones autonomously, even when global positioning systems are jammed. As part of Eastern Sentry, this activity integrates tactical interceptors with broader theater surveillance. Under this framework, a radar track in Poland will be able to trigger an automated response from a distributed network of sensors and shooters. That level of integration is moving from theory to operational reality.

Critics call this too ambitious. In reality, it is incremental, the natural evolution of NATO’s digital backbone, now fused with cheap, distributed sensors at the edge. The future of defense is not about inventing new tools so much as connecting existing ones. Stated differently, these projects are practical systems integration at a continental scale.

Economy of Force

The third, and perhaps most damning, critique argues that these lines are symptoms of a fractured political will. Skeptics claim that digging bunkers is a cheap substitute for the harder, more expensive work of generating heavy maneuver brigades. They argue that while the rhetoric of defense is high, the fiscal and demographic reality is lagging.

There is truth to this, but it is an argument for the lines, not against them.

While Poland is investing heavily — allocating 10 billion zloty ($2.5 billion) specifically for the East Shield — Western Europe is struggling to generate mass. The British Army is shrinking toward 73,000 troops, and the German Zeitenwende is bogged down by a recruitment crisis. The alliance does not have the luxury of waiting for a demographic miracle or a unified political awakening.

The defensive lines are a pragmatic economy of force measure. By hardening the frontier with sensors and unmanned systems, NATO can economize its limited high-readiness maneuver units, concentrating them at decisive points rather than spreading them thin along a 1,500-kilometer border.

This is not about letting nations off the hook for defense spending. It is about acknowledging that, while the political will to fully remobilize society may be uneven, the operational requirement to hold the line is absolute. If Europe cannot generate the mass to flood the zone with troops, it must shape the zone with engineering. The defensive lines are not a replacement for mass — they are the only way to make the current lack of mass viable.

Tangible Defense and Global Strategy

This shift restores realism to European security, ending the 30-year illusion that defense was mere insurance rather than a continuous task. But for Washington, these lines represent a strategic bargain. By hardening the continent’s eastern approach, European allies defend America forward. A Europe capable of holding its own frontier creates the stability required for the United States to pivot resources toward the homeland and the Indo-Pacific without abandoning its trans-Atlantic interests.

This push also transforms the eastern flank into a premier laboratory for modern large-scale combat. The concepts being honed here, specifically the fusion of deep sensing, affordable munitions, and counter-mobility obstacles, have applications far beyond Europe. The autonomous systems designed to neutralize massed enemy formations in the Suwałki Gap have direct relevance to the defense of Taiwan, while the integration of sensors and physical barriers offers lessons for the Korean Peninsula or even U.S. border security.

Finally, this momentum rejuvenates the industrial base. Building drones, munitions, and sensors at scale revives atrophied factories, creating an arsenal of democracy that benefits the entire alliance. Activities like Eastern Sentry and national projects like the Baltic Defense Line are in effect proving grounds and tactical laboratories, integrating lessons from Ukraine in real-time. When nations pour concrete and deploy drones along a common frontier, they are testing technologies and concepts that will help secure free nations globally.

The Real Challenges

Even so, hard problems remain. The first is the network. Every bunker and sensor depends on secure, resilient communications that can survive jamming and cyber-attacks. Building this continental network is as difficult as building the fortifications themselves, though the alliance’s digital backbone is expanding to link national systems.

The second challenge is industrial mobilization. Layered deterrence requires enough munitions, sensors, and drones to sustain it. Artillery shell production in Europe has increased sixfold since 2022, and new drone factories are opening, but this revival of the industrial base is still in its early stages.

The third is fiscal endurance. Digital barriers require constant funding for software updates, sensor replacements, and general technical upkeep. This demands steady investment through changing election cycles, a challenge for democracies that often prefer one-time purchases over recurring costs. Here, Russia’s continued aggression provides a grim form of optimism, erasing doubts about defense spending and solidifying public support in frontline nations. Indeed, recent NATO polling indicated that 76 percent of citizens across the alliance now support maintaining or increasing defense spending. The ingredients for lasting deterrence — networks, industry, and political resolve — are finally starting to align.

Conclusion

Europe’s new defensive lines have sparked predictable skepticism. Some see Maginot ghosts, others see technological overreach, and still others see symptoms of political weakness. These critiques mistake momentum for myopia.

The Maginot Line failed because it was static. Today’s defenses are dynamic. Far from speculative, the technology is the proven toolkit of Ukraine’s survival. And rather than political theater, the strategy offers the only operational way to make current troop levels viable.

Recent Russian drone incursions, the launch of Eastern Sentry, and the rapid construction of border defenses from Finland to Romania all point in the same direction. Europe is learning to deter at the speed of modern war. This collective, layered, and networked planning is the best strategy Europe has.

BECOME A MEMBER

Sam Rosenberg, Ph.D., is a U.S. Army strategist serving as the concepts branch chief at U.S. Army Europe and Africa. A former infantry officer with combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, he is a graduate of West Point, Georgetown University, and the University of Texas at Austin. His work has been featured in Foreign Affairs, the Modern War Institute, the Irregular Warfare Initiative, and by the Royal United Services Institute.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.

**Please note, as a matter of house style War on the Rocks will not use a different name for the U.S. Department of Defense until and unless the name is changed by statute by the U.S. Congress.

Image: Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Smith via Wikimedia Commons

warontherocks.com · December 3, 2025

16. Three Months, Two Thousand Meters: A Snapshot of the War in Ukraine

Summary:

A review of Mstyslav Chernov’s documentary 2000 Meters to Andriivka, a helmet-cam portrait of a 3rd Assault Brigade platoon taking a tiny strip of forest and the village of Andriivka over three bloody months, only for Russia to retake it. The film captures intimate soldier stories and visceral close combat, yet is already “time stamped” by rapid change: today drones cause most casualties, making such frontline filming nearly impossible. Ukraine now fights by holding ground, spotting for unmanned systems, and banking on economic strikes against Russian oil. The documentary ends with memorials and Chernov’s haunting question: what if this war never really ends?

Excerpts:

But just thirty months after the documentary was filmed, the proliferation of unmanned systems has dramatically altered the character of frontline combat in Ukraine. Drones, to be sure, are not absent from Chernov’s film. Ukrainians endure a near miss from a Russian first-person-view drone, then are aided by their own remote pilots, eyes constantly overhead, talking soldiers on to target locations and reporting the actions of the Russians they are assaulting.

Today drones do the vast majority of the killing in Ukraine. The largely static trench lines still prompt facile comparisons to World War I, but the instruments of death are very different. According to frontline Ukrainian commanders, traditional infantry combat accounts for as little as 2 percent of Russians killed in action today. Unmanned systems cause at least eighty percent of casualties. To be uncovered in daylight near the front line, on foot or in a vehicle, is to court death. Chernov told me frankly that he would not be able to make the film today. It is already “time stamped.”

Comment: Does this illustrate the speed of transformation of the character of modern warfare? Will it continue to change, adapt, and evolve at this rate?

Three Months, Two Thousand Meters: A Snapshot of the War in Ukraine - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · Gil Barndollar · December 3, 2025

https://mwi.westpoint.edu/three-months-two-thousand-meters-a-snapshot-of-the-war-in-ukraine/

Battlefield 6, the newest big first-person shooter video game, cost $400 million to produce and grossed nearly that much in its first month. The video game industry now dwarfs Hollywood and the Battlefield games are one of its biggest franchises. But in the film world a real first-person shooter is also on offer, made at a fraction of the cost and, unfortunately, earning a fraction of the attention. Filmed almost entirely through the helmet cams of Ukrainian soldiers and by its courageous director, 2000 Meters to Andriivka offers one of the most visceral and haunting portraits of the Ukraine war to date.

After the global success of his 2023 film 20 Days in Mariupol, Ukrainian filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov returned to his country’s front lines to tell a new story. As Ukraine began its heavily telegraphed 2023 counteroffensive, Chernov’s roaming eye alighted on a single platoon from 3rd Assault Brigade, which had been tasked with liberating the ruined village of Andriivka.

To the poor bloody infantry tasked with executing their piece of a much larger operation, the mission was simple: Take ground. Ground is what Chernov gives his viewers from the opening frame, as a high-explosive shell lands just yards from a pair of soldiers in a trench, showering the camera lens in dirt. Their comrades pile in and out of armored personnel carriers, then advance on foot through shell-churned mud one minute, dense brush the next. Though fighting on his native soil, one Ukrainian soldier says, “It’s like landing on a planet where everything is trying to kill you.”

Unmanned systems provide some of the most stunning visuals in the film. A vast cemetery, flags flying over every grave, shifts to a forest of spectral trees, filmed from a drone’s thermal camera. Early on, slow-scrolling drone footage of the forested battlefield lays it out as a green carpet to the objective. Choppier drone videos from later in the battle show only stumps and shell holes, and the soldiers crawling between them.

That particular ground made the assault on Andriivka almost comically straightforward. An extremely narrow strip of forest, flanked on both sides by heavily mined open ground, ran from Ukrainian lines to the Russian-held village. “That damned forest,” Chernov told me during a conversation last month, was no wider than most theaters he has shown the film in. To get to Andriivka from their lines, the platoon had to cover just two thousand meters: a ten-minute run, a two-minute drive, or a thirty-five-second mortar round flight.

Those two thousand meters took them three bloody months. When Andriivka was finally liberated, there was hardly a spot fit to raise a flag. The blue and yellow banner was eventually fixed to a three-sided brick shell. Andriivka is back in Russian hands today.

The soldiers who won this pyrrhic victory are Chernov’s real focus. “Freak,” a native Russian speaker from Myrnohrad in Donetsk Oblast, can’t keep a smile off his face as he banters with the filmmaker during a break in the fighting. He rejects the fatalism common in fighting men. “Sheva” is forty-six, a grandfather and military policeman who left a safe job to volunteer for 3rd Assault Brigade at the beginning of the counteroffensive. He worries about his smoking and his wife and is self-conscious about appearing on camera in his first battle. Both men survived Andriivka. Neither is alive today.

2000 Meters to Andriivka, though, is already a sepia picture of the war in Ukraine. The basic nature of the fighting feels immediately familiar to anyone who has watched modern war, real or fictional, on-screen. Within the tight confines of the forest, Ukrainian and Russian soldiers collide in frenzied, close-quarters combat. Ukrainians taunt and curse the invaders from yards away, then negotiate the surrender of a Russian bunker. A severely wounded friend, bandaged up by his comrades but unable to be immediately evacuated, is threatened: “Don’t even think about blowing yourself up!”

But just thirty months after the documentary was filmed, the proliferation of unmanned systems has dramatically altered the character of frontline combat in Ukraine. Drones, to be sure, are not absent from Chernov’s film. Ukrainians endure a near miss from a Russian first-person-view drone, then are aided by their own remote pilots, eyes constantly overhead, talking soldiers on to target locations and reporting the actions of the Russians they are assaulting.

Today drones do the vast majority of the killing in Ukraine. The largely static trench lines still prompt facile comparisons to World War I, but the instruments of death are very different. According to frontline Ukrainian commanders, traditional infantry combat accounts for as little as 2 percent of Russians killed in action today. Unmanned systems cause at least eighty percent of casualties. To be uncovered in daylight near the front line, on foot or in a vehicle, is to court death. Chernov told me frankly that he would not be able to make the film today. It is already “time stamped.”

Still, despite the millions of drones produced and expended, the man, and sometimes woman, in the mud remains paramount. Ukraine’s theory of victory still rests on the soldiers in the line, but not as assault troops—even if they are still labeled and honored as such. Instead, Ukrainian soldiers are holding ground, dodging Russian strikes while identifying targets for their own drones. The strategy is not to win a war of attrition. There is little hard evidence that Russia is nearing the bottom of the well of expendable rural men that it is feeding into the front lines, even if the price to get them in uniform is rising. Ukraine, though, is coping with a broken mobilization system and a critical shortfall of soldiers. The country’s hope lies in its soldiers holding the line long enough for its campaign of economic punishment to pay dividends, disrupting and destroying enough oil infrastructure to get Russia to accept far different peace terms than the ones it has just proposed.

The film closes with a memorial service, as the platoon commemorates its soldiers killed in the liberation of Andriivka. Unlike in American military memorials, in Ukraine the senior sergeant’s roll call for the dead does not hang in the air. Their comrades pronounce them present, in their hearts and in their memories.

But just seconds before, in the film’s penultimate scene, Chernov himself asks aloud: “What if this war is until the end of our lives?” As dusk gathers in the shattered village, the question goes unanswered.

Author’s note: 2000 Meters to Andriivka premiered Tuesday, November 25, 2025 on PBS FRONTLINE and can be viewed on the PBS FRONTLINE website, the PBS app, Prime Video, YouTube, and PBS stations (check local listings).

Gil Barndollar is a former MWI research fellow, US Marine Corps veteran, and serving National Guardsman.

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

Image credit: npu.gov.ua

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mwi.westpoint.edu · Gil Barndollar · December 3, 2025

17. Pentagon fails to give Congress clear view of Indo-Pacific deterrence spending, GAO says

Summary:

A GAO report finds the Pentagon still cannot present Congress with a coherent picture of Indo-Pacific deterrence spending under the Pacific Deterrence Initiative. DOD has issued no clear guidance on what qualifies as PDI, so services apply inconsistent criteria, omit some INDOPACOM priorities, mix near-term deterrence with long-term R&D, and differ on whether to count existing forces and facilities. The result is a budget exhibit that does not fully align with INDOPACOM’s regional strategy or posture assumptions, weakening oversight as China’s power grows. GAO urged clearer selection rules and tighter integration of INDOPACOM input, which the Pentagon has agreed to implement.

Comment: Is it perhaps because the Asia-Indo-Pacific region is so large? Is the Pentagon answering the right questions from Congress?

The GAO report can be downloaded here: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26301513-gao-26-107698/

Pentagon fails to give Congress clear view of Indo-Pacific deterrence spending, GAO says

Stars and Stripes · Wyatt Olson · December 2, 2025

https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2025-12-01/gao-indo-pacific-deterrence-china-19951572.html?utm

Marine Sgt. Cardy Ryan, a field radio operator, applies camouflage paint for a drill at the Jungle Warfare Training Center on Okinawa, Nov. 3, 2025. (Meshaq Hylton/U.S. Marine Corps)

The Pentagon has not given Congress a clear picture of how it prioritizes and funds deterrence efforts in the Indo-Pacific, leaving lawmakers without a full understanding of U.S. strategy as China expands its military reach, a government watchdog warned.

The Defense Department has failed to issue clear guidance on which programs should be included in its annual Pacific Deterrence Initiative budget report, the Government Accountability Office said in a Nov. 25 report.

“The result is a budget exhibit that may not reflect all the funded program priorities that [U.S. Indo-Pacific Command] needs for its regional strategy,” the GAO wrote.

Without reforms, “Congress will continue to face challenges in using it to assess progress toward deterrence and posture objectives in the Indo-Pacific,” the report concludes.

Congress established the annual reporting requirement in 2021 to track the Pentagon’s efforts to counter China’s growing presence in the region. The PDI — not a standalone funding stream — consists of both a detailed budget exhibit and an independent assessment by the head of INDOPACOM on needed resources.

But the Pentagon and INDOPACOM build their inputs separately, the GAO said, creating inconsistencies. Programs prioritized by the combatant command are sometimes omitted from the budget exhibit prepared by the DOD.

The GAO reviewed PDI budget exhibits for fiscal years 2023 through 2025 and identified major discrepancies across the military services. Some branches, such as the Air Force and Marine Corps, included facility sustainment programs; the Army and Navy did not.

Some services focused on activities west of the International Date Line, while others included operations to the east, according to the report.

Several DOD organizations also included development programs unlikely to be operational within five years, even though the PDI is intended to emphasize near-term deterrence, the GAO wrote.

Assumptions about force posture varied widely. The Marine Corps included most of its Indo-Pacific forces in its submissions. The Army and Air Force were more selective, while the Navy included “virtually none,” according to the report.

Navy officials told investigators that Pacific surface ships and submarines were not listed because the service was already funding those forces before the PDI’s creation.

By contrast, the Marines included the entire Okinawa-based III Marine Expeditionary Force in every PDI exhibit since 2023, arguing the force’s daily activities “contribute to … integrated deterrence efforts against China and thus meet the intent of PDI,” the GAO wrote.

The Pentagon agreed with the GAO’s recommendations, including clarifying program selection criteria and updating processes to ensure INDOPACOM’s priorities are fully incorporated into the annual assessment.

Pentagon

Asia/Pacific

Wyatt Olson

Wyatt Olson is based in the Honolulu bureau, where he has reported on military and security issues in the Indo-Pacific since 2014. He was Stars and Stripes’ roving Pacific reporter from 2011-2013 while based in Tokyo. He was a freelance writer and journalism teacher in China from 2006-2009.

Stars and Stripes · Wyatt Olson · December 2, 2025

18. How America can outproduce and outlast adversaries

Summary:

U.S. security now depends on rebuilding an “Arsenal of Freedom” industrial base that can deter and, if necessary, sustain protracted, multi-theater war. COVID, Ukraine, and China’s surge have exposed fragile capacity and supply chains. Their new Atlantic Council ReForge Commission will map the full industrial ecosystem beyond defense primes, from critical minerals to software, then: define realistic demand for future conflicts, convert that demand into a long-term, software-driven industrial strategy, and design incentives that pull capital, industry, and talent into defense before crises. Success is measured not by a report, but by implemented, status-quo-breaking reforms.

Comment: We need Mac Thornberry back in government - perhaps the Senate or as the next SECDEF/SECWAR.

How America can outproduce and outlast adversaries

Defense News · Kathleen Hicks and Mac Thornberry Dec 2, 2025, 04:00 PM

https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/2025/12/02/how-america-can-outproduce-and-outlast-adversaries/

When America mobilized for World War II, it turned factories into foundries and assembly lines into arsenals. Our adaptive spirit and national commitment ensured success for the “Arsenal of Democracy.” The security of the country depended on it.

Our national security today is just as dependent on a strong economy and capable workforce as it was in 1941. An economy that can build and innovate deters would-be adversaries from believing they can test us, and it enables us to sustain ourselves if they dare try.

Yet the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war have revealed fragility in our industrial base at the very time that China has substantially expanded its own industrial capacity, and, along with others, has used that capacity to advance its military goals. That is why this moment is so pivotal. Across administrations and political lines, efforts to modernize America’s industrial policy and ensure our national security have converged.

Building on this bipartisan momentum, the Atlantic Council has launched the ReForge Commission.

With a unique breadth of experience from commissioners across industry, government, private capital and academia, our goal is clear: Just as the “Arsenal of Democracy” transformed U.S. industry to help win World War II, ReForge seeks to deliver a blueprint for defense and commercial sector support to our national security at speed and scale, including mobilizing effectively during conflict if needed.

In the emerging “Arsenal of Freedom” era, the industrial backbone of national security extends far beyond defense primes. It includes critical minerals, advanced manufacturing, energy systems, logistics networks, software and the broader innovation ecosystem that powers the modern economy. Over the next 18 months, the commission will assess this broad industrial landscape and develop a practical roadmap to rebuild the capacity, resilience and deterrence America’s security demands.

This is not a simple question with simple answers. The commission will confront our nation’s serious sustainment inadequacies and take advantage of our extraordinary economic opportunities. We will be grounded in the needs of protracted warfare, multitheater operations and homeland resilience.

Our work will anchor on three core pillars.

First, the commission will make a realistic assessment of America’s most stressing security needs. We will take account of the significant evolution in the character of warfare, changing workforce needs and the critical infrastructure at home and abroad that must be operable for our security. Without a shared picture of demand, identifying bottlenecks and setting milestones is impossible.

Second, we will transform that demand signal into a modern industrial strategy that can start now and endure across generations. This strategy cannot rely only on temporary surges or episodic subsidies. It must build a software-driven, rapidly adaptable supply chain; expand advanced manufacturing; and continuously embed resilience into the economy.

Third, the commission will recommend incentives to pull innovation, production and talent into the national defense ecosystem before crises force our hand. No industrial strategy will work without the right incentive structures. Industry cannot build mobilization capacity without clear, consistent investment from government, and government cannot take advantage of America’s innovation potential if the commercial sector will not work with it. Likewise, capital will not flow into transformational manufacturing unless risk and reward are aligned, and workforces will not expand absent durable cause to do so.

Using these three pillars, the commission will advance its central objective: to build a defense and manufacturing base so undeniably capable of scaling, sustaining and rapidly upgrading production that would-be adversaries conclude they cannot exhaust us through protraction. Geopolitics are shifting daily, but the United States can strengthen its industrial and technological foundations today to adapt with speed and purpose.

Encouragingly, Congress and the Pentagon are taking action on sweeping reforms to acquisition laws and processes — important steps toward a more competitive, agile defense ecosystem. The commission will build on these efforts, developing a bipartisan plan that reaches beyond acquisition into industrial strategy, cross-sector alignment and the broader economic foundations of national resilience.

We will not measure our success in the production of a report, no matter how compelling. We have both written, and read, many reports. Rather, we will judge the commission’s effectiveness in the delivery of actionable recommendations — solutions capable of breaking the status quo and reshaping the defense-industrial ecosystem to meet the needs of the warfighter and secure the nation for the era ahead. We will listen to industry and government, map real bottlenecks and propose concrete ways to close them.

This work will not be easy, nor should it be. The stakes are too high to do anything less.

Kathleen Hicks is the 35th U.S. deputy secretary of defense and co-chair of the Atlantic Council’s ReForge Commission. Mac Thornberry is a former chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and a 26-year member of Congress representing Texas’s 13th District, and co-chair of the Atlantic Council’s ReForge Commission. The ReForge Commission is led by the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and its Forward Defense program.

19. Foreign Aid With Chinese Characteristics – Where Beijing Is—and Isn’t—Seeking Influence

Summary:

With USAID shuttered, many fear China will fill the aid vacuum, but Alicia Chen argues Beijing’s economic statecraft is targeted and more limited than assumed. Her research shows Chinese government aid spikes when states chair regional bodies such as ASEAN or the African Union, because chairs shape agendas and shield China from criticism, yet there is no similar bump for UN Security Council members. The politically driven component comes from small government agency budgets, while large policy bank lending behaves more commercially. She argues the West must refocus on regional organizations, separate political from commercial Chinese finance, and tailor responses accordingly.

Comment: Have we ceded influence because we do not focus sufficiently on regional organizations such as ASEAN or APEC? It is an interesting observation that China targets the chairs of these organizations for reasons of influence and "shielding." This essay helps with "RUEL:" recognize China's strategy, understand it, EXPOSE it, and attack it with a superior political warfare strategy led by diplomacy and influence.

Foreign Aid With Chinese Characteristics

Foreign Affairs · More by Alicia R. Chen · December 3, 2025

Where Beijing Is—and Isn’t—Seeking Influence

Alicia R. Chen

ALICIA R. CHEN is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Stanford University. She won the 2025 Perry World House-Foreign Affairs Emerging Scholars Policy Prize.

December 3, 2025

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/foreign-aid-chinese-characteristics

Outside the opening ceremony of the Belt and Road Forum, Beijing, October 2023 Edgar Su / REUTERS

ALICIA R. CHEN is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Stanford University. She won the 2025 Perry World House-Foreign Affairs Emerging Scholars Policy Prize.

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Earlier this year, after U.S. President Donald Trump effectively shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development, the world’s largest bilateral aid program, many observers raised fears that China would step in to fill the geopolitical vacuum. USAID, after all, had served as a key tool of U.S. diplomacy for more than six decades, and the American retreat has created an opportunity for China to expand its economic statecraft and win influence in many parts of the world.

Over the last two decades, China has vastly expanded the amount and types of foreign aid it administers. Between 2000 and 2023, only 17 countries in the world did not receive a loan or grant from the Chinese government or a Chinese state-owned institution. The Belt and Road Initiative, which was launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013, has accounted for more than $1 trillion in total spending. This increasingly global footprint has piqued Western policymakers’ concerns about Beijing’s ambitions, but many observers still don’t fully comprehend Beijing’s strategy.

On the surface, China’s development program appears to be a largely indiscriminate apparatus. But a close review of how China deploys its vast financial resources reveals that its support is strategically targeted to countries that are leading regional organizations. When countries chair groups such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) or the African Union (AU), for instance, their governments receive a sharp uptick in aid from Chinese government agencies. This pattern doesn’t hold for global platforms such as the UN Security Council. In other words, China is not attempting to dominate every forum. It is choosing its venues carefully, selecting those that matter most for its long-term strategic goals.

Policymakers seeking to reform their own foreign aid programs or forge an effective response to China’s efforts need to better understand this strategy—and with it, how to cultivate influence in a multipolar world.

All Hail the Chair

Although China has provided foreign aid since the 1950s, its global development program accelerated significantly after the 2008 financial crisis. Between 2000 and 2021, China extended about $68 billion per year in overseas development financing. The U.S. average over this period, by contrast, was about $39 billion per year.

Although China’s development program is global in scope, my research has shown that Beijing gives more aid to countries when they have leadership roles within regional organizations. For example, by looking at Chinese economic assistance to countries in Southeast Asia and Africa from 2000 to 2017, I found that when a country chaired ASEAN or the AU, it received seven times as much financing from Chinese government agencies as it did during the years when it did not chair the organization. This surge translates to an average of $90 million in additional funding. In contrast, when a country took on a rotating role on the UN Security Council, which typically results in an increase in aid from Western countries, China’s aid remained stagnant. This suggests Beijing is pursuing a deliberate, regionally focused strategy.

To many observers in Washington, regional organizations may seem marginal compared with global heavyweights such as the UN. But Beijing sees these institutions as critical platforms for diplomacy and economic coordination, especially in the so-called global South. China has long positioned itself as the leader of the global South, and it often criticizes the inequities of the Western-led order. As one senior Chinese diplomat described it in 2016, the U.S.-dominated system was like “a suit that no longer fits.” By investing in regional blocs such as ASEAN and the AU, Beijing is further cultivating this identity and presenting itself as the leader of a new order.

Securing influence in regional forums also helps China deflect criticism and advance its preferred norms, which often contravene Western priorities. By rewarding the chair—which plays a central role in setting the organization’s agenda—Beijing can steer regional conversations away from contentious issues and toward topics that favor its geopolitical objectives. With ASEAN, for example, the chair shapes how the organization responds to regional flash points such as disputes in the South China Sea. When Cambodia chaired ASEAN in 2012, it blocked passage of a joint statement from an ASEAN summit because a section criticized Chinese aggression in the South China Sea. This was the first time in the organization’s history that ASEAN failed to issue a summit communiqué. Two months later, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao pledged $500 million in new loans and grants to Phnom Penh. In announcing the agreements, Cambodia’s finance minister even acknowledged that Beijing “voiced high appreciation” for Cambodia’s role as ASEAN chair in maintaining “good cooperation between China and ASEAN.”

More recently, at the 2024 AU summit in Addis Ababa, member states agreed to an Africa-wide ban on the controversial trade of donkey hides. Donkey hides are used in traditional Chinese medicine, and demand from China had resulted in a spike in trade, which disproportionately affected women in rural African farming communities who rely on the donkeys for transport. Notably, however, the AU—which was being chaired by Mauritania—avoided blaming China for the issue and framed the ban strictly as one of protecting African resources. Later that year, during the 2024 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation summit, Xi elevated China’s relationship with Mauritania to a strategic partnership and commended President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani for his leadership as the AU’s rotating chair. On the sidelines of the summit, China also expanded economic support to Mauritania, including a $281 million currency-swap agreement.

Peeling Back the Onion

The spike in China’s support to regional chairs, however, is limited to government-to-government aid—suggesting that not all Chinese money is equally political. This may come as a surprise to some observers. Many Western countries primarily deliver aid through government agencies such as USAID, but in China’s case, assistance from government agencies makes up only about ten percent of its total foreign aid portfolio. China’s closest analog to USAID, the China International Development Cooperation Agency, together with other ministries involved in aid delivery, most notably the Ministry of Commerce, had a combined annual budget of roughly $3 billion in 2023, a fraction of USAID’s $42 billion budget that same year. The bulk of Chinese financing comes instead from state-owned policy banks and commercial banks that must balance strategic mandates with the imperative to recover loans. Because these banks are state-owned, many observers have assumed that all Chinese financing reflects government strategy.

But loans from Chinese policy banks and commercial banks did not follow the same pattern as Chinese government agency assistance; nor did Chinese funds that were directed to foreign non-government recipients. This finding suggests that attention to the specific entities that are granting and receiving such support is important. Chinese government agencies are most likely to deploy aid in ways designed to deliver geopolitical returns, such as regional support. These political transactions occur between government actors because government agencies offer leaders greater discretionary control, making it easier to use these funds to secure diplomatic support or political concessions. China’s policy and commercial banks, in contrast, behave much like their Western counterparts, making lending decisions based on creditworthiness and financial viability. The bottom line is that the most politically consequential forms of Chinese assistance come from its government agencies—which account for only a small share of China’s overall portfolio—suggesting that not all Chinese financing functions as a tool of Beijing’s economic statecraft.

Late to the Party

The United States and other liberal democracies seeking to compete with China on the global stage should take several lessons from these findings. They must first recognize that the geopolitical battleground is shifting. While many Western countries have continued to focus on defending liberal norms in global institutions, China has been quietly gaining traction in regional bodies. Regional organizations play a meaningful role in international affairs: they help design and monitor national plans for sustainable development and are increasingly central to managing crises and preventing conflict. These bodies often provide early signs of dissent and help set the norms that guide international responses. The UN has deepened its engagement and partnerships with such forums recently, recognizing their importance to both development and peace. And many Western officials are rethinking how to rebuild trust with such organizations after being confrontedby the global South’s fragmented response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In other words, leaders can no longer afford to treat regional organizations as peripheral forums. In a multipolar world, ASEAN, the AU, and other such bodies are emerging as critical nodes for diplomatic and economic coordination. The regions they represent account for a growing share of the world’s population and are often flash points on issues of trade and security. The decisions of regional organizations are increasingly consequential to policymakers. Engaging with these institutions on their own terms and investing in their capacity and credibility is essential to ensuring they remain open, inclusive, and rules-based.

A more nuanced understanding of China’s aid programs is also in order. Not all Chinese financing is problematic or indicative of Beijing’s involvement, and not all aid is a political ploy. Distinguishing between types of funders and recipients can indicate where Beijing is more likely to be seeking influence and where it is not—helping policymakers understand where to counter China’s efforts and where development cooperation remains possible.

The post–Cold War era of unchallenged American primacy is over, and a new period of global competition has taken its place. As the United States withdraws its foreign aid, understanding the subtleties of China’s economic statecraft is more important than ever. Policymakers must analyze where and how Chinese money flows. Doing so will allow the United States and its allies to gain valuable insights into Beijing’s strategic focus—and perhaps even begin building a more targeted and effective response.

Foreign Affairs · More by Alicia R. Chen · December 3, 2025

20. The India Trump Made

Summary:

POTUS' tariffs and tilt toward Pakistan have jolted India out of its assumption that closer ties with Washington would steadily deepen. New Delhi is not pivoting to Beijing or Moscow, but reverting to “multialignment” to preserve strategic autonomy. China remains the primary threat, Russia a declining but still necessary arms and energy partner. The United States will stay India’s most important technology and investment source, yet now looks erratic and unreliable. That pushes India to hedge by upgrading ties with Europe as an additional pillar for trade, technology, defense cooperation, and China balancing, making India less susceptible to U.S. pressure.

Excerpt:

Both Europe and India face similar predicaments that could bring them closer together. Neither side feels able to rely on the United States as they once did. Both seek new partnerships to help protect themselves from a more capricious Washington. Until only six months ago, India seemed destined to align ever more closely with the United States, in part to fend off future Chinese aggression. Now, Trump’s pressure campaign means that India will pursue a renewed multialignment, not out of ideological conviction but as a practical necessity. The ultimate irony of Trump’s approach is that it is producing precisely the outcome it sought to prevent: a more multialigned India, invested in multiple partnerships and less susceptible to bludgeoning pressure from the United States.

The India Trump Made

Foreign Affairs · More by James Crabtree · December 3, 2025

James Crabtree and Rudra Chaudhuri

Where American Bullying Is Leading New Delhi

JAMES CRABTREE is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

RUDRA CHAUDHURI is Director of Carnegie India.

December 3, 2025

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/india/india-trump-made

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., February 2025 Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

JAMES CRABTREE is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

RUDRA CHAUDHURI is Director of Carnegie India.

More by Rudra Chaudhuri

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Over the last decade, India has drawn ever closer to the United States, tentatively aligning itself with Washington as it continues to eschew formal alliances. This approach has paid off, securing U.S. investment, defense cooperation, and technological exchange, as well as the sense that the friendship between the world’s two largest democracies would only grow. Indian policymakers were mostly untroubled when Donald Trump returned to the White House this year. They assumed that Washington valued the partnership and that ties would only grow stronger, not least because of the apparent chemistry between Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the president’s first term.

But now, India must reassess its American gamble. Since the summer, Trump has departed from the policy of recent U.S. administrations and sought to pressure India. He increased tariffs to 50 percent on India in August, ostensibly as a penalty for its ongoing purchases of Russian oil. And he agreed to a raft of deals with India’s neighbor and rival, Pakistan, irking Indian officials. In apparent response, Modi attended the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin in September 2025, where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping; his presence made it seem as if India were aligning with U.S. competitors. Putin will be visiting New Delhi this week, where his meeting with Modi risks giving the same impression.

This signaling, however, is not tantamount, as some observers have suggested, to India abandoning its recent foreign policy strategy for a wholly different approach. Instead, the path that India seems to be taking—and, indeed, should be taking—is a form of what its foreign policy establishment often calls “multialignment,”an orientation designed to build stronger ties with many countries, even if those states have contradictory interests.

Despite the friction of this year, the United States will remain India’s most important partner, albeit a more erratic and occasionally troublesome one. India will also continue to cultivate relationships with economically and technological capable middle powers, including Australia, Japan, Singapore, and the Gulf states. But the place where Indian foreign policy might have the most to gain is in Europe. Although not a like-for-like replacement for the United States, Europe is a reliable partner with strong technological capabilities, shared concerns about Chinese coercion, and a steadier foreign policy than that currently evident in Washington. By pursuing a renewed multialignment in this way, New Delhi can try to hedge against both American unpredictability and Chinese aggression while maintaining the strategic autonomy that has long been central to its foreign policy doctrine.

HOW TO BE MULTIALIGNED

India’s most striking response to American pressure came over the summer when Modi visited China. The images of the Indian prime minister alongside Xi and Putin were powerful, signaling a desire to recalibrate relations with China, in particular. Some Western observers also saw Modi’s decision in August to invite Putin to New Delhi in December as evidence of a larger Indian pivot toward U.S. adversaries. But that misread India’s intent. With its relationship to Washington deteriorating, New Delhi was instead seeking to muddle through, not to abandon the underlying strategic calculus that led it to turn toward the United States in the first place. Planned months in advance, Modi’s visit to China was not a reaction to Trump’s tariffs but an effort to repair damaged ties with Beijing after a year of relative stability along India’s disputed border with China. What India wanted was to carefully rebuild badly damaged ties, not launch a new era of Sino-Indian alignment; Modi pointedly declined to attend the military parade to which Xi invited North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. With China, India is in essence doing little more than what many others have done now that Trump is back in the White House: managing differences and avoiding crises with China while simultaneously seeking to stabilize ties with the United States.

The significance of Putin’s visit this week to New Delhi should also not be overstated. To be sure, Moscow remains a significant partner. India is still dependent on Russia for arms and military equipment, and it will remain so for some time. India is also in no rush to push Russia away as it worries about Moscow’s ever-closer alignment with Beijing. But the limits of this partnership are real. India’s purchase of German submarines in August reflects its strategy of diversification in procurement. It has been gradually reducing its reliance on Russian defense hardware every year for the past 15 years. Russia offers India little in terms of investment capital or cutting-edge technology, two areas that are critical to the country’s long-term development ambitions. Leaders in New Delhi appreciate the long history behind ties with Moscow but recognize that there’s not much room for growth in the relationship. In short, they know that India’s future lies elsewhere.

That future, in India’s view, will invariably be multialigned, an orientation that reflects a sound understanding of the country’s strategic context. China remains India’s primary challenge. Russia is a diminishing asset. And India requires economic investment and advanced technology to speed growth and enhanced military capabilities to better defend itself in a tricky neighborhood. The tilt toward the United States in the twenty-first century stemmed from these realities, as did India’s deepening ties with Australia, Japan, and South Korea, as well as a number of states in the Middle East and Europe. Trump’s recent pressure campaign does not undo these underlying imperatives. Indeed, India’s dilemma is remarkably similar to that of many other American partners and allies in the Trump era—namely, how to replace what the United States is now less likely to provide. New Delhi must find alternative sources of technology, defense cooperation, and economic partnership, while also managing its complex relationships with Beijing and Moscow.

India will view the United States warily after this year’s turmoil.

The trajectory of India’s relationships with China and Russia should be clear. Some further thaw between New Delhi and Beijing is of course possible, but it will be severely limited by the underlying structural fact of their regional rivalry.India, for instance, may consider removing some controls on Chinese access to its domestic market that were introduced after border clashes in 2020. It could also lift its ban on the Chinese social media app TikTok as a goodwill gesture. The risks that China poses to India remain all too real, however, including the unresolved border dispute and the weaponization of certain supply chains that are largely controlled by China. India will try to pursue a stable relationship with China, without any illusions of deep partnership. India also wants to maintain solid ties with Russia, in large part to preserve access to spare parts for the Indian military’s Russian-sourced military hardware and to prevent Russia from becoming so isolated that it becomes a near-vassal state of China.

The question of how to manage Washington is more complicated. The United States will under most likely scenarios remain India’s most important partner for technology and investment, no matter the current disruption in relations. The two countries are also still collaborating in critical areas: the newly established U.S. Office of Critical and Emerging Technologies is working with Indian counterparts to streamline AI infrastructure partnerships, for instance. Silicon Valley has a serious interest in India. Washington provided New Delhi with a laundry list of regulatory issues to resolve to help American tech firms to invest in data centers in India. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei visited New Delhi and Bengaluru in October with the hope of opening an office in India. And all the big U.S. tech companies will be represented in February at a major AI summit in India, hosted by Modi.

For India’s part, its pharmaceutical companies are still looking to invest in the United States despite threats of tariffs as they seek to lessen their dependence on Chinese suppliers. Indian companies have begun reducing oil imports from Russia following American sanctions on two large Russian firms at the end of October. In the midst of their friction, Trump wished Modi well on his birthday in September. The U.S. president also continues to refer to Modi as a “great man” who is “tough as hell.” The first part of a trade deal between India and the United States, which has been negotiated for several months, may be completed by the end of this year or early next.

Even so, India will view the United States warily after this year’s turmoil. New Delhi now worries about American reliability—and understandably so. It is also troubled by the Trump administration’s new closeness to Pakistan, which Washington sees as an increasingly useful partner; Pakistan could send peacekeeping forces to Gaza, for instance, and help facilitate critical mineral agreements in Central Asia. Trump has spoken warmly of Pakistan’s military and civilian leaders and welcomed them to the White House on multiple occasions this year. None of these moves help Indian-U.S. ties.

THE CALL OF EUROPE

It is against this backdrop that a pivot to Europe makes sense. For decades, the relationship between India and Europe has underperformed its potential, especially when measured against the progress that India has made in moving closer to the United States. Europe is one of India’s largest trading partners. The sheer size of the Indian economy and its growing consumer class is attractive to European countries. The need to do more with India prompted the Council of the European Union to approve a “new strategic EU-India agenda” in October, highlighting the ambition to establish stronger technology and investment ties. Both India and the EU remain committed to climate action, even if they have differences on emissions targets. India has maintained close ties with France, Italy, and the United Kingdom, but until recently it had only limited engagement with many other significant European countries, such as Germany, and with the European Union more broadly.

But that is changing. High-level visits to Europe from Modi and External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar have established an EU-India Trade and Technology Council that is designed to bring the two sides closer together. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen travelled to New Delhi this year with the entire gamut of European commissioners, an unusual move designed to boost cooperation across multiple sectors. India’s position on the war in Ukraine—it refused to condemn Russia and has continued to purchase Russian oil—lost it friends in Europe. But Europe’s strategic reawakening since 2022 and significant military buildup following the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine position it as a more credible partner in Indian eyes. It now has the potential to be a more credible security partner, too, both in terms of weapons sales and in emerging domains such as space and cybersecurity.

Indian and European officials are also concerned about China. Europe views Chinese trade practices, including hefty state subsidies, forced technology transfers, and overproduction, as existential threats to its industrial base. India worries not only about unresolved border disputes and strategic competition in South Asia but also about its dangerous economic dependencies on China in manufacturing, rare earths, green technology, and other sectors—areas of major concern in Brussels, too. Technology cooperation, particularly in artificial intelligence, represents another major opportunity.

Europe can offer expertise in other critical niche areas. India and Europe could work productively together on renewable energy and quantum computing, areas in which U.S.-Indian collaboration is lacking. European labs and Indian incubation hubs are planning to set up a biotechnology corridor that would facilitate joint investment and manufacturing. The Trade and Technology Council, despite its admittedly slow start, provides an institutional framework for advancing cooperation. Of course, many obstacles remain. In September, the EU proposed a new agenda to boost bilateral relations with India, which included expanded cooperation in defense and technology. The launch of this agenda was nearly derailed after India participated in a joint military exercise with Russia and Belarus, a reminder of lingering European sensitivities over Ukraine. Even so, a much-anticipated new trade agreement is likely to be completed before a planned summit in New Delhi in January, along with new agreements on security cooperation, migration and energy—the latter designed to tempt India away from the lure of Russian oil and gas. These discussions aim to cement an economic foundation for a broader strategic partnership. To be sure, Modi and von der Leyen will still likely have to intervene in helping both sides overcome hurdles in finalizing these deals.

THE ULTIMATE IRONY

Both Europe and India face similar predicaments that could bring them closer together. Neither side feels able to rely on the United States as they once did. Both seek new partnerships to help protect themselves from a more capricious Washington. Until only six months ago, India seemed destined to align ever more closely with the United States, in part to fend off future Chinese aggression. Now, Trump’s pressure campaign means that India will pursue a renewed multialignment, not out of ideological conviction but as a practical necessity. The ultimate irony of Trump’s approach is that it is producing precisely the outcome it sought to prevent: a more multialigned India, invested in multiple partnerships and less susceptible to bludgeoning pressure from the United States.

Foreign Affairs · More by James Crabtree · December 3, 2025

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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