Quotes of the Day:

"Action without intelligence is a form of insanity, but intelligence without action is the greatest form of stupidity in the world." 

– Charles F. Kettering 

"The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind." 

–  William Somerset Maugham

"Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity, and in cold weather becomes frozen, even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind." 

– Leonardo Da Vinci

1. U.S. Flips History by Casting Europe—Not Russia—as Villain in New Security Policy

2. China’s Growth Is Coming at the Rest of the World’s Expense

3. Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Targets Even Closest Wartime Allies

4. A look at CIA’s zero units after the National Guard shooting

5. Accused DC pipe bomber told FBI he believed the 2020 election was stolen, sources say

6. She’ll Be Right, Mate: The New U.S. National Security Strategy and the Pacific

7. The Bridge: Technology and Partner Capacity in Irregular Warfare

8. Peace Through Profit: The Problem with Steve Witkoff’s Ukraine Strategy

9. In major restructure, Army stands up new Western Hemisphere Command

10. Are We at War with Russia? How Warden’s Rings Map Russia’s Hybrid Strategy

11. The Army's $15 Billion Turnover Crisis: Why Half Our Captains Quit

12. Trump’s new national security strategy: 5 key takeaways

13. Does Europe Finally Realize It’s Alone?

14. Trump to Close Voice of America’s Overseas Offices and Radio Stations

15. Opinion | Trump’s closure of Voice of America is coming back to bite him

16. Caribbean Boat Strikes and the Use (and Misuse) of Special Forces

17. The awful arithmetic of our wars

18. Trump reveals what he wants for the world

19. America’s National Security Wonderland

20. The rise of the disinformation-for-hire industry

21. How Army Special Operations Forces Are Rewiring Green Berets and Rangers for the Next Great Power Struggle

22. RICHARD SHULTZ Obituary

23. Asia Indo Pacific Faces Shadow War From Dark Quad

1. U.S. Flips History by Casting Europe—Not Russia—as Villain in New Security Policy

Summary:

POTUS’s new National Security Strategy recasts Europe from core ally to problem set. It portrays EU members as declining, sovereignty eroding states at risk of “civilizational erasure” through immigration and too weak to serve as reliable NATO allies. The strategy omits Russia as a threat, positions Washington as arbiter between Europe and Moscow, and calls for ending NATO expansion. It pledges to “cultivate resistance” to Europe’s current trajectory, implying active U.S. support for nationalist and anti immigration forces. Net effect is to fracture the traditional trans Atlantic security bargain and treat Europe as a contested sphere in a U.S China Russia order.

Comment: I think we can see which faction has the dominant influence over POTUS. We are seeing the vision for America in the NSS. As an aside, I wonder if China is making the same assessment about the uS that the US seems to be making about Europe (i.e., declining).  

The faction who wrote the 2025 NSS is not the faction who wrote this in POTUS' 2017 NSS:

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

Access the 2017 NSS HERE

U.S. Flips History by Casting Europe—Not Russia—as Villain in New Security Policy

WSJ

An annual strategy document, which has described threats from China to Russia, now directs some of its harshest language at NATO allies

By Daniel Michaels

Follow, David Luhnow

Follow and Max Colchester

Follow

Dec. 5, 2025 11:00 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/u-s-flips-history-by-casting-europenot-russiaas-villain-in-new-security-policy-cbb138fa?mod=hp_lead_pos3

President Trump at a NATO summit in The Hague in June with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, left, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Peng Ziyang/Zuma Press

• The Trump administration’s National Security Strategy criticizes European nations, portraying them as declining powers.
• The document suggests Europe faces “civilizational erasure” due to immigration and could become too weak to be reliable allies.
• The strategy calls for cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations, interpreted as interference in politics.

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.

• The Trump administration’s National Security Strategy criticizes European nations, portraying them as declining powers.

BRUSSELS—For years, the U.S. government has published an annual National Security Strategy that lays out how Washington sees the world and its approach to dealing with looming threats, from China to Russia to drug-traffickers in Latin America.

This week, the Trump administration’s version seemed to reserve its harshest tone for a new target: America’s closest allies in Europe.

The 30-page document painted European nations as wayward, declining powers that have ceded their sovereignty to the European Union and are led by governments that suppress democracy and muzzle voices that want a more nationalistic turn.

It says the continent faces “civilizational erasure” through immigration that could render it “unrecognizable” in two decades—as well as turning several North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies into majority “non-European” countries. It concludes the region could grow too weak to be “reliable allies.”

The document underscores how radically the Trump administration is reshaping traditional American foreign policy, and it is likely to deepen divisions in the trans-Atlantic alliance, which has largely kept the peace in Europe since World War II and promoted Western values across the world.

The document landed like a bucket of cold water in European capitals. European leaders reading the document need “to assume that the traditional trans-Atlantic relationship is dead,” said Katja Bego, a senior researcher at Chatham House, a think tank in London.

Timothy Garton Ash, a prominent British historian, described the document “as the mother of all wake-up calls for Europe.”

“We’re in this extraordinary position where the U.S. is still objectively an ally of Europe, but subjectively at least in the Trump administration and the view of many Europeans we’re no longer seeing each other that way,” he said.

Since President Trump returned to office in January, most European leaders have worked to address his concerns while currying favor with him. Those efforts have won kind words from Trump, but others on his team display disdain for Europe and antipathy toward many European policies.

Many points in the National Security Strategy echo critiques that Vice President JD Vance first made weeks into the administration, at a security conference in Munich in February. They amplify criticisms of Europe leveled by MAGA supporters and highlight trans-Atlantic differences.

“It essentially declares outright opposition to the European Union,” said Garton Ash. “It’s JD Vance’s notorious speech in Munich but on steroids, and as official U.S. policy.”

U.S. Vice President JD Vance criticized European leaders at a Munich security conference in February. Sven Hoppe/Zuma Press

The strategy says the EU—an institution that the U.S. helped establish decades ago—and other transnational organizations “undermine political liberty and sovereignty.” It also accuses many European governments of “subversion of democratic processes,” though it doesn’t spell out what it means by that.

Europeans have long acknowledged that their slow-growing economies need fixing and that they must boost military spending, though actions to address those shortfalls have been slow or ineffectual. Many European countries are also clamping down on immigration, which has started to fall. The region remains, by any measure, a critical global bastion of capitalism and democracy, and the U.S.’s strongest historical and cultural partner.

Every Western European country scores higher on the global ranking of freedom and democracy than the U.S. does, according to Freedom House, a U.S.-based nonprofit that ranks countries according to measures such as election process, rule of law and individual rights.

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The document casts its criticism of Europe in an almost paternalistic tone—the kind of tough love advice one gives a friend. It begins its three-page section on Europe with the title “Promoting European Greatness.”

The tone and pointed criticisms of Europe contrasts with the document’s approach to traditional U.S. rivals or threats like Russia. Russia isn’t mentioned a single time as a possible threat to U.S. interests.

The section on Europe also highlights differences over the war in Ukraine, accusing European officials of holding “unrealistic expectations” about the war. Significantly, it positions the U.S. as more of an arbiter between Europe and Russia, rather than Europe’s ally opposing Russia, which has been America’s role since the end of World War II. The document also calls for an end to NATO being “a perpetually expanding alliance.”

“The document reads like a brief in favor of the Russian position, calling for European states to get back to work with Russia and offering up the U.S.A. as the vehicle to do this,” said Phillips O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews, in Scotland, in his daily newsletter. “This is a strategy to destroy the present Europe, to make it MAGA.”

President Vladimir Putin of Russia, which isn’t mentioned as a possible threat to U.S. interests. Alexander Kazakov/Associated Press

Rather than presenting a more isolationist America—as many in the MAGA movement have advocated—Bego at Chatham House said the document shows the Trump administration wants to actively reshape Europe in its own image.

“Our goal should be to help Europe correct its current trajectory,” the strategy says. “We want Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation.”

One section lays out a U.S. foreign-policy goal of “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations,” which analysts read as outright American interference in European politics and support for far-right or anti-immigration parties in Germany, France, the U.K. and other countries.

The document makes no mention of shaping political outcomes in other global regions.

Nathalie Tocci, director of the Institute for International Affairs in Rome and a former EU diplomatic adviser, said the document lays out a fairly coherent vision of a world dominated by three big powers—the U.S., China and Russia—who have areas of cooperation and zones of influence.

“I think it’s fairly clear that Europe is seen by the administration as being on the colonial menu” for domination by either the U.S. or Russia, she said. “So to me, the real question is: ’What else needs to happen for us Europeans to wake up to this?’ ”

A spokeswoman for the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, declined to comment on the whole document but pushed back against the assertion that Europe backs harmful migration policies or undermines free speech. She added that the U.S.’s new security policy contrasted with the strong ties Europe has traditionally had with America.

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Do you think Trump is taking the right approach with Europe? Why or why not? Join the conversation below.

“The U.S. national security has been very much linked to Europe’s security, which explains also all the work we are doing with the U.S. as our key ally and partner,” including on Ukraine, said Paula Pinho, chief spokeswoman for the Commission.

Vance and other administration officials have criticized democracy in countries such as Germany and France, where mainstream parties maintain a so-called firewall that bars them from entering governing coalitions with far-right parties because of the legacy of fascism.

Vance has criticized this as undemocratic, but most pro-democracy experts say individual political parties are free to choose which other parties they would work with, and whether or not they share the same values. And voters can give far-right parties an electoral majority, allowing them to govern without coalition partners.

Vance and others have also criticized Europe for laws that restrict hate speech—a legacy of the continent’s wars. Yet analysts said there seems little recognition that Europe upholds free speech broadly, including criticism of politicians and leaders, unlike Russia and China.

Write to Daniel Michaels at Dan.Michaels@wsj.com, David Luhnow at david.luhnow@wsj.com and Max Colchester at Max.Colchester@wsj.com

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

Appeared in the December 6, 2025, print edition as 'U.S. Flips History In Casting Europe As Threat U.S. Casts Europe as Weak and Declining Power'.

WSJ

2. China’s Growth Is Coming at the Rest of the World’s Expense

Summary:

China’s state-driven “dual circulation” model now makes its growth negative sum for others. Exports surge while imports stagnate, so China absorbs global manufacturing demand instead of pulling in foreign goods. Goldman Sachs finds Chinese growth now reduces, not raises, output abroad as subsidized overcapacity undercuts industries in Europe, East Asia, and Mexico. Xi insists on self sufficiency, holding both high end and low end production, turning a record current account surplus into leverage. Countries lack a solution. Collective, coordinated tariffs and market access rules could blunt the shock, but fragmented bilateral deals and Trump’s reluctance to build a united front leave partners exposed.

Comment: Are we really unable to take collective action with our silk web of friends, partners, and allies? Are we just going to let China dominate? Does G2 really equal G1 as China seems to think?

China’s Growth Is Coming at the Rest of the World’s Expense

WSJ

No one knows how to cope with Beijing’s ‘beggar thy neighbor’ economic model

By

Greg Ip

Dec. 5, 2025 8:00 pm ET

https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/chinas-growth-is-coming-at-the-rest-of-the-worlds-expense-99420396?mod=hp_lead_pos4

Volvo cars awaiting export at Nanjing’s port in eastern China. Cfoto/Zuma Press

Pop quiz. Who has contributed more to the rest of the world’s growth this year: China or the United States?

The answer is the U.S., and it isn’t even close. Even as the U.S. rolls out tariffs, its imports are up 10% so far this year from a year earlier. And as China moralizes against protectionism, its imports are down 3%, in dollar terms.

The U.S. figures might be an anomaly, reflecting front-running of tariffs. China’s are not. In the last five years, its export volumes have soared while imports have flatlined. China is swallowing up a growing share of the world’s market for manufactured goods. This reveals an uncomfortable truth: Beijing is pursuing a “beggar thy neighbor” growth model at everyone else’s expense.

A recent report by economists at Goldman Sachs starkly laid this out. In the past, they wrote, 1% more output in China would raise the rest of the world’s output by 0.2% as it pulled in imports.

In their new forecast, the Goldman team has concluded that the relationship has turned negative. China’s growth, they write, is being driven by its “leadership’s determination and capability to further advance manufacturing competitiveness and boost exports.”

This is positive for other countries insofar as cheaper Chinese goods boost purchasing power. But that benefit is more than offset by the hit to their manufacturing sectors from Chinese competition. The upshot is that Goldman sees China growing 0.5 to 0.8 percentage point a year faster over the next few years, but that will reduce the rest of the world’s growth by 0.1 point a year.

China’s growth is still good for the Chinese people, and for some countries that sell inputs to its export machine. But Goldman projects it will generate growing headwinds for other industrial economies in Europe and East Asia, and for Mexico.

From positive to negative sum

A fundamental axiom of economics is that when two individuals or countries trade, both are better off. In the decades after World War II, the U.S. was the world’s largest exporter and economy and as it grew, it imported more, helping its partners. As they grew, they bought more of what the U.S. made. Expanding trade helped everyone specialize, leading to more competition, innovation and choice, and lower costs.

China is now the world’s second-largest economy and its largest exporter, but its philosophy is quite different. It has never believed in balanced trade nor comparative advantage. Even as it imported critical technology from the West, its long-term goal was always self-sufficiency.

In 2020, Chinese leader Xi Jinping codified this approach as “dual circulation.” This would, he said, “tighten the international industrial chain’s dependence” on China while ensuring China’s production was “independent” and “self-sustaining.”

And as China expands into high-end manufacturing such as aircraft and semiconductors, Xi has decreed it must not relinquish low-end production such as toys and clothes. Beijing has discouraged Chinese companies that invest abroad from transferring key know-how, such as in the production of iPhones and batteries. Xi has rejected fiscal reforms that would tilt its economy away from investment, exports and saving and toward household consumption and imports.

Of course, China isn’t the first to pursue export-led growth or industrial policy (government support of favored sectors). West Germany, Japan and later South Korea all did the same, eventually running up surpluses that became longstanding irritants with the U.S.

But as part of the democratic West, they didn’t fear economic interdependence nor seek to eliminate imports. And as they moved up the value chain, they allowed lower-end manufacturing to migrate to poorer countries.

Those countries “were driven by a desire for prosperity,” said Rush Doshi, a China expert who served on President Joe Biden’s National Security Council. “China is driven by a fortress mentality and sees industrial dominance as key to wealth and power. These are longstanding goals deeply rooted in nationalism and the Communist Party.”

Two decades ago, China’s economy was small enough that its trade surplus mattered little to the world. Today China accounts for 17% of global gross domestic product. Goldman estimates its surplus on the current account—the broadest definition of trade—will reach 1% of world GDP by 2029, larger than any country at least since the late 1940s.

As recently as 2020, international automakers supplied around 60% of the roughly 20 million units sold in China, usually from local factories operated with domestic joint-venture partners. Their executives insisted they would never cannibalize sales outside China by exporting from those joint ventures, recalls Michael Dunne of market research and advisory Dunne Insights.

In the years since, Chinese automotive brands moved into electric vehicles, driving foreign brands’ market share below 40%. Saddled with excess capacity for internal-combustion-engine cars, those joint ventures began exporting.

Cannibalization has begun. Four of the top five Chevrolet models sold in Mexico are made in China by General Motors’ joint-venture partners, Dunne said. They would previously have been made in Mexico or South Korea.

Divided we fall

Many countries are frustrated by China’s strategy, which is squeezing out their own manufacturing sectors and export opportunities. None has a solution.

China’s dominance of so many categories of manufacturing gives it formidable leverage. When the Netherlands took control of Dutch chip maker Nexperia from its Chinese owner for national security reasons, China barred the company from exporting chips from its Chinese operations, crippling auto-assembly customers. The Netherlands backed off. President Trump, whose tariffs have met almost no pushback elsewhere, had to compromise when China restricted exports of critical minerals.

As China expands into high-end manufacturing, it also has hung on to low-end production of items such as clothing and toys. Jade Gao/AFP/Getty Images

The most effective way to turn back China’s export onslaught would be for the U.S. to coordinate with like-minded partners, such as imposing common restrictions on its autos while maintaining low restrictions on each other.

Trump has to date shown no interest in such a united front. Still, his bilateral deals do include incentives for resisting China’s exports. Malaysia, for example, agreed to match U.S. restrictions imposed on China for national security.

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How should other countries respond to China’s economic growth? Join the conversation below.

North America would be a natural candidate for a united front. To preserve the low tariffs codified in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, Canada and Mexico might be willing to join the U.S. in raising barriers to China.

But time is running out. Canada last year copied the U.S.’s 100% tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. Then Trump hit Canada with auto tariffs, and China retaliated against Canadian agriculture. Caught in a two-front trade war, Canada is weighing rescinding its tariffs on China.

Write to Greg Ip at greg.ip@wsj.com

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

WSJ

3. Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Targets Even Closest Wartime Allies

Summary:

POTUS has halted nearly all remaining Afghan migration pathways. The administration pauses asylum for Afghans, freezes all visas on Afghan passports, and effectively suspends the Special Immigrant Visa program for some 180,000 wartime partners, part of 265,000 stuck abroad. Up to 200,000 Afghans already in the U.S. face reopened Biden-era cases and possible loss of status. The policy responds to a single deadly shooting by an Afghan veteran, despite extensive prior vetting and evidence that screening cannot predict mental health crises. The move strands key former partners under Taliban threat and signals future allies that U.S. protection is reversible.

Comment: Kipling was right. In this case the soldier is our ally. I wonder if we will ever be able to work by, with, and through indigenous forces ever again anywhere in the world. Who will want to partner with us?

“In times of war and not before,

God and the soldier we adore.

But in times of peace and all things righted,

God is forgotten and the soldier slighted.”

Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Targets Even Closest Wartime Allies

WSJ

The door is now shut to some 265,000 Afghans waiting to come, many of whom worked with the U.S. or have loved ones who did

By Sune Engel Rasmussen

Follow

Dec. 6, 2025 7:00 am ET

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/trumps-immigration-crackdown-targets-even-closest-wartime-allies-f2b62074

A Special Immigrant Visa recipient who was evacuated from Afghanistan holding his son in Houston in 2021. callaghan o’hare/Reuters

• The Trump administration has paused all asylum applications for Afghans and will reopen cases approved under the Biden administration, potentially affecting 200,000 people.
• Some 265,000 Afghans are awaiting processing abroad, including 180,000 in the Special Immigrant Visa pipeline for those who aided the U.S. government.
• The State Department will pause all visas for individuals on Afghan passports, effectively freezing the Special Immigrant Visa scheme.

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.

• The Trump administration has paused all asylum applications for Afghans and will reopen cases approved under the Biden administration, potentially affecting 200,000 people.

When Abdul Malik Wafa scrambled onto an evacuation flight out of Kabul amid the chaotic U.S. withdrawal, he was assured that his newlywed wife, unable to get inside the airport, would be put on a plane as soon as possible.

Four years later, the former NATO air-traffic controller is still waiting for her to join him in Pennsylvania. President Trump’s immigration crackdown following a deadly shooting in Washington means he will wait indefinitely.

Wafa’s wife Shakiba is one of hundreds of thousands of Afghans who, even before an Afghan veteran was charged with opening fire on two National Guard members in the U.S. capital, were struggling to make their way to safety in the U.S.

They helped the U.S. mission in Afghanistan in one way or another, as interpreters or drivers, or had loved ones who did. Others, like Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the alleged shooter, fought in combat missions against the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Now the Trump administration has moved to shut down any remaining pathway to America for its Afghan wartime allies and their dependents.

The government says it will pause all asylum applications for Afghans, including those qualifying for Special Immigrant Visas. It will reopen cases approved under the Biden administration, potentially stripping residents and green card holders of their legal status—as many as 200,000 people, including the 120,000 the U.S. evacuated in the first airlift out of Kabul in August 2021.

Some 265,000 Afghans are still being processed abroad, including about 180,000 in the Special Immigrant Visa pipeline for those who worked for the U.S. government, according to AfghanEvac, a nonprofit working to resettle Afghan nationals.

A U.S. Special Immigrant Visa recipient with his family's passports in Houston in 2021 following their evacuation from Afghanistan. callaghan o’hare/Reuters

Wafa, now 28, qualified for humanitarian parole, which grants individuals access to the U.S. temporarily for urgent humanitarian reasons, and later received asylum. Late last year, he was told his petition to have his wife join him had been approved. Shakiba traveled to Dushanbe, Tajikistan, for an interview with the U.S. Embassy.

Then Trump imposed a travel ban on Afghans and, months later, Wafa received an email saying the visa had been denied. Shakiba still lives with his mother in Helmand province. The Taliban have burned his old house down, he said.

“I am so scared. After four years, they sent me an email without any proper reason rejecting the visa for a woman at high risk in Afghanistan,” Wafa said. “She is at risk because of me.”

Ahmad Jawed worked as an interpreter for U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan on missions to capture or kill suspected Taliban militants. After waiting nearly three years, his application for an SIV was rejected without being given a reason, he said. He and his family now hide out in Kabul from the Taliban.

“The U.S. government does not recognize true allies like me, who are now left behind and in hiding,” he said, adding of Lakanwal: “The actions of this misguided individual do not represent the true Afghan people.”

One of the National Guard members shot in Washington, U.S. Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20 years old, died from her injuries, which included a gunshot to the head. A second, Andrew Wolfe, 24, remains in critical condition.

The alleged shooter fought for eight years in a CIA-backed unit in Afghanistan known as the Zero Units, according to Sami Sadat, a former commander of the Afghan Army’s special forces.

They were responsible for some of the most dangerous missions against the Taliban, al Qaeda and Islamic State cells. As the best trained and equipped of the U.S.-backed forces in Afghanistan, the units were at the heart of the war on terror—and accused by human rights organizations of summary executions, forced disappearances and indiscriminate killings of civilians.

“The militias were often the dirtiest part of an ugly war,“ said Graeme Smith, author of a book on the war in southern Afghanistan. “A whole generation grew up in the dystopian violence of the so-called war on terror…Many people who saw it became troubled souls. The Zero Units were knee deep in the muck.”

Lakanwal came to the U.S. in 2021, settling in Bellingham, Wash., with his wife and five children. Friends referred him for mental health support as early as 2024, according to AfghanEvac. It isn’t known what compelled him to drive 3,000 miles across the country and allegedly open fire on the National Guard members. He has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and other gun charges.

Lakanwal was repeatedly screened after arriving in the U.S. in 2021 until receiving asylum in April this year. But veterans and migration experts say better vetting couldn’t have prevented the attack. Asylum applicants in the U.S. are vetted and screened for past crimes and connections to terrorist groups, neither of which appears to have applied to Lakanwal.

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Does the U.S. have an obligation to help Afghans looking to flee the Taliban takeover? Join the conversation below.

Some say the U.S. should admit more Afghan servicemen who fought alongside American forces and offer the same support and mental health counseling provided to American veterans.

“This guy was well vetted. You can’t predict that someone is going to have a mental health crisis, that’s not what screening and vetting does,” said Shawn VanDiver, founder and president of AfghanEvac. “All these folks that fought our wars should have been granted veteran status. We have got to make sure they get the same benefits that our veterans get.”

The administration hasn’t said what it believes a more thorough vetting of Lakanwal would have disclosed. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has said Lakanwal was likely radicalized after coming to the U.S.

Some of the newly announced restrictions affecting families like Wafa’s and Jawed’s were already being implemented. Trump in January ordered a pause on all Afghan refugee admissions and family reunifications. In addition, homeland security programs built to identify threats and prevent radicalization have been defunded. Government officials in charge of relocating Afghans have been let go.

Afghan applicants for U.S. Special Immigrant Visas arriving in the Philippines in January. U.S. Embassy, Philippines/AP

Now, however, the State Department says it will pause all visas for individuals on Afghan passports, effectively freezing the Special Immigrant Visa program, enacted in 2006 to grant U.S. permanent residency to Iraqi and Afghan nationals who were at risk for having provided assistance to the U.S. government.

U.S. officials also say they will reopen hundreds of thousands of cases of migrants vetted under the Biden administration and review every green card for residents from countries “of concern,” without specifying which.

“Many Afghans feel betrayed,” said Sadat, the former Afghan special forces commander. “More so some of the closer allies who worked closely with the Americans, whose families are dispersed, their permits not forthcoming.”

Several mass shootings have been committed by American veterans of the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In separate incidents in September, two Marine veterans who served in Iraq opened fire on civilians: in Grand Blanc, Mich., where four people were killed in a church, and in Southport, N.C., where three people were killed in a waterfront bar.

Write to Sune Engel Rasmussen at sune.rasmussen@wsj.com

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

WSJ

4. A look at CIA’s zero units after the National Guard shooting

Excerpts:

Geeta says these men and women fought “365 days” and were essential to U.S. counterterrorism missions. They were vetted so deeply, she said, there was never an insider attack in 20 years of partnership.

“This is a very unique group,” Geeta said. “And we could be doing more to address both the physical and invisible scars from the war and longterm wellness.”

She says the Taliban has been soiling their reputation for years, but they represent an early warning system that could still be tapped for counterterrorism efforts. Much more in the video.

Comment: One hour video at the link. The excerpts above make this all the more troubling.

A look at CIA’s zero units after the National Guard shooting

substack.com · Sasha Ingber

https://sashaingber.substack.com/p/a-look-at-cias-zero-units-after-the

In this video, Geeta Bakshi dives deep into Zero Units, a secretive and elite paramilitary force that was backed by the CIA in Afghanistan. A former CIA operations officer, Geeta worked alongside them under the codename Blackbird.

As Afghanistan was falling, she chose to found Famil, a nonprofit organization that supports the immigration and integration of Zero Units in the United States. The word Famil means “family” in Pashto and Dari.

Our conversation was overshadowed by Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the former Zero Unit member who drove from Washington state to DC to allegedly shoot two members of the National Guard — killing 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom.

“It was heartbreaking for other members of the Zero Units who took a lot of pride and honor in protecting Americans,” she told me.

The Trump administration suggested Lakanwal was radicalized in the U.S., and he reportedly suffered from mental illness, isolation from Afghan communities, and financial pressure.

But there is no indication that the CIA provided him any help. And CIA Director John Ratcliffe has cast doubt on their presence in the U.S., saying, “This individual — and so many others — should have never been allowed to come here.”

Geeta says these men and women fought “365 days” and were essential to U.S. counterterrorism missions. They were vetted so deeply, she said, there was never an insider attack in 20 years of partnership.

“This is a very unique group,” Geeta said. “And we could be doing more to address both the physical and invisible scars from the war and longterm wellness.”

She says the Taliban has been soiling their reputation for years, but they represent an early warning system that could still be tapped for counterterrorism efforts. Much more in the video.

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substack.com · Sasha Ingber

5. Accused DC pipe bomber told FBI he believed the 2020 election was stolen, sources say

Summary:

FBI has arrested Brian Cole Jr., 30, of Virginia, accused of planting two pipe bombs near the RNC and DNC on January 5, 2021. In FBI interviews he said he believed the 2020 election was stolen and was “disappointed” in both parties. Devices were viable and diverted law enforcement resources during the Capitol attack; Vice President elect Harris passed within 20 feet of one. Investigators tied Cole to the scene through months of hardware purchases and cell phone location data. He faces federal explosives and malicious destruction charges carrying up to 20 years in prison and remains detained pending a hearing.

Comet: Definitely a strange case. Planned "months" before but believed the election was stolen? Disappointed in both parties?

Accused DC pipe bomber told FBI he believed the 2020 election was stolen, sources say

https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/05/politics/accused-pipe-bomber-made-statements

By

Evan Perez

,

Hannah Rabinowitz

,

Casey Gannon

,

Devan Cole

,Austin Culpepper

Updated 16 hr ago

Accused pipe bomber told FBI he believed 2020 election was stolen

2:58

Accused pipe bomber told FBI he believed 2020 election was stolen

2:58

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During interviews with the FBI, the suspect arrested in the pipe bomb probe told investigators that he believed the 2020 election was stolen, providing perhaps the first indication of a possible motive for the bombs placed near the DNC and RNC headquarters, people briefed on the matter told CNN.

Brian Cole Jr. spent hours with FBI investigators and made multiple statements, the sources said. Dan Bongino, deputy FBI director, told Fox News on Thursday that the FBI had interviewed the suspect at length, but didn’t elaborate.

The FBI and the Justice Department declined to comment for this story.

Appearing on ABC News, DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro said Friday that Cole was disappointed in “both sides of the system.”

“He was disappointed in various aspects of the election, but this guy was an equal opportunity bomber,” she said. “He put a bomb outside the Republican National Committee and the Democrat National Committee. He was disappointed to a great deal in the system – both sides of the system.”

“And for me as a prosecutor, my job is to prove what his intent was in placing those pipe bombs and what he intended to do and what we can prove and we can prove that,” Pirro told ABC’s Pierre Thomas.

The FBI arrested Cole, 30, at home, where he lives with his parents, on Thursday. He was brought before Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya Friday afternoon for his first court appearance. He was wearing a tan jumpsuit and glasses as the judge read him his rights.

Six members of Cole’s family came to the hearing, and were visibly emotional, even standing up at various points. After the hearing concluded, they shouted to Cole.

“We love you Brian,” they said. “We’re here for you baby.”

The judge set a detention hearing for December 15, where prosecutors will seek for Cole to be detained ahead of his trial.

“Mr. Cole, the next step in your case is you’re going to come back to court for your detention hearing,” the judge said.

Cole is charged with unlawful transportation of an explosive device in interstate commerce with the intent to kill, injure, or intimidate. He’s also charged with malicious destruction or attempt of malicious destruction, with a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. He did not enter a plea at the hearing.

This courtroom sketch shows Brian Cole Jr., the suspect in the planting of two pipe bombs outside the RNC and DNC headquarters in January 2021, during a court appearance on Friday, December 5, 2025. Dana Verkouteren

Cole allegedly placed the bombs the night of January 5, 2021. The discovery of the bombs diverted law enforcement from the violence at the Capitol the next day as rioters supporting President Donald Trump disrupted the certification of the 2020 presidential election.

Much of the grainy surveillance footage from the day showed the alleged suspect in a hoodie, face mask and gloves, making it difficult to identify them. The FBI was offering a $500,000 reward for any information that could lead to an arrest.

Investigators have also said that the bombs were not detected until 15 hours after they were placed, giving the suspect time to flee the scene.

The FBI has previously said that the bombs were capable of harming anyone near them if they exploded. Then Vice President-elect Kamala Harris came within 20 feet of the bomb that had been placed outside of the DNC.

Related article

Hardware purchases and location data: How the FBI says it made an arrest in the DC pipe bomb case, nearly five years later

The bureau believes the man compiled bomb-making supplies for months before leaving the devices outside of the political offices.

Pirro described in her interview with ABC what she felt was a breakthrough in the case.

“In my mind, they were on the right path when it was clear that the cell phone was pinging in the exact locations where we had the video of the suspect walking along the area,” she said. “Everywhere he walked, his cell phone was pinging at the cell tower. So it is unmistakable that he was the guy who was walking along and placing those items.”

CNN has attempted to reach Coles’ lawyer for comment.

​6. She’ll Be Right, Mate: The New U.S. National Security Strategy and the Pacific

Summary:

The 2025 National Security Strategy ends the post-9/11 era and inaugurates a long “America First” phase that is more transactional and inward focused than previous strategies. The document is thin, partisan, and often incoherent, but its Pacific section is relatively strong. It prioritizes Asia over Europe, hardens deterrence against China, reaffirms U.S. commitments to Taiwan and freedom of navigation, and signals continued engagement and economic competition in the region. At the same time, it demands major burden sharing and higher defense spending from allies, raises concern about implied spheres of influence, and leaves big questions on resourcing.

Excerpts:

Overall, Pacific nations have much more to be satisfied about in the new Trump administration National Security Strategy than European countries. China will probably not be very happy at all, particularly with the economic, sovereignty and military aspects of the strategy.

But America’s democratic allies and partners, from Japan and Korea in north Asia down through the southeast Asian nations to Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific island countries, will be generally comfortable that America has re-committed to the region and has placed its priority on prosperity and security in the Pacific.

That said, I don’t think the Trump administration will be permitting Pacific nations to get too complacent about American resourcing and military presence. The Trump administration is serious about burden sharing, and not every nation in this region has fully received the message yet (including Australia).

There will be some concern about exactly how this will be implemented. Writing about economic and military developments - and resourcing the necessary action to realise objectives in these domains - are two very different things. That will bear watching as the strategy is implemented.

This could have been a much worse document for the Pacific region than it is. For those in Pacific nations that are unconvinced, I suggest a trip to any European capital in the coming days. There you will see what true disappointment in this document looks like.

Comment: This contributes to my deeper dive into the Asia-Indo-Pacific implications of our new NSS. Graphics at the link.

She’ll Be Right, Mate: The New U.S. National Security Strategy and the Pacific

substack.com · Mick Ryan

An examination of the new Trump administration National Security Strategy and the implications for security and prosperity in the Pacific.

Mick Ryan

Dec 06, 2025

https://mickryan.substack.com/p/shell-be-right-mate-the-new-us-national?utm

Image: The White House

Ultimately, there’s plenty to work with in this grab bag of ideas. But like its predecessors, this is less a strategy than a mood board. Editorial Board, Washinton Post, 5 December 2025

In the past 24 hours, the Trump administration released its new National Security Strategy. This is a declaratory policy, and a document, that think tanks, national security practitioners as well ad America’s friends and allies have been waiting on for some time. Like most recent M. Night Shyamalan movies, the initial reviews are hardly glowing. As one reviewerwrote in War on the Rocks:

The new National Security Strategy is out, and it’s a shock to the system. It is not just the latest public articulation of principles, ambitions, and priorities around which the United States organizes its foreign policy. Instead, it reads like a manifesto for a radically different American project. It is narrower, more partisan, more inwardly focused, and more personalized than any of its predecessors.

The strategy probably marks a epochal shift from the national security policy of American administrations after the end of the Cold War. Indeed, this new document probably marks a new phase of the post-Cold War era. Let me explain.

Initially, there was a decade long Era of Euphoria where America strode tall across the world stage. It had won the decades-long cold war, its tech industry was delivery new riches to the nation and America military power was at its zenith. This era came to an end with the 9/11 attacks. This saw the dawn of the 9/11 era of post-Cold War history, where counter terrorism operations, national building and the rise of social media, distrust in institutions and the growth of the power and influence of authoritarian regimes such as China and Russia.

The 2025 Trump National Security Strategy ends that 9/11 era. We are now in a more chaotic and transactional era. It is the America First era. And it is likely to be a transitional era as the major powers – China, Russian, India, America, Japan and Europe – undergo a rebalancing in global power, prosperity and influence. This new America First era will last years, if not decades. But the competition, cooperation, and conflicts we are likely to see in this era will likely give birth to the new world order promised at the end of the Cold War. It just won’t be the End of History we all hoped for!

American National Security in the America First Era

While the focus of this article is the Pacific elements of the new National Security Strategy, a quick look at the document is in order.

It begins with an introduction from Donald Trump and the dubious statement that “over the past nine months, we have brought our nation – and the world – back from the brink of catastrophe and disaster.” A few other interesting, evidence-free claims are then made before we then get into the main document.

The focus in the international aspects of the new National Security Strategy is economics and military power. Domestically, it jumps into culture wars and a range of other topics.

It is a much shorter document than its 2022 predecessor (and much shorter than the 2017 National Security Strategy from the first Trump administration). And while those two previous documents explain America’s role in the world up front, with America First featuring prominently in 2017, the 2025 National Security Strategy starts very differently.

It begins with a whining statement that “American strategies since the end of the Cold War have fallen short” and then has a kick at foreign policy elites several times on the same page. But, as the new document explains, the Trump administration has “successfully marshalled America’s great strengths to correct course and begin ushering in a new golden age for our country.”

The aim of this article is not to provide a blow-by-blow critique of the document. There are more than enough quick-take articles on the National Security Strategy by news outlets. There are also some more considered, and serious, examinations of the new strategy that are actually worth reading. The Council on Foreign Relations has a good examination here. Another critique, by Eliot Cohen, describes the National Security Strategy as follows:

This is a populist document. It expresses an undifferentiated loathing of traditional foreign-policy elites, which the administration has shunned. Its intellectual incoherence is that of the angry autodidact, the anti-vaxxer activist, and the anti-Biden conspiracy theorist.

The document, like the administration, is split between internationalist and isolationist impulses—offering a commitment to American alliances and a forward presence in Asia on the one hand, and indulging proclivities for “America First” isolationism on the other. In some respects, the NSS reflects the peculiar nature of the Trump coalition, which is composed of different and occasionally mutually antagonistic factions, and above all of the muddled enthusiasms, resentments, insecurities, and vanities of the president himself.

Despite all of the other commentaries about the document - that is gives Europe unrealistic timelines to look after its defence, that it elevates American culture wars into a national security priority, that it focusses too much on the western hemisphere too much, that it is anti-immigration and that it places too much emphasis on commercial ties (all of which are reasonable)- there are some interesting and positive aspects of the National Security Strategy that concern the Pacific region.

Image: @HQJOC

The Pacific

For all its apparent placidity, the Pacific seems today to be positioned at the leading edge of any number of potential challenges and crises - whether they relate to politics or economics, to geology, to weather, to the supply of food, or to the most basic questions about the number of people that this planet can support. Simon Winchester, Pacific, 2015.

In her review of the new National Security Strategy, Center for Strategic and International Studies expert Emily Hardinghas written that “Beijing will love the explicit declaration that the U.S. preference is noninterference in other nations’ affairs and the clear statement about respecting states’ sovereignty. That may assuage Chinese fears that the United States seeks to undermine regime stability. They will hate the calls for them to get out of Latin America and the robust approach to deterrence, both necessary and excellent policy positions.”

Harding’s summation that “overall, the Pacific section is strong” is close to the money. I think there are seven key issues in the National Security Strategy that highlight the opportunities and challenges for Pacific nations dealing with a new America First National Security Strategy.

First, the largest section of the document concerns America’s interests in, and interactions with, Asia. At six pages (of a 29-page document) the weight given to America’s relationships in Asia and its security interests there outweighs its attention paid to Europe, the Middle East and other regions such as Africa and the Western Hemisphere. That is a good thing. The amount of space dedicated to Asia is an important signal from the Trump administration about where its priorities lay. That will, in the main, please Pacific nations. It won’t please Europe nor the Ukrainians fighting for the future of their nation.

Second, China will also not be that happy with the document. The National Security Strategy calls out China’s lack of reform with respect to democratic forms of government and that “since the Chinese economy reopened to the world in 1979, commercial relations between our two countries have been and remain fundamentally unbalanced.” Further on the document notes that America will rebalance its economic relationship with China and restore American ‘independence’ (whatever that means). More importantly, the document clearly has China in mind when it states that “a robust and ongoing focus on deterrence to prevent war in the Indo-Pacific”. It calls out “propaganda, influence operations and other forms of cultural subversion” (which China is a leading proponent and employer of), advocates again or the Quad (which China hates) and describes how America will: “work to align the actions of our allies and partners with our joint interest in preventing domination by any single competitor nation.”

To conclude this section on how China will be unhappy with the new strategy, there is a passage on page 24 of the document that deals with freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. It asserts that America will not allow the imposition of a “toll system” over vital sea lanes, which can be viewed as a very direct comment on Chinese behaviour in that body of water. The Chinese Communist Party will hate the concept expounded upon here as the South China Sea resides within their arbitrary ten-dash-line, which has no historical or legal basis.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs is yet to issue a formal response to the document. I think their focus at present is the visit of President Macron to China.

Third, many nations in the Pacific will be comfortable with the strategy’s plan to remain in engaged with the region. In the wake of Trump’s comments about NATO and how it has managed its relationship with Ukraine and other European nations, many leaders and strategic thinkers across the region have rightly pondered the degree to which America might also disengage with nations across the Pacific. The new Trump National Security Strategy will assuage some of those doubts, the provide a reinforced level of confidence among America’s allies in the Pacific. Given the latest surge of PLA Navy activity across the region, this is a good thing.

The current surge in Chinese navy activity across the western Pacific. Image: Ian Ellis Jones.

Fourth, there are many economic elements contained in the document that discuss America’s relationship with Pacific nations. This will be viewed across the region positively because nations in the Pacific do not want to see the China-America strategic competition boil down to just a military correlation of forces. Military deterrence is important, but economic considerations outweigh military concerns for many in the Pacific. Economic competition, and the potential for new trading blocs that include America, must now be on the minds of national security policy makers across the Pacific region.

Fifth, America has recommitted to its existing policy towards Taiwan, which in the document as follows:

United States does not support any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.

This will delight the government and people of Taiwan. It will give confidence to other regional nations such as the Philippines and Japan. It will infuriate Xi and the Chinese Communist Party. But it is also a net good for the region, because it encourages (again) economic and diplomatic relations in addition to military deterrence. And, more importantly, this recognises the prosperous, modern democracy that the Taiwanese people have created and that it is worth preserving. As the document asserts on page 9, America stands “for the sovereign rights of nations.”

Sixth, the document does however have a sting in the tail for America’s allies and friends across the region. On page 12, in the section on priorities, the document states that: The days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over…Continuing President Trump’s approach of asking allies to assume primary responsibility for their regions, the United States will organize a burden-sharing network, with our government as convener and supporter.”

Importantly, it then avers that “the United States will stand ready to help—potentially through more favourable treatment on commercial matters, technology sharing, and defense procurement—those counties that willingly take more responsibility for security in their neighbourhoods and align their export controls with ours.”

Deeper into the document, specific reference is made to Japan and South Korea. The document states that: “we must urge these countries to increase defense spending, with a focus on the capabilities—including new capabilities—necessary to deter adversaries and protect the First Island Chain.” But other nations also get a mention in this regard. The National Security Strategy calls the current levels of defence spending in Taiwan and Australia:

We will also harden and strengthen our military presence in the Western Pacific, while in our dealings with Taiwan and Australia we maintain our determined rhetoric on increased defense spending.

Interestingly, the President of Taiwan published an opinion piece in the Washington Post just ten days ago which makes exactly the kind of commitment to increased defence spending that the Trump administration is calling for. In the piece, President Lai Ching-te writes that “our defense spending, which has already doubled in recent years, is expected to rise to 3.3 percent of gross domestic product by next year. I am committed to lifting this baseline to 5 percent by 2030.”

Unfortunately, the Australian government continues to ignore the signals like this from Washington. It has set defence spending at just over 2% of GDP, and while talking about potential future increases in the 2030s, is cutting budgets in the army, air force, space capability, infrastructure and other areas to fund the second-hand nuclear-powered submarines (two delivered in 2032 and 2035, with a third new one in 2038).

It will be interesting to see whether this is a topic that is discussed, and included in the American read out, of the AUSMIN meeting to be held in Washington DC in the coming week. Generally, the U.S. side provides a more comprehensive debrief of the discussions and outcomes of these meetings than the Australian government.

The seventh and final aspect of the National Security Strategy that will gain the attention of policy makers and think tankers across the region will be the following passage:

The United States cannot allow any nation to become so dominant that it could threaten our interests. We will work with allies and partners to maintain global and regional balances of power to prevent the emergence of dominant adversaries. As the United States rejects the ill-fated concept of global domination for itself, we must prevent the global, and in some cases even regional, domination of others. This does not mean wasting blood and treasure to curtail the influence of all the world’s great and middle powers. The outsized influence of larger, richer, and stronger nations is a timeless truth of international relations. This reality sometimes entails working with partners to thwart ambitions that threaten our joint interests.

This is a complex and, in some respects, contradictory paragraph. But the key idea that some will take away from it is that America might be endorsing the idea of ‘spheres of influence’. I think the later section on Asia in the document makes American commitments to the security of Taiwan, the South China Sea and other nations clear enough that this is not an explicit endorsement of a Chinese sphere on influence.

But I could be wrong.

Image: @IndoPACOM

Conclusion

Overall, Pacific nations have much more to be satisfied about in the new Trump administration National Security Strategy than European countries. China will probably not be very happy at all, particularly with the economic, sovereignty and military aspects of the strategy.

But America’s democratic allies and partners, from Japan and Korea in north Asia down through the southeast Asian nations to Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific island countries, will be generally comfortable that America has re-committed to the region and has placed its priority on prosperity and security in the Pacific.

That said, I don’t think the Trump administration will be permitting Pacific nations to get too complacent about American resourcing and military presence. The Trump administration is serious about burden sharing, and not every nation in this region has fully received the message yet (including Australia).

There will be some concern about exactly how this will be implemented. Writing about economic and military developments - and resourcing the necessary action to realise objectives in these domains - are two very different things. That will bear watching as the strategy is implemented.

This could have been a much worse document for the Pacific region than it is. For those in Pacific nations that are unconvinced, I suggest a trip to any European capital in the coming days. There you will see what true disappointment in this document looks like.

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substack.com · Mick Ryan

7. The Bridge: Technology and Partner Capacity in Irregular Warfare

​Summary:

Special Forces must treat technology as an instrument of partnership, not a trophy of modernization. ODAs should act as “technology translators,” selecting simple, sustainable tools that fit local culture, build confidence, and outlast U.S. presence. Priority capabilities include AI enabled decision aids, unmanned systems, secure mesh comms, counter UAS, distributed sustainment, and influence tools. Success is measured by capability transferred, not kit retained. A disciplined methodology, cultural fluency, and conditional trust are essential to avoid proliferation risks. Done well, technology becomes a core irregular warfare lever that empowers partners and keeps America from fighting alone.

Comment: Another thought provoking and excellent essay from Mark Haselton.

I am going to have to incorporate Mark's ideas into my Eight Point of Irregular Warfare, somewhere among these I think.

4. Assessment - must conduct continuous assessment to gain understanding - tactical, operational, and strategic. Assessments are key to developing strategy and campaign plans and anticipating potential conflict. Assessments allow you to challenge assumptions and determine if a rebalance of ways and means with the acceptable, durable, political arrangement is required. Understand the indigenous way of war and adapt to it. Do not force the US way of war upon indigenous forces if it is counter to their history, customs, traditions, and abilities.

5. Ensure US and indigenous interests are sufficiently aligned. If indigenous and US interests are not sufficiently aligned the mission will fail. If the US has stronger interest than the indigenous force we can create an “assistance paradox” - if indigenous forces believe the US mission is "no fail” and the US forces will not allow them to fail and therefore they do not need to try too hard. They may very well benefit from long term US aid and support which may be their objective for accepting support in the first place.

 6. Employ the right forces for the right mission. US SOF, conventional, civilian agency, indigenous forces. Always based on assessment and thorough understanding of the problem and available resources and capabilities. Cannot over rely on one force to do everything.  

https://maxoki161.blogspot.com/2018/07/eight-points-of-special-warfare.html

The Bridge

Technology and Partner Capacity in Irregular Warfare

substack.com · The Old and Bold

https://vaberet.substack.com/p/the-bridge?utm

Note to Readers: By this point, I suspect my readers are relieved to discover that this installment is not another descent into the swamp of American politics. Frankly, I share the relief. Instead, we’re returning to ground that’s at least slightly less contentious and considerably more useful: Special Operations—where arguments tend to be settled by evidence, experience, and the occasional sand table, not by cable news pundits. So let’s get back to a field in which I can claim more than spectator-level expertise: the craft of Special Forces in the 21st century.

Introduction – Technology in the Service of Partnership

For nearly seventy years, U.S. Army Special Forces have thrived at the intersection of people, ideas, and technology. From the OSS agents operating behind enemy lines in World War II to the Green Berets riding with Afghan horsemen in 2001, Special Forces have always fused the technical with the human. Radios, air controllers, and precision munitions have been tools—but never the center of gravity. The decisive factor has always been the credibility that comes from empowering others to fight for themselves.

In the era of strategic competition, that balance must be rediscovered. The Army’s Special Forces Regiment faces a defining challenge: how to harness emerging technologies not simply to make Operational Detachments–Alpha (ODAs) more lethal and survivable, but to make partners more capable, confident, and credible. The purpose of integrating new technology is not modernization for its own sake; it is to give partners the means to resist coercion, to act independently, and to operate alongside U.S. forces when deterrence fails. In this, the measure of success is not how much capability the ODA can wield, but how much capability it can transfer—and how enduring that capability becomes when the team leaves.

The Regiment must therefore view technology through two complementary lenses. The first is internal: ensuring ODAs retain the agility, mobility, and survivability to operate effectively in the gray zone and in potential large-scale combat operations (LSCO). The second—and increasingly decisive—is external: using technology as an instrument of credibility and influence. The ODA’s ability to identify, deliver, and sustain the right technologies for the right partners—those that are employable, maintainable, and tailored to specific environments—is what will distinguish Special Forces from all other instruments of national power in the decades to come.

The Role of Technology in Building Partner Capacity

Technology is no longer the exclusive domain of great powers. It is dispersed, democratized, and weaponized by state and non-state actors alike. China and Russia use it to manipulate information and logistics networks; Iran and the DPRK use it to arm proxies and disrupt regional balances. In this environment, U.S. Special Forces must act not only as combat advisors but as technological translators—bridging the gap between cutting-edge innovation and the practical needs of indigenous forces who fight daily in contested gray zones.

The heart of partner capacity building lies not in transferring equipment, but in transferring confidence. When an ODA introduces technology that a partner can actually use—something that immediately improves survivability, intelligence, or precision—that act becomes a form of strategic messaging. It demonstrates U.S. commitment more persuasively than speeches or visits. It says, “We trust you with this,” which, in many cultures, is a currency more powerful than aid dollars or promises of security.

Yet technology can also undermine trust if mishandled. Many partners request equipment that exceeds their ability to employ or sustain. Others lack the infrastructure or training base to keep systems operational beyond the first fight. The ODA’s responsibility is therefore not to deliver what a partner wants, but what they need and can sustain. That requires judgment, patience, and cultural fluency. The most effective technology transfer is one that fits seamlessly into the partner’s way of fighting and aligns with their cultural and logistical realities. Sophistication in this context is not about complexity; it is about fitness for purpose.

Assessing Partner Needs – The ODA as Technology Interpreter

Before technology can build credibility, it must be chosen wisely. The ODA’s first task in any theater should be to assess its partner through five questions:

1. What is the partner’s immediate threat environment?
2. Are they facing hybrid warfare, insurgency, maritime coercion, or cyber manipulation? The answer shapes both the type and the scale of technology they need.
3. What is their capacity to employ and sustain technology?
4. Sophisticated systems that require secure networks, advanced maintenance, or classified supply chains can fail faster than they can be fielded. Sustainability must outweigh novelty.
5. What is the partner’s operational culture?
6. Does the force prize improvisation, hierarchy, or collective action? A tool that aligns with their tactical instincts will always outperform one that contradicts them.
7. What are the political and ethical constraints?
8. Technology that violates regional norms or risks escalation can destroy strategic trust, no matter how effective it is tactically.
9. How does this capability connect to U.S. operational concepts?
10. If deterrence fails, can this partner integrate into a U.S. or allied campaign across multiple domains—land, sea, air, cyber, and space?

Answering these questions is not an analytical exercise for headquarters; it is a field responsibility for the ODA, informed by human contact and cultural literacy. This is why language and cultural fluency are not soft skills—they are enablers of technological success. A team that cannot understand its partner’s decision-making logic cannot design an effective capability solution.

To make these judgments credible, Special Forces should develop an informal but disciplined methodology—a decision framework that weighs employability, sustainability, cultural fit, and interoperability before recommending any technological solution. That framework should be informed by operational feedback loops, not acquisition cycles, and it should emphasize why this system, not that one, is the right fit for a particular partner. The objective is not to equip partners to mirror U.S. capabilities, but to complement them—to build interoperable nodes in a distributed architecture of resistance and resilience.

Selecting Technologies that Matter – Fit, Function, and Trust

Some technologies are inherently more promising for partner capacity building because they combine tactical relevance, low sustainment costs, and strategic signaling value. Six categories stand out as offering the highest return on investment:

1. Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Decision Support

AI can deliver analytical precision to partners who lack large staffs or intelligence infrastructure. Lightweight AI-enabled tools for target recognition, logistics prediction, and pattern-of-life analysis can give small units strategic leverage. In Ukraine, autonomous ISR systems and machine-learning-enabled targeting have multiplied combat effectiveness without overwhelming human operators. Similar tools could empower Taiwanese coastal defense units, Jordanian counter-terror elements, or Colombian counternarcotics teams.

2. Unmanned and Autonomous Systems (UxS)

Attritable drones, unmanned ground vehicles, and low-cost maritime systems allow partners to contest space they cannot physically dominate. These platforms require minimal training and can be maintained locally, yet they deliver exponential effects. They also allow partners to project presence in domains—air and maritime—where they would otherwise be outmatched. For small island states, UxS represents sovereignty at scale.

3. Secure Communications and Mesh Networking

Resilient communications are the backbone of both irregular warfare and LSCO integration. Lightweight, encrypted mesh networks give partners the ability to coordinate under electronic attack and integrate with U.S. joint systems when required. The ability to communicate securely is not just tactical—it is psychological. It conveys that a partner can be trusted with sensitive operations, strengthening their confidence and ours.

4. Counter-UAS and Electronic Warfare Tools

Every adversary from Russia to Iran now employs drones and electronic attack in the gray zone. Delivering portable counter-UAS and EW systems helps partners protect themselves without depending on U.S. air cover. It also reduces the adversary’s cost advantage, forcing them to invest more heavily in systems that are now less effective.

5. Distributed Manufacturing and Sustainment Technologies

Field-level 3D printing, modular power systems, and local repair capacity allow partners to sustain themselves under duress. Ukraine’s ability to keep drones flying through distributed repair networks offers a model. A partner who can fix, fabricate, and adapt in contact is a partner who will not fold when logistics lines are cut.

6. Information and Influence Tools

Influence is a form of firepower in the gray zone. Equipping partners with digital media, data analytics, and counter-disinformation tools allows them to contest the narrative battlespace that precedes kinetic conflict. The Philippines’ efforts to expose Chinese maritime coercion through real-time digital reporting show how influence operations can deter aggression before escalation.

Each of these technologies meets the fundamental criteria of the “partner-first” approach: they are relevant, scalable, sustainable, and strategically useful. More importantly, they demonstrate U.S. commitment not as benefactor, but as enabler—an ally who provides the means for self-reliance.

Mitigating Risk – The Fine Line Between Empowerment and Exposure

While empowering partners through technology builds deterrence, it also carries risk. History offers cautionary lessons. In Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Syria, capabilities transferred to local forces were later lost, abandoned, or turned against U.S. interests. The lesson is not to withhold technology, but to apply it with discipline. The partner should never be given more capability than they can responsibly control, nor technology that, if lost, would compromise U.S. forces or allies. The ODA must constantly balance generosity with prudence, ensuring that empowerment does not become proliferation.

This requires a mindset of conditional trust—partners should feel fully supported, but ODAs must retain the awareness that loyalties shift, regimes change, and war is fluid. The art lies in providing enough to make them strong, but not so much that they become unaccountable or unmanageable. It is a tension that every generation of Special Forces has navigated since the OSS, and one that must again become part of the Regiment’s professional discipline.

Cultural Fluency and Technology – The Human Circuitry of Trust

No technology, however advanced, can substitute for cultural fluency. A mesh network may connect radios, but it is shared understanding that connects people. ODAs must combine technical knowledge with cultural empathy, speaking not just the language of their partners, but their operational logic. This is where the lessons of Paper 2—language mastery and cultural literacy—become operational imperatives. The best technology in the world will fail if delivered without the ability to explain its purpose, integrate it into local tactics, or respect cultural norms governing its use.

In the same way that OSS officers in occupied Europe tailored their equipment to resistance groups—simple, rugged, effective—modern Special Forces must tailor 21st-century tools to their partners’ context. This is not charity; it is strategy. Cultural fluency ensures that technology does not alienate, overwhelm, or insult. It transforms tools into trust, and trust into enduring access.

Toward a Methodology for Technological Engagement

A modern methodology for technology integration should begin with four principles:

First, assess before you deliver. Technology must solve the partner’s problem, not the ODA’s curiosity. Every piece of equipment should answer a clearly defined operational gap identified through partner dialogue and environmental observation.

Second, train to autonomy. The objective is not dependence on U.S. advisors, but self-sufficiency. The test of success is whether the partner can employ, maintain, and adapt the capability without U.S. supervision.

Third, align with strategy. Tactical tools must serve strategic objectives. A system that enhances partner legitimacy and deters adversaries is more valuable than one that merely increases firepower.

Finally, adapt for escalation. Technologies provided in the gray zone must be adaptable to higher-end conflict. Partners must be able to scale from peacetime deterrence to wartime integration without loss of coherence or control.

When applied consistently, these principles turn technology into a deliberate form of irregular warfare—an operational art that builds capability, influences alignment, and constrains adversary action long before conventional forces are committed.

Conclusion – Returning to the OSS Ethos

The future of Special Forces lies in mastering the fusion of human expertise and technological agility. The Regiment’s greatest contribution to national defense will not come from competing with conventional formations in precision fires or armored mobility. It will come from its ability to identify partners who matter, deliver the capabilities they need, and build trust that endures when communication lines are severed and deterrence fails.

This is the modern expression of the OSS ethos: adaptability, cultural acuity, and the quiet precision of enabling others to resist oppression. It is what differentiates the Green Beret from every other soldier in the American arsenal. The technology may have changed—from clandestine radios to autonomous drones and AI-enabled decision tools—but the mission remains the same: to stand beside those who fight tyranny, and to give them the means to win.

As the global competition intensifies, Special Forces must become the bridge between America’s technological ingenuity and its human allies abroad. That bridge will be built not of steel and code, but of judgment, empathy, and discipline—the timeless qualities that define the Regiment. If Special Forces can integrate technology not as a crutch but as a catalyst for partnership, it will remain the nation’s most adaptable and indispensable instrument of irregular power—able to shape the gray zone, support LSCO, and ensure that America never fights alone.

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substack.com · The Old and Bold

8. Peace Through Profit: The Problem with Steve Witkoff’s Ukraine Strategy

​Summary:

Steve Witkoff’s “peace through profit” plan treats Ukraine’s war as a real-estate deal, betting that US-Russia business ties can end the conflict. The essay argues this ignores Russia’s mafia-state reality. Bill Browder and Ukrainian officials stress that foreign investors are routinely expropriated, jailed, or worse, making promised postwar profits illusory and morally tainted. Putin envoy Kirill Dmitriev’s pitch is seen as a feint to lure US firms, weaken sanctions pressure, and secure Western acceptance of Ukrainian territorial concessions and demilitarization. The piece concludes that Witkoff’s approach risks rewarding aggression, undermining Ukraine, prolonging Putin’s war, and eroding Western leverage and credibility.

Comment: I guess this new meaning to the business of diplomacy. Or is this the diplomacy of business? How does either construct work against someone waging both conventional war and political warfare. Can business deal methodology work against political warfare?

Peace Through Profit: The Problem with Steve Witkoff’s Ukraine Strategy

The president’s dealmaker thinks business can fix any foreign-policy crisis. Putin’s cronies think differently.

By Eli Lake

12.02.25 —

International

thefp.com

https://www.thefp.com/p/peace-through-profit-steve-witkoff-ukraine-strategy

Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump’s first friend and super-secretary of state, has a theory on how to end the war Russia started in Ukraine more than 11 years ago: Make everyone business partners.

That is the guiding principle behind Witkoff’s quiet diplomacy over recent months with Kirill Dmitriev, the chief of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and President Vladimir Putin’s top negotiator on the war. In a revealing Wall Street Journal interview, Witkoff noted that “Russia has so many vast resources, vast expanses of land.”

If only the Ukrainians and Russians would stop fighting and get down to making money, then peace would follow. Or so Witkoff seems to think. “If we do all that, and everybody’s prospering and they’re all a part of it, and there’s upside for everybody, that’s going to naturally be a bulwark against future conflicts there. Because everybody’s thriving.”

Witkoff, who met with Putin in Moscow on Tuesday, is following a similar playbook to the one that delivered a ceasefire and the release of hostages in Gaza in October. Free Press columnist and historian Niall Ferguson dubbed this approach “real estate-ism” in a recent column. In that case, Witkoff and his fellow negotiators ignored the methods preferred by the United Nations and international legal experts and instead struck business deals with Middle Eastern countries. The goodwill from those deals then helped Israel convince the Gulf states to put pressure on Hamas.

It worked for Gaza because Hamas is the much weaker party in the conflict. In that case, real estate-ism did not rely on the good offices of a terrorist organization to attract foreign investment after the war. Rather, it persuaded the main backers of Hamas—Turkey and Qatar—to threaten to cut off patronage if the hostage takers did not return the Israelis they kidnapped on October 7.

In the case of Russia, the man responsible for making good on future investments is Russia’s boss of bosses, Vladimir Putin. He presides over a mafia state and the mob doesn’t share its profits—it bleeds its “partners” dry.

“The Russians will defraud, steal, imprison, and possibly even murder the people involved to make sure no foreign company makes any money in Russia,” Sir William Browder, an activist and financier, told The Free Press. “It’s not as if some people do and some people don’t; nobody does.”

Browder is in a position to know. Twenty years ago his firm Hermitage Capital was the largest foreign investor in Russia. But the Russian state expelled him from the country and then tried to steal the business he built after the Soviet Union collapsed.

Browder’s experience was particularly nasty. Two years after Browder left Russia in 2005, a group of Russian officials stole $230 million in taxes Hermitage had paid. When Browder’s lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, discovered the scheme and testified against the thieves in 2008, he was arrested, tortured, and eventually died in Russian custody in 2009. Magnitsky’s death radicalized Browder, who then pressed the U.S. and other Western governments to impose sanctions on Russian officials engaged in gross human rights abuses.

Browder was not an exception. The business climate in Russia is abysmal. Transparency International, which tracks international corruption, ranked Russia 154 out of 180 countries in 2024. The Congo, Honduras, Lebanon, and Iran are considered less corrupt according to their index.

“All these big businesses in Russia are criminals,” Oleksiy Goncharenko, a Ukrainian member of parliament, told The Free Press. “You can’t do business with criminals. Everyone knows the consequences of that.”

The Russian economy is so corrupt, and its political climate so violent, that sooner or later the cost of doing business in Russia gets too high—not to mention the moral compromises necessary for such a venture.

And yet many American businesses seem eager to take advantage of a peace deal. The Journal reported a meeting between Exxon senior vice president Neil Chapman and Rosneft chief Igor Sechin in Doha this year to discuss Exxon’s return to a Russian project abandoned after Putin renewed his war on Ukraine in 2022. Other U.S. companies have eyed investments in Russian state-owned Lukoil.

Moscow is certainly sending the signal that there is money to be made after the war in Ukraine ends. Dmitriev himself told the Journal: “We believe that the U.S. and Russia can cooperate basically on everything in the Arctic. If a solution is found in Ukraine, U.S. economic cooperation can be a foundation for our relationship going forward.”

The question is why any U.S. investor would believe Dmitriev. Americans have gone down this road before. It was not just Browder who nearly lost everything in Russia 20 years ago. The Russian economy is so corrupt, and its political climate so violent, that sooner or later the cost of doing business in Russia gets too high—not to mention the moral compromises necessary for such a venture.

“Steve Witkoff and his friends are not going to leave Russia with a single penny,” Browder said. He added that “There are no stories of people leaving Russia with a happy ending. It’s a total delusion.”

So what’s Dmitriev and Putin’s real strategy? For now it appears to be a kind of feint. After Putin failed to agree to even a ceasefire in August when he met with Trump in Alaska, European countries began to press the U.S. to finally impose secondary sanctions on the countries that buy Russian oil. That might not persuade Putin to give up his dream of conquering Ukraine, but it would grind down his war machine. Oil exports are the only way Putin can pay for his war.

So instead of saying nyet, Putin has dispatched Dmitriev to say “perhaps.” If Ukraine agrees to relinquish territory Russia has yet to conquer, if Ukraine agrees to limit the size of its military, then the war will end and everyone can make a lot of money. For Trump, this all sounds like a chance for peace. For Ukraine, it sounds like submission. And for Putin, it’s another way to save the war he started 11 years ago.

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9. In major restructure, Army stands up new Western Hemisphere Command

​Summary:

The Army has activated a new four-star Western Hemisphere Command (USAWHC), consolidating Army North, Army South, and key Forces Command units under Gen. Joseph Ryan at Fort Bragg, with a forward disaster-response post at Joint Base San Antonio. USAWHC will treat the homeland and wider hemisphere as a single priority theater for defense, humanitarian relief, and multinational exercises like PANAMAX and Vigilant Shield. I Corps shifts to Army Pacific, III Corps to Army Europe-Africa, while XVIII Airborne Corps stays under USAWHC. The move aligns with the new National Defense Strategy’s call to restore U.S. preeminence and reassert the Monroe Doctrine.

Comment: I have not been following the other services as closely but it seems our Army is making real headway in meeting the SECDEF/SECWAR's intent to reduce General Officer positions and commands. One lesson I learned early on from one of my mentors as we were planning was to look hard at the task organization chart and ask how much this HQ contributes to the accomplishment of the mission and to be ruthless in eliminating any HQ that is not necessary for success.

In major restructure, Army stands up new Western Hemisphere Command

taskandpurpose.com · Patty Nieberg

The new command combines Army North, Army South, and Forces Command under the leadership of a single four-star general.

Patty Nieberg

Published Dec 5, 2025 2:32 PM EST

https://taskandpurpose.com/news/army-western-hemisphere-command-activated/

In a major shake-up of how the Army divides up the world, the service announced Friday the activation of the Western Hemisphere Command, shuffling three commands under a single four-star general.

Gen. Joseph Ryan will be the first commander of the Army Western Hemisphere Command, which the Army is referring to as USAWHC. Ryan will take over from his role as the Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, Plans, and Training at the Pentagon.

USAWHC will be tasked with the defense of U.S. territory, supporting humanitarian assistance and relief missions for natural disasters like wildfires, hurricanes in both the continental U.S., its neighbors and countries in South America.

“This reform modernizes the Army’s command structure, reduces overhead, eliminates duplication, and puts more soldiers in operational formations where they can directly contribute to warfighting readiness. It’s based on threat, strategy, and the need to prioritize the homeland and the need to treat the homeland as a priority theater,” said Col. Mike Burns, a spokesperson for the USAWHC.

The new command combines Army North, Army South, and many units currently assigned to Army Forces Command under one roof. Army North is responsible for forces within the U.S. and North America tasked with homeland defense. Army South is the service’s component responsible for troops focused on South America. Forces Command oversees the Army’s readiness among its deployable forces.

USAWHC’s four-star headquarters will be based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where Forces Command is located. A forward command post at Joint Base San Antonio (JBSA), Texas, will be focused on rapid deployments for natural disasters and humanitarian relief.

“Think about bowing out the door when an emergency happens right there to support that team that will get out into the community,” Burns said.

Army officials did not give details on the number of troops that would be assigned to Fort Bragg or JBSA under the new command, nor the total manpower under the new USAWHC structure.

Some major combat units currently under Forces Command will be reassigned based on their regional affiliations. I Corps, which oversees the 11th Airborne Division in Alaska and 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii, will shift under Army Pacific. III Armored Corps, based at Fort Hood, Texas, will now fall under Army Europe-Africa, according to Army documents.

The XVIII Airborne Corps, which oversees the Army’s top rapidly deployable infantry divisions, like the 10th Mountain and 82nd Airborne, will remain under USAWHC.

The new Army command will also coordinate annual exercises like PANAMAX, a U.S.-led multinational readiness training with troops from nations like Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, Jamaica, and Mexico, as well as the yearly U.S.-based exercise called Vigilant Shield, where troops simulate and practice against attacks on the states.

Army officials are planning for the Western Hemisphere Command to reach full operational capability by June 2026 and for the three combining commands to be formally inactivated soon after. Commanders of all three formations will remain in position until those inactivations, officials said.

Military and civilian personnel who will be reassigned to Fort Bragg as part of the restructuring can expect to move sometime prior to September 2027, Burns said.

“It gives you one commander responsible for the entire Western Hemisphere from the Army perspective. If you think about the map and how bifurcated it is, is Mexico [assigned to Northern Command] or is Mexico [assigned to Southern Command]? A lot of people don’t even know that,” Burns said. “What about Central America? Everything from Brazil to Canada is bifurcated.”

Command reflects goals of new National Defense Strategy

The Friday activation of the Army’s new command coincided with the Trump administration’s new National Defense Strategy, which calls for the U.S. to “restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere” and “reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine.” That 1823 doctrine, announced in an address to Congress by President James Monroe, was a warning to European imperial powers to stay out of the region known today as Latin America.

However, it became a fundamental part of American foreign policy, as the U.S. simultaneously asserted its influence and developed trade partnerships throughout the region.

The new command also comes as the U.S. has made a hard military pivot to South America with thousands of troops stationed at the U.S.-Mexico border, a massive buildup of Naval forces and Marines in the Caribbean, and ongoing Pentagon-led strikes on fishing boats that Defense Department officials say are part of drug cartel operations.

Burns said the new command “is not predicated on any anticipated orders for rapid deployment of additional troops in the area.”

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taskandpurpose.com · Patty Nieberg

10. Are We at War with Russia? How Warden’s Rings Map Russia’s Hybrid Strategy

​Summary:

Calvin Bailey argues Europe is already in conflict with Russia, viewed through Warden’s Five Rings. Moscow targets leadership, organic essentials, infrastructure, population, and forces with hybrid tools: assassinations, political subversion, energy coercion, cyber attacks, sabotage, migrant weaponization, disinformation, and military probing below NATO’s thresholds. He outlines a three phase model: sustained grey zone operations, sub-threshold testing, then overt kinetic war. Treating phases one and two as “pre-war” is a dangerous misdiagnosis. Europe must see grey zone activity as war, redefine defense as protection of whole state systems, and treat Russian probing as strategic escalation, not isolated incidents.

Comment: I have not seen Warden's 5 rings employed in quite some time.

Are We at War with Russia? How Warden’s Rings Map Russia’s Hybrid Strategy

Across every ring, Russia is applying pressure. Europe is already in conflict; not future, not theoretical, but present and continuous.

Calvin Bailey4 December 2025

5 Minute Read

rusi.org

https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/are-we-war-russia-how-wardens-rings-map-russias-hybrid-strategy

Russia’s hybrid campaign against Europe since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine shows that war in the 2020s is not defined by the moment tanks cross borders. Conflict today is a continuum, one in which hostile states use non-kinetic, unattributable means to degrade the ability of an adversary to function long before conventional forces engage. The West still tends to treat these actions as ‘pre-war’, or something separate from conflict itself. They are not. They are part of an escalatory strategy aimed at undermining and degrading our deterrence logic. This makes it difficult to ascertain where Europe is on the ‘spectrum of conflict’ with Russia. We may not be exchanging fire, but our infrastructure, airspace and people are still subject to Russian aggression.

To understand where we are, we must understand who Russia targets and why. Revisiting a model developed for an earlier era is helpful: John Warden’s ‘Five Rings’, first outlined in The Enemy as a System. Originally conceived for air campaigns against industrial states, Warden’s framework argued that a state could be paralysed by striking at the system that sustains it: leadership, organic essentials, infrastructure, population and, lastly, its fielded forces. Warden proposed delivering this effect through long-range precision strike, bypassing armies to attack the core. This doctrine has been central to how the US has waged war through its overwhelming airpower advantage.

The relevance of his insight has not faded. Russia’s hybrid approach can be mapped onto Warden’s model, with kinetic airpower largely replaced with grey-zone tools: cyber, information operations, energy coercion, sabotage, criminal proxies and political subversion. The target set remains the same. The delivery mechanism is different.

Attacking the Rings Without Attribution

Since February 2022, Europe has experienced a sustained campaign of Russian activity that maps almost perfectly onto Warden’s five rings.

On the leadership ring, Russia has deployed a wide spectrum of political warfare: targeted assassinations and intimidation in the UK, Germany and Poland; efforts to influence political parties in Slovakia and the Western Balkans; cyber-enabled kompromat against senior officials; and disinformation operations during European and UK elections. These are not marginal activities; they are attempts to fracture political cohesion and erode decision-making capacity.

Europe must recognise that grey-zone activity is not preparation for war – it is war itself.

On organic essentials, Russia has exploited Europe’s structural dependence on critical resources. The manipulation of gas flows in 2022–23 was a deliberate attempt to induce political panic and undermine support for Ukraine. Cyber attacks on Jaguar Land Rover, German steel producers and Scandinavian energy companies illustrate a wider Russian campaign against industrial capacity. Undersea cables and pipelines in the Baltic and North Sea have also been sabotaged or mysteriously damaged. This is strategic coercion by other means.

On infrastructure, Russia has repeatedly targeted the systems that enable economic and military movement: cyber attacks on power distribution networks in Poland and the Baltics; GPS jamming that has disrupted civilian aviation across Scandinavia; and sabotage plots against railway lines and military logistics hubs uncovered in Germany and the UK. These are, in effect, classic infrastructure-ring strikes, achieved without a single bomb dropped.

On populations, Russia has waged cognitive warfare. The manipulation of migrant flows into Finland in 2023–24 was intended to create political stress. The summer 2024 UK riots saw Russian-linked networks amplify far-right narratives to inflame disorder. Disinformation around inflation, energy prices and NATO spending has been used to weaken European public support for Ukraine. This is slow-burn attrition of democratic cohesion.

And on fielded forces, Russia has engaged in sub-threshold testing: dangerous close intercepts of RAF and NATO aircraft in the Baltic; jamming of military navigation systems; proxy sabotage against ammunition depots and logistics nodes; and continued use of deniable, non-uniformed forces in occupied Ukrainian territory. These actions probe NATO’s thresholds, seeking to understand which behaviours the Alliance tolerates, and where it may fracture.

Across every ring, Russia is applying pressure. Europe is already in conflict; not future, not theoretical, but present and continuous.

A Three-Phase Model of Modern Conflict

If Warden helps us map the target set, we still need to understand the framework for escalation. Contemporary conflict appears to operate in three phases:

• Phase 1: Hybrid / Grey-Zone Operations

This is the current European reality. Russia conducts sustained, unattributable attacks on leadership, infrastructure, industry and public cohesion. The objective is strategic corrosion, weakening the system from the inside.

• Phase 2: Probing / Sub-Threshold Testing

Once grey-zone activity has shaped the strategic environment, Russia probes allied responses: air and maritime harassment, cyber intrusions into military networks, sabotage of logistics routes and challenges to NATO aircraft. What we are seeing presently are rehearsals disguised as incidents.

• Phase 3: War (Overt Kinetic Conflict)

Where political conditions align, as in Ukraine in 2022, Russia transitions to full-scale war, using conventional forces, massed fires and overt strikes on infrastructure, governance and population.

This three-phase model matters because European states still tend to treat Phases 1 and 2 as ‘competition’ rather than conflict. That misdiagnosis creates risk. It encourages complacency. And it leaves governments unprepared for transition to kinetic war, should it come.

What Europe Must Do

Three strategic implications follow.

First, Europe must recognise that grey-zone activity is not preparation for war – it is war itself. A response framework that waits for tanks to cross borders is already obsolete.

Second, defence must be reconceived as system protection, not simply force generation. Leadership integrity, energy security, industrial resilience, population resilience and infrastructure redundancy all become core components of deterrence. This requires cross-government, not solely military, solutions.

Third, NATO must treat probing as a strategic indicator, not a tactical anomaly. Repeated airspace incursions, sabotage, GPS jamming and cyber intrusions are not irritants. They are escalatory steps within a systemic campaign.

What we must resurrect from Warden is the recognition that states are systems, and that systems can be degraded by deep attacks, just as much as frontline battles. But Russia’s grey-zone campaign shows that modern strategic paralysis could be delivered through ambiguity just as much as airpower.

Europe is not in a pre-war moment. We are already in the initial phases of an extended conflict fought through digital, economic, political and societal pressure. If we fail to protect our state systems now, we may only realise that Russia has achieved paralysis at the moment we are required to react.

© Calvin Bailey, 2025, published by RUSI with permission of the author.

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11. The Army's $15 Billion Turnover Crisis: Why Half Our Captains Quit

​Summary:

The Army faces a structural officer replacement crisis, not a marginal retention problem. It spends $600,000–$1 million to produce a captain, yet 54% leave before major, burning an estimated $10–15 billion annually in lost investment and replacement costs. West Point officers cost over three times ROTC per year of service with similar outcomes. Root causes are systemic: toxic and unaccountable leadership, lack of autonomy and career control, misaligned branching, and crushed technical career tracks in cyber, aviation, and medicine. Bonuses mask the captain exodus but do not fix incentives. Battalions with bad commanders hemorrhage talent; the system barely measures it.

Comment: A brutal critique. I am not close enough to the problem to assess how accurate this is. No disrespect for the officer and his research but is the interpretation of these statistics correct? There is a pyramid to the organizational structure and not every officer can remain. How can we know if the officers who left the service would be better at higher ranks than the ones who have remained and are the ones who remained in a better position to fix the problems?  

On the other hand I do not recall any time in my 30 year career or in my observation since that regular officers received retention bonuses. Sure there were some schooling incentives but I cannot recall ever seeing a monetary bonus (though of course we did provide incentives to leave - e.g., 15 year retirements or a cash settlement). Perhaps I missed hearing such these bonuses because I had never given a thought to leaving the Army and would have stayed in beyond mandatory retirement if I could have.

But I guess we do have a number problem or as the author argues, a structural replacement crisis.

The Army's $15 Billion Turnover Crisis: Why Half Our Captains Quit

linkedin.com · Indigo Rainforest Sky Monser-Kernosh

Army Signal Officer | Organizational Leadership PhD Candidate | Cornell Brooks School Graduate Fellow

December 5, 2025

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/armys-15-billion-turnover-crisis-why-half-our-quit-monser-kernosh-ch5ae/

The U.S. Army invests between $600,000 and $1 million to produce an experienced captain. Then 54% separate before making major.

That's not a retention problem. That's a replacement crisis. We're spending $10 billion annually not to retain talent but to constantly churn out replacements for officers who leave the moment their service obligations end.

Of the 13,000 officers commissioned each year, only 46% stay long enough to be considered for promotion to O-4. The other 54% serve their initial commitment and walk. West Point graduates who cost $500,000 to produce serve an average of 11.8 years and leave. ROTC officers who cost $168,000 serve 12.6 years and leave. Neither group sticks around.

This isn't about money alone. It's about a lieutenant who spent $500,000 of taxpayer investment at West Point, led soldiers in combat, and discovers his battalion commander is toxic. It's about a cyber officer who took three years and $500,000 to train, then got forced into a command track that ignores her technical expertise. It's about a captain who got branched Infantry when he wanted Signal, served his five years exactly, and left for Google.

We know why they're leaving. We've known for years. Leadership quality matters more than anything else, but we don't hold commanders accountable for driving out talent. Branch assignments ignore preferences and talents, creating resentment from day one. Technical experts get forced into command tracks. And junior officers have zero control over their careers, their assignments, or their futures.

The Army's response? Retention bonuses and surveys. Meanwhile, the exodus continues and the replacement costs keep climbing.

What It Actually Costs to Make an Officer

The price tag varies dramatically depending on how an officer enters the Army.

West Point graduates cost roughly $500,000 over four years. That's tuition, room, board, stipends, and the full institutional overhead of running the United States Military Academy. In exchange, the Army gets a second lieutenant with a five-year service obligation.

ROTC scholarships run between $140,000 and $168,000 for four-year recipients. That covers tuition and fees plus a monthly stipend. The service obligation is four years for scholarship cadets, three years for non-scholarship.

Officer Candidate School is the bargain option at $37,500 to $65,000 for the training pipeline itself. OCS candidates come in with college degrees already completed, so the Army only pays for the commissioning course. They owe three years of service.

But commissioning is just the beginning. After pinning on gold bars, every new officer goes through Basic Officer Leader Course for their branch. An Infantry officer spends roughly three months at Fort Moore. A cyber officer can spend over a year in the training pipeline. Aviation officers need flight school, which runs 12-18 months and costs hundreds of thousands more.

Then there's the first assignment. Permanent Change of Station moves, equipment issue, initial professional development, and the cost of having experienced officers train the new lieutenant. By the time a lieutenant makes captain at around year four, the total government investment ranges from $600,000 to over $1 million depending on commissioning source and branch.

That's when most of them leave.

The Captain Exodus: 54% Gone Before Major

Officers can first separate when their Active Duty Service Obligation ends. For West Point graduates, that's year five. For ROTC scholarship recipients, year four. For OCS graduates, year three.

That's when the exodus happens.

Of West Point graduates commissioned between 1992 and 2004, only 46% stayed long enough to be considered for promotion to major. That means 54% separated as captains or below. Just 13% made it to lieutenant colonel consideration. A mere 10.8% remained for battalion command.

The pattern holds across commissioning sources. Average career length for West Point graduates is 11.8 years. ROTC officers average 12.6 years. Neither reaches the point where the Army gets full value from its investment. Both groups leave right when they become most valuable—when they've completed their initial training, gained operational experience, and could begin leading at higher levels.

This is the critical point: we're not losing brand new lieutenants who haven't figured out the Army yet. We're losing experienced captains who have figured it out and decided it's not worth staying.

The Hidden Cost: Perpetual Replacement Training

The investment numbers everyone focuses on—$500,000 for West Point, $168,000 for ROTC, $37,500 for OCS—are just the commissioning costs. They don't capture the real expense: the endless cycle of replacement training.

When a captain separates at year five, the Army doesn't just lose the $600,000 to $1 million already invested. It has to commission a new lieutenant to eventually replace that captain. That means another four years of ROTC scholarships or West Point costs, another Basic Officer Leader Course, another first assignment with all the training that entails, and another three to five years of professional development before that new lieutenant becomes an experienced captain.

Then that captain leaves too. And the cycle repeats.

The Army commissions roughly 13,000 new officers every year. If 54% separate before making major, that's 7,020 captains who leave. To maintain force structure, the Army must commission 7,020 additional lieutenants just to replace them. At an average commissioning cost of $150,000 to $200,000 per lieutenant, that's $1.05 billion to $1.4 billion annually spent on replacement commissioning alone.

Add the ongoing costs of Basic Officer Leader Course, Captains Career Course, professional development, and the opportunity costs of experienced officers spending time training replacements instead of leading formations, and the replacement cycle easily costs $5 billion per year.

That's money spent not to grow the force or improve capability, but simply to stay in place. We're running on a treadmill, spending billions to maintain the same inadequate officer strength we had last year.

The Real Numbers: What 26,000 Separations Actually Cost

Army officer losses total approximately 26,616 annually based on DOD manpower data. That includes all officer grades, but the bulk occurs in the O-1 through O-3 range—lieutenants and captains completing their initial service obligations.

At an average investment of $400,000 per separating officer, the annual lost investment exceeds $10.6 billion. But that's just sunk costs. The replacement costs add another $5 billion minimum in new commissioning, training pipelines, and professional development for the officers filling those vacated positions.

Total annual cost of officer turnover: roughly $15 billion.

For context, the Army's entire recruiting budget in fiscal year 2023 was $1.5 billion. We spend ten times that amount managing officer turnover. The entire ROTC scholarship budget is around $600 million annually. We waste 25 times that on an officer exodus we refuse to address.

GAO specifically found that DOD does not systematically calculate total attrition costs. The Army doesn't know exactly what the replacement cycle costs because it hasn't bothered to measure it comprehensively. When pressed, Army officials point to retention rates and claim success because aggregate numbers hit targets.

But aggregate numbers mask the captain exodus. The Army can meet retention goals by keeping senior officers who have already decided to stay while losing captains at catastrophic rates. The statistics look fine. The readiness impact is devastating.

Return on Investment: Academy vs. ROTC

Here's the math that should concern senior leadership.

West Point costs roughly $500,000 per graduate who serves an average of 11.8 years. That's $42,500 per year of service. ROTC four-year scholarships cost around $168,000 and produce officers who serve 12.6 years on average. That's $13,300 per year of service.

The cost differential is 3.2 to 1. West Point officers cost over three times as much per year served compared to ROTC officers.

And the performance difference? Negligible. Multiple studies show career progression between commissioning sources is statistically indistinguishable. After 15 years, West Point graduates show only a 6% higher retention rate compared to ROTC and OCS. That tiny advantage doesn't justify spending eight times more per graduate.

The Army commissions roughly 13,000 officers annually. West Point produces 1,000 to 1,100. ROTC produces 4,000 to 6,000. The rest come from OCS and other programs. ROTC delivers four to six times more officers at one-third the unit cost while achieving marginally better average retention.

This isn't an argument to close West Point. It's an argument that our commissioning portfolio is badly imbalanced if return on investment matters.

The Branching Betrayal

Branch assignment is the Army's first and often most consequential betrayal of its junior officers.

Cadets rank their preferred branches during their senior year. The Army runs an algorithm that theoretically matches talents and preferences with institutional needs. In reality, it's a sophisticated rationing system for a scarce resource: the branches people actually want.

West Point mandates that 80% of male cadets must branch into combat arms—Infantry, Armor, Engineer, Field Artillery, Aviation, or Air Defense. Only 20% of female cadets face this requirement. Official statistics claim most cadets receive one of their top three choices, but West Point faculty acknowledge a darker reality. Sometimes cadets see their branch assignment and burst into tears or seethe with anger.

The Army introduced Talent Based Branching in 2020 to improve outcomes. Three components now determine assignments: a talent assessment battery measuring 20 different attributes, virtual interviews with branch representatives, and a voting system where branches sort cadets into most preferred, preferred, or least preferred categories.

Early implementation created new problems. Some cadets reported the system doesn't trust them to make their own best choice. Allocation failures increased. The process became more opaque.

Then there's BRADSO—Branch of Choice with Active Duty Service Obligation extension. Cadets can get priority for their preferred branch by adding three years to their service commitment. At West Point, 35% of branch slots now go to BRADSO. At ROTC, it's 50-60%.

This creates a two-tier system where lower-ranked cadets must buy their preferred branch with additional service years. It also means officers who didn't get their first choice are serving a career they didn't pick from day one. That resentment doesn't disappear.

Three Branches in Crisis

Retention varies dramatically by branch. Three specialties are hemorrhaging talent.

Cyber Operations (17 Series)

Four thousand troops left cyber jobs in 2024 alone. The DOD faces a 16% vacancy rate across cyber positions. Training an Interactive On-Net Operator costs between $220,000 and $500,000 and takes one to three years. Army guidance requires only about 1.88 years of service after this training, compared to three years for Navy and Air Force cyber specialists.

The Army has spent $160 million on cyber retention bonuses over five years with limited success. Officers cite a simple reason: they want to stay technical, but the promotion system rewards command experience over technical competence. Every year in cyber operations is a year building skills that defense contractors will pay $150,000 to $300,000 for. Staying in the Army means eventually leaving the technical work you love or accepting that you'll never make colonel.

Aviation (15 Series)

The Army faces a 330-pilot shortfall, concentrated in Apache pilots. Warrant officer attrition jumped from 7% to 9% annually. Budget cuts between 2010 and 2017 suppressed accessions and created permanent year-group shortfalls that will take decades to fix.

Commercial airline hiring directly correlates with increased resignations. When airlines are hiring, Army pilots leave. Flight school costs hundreds of thousands of dollars per graduate and takes 12-18 months. The Army extended the post-flight school service obligation from six years to ten years in response to the shortage, then retroactively applied it to 600 aviators who thought their commitments were ending.

Forcing pilots to stay doesn't make them want to stay. It just delays their departure.

Medical Corps (60/61 Series)

The Army faces a significant physician shortage. A 2022 survey found pay is the primary separation reason. Civilian surgeons earn three to five times what Army surgeons make. A neurosurgeon can earn $600,000 in private practice versus $200,000 in the Army.

The Army offers retention bonuses up to $83,000 per year for neurosurgeons. That still leaves a $300,000 annual pay gap. Administrative burden and skill degradation risk drive additional separations. Doctors who join the Army to practice medicine spend increasing amounts of time on paperwork instead of patients.

Combat arms branches show more stable retention despite high operational tempo. Infantry, Armor, and Field Artillery officers stay longer than their technical specialty counterparts. Cultural identity and mission focus appear to offset lifestyle concerns for these branches.

Why They Actually Leave: It's Not About Money

The Department of the Army Career Engagement Survey asked over 50,000 respondents about separation factors. The top reasons rated as extremely important were effects of deployments on family relationships, impact on spouse careers, impact on family plans for children, lack of stability and predictability, and impact on family well-being.

Those are real concerns. But an independent survey of 523 junior officers revealed something DACES systematically undercounted: lack of autonomy and control over present and future.

Officers planning to separate cited loss of control as their number one reason. Poor leadership came second, cited by over 50% of respondents. Better job prospects outside the Army ranked third, followed by impediment to family relationships and lack of fulfillment.

Here's what that actually means. A captain has no say in where he gets stationed. No input on what position he fills. No control over deployment timing. No influence over whether his family moves to Fort Polk or Fort Lewis. The Army decides everything, often with months of notice or less, and the captain executes.

Compare that to the civilian sector. A Google employee can negotiate which team she joins. A defense contractor can specify which contracts he'll work. A consultant can choose which city she lives in. They have autonomy. Army officers don't.

The control gap matters more as officers gain experience and responsibilities. A brand new lieutenant expects the Army to dictate everything. A captain with five years of service, a spouse with a career, and maybe kids has different expectations. When the Army treats them exactly the same—move here, do this, deploy then—the captain starts looking at LinkedIn.

Add toxic leadership and the equation becomes simple. Why stay in a job where you have no control over your life, work for a commander who drives you crazy, and make less money than your college roommate who went to McKinsey? The BRADSO bonus and retention incentives don't change that calculation. They just make the exit slightly more expensive.

The Battalion Commander Effect: Leadership Quality Drives Everything

Leadership quality matters more than official surveys capture. One study analyzed 1,745 battalion commanders and 36,032 lieutenants and concluded that battalion commanders are the single most impactful factor in a lieutenant's decision to stay or leave. This effect was even stronger on high-potential lieutenants—the exact officers the Army most needs to keep.

Officer comments frequently mentioned yes-man culture, toxic leadership, hypocrisy, and uncaring commanders. The official DACES survey asked only 2 of 80 questions about leadership quality. The Army designed a retention survey that systematically avoids asking about the primary factor driving officer departures.

Prior-enlisted OCS officers ranked poor leadership as their number-one separation factor. Their experience as enlisted soldiers gave them clearer perspective on what good leadership looks like versus what they actually received as officers.

Not all battalion commanders drive out talent. The best ones retain significantly more high-potential lieutenants than average commanders. The worst ones lose good officers at alarming rates. Identical battalions with identical demographics can show 15 to 20 percentage point retention variance based purely on commander quality.

One training fatality triggers investigations, relief of command, and institutional consequences. A battalion that loses 25% of its lieutenants before their promotion board generates a PowerPoint slide. There's no accountability mechanism for commanders who hemorrhage talent. If equipment readiness drops, commanders face consequences. If officer retention craters, nothing happens.

The lack of accountability signals that retention doesn't actually matter despite claims to the contrary.

The Specialist Rank Problem for Officers

Technical officers face the same career progression trap that specialist ranks were meant to solve for enlisted soldiers.

A Cyber Operations Officer might supervise offensive cyber as a lieutenant, plan defensive cyber as a captain, and integrate electronic warfare as a major. But neither officer nor NCO cyber career maps list a single offensive cyber, defensive cyber, or electronic warfare work role as required for advancement.

Technical jobs aren't required and therefore aren't encouraged. Promotion boards reward command experience, usually in non-cyber fields, over technical competence. An officer who wants to remain a technical expert faces a binary choice: leave the Army or abandon your specialty for command track progression.

This is identical to the problem the Army created by eliminating specialist ranks. We forced technical experts who excelled at their jobs into supervisory roles they didn't want and weren't suited for. The predictable result was that our best technical talent left.

We're now doing the same thing to officers and wondering why cyber experts become defense contractors.

What the Replacement Cycle Actually Costs

The cumulative government investment in an experienced captain with five years of service includes initial commissioning costs, Basic Officer Leader Course and branch-specific training, five years of salary and benefits, equipment and professional development, and opportunity costs of training time from senior officers and NCOs.

Total investment per experienced captain: $600,000 to $1 million.

When that captain separates, the Army doesn't just lose the investment. It must commission and train a replacement. That replacement costs another $150,000 to $500,000 in commissioning expenses depending on source, another round of BOLC training, another first assignment with all the development that entails, and another four to five years before that replacement becomes an experienced captain.

Army officer separations total approximately 26,616 annually. If 54% of those are captains and lieutenants leaving before O-4, that's roughly 14,000 junior officers departing. Using a conservative average investment of $400,000 per separating officer yields $5.6 billion in annual lost investment.

But the replacement costs are where it gets expensive. The Army must commission roughly 14,000 lieutenants just to replace departed captains—not to grow the force, just to stay in place. At an average commissioning cost of $200,000 per new officer, that's $2.8 billion annually. Add BOLC training, professional development, and opportunity costs and the replacement cycle easily hits $5 billion per year.

Total annual cost: $10 billion to $15 billion managing officer turnover.

Compare that to the Army's entire ROTC scholarship budget of $600 million annually. We spend 17 to 25 times the ROTC budget just managing the exodus of officers those scholarships produced. The entire Army recruiting budget in fiscal year 2023 was $1.5 billion. We spend ten times that dealing with officer turnover.

GAO found that DOD does not systematically calculate total attrition costs. When asked what the replacement cycle costs, Army officials can't answer because they've never measured it comprehensively. Instead they point to aggregate retention numbers that mask the captain exodus and claim success.

It's expensive to lose half your captains. It's even more expensive to pretend you're not.

Retention Bonuses Don't Fix Structural Problems

The Critical Skills Retention Bonus offers $25,000 to $35,000 to captains who agree to serve three additional years. Aviation, Transportation, Infantry, Field Artillery, and Military Intelligence officers get $35,000. Armor, Chemical, Military Police, Ordnance, Finance, and Adjutant General get $30,000. Air Defense, Engineer, Signal, Quartermaster, and Nurse Corps get $25,000.

The Army exceeded aggregate retention goals from 2017 to 2025, most recently retaining 60,492 soldiers against a 54,800 target. Mission accomplished, right?

Wrong. Aggregate numbers mask severe shortfalls in critical specialties and the continued captain exodus. The Army can hit retention targets by keeping senior officers past 15 years while losing captains at catastrophic rates. The statistics look fine. The readiness impact is devastating.

Bonuses don't address underlying concerns. A $35,000 retention bonus sounds generous until you realize it's $11,667 per year over three years. A captain makes around $85,000 in base pay. That bonus is a 13.7% raise for three years of lost control, continued toxic leadership, and career progression that punishes technical expertise.

Meanwhile, that captain's college roommate at Google makes $180,000 as a mid-level engineer with stock options. The defense contractor job pays $150,000 with no PCS moves. The McKinsey offer is $200,000 plus performance bonuses. The retention bonus doesn't close those gaps. It doesn't even try.

More importantly, bonuses don't fix branch assignments that ignore talent and preference. They don't give officers autonomy over their careers. They don't remove toxic commanders. They don't create technical career tracks for cyber and signal officers. They don't address any of the root causes that drive captains out.

Paying people more to stay in a broken system doesn't fix the system. It just makes the exodus marginally more expensive while the Army congratulates itself for hitting retention numbers.

The Army Trails Other Services

The Air Force had a 66.8% reenlistment rate in fiscal year 2021. The Navy was at 59.6%. The Marine Corps achieved 56.2%. The Army managed 48.3%.

The Army's reenlistment rate trails the Air Force by 18.5 percentage points. First-term attrition within 36 months shows a similar gap. The Marine Corps loses 18.5% of first-term enlisted. The Army loses 29.7%.

Female commissioned officers face attrition rates 3.3 to 5.3 percentage points higher than male counterparts. Minority officers are much less likely to stay past year 10 compared to white male peers. The retention crisis isn't evenly distributed.

The Cost of the Replacement Treadmill

Every captain who separates at year five doesn't just represent $600,000 to $1 million in sunk costs. That captain takes a decade of institutional knowledge to a defense contractor. She takes operational experience that can't be taught in a classroom. He takes the lessons learned from deployments, training rotations, and leading soldiers under pressure.

That knowledge doesn't disappear. It goes to Booz Allen Hamilton billing the government $250 per hour for the same expertise the Army just spent $500,000 to create. It goes to Google, Amazon, and Microsoft building the AI systems that will define future warfare. It goes to consulting firms advising foreign militaries on how to modernize their forces.

The Army is training officers for everyone except itself.

Then the Army commissions a new lieutenant to replace that departed captain. Another four years of ROTC scholarships or West Point costs. Another Basic Officer Leader Course. Another captain in four to five years who will also probably leave. The treadmill never stops. The costs keep climbing.

We're spending $15 billion annually—$10 billion in lost investment plus $5 billion in replacement costs—to maintain officer strength while pretending we have a retention success story because aggregate numbers hit targets.

The math is simple. If the Army reduced captain-to-major attrition from 54% to 40%, it would save roughly $2 billion annually in replacement costs alone. Reducing it to 30% would save $3.5 billion. Those are conservative estimates that don't account for improved unit readiness, reduced training burden on senior officers, and better institutional knowledge retention.

Fixing the retention crisis costs a fraction of managing the current exodus. But it requires admitting the system is broken and changing it.

What the Research Suggests

The retention research points to three structural factors that appear to drive the captain exodus more than any others.

First, autonomy matters more than surveys capture. When officers cite "lack of control over present and future" as their top separation reason, they're describing a fundamental tension between institutional needs and individual agency. The Navy's MyNavy Assignment system offers one model where officers bid on positions and commands compete for talent. Whether that specific approach fits Army culture is debatable, but the underlying principle—that experienced officers value some input into their careers—appears consistently across separation surveys.

Even incremental changes might yield results. Allowing captains to specify geographic preferences. Letting officers extend at high-performing units rather than mandatory PCS every two to three years. These wouldn't eliminate moves or operational needs, but they'd acknowledge that a captain with five years of experience has different life circumstances than a brand new lieutenant.

Second, technical expertise needs viable career paths. The cyber retention crisis reveals a structural problem: officers who want to remain technical experts must eventually choose between staying in their specialty or advancing in rank. Cyber, Signal, and Medical Corps officers consistently cite this tension. The technical work they joined to do becomes unavailable as they progress, because promotion boards reward command experience over technical competence.

Other services and allied militaries have experimented with separate technical and leadership tracks. Whether those models work for the Army's culture and structure requires analysis beyond this article's scope. But the current approach—forcing technical experts into command tracks they don't want—demonstrably drives separations in high-demand specialties.

Third, leadership quality may be the most addressable factor. The Battalion Commander Effect research shows that identical battalions with identical demographics can have 15 to 20 percentage point retention variance based purely on commander quality. High-performing commanders retain high-potential lieutenants. Toxic commanders drive them out.

The Army already relieves commanders for equipment readiness failures. Command Climate Surveys exist but rarely drive consequences. What's missing isn't awareness—it's accountability. If a battalion commander consistently loses officers at rates significantly higher than peers, that's measurable. Whether the institution should treat it as a leadership failure comparable to other performance metrics is a policy question above my grade. But the data suggests it matters more than current systems acknowledge.

The Crisis Is a Choice

The Army spends $15 billion annually managing an officer exodus that research suggests could be significantly reduced. Commissioning sources cost different amounts but produce similar retention outcomes. West Point graduates at $500,000 each serve slightly shorter careers than ROTC officers at $168,000. The return on investment math raises questions about the current commissioning portfolio balance.

Branch assignment creates resentment when cadets who wanted Signal receive Infantry. BRADSO forces lower-ranked cadets to trade three additional service years for their preferred branch. Official satisfaction rates are high, but faculty descriptions of cadets bursting into tears on branch night suggest the emotional impact exceeds what surveys capture.

Junior officers cite loss of autonomy as their top separation reason, followed immediately by toxic leadership. The official survey asks 2 of 80 questions about leadership quality. Whether that's an oversight or an intentional design choice isn't clear, but the result is the same: the primary factor driving departures receives minimal attention in retention assessment.

Retention bonuses of $25,000 to $35,000 spread over three years compete against civilian salaries that are two to three times higher. They don't address autonomy, leadership quality, or career progression concerns. They're a financial incentive applied to a structural problem.

Meanwhile, 54% of captains separate before making major. The Army commissions replacements who face the same systemic issues. The cycle continues. The costs compound.

The solutions exist in peer-reviewed research, service academy studies, and GAO reports. The costs are quantifiable. The retention variance between good and bad commanders is measurable. What's missing isn't information—it's implementation.

Every year this continues costs taxpayers $15 billion. More importantly, it costs the Army institutional knowledge that can't be recovered and operational experience that can't be taught in schools. The captains leaving aren't failures. They're experienced officers who've decided the system doesn't value what they value.

Whether that calculation changes depends on decisions above my grade. But the data is clear: we know why they're leaving, we know what might work, and we're spending billions annually managing an exodus that research suggests could be reduced.

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

References

Army Research Institute. (2021). New survey examines why Soldiers decide to stay in or leave the Army. U.S. Army. https://www.army.mil/article/252098

Army Times. (2023, February 24). The Army doesn't know why junior officers are leaving. https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2023/02/24/the-army-doesnt-know-why-junior-officers-are-leaving/

Defense Manpower Data Center. (2024). DOD manpower profile statistics. Department of Defense.

Department of Defense. (2019). Report to congressional armed services committees on initiatives for mitigating military pilot shortfalls. https://prhome.defense.gov

Federal News Network. (2024, September). Army faces physician shortage amid recruitment and retention challenges. https://federalnewsnetwork.com/army/2024/09

Foundation for Defense of Democracies. (2024, March 25). United States Cyber Force. https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/03/25/united-states-cyber-force/

Government Accountability Office. (2019). Female active-duty personnel: Guidance and plans needed for recruitment and retention initiatives (GAO-20-61). https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-20-61

Government Accountability Office. (2022). Military cyber personnel: Opportunities exist to improve service obligation guidance and data tracking (GAO-23-105423). https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-105423

Government Accountability Office. (2022). Cyber workforce: DOD needs to improve data collection and reporting to help manage personnel and positions (GAO-23-106551). https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-106551.pdf

Greenberg, K., Pathak, P. A., & Sönmez, T. (2024). Redesigning the US Army's branching process. American Economic Review: Insights, forthcoming. https://www.tayfunsonmez.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/greenberg-pathak-sonmez-2024.pdf

Institute for Defense Analyses. (2023, July). Return on investment in graduates of DOD service academies. https://usmadata.com/2023/09/07/return-on-investment-of-service-academies/

Mason Veterans and Servicemembers Legal Clinic. (2018, May 22). The most bang for your buck: Are the United States military academies the most cost-effective way of producing officers? George Mason University. https://mvets.law.gmu.edu

Military.com. (2022, December 27). Troops are getting cyber training and then rapidly leaving the military, report finds. https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/12/27

National Security Journal. (2024). The U.S. military has a 'hemorrhaging' retention crisis. https://nationalsecurityjournal.org/the-u-s-military-has-a-hemorrhaging-retention-crisis/

RAND Corporation. (2014). Toward improved management of officer retention (RR-764). https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR764.html

RAND Corporation. (2018). Attracting, recruiting, and retaining successful cyberspace operations officers: Cyber workforce interview findings (RR-2618). https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2618.html

RAND Corporation. (2024). Military service obligation. https://www.rand.org/paf/projects/dopma-ropma/military-service-obligation.html

RAND Corporation. (2024). Striving for diversity: Observations on racial and ethnic talent in the Regular Army's senior officer corps (RBA2011-1). https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RBA2011-1.html

Spain, E., & Mukunda, G. (2023). The Battalion Commander Effect. Harvard Business School Working Paper. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Battalion-Commander-Effect

U.S. Army. (2019). Assigning branches to cadets takes on new system. https://www.army.mil/article/227124

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War on the Rocks. (2024, July). A Cyber Force is not the only solution. https://warontherocks.com/2024/07/a-cyber-force-is-not-the-only-solution/

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linkedin.com · Indigo Rainforest Sky Monser-Kernosh

12. Trump’s new national security strategy: 5 key takeaways

​Summary:

POTUS’s new National Security Strategy hard-pivots to the Western Hemisphere, pledging to “reassert and enforce” the Monroe Doctrine, shift forces and attention to the Americas, and intensify the Caribbean counter cartel campaign. It criticizes Europe as weak on Russia while claiming Washington alone can mediate between Europe and Moscow and openly commits to shaping European politics. On China, it reinforces deterrence over Taiwan, stresses military overmatch, and demands higher defense spending from Japan, ROK, Taiwan, and Australia in the Asia-Indo-Pacific. It downplays the Middle East as a central theater. Democrats warn the strategy signals retreat, fractures alliances, and erodes liberal values.

Excerpt:

The NSS “includes some threads of continuity from previous national security strategies and some major departures,” commented Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Center on Military and Political Power.

“There are some laudable elements, some notable omissions, and some serious ‘say what?’ moments.”

Comment: The 5 takeaways summarized:

• Reasserts Monroe Doctrine: treats the Western Hemisphere as a priority theater, shifting forces, attention, and resources to the Americas and intensifying the “war” on cartels and Caribbean operations.
• Recasts Europe: portrays Europe as weak on Russia and positions the U.S. as arbiter between Europe and Moscow, while openly pledging to “cultivate resistance” inside European states.
• Doubles down on Taiwan and Asia-Indo-Pacific: commits to preserving U.S. military overmatch, deterring conflict over Taiwan, and pressing Japan, ROK, Taiwan, and Australia for major defense-spending increases.
• Scales down the Middle East: declares the region no longer the central focus of U.S. foreign policy, betting on energy exports and a “less catastrophic” regional risk profile.
• Deepens polarization: Democrats see the NSS as dangerous retrenchment and culture-war governance that weakens alliances and liberal values, while some analysts note selective continuity mixed with sharp ideological departures.

Trump’s new national security strategy: 5 key takeaways

by Laura Kelly - 12/05/25 1:50 PM ET

https://thehill.com/policy/international/5635890-trump-national-security-strategy/

President Trump released his national security strategy late Thursday night with a focus on building up a larger military presence in the Western Hemisphere, balancing global trade, tightening up border security, and winning the culture war with Europe. 

The sweeping strategy is typically released within the first year of a new administration, explaining the president’s foreign policy focus and offering guidance on where money is likely to be spent. 

The 33-page document builds on Trump’s “America First” ideology but also provides the first explicit reference to the president replicating the Monroe Doctrine, calling for U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere. 

“After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region,” the document states. 

The document doesn’t explicitly lay out a U.S. retreat from the globe, but it does call for increasing burden sharing among allies, elevating American economic interests and access to critical supply chains, and “unleashing” American energy production. 

Here are five takeaways from Trump’s national security strategy (NSS): 

Trump’s war in the Caribbean likely to heat up

Trump’s more than two-month military operation against suspected drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean is likely to receive greater support as the NSS calls for the U.S. to readjust its global military presence to the Americas “and away from theaters whose relative import to American national security has declined in recent decades or years.”

Trump has framed U.S. military operations in the Caribbean as “armed conflict” with drug cartels and has singled out Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro, indicted in the U.S. for drug trafficking, as a primary threat and said the U.S. could soon launch “land operations.”

While Venezuela is not named specifically, the NSS calls for “targeted deployments” to secure the U.S. border and “defeat cartels,” “establishing or expanding access in strategically important locations.” 

The strategy also focuses on Trump’s use of tariffs to dominate the region. But whether he holds such power is at the center of a case pending at the Supreme court.

“The United States will prioritize commercial diplomacy, to strengthen our own economy and industries, using tariffs and reciprocal trade agreements as powerful tools,” the document states.

And while the document does not explicitly call out China’s inroads in Latin America, the NSS says the U.S. should use its leverage in finance and technology to pull regional countries away from adversaries and underscore threats of reliance on those countries “in espionage, cybersecurity, debt-traps, and other ways.” 

Trump criticizes Europe as failing to deal with Russia

The NSS criticizes Europe’s “lack of self-confidence” in contributing to a deteriorating relationship with Russia — but does not address Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 or its campaign of sabotage, election interference and fomenting instability on the continent.

The NSS says the U.S. is the only power able to mediate between Europe and Russia to “reestablish conditions of strategic stability across the Eurasian landmass, and to mitigate the risk of conflict between Russia and European states.”

The document further declares that the U.S. needs to “promote European greatness,” echoing a speech Vice President Vance delivered in Germany in February. 

“Washington is no longer pretending it won’t meddle in Europe’s internal affairs,” Pawel Zerka, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in an analysis. 

“It now frames such interference as an act of benevolence (‘we want Europe to remain European’) and a matter of US strategic necessity. The priority? ‘Cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations.’”

Taiwan cheers US strategy on China

The NSS’s explicit recognition of protecting Taiwan’s sovereignty and security from external influence was welcomed by the foreign ministry in Taipei and likely reassures China hawks in Washington that the administration is not looking to abandon the island to Beijing. 

“The U.S. National Security Strategy affirms that deterring conflict over Taiwan is essential to the region and the world,” the Taiwan Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“A secure Taiwan anchors a stable Indo-Pacific, so we’ll continue to strengthen self-defense and contribute to peace and prosperity in the region.”

The NSS calls for the U.S. to preserve “military overmatch” to deter a conflict over Taiwan and says that “a favorable conventional military balance” is key to U.S interests in the region, although it stresses “burden-sharing” among America’s allies in the region.

It calls for continued pressure on Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Australia to increase defense spending.

“Regarding Asia, the focus on economics and deterrence are mainly sound,” Patrick Cronin, the Asia-Pacific security chair at Hudson Institute, wrote in an early reaction to the NSS. 

“Still, the idea that China’s strategy is about mutually fair trade flies in the face of the various criticisms that the document rightly makes about erroneous assumptions of the past,” he continued. 

American focus on Middle East to ‘recede’

Trump is working to draw down U.S. responsibilities in the Middle East, partly by focusing on increasing American energy exports and describing Iran and its proxy forces as greatly weakened following the 12-day war with Israel and U.S. strikes on nuclear sites. 

“But the days in which the Middle East dominated American foreign policy in both long-term planning and day-to-day execution are thankfully over — not because the Middle East no longer matters, but because it is no longer the constant irritant, and potential source of imminent catastrophe, that it once was,” the NSS states.

While Trump acknowledges “conflict remains the Middle East’s most troublesome dynamic,” it paints a rosier picture of the region.

Jon Hoffman, research fellow with the libertarian think tank Cato Institute, welcomed a U.S. strategy to scale down its role in the Middle East but questioned whether the Trump administration has the political will to deliver on such a road map. 

“The past four presidents—two of which were Donald Trump—ran on a platform of less US involvement in the Middle East, yet pursued policies rooted in continuity, not change,” he wrote. 

“Washington remains entangled, trying to micromanage the region’s affairs. This approach will not realize the stated objectives of this NSS. Whether Trump has the political will to fundamentally change course in the Middle East remains to be seen.”

Draws partisan pushback from Democrats

Democrats were quick to slam Trump’s NSS as a dangerous outline of America’s retreat on the global stage that makes the U.S. and its allies weaker. 

“The world will be a more dangerous place and Americans will be less safe if this plan moves forward,” Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and House Armed Services Committee, wrote in a statement. 

“Among the many disturbing things are the blatant calls for social engineering, culture warfare, and interference with allied foreign governments and political systems. It’s an attack on freedom and individual liberty at home and abroad.”

Likewise, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the NSS “foreshadows setbacks – forsaking allies, throwing Ukraine under the bus, and abandoning key strategic goals and basic values. It will make America weaker, not safer. America first is America alone, and we’ll pay the price.” 

Some commentators were more measured.

The NSS “includes some threads of continuity from previous national security strategies and some major departures,” commented Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Center on Military and Political Power.

“There are some laudable elements, some notable omissions, and some serious ‘say what?’ moments.”

13. Does Europe Finally Realize It’s Alone?

​Summary:

Europe must accept it is largely on its own for Ukraine and continental security. Trump’s NSS and Vance’s Munich speech reveal a coherent vision: prioritize U.S.–Russia ties, weaken EU integration, and empower far right partners in Europe, making Europe both target and terrain. Washington now treats Ukraine as an obstacle to imperial deals with Moscow, while Europe already provides most sanctions pressure, economic aid, and military support. The answer is not more flattery in Washington, but strategic focus, use of frozen Russian assets, real defense industrial capacity, and the political courage to sustain Ukraine even if America wavers.

Comment: Does this realize the old saw: Europe is the continent of the past, America is the continent of the present, and Asia is the continent of the future? 

On a more serious note: is an adversarial relationship or an abandonment of Europe really in the best interest of the US?

Does Europe Finally Realize It’s Alone?

Foreign Policy · Nathalie Tocci

Washington’s new National Security Strategy ratifies an adversarial relationship.

By Nathalie Tocci, the director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali.

December 5, 2025, 12:36 PM

https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/12/05/national-security-strategy-2025-trump-europe-russia-ukraine-war/

Trump’s Second Term

Ongoing reports and analysis

Europeans lulled themselves into the belief that U.S. President Donald Trump is unpredictable and inconsistent but ultimately manageable. This is strangely reassuring, but wrong. From U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance’s speech denigrating Europe at the Munich Security Conference in February to the new U.S. National Security Strategy that was released on Dec. 4, the Trump administration has long had a clear and consistent vision for Europe: one that prioritizes U.S.-Russia ties and seeks to divide and conquer the continent, with much of the dirty work carried out by nationalist, far-right European forces that now enjoy backing from both Moscow and Washington. It is long past time for Europe to realize that, when it comes to the Russia-Ukraine war and the continent’s security, it is, at best, alone. At worst, it now faces two adversaries: Russia in the east and Trump’s United States in the west.

Every time Trump or members of his administration have lashed out at Europe, including Ukraine, Europeans have absorbed the blow with a forced smile and bent over backwards to flatter the White House. They believe this is a clever ploy, playing on Trump’s perceived incoherence and vanity to bring him back into the transatlantic fold. Yet each time Trump has turned his narrow attention to the Ukraine war, he has sided with Russia—from the Oval Office trap set for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in February, to the red carpet laid out for Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska in August, to the 28-point “peace plan” that was likely written in Moscow. On every occasion, Europeans have taken the hit, busying themselves with keeping Washington engaged and salvaging what remains of the transatlantic bond. Europeans have turned so many cheeks to Trump that one wonders if they have any left at all.

But Europe has placed a losing bet on an endless Groundhog Day. When it comes to Europe, Ukraine, and Russia, the Trump administration has been remarkably coherent. Trump wants the Ukraine war to end, mainly because he sees it as an irritant preventing the normalization of U.S.-Russia ties—especially the planned business deals between his entourage and the Kremlin’s cronies. This fits into a worldview of imperial collusion. The liberal world order is out; in its place comes survival of the fittest. Rather than old-fashioned superpower competition, Trump is keen to pursue imperial collusion with both Russia and China. The rest of the world, including Europe, is on the colonial menu.

Strategically, this has a certain short-term logic. Ideologically, it aligns with support for far-right parties and governments in Europe and beyond. Not only do these forces share the nationalist and socially conservative views championed by MAGA, they are also working to divide Europe and hollow out the European integration project, with center-right forces playing the useful idiots by collaborating with them. There is nothing less patriotic than the supposed patriots and sovereigntists in Europe who go about eviscerating European unity while pursuing collusion with Russia. The vision laid out in the new U.S. National Security Strategy is scant on concrete policies regarding Europe, but the document’s message is clear: The only conceivable transatlantic bond is that between far-right forces, where alpha Americans dominate their European minions. It is an exact parallel of the vision and strategy that Putin’s Russia has pursued toward Europe for years.

If Trump has not yet subjugated Europe to his wishes, it is not because of clever European shenanigans. Flattering Trump by calling him “daddy,” showering him with presents, and inviting him to royal dinners will save neither Ukraine nor the transatlantic relationship. Nor will frantic European diplomacy, collective treks to Washington, or alternative peace plans do the trick. If Trump has not yet realized his vision for the Ukraine war and a new balance of power in Europe, it is simply because Putin is still playing hard to get. But counting on Putin always undermining a U.S.-Russia agreement cannot be Europe’s security strategy.

What should Europeans do instead?

The good news is there is a critical mass of European publics and governments that understand European security runs through Kyiv. This includes those of Germany, France, Britain, Poland, the Nordic countries, the Baltic states, the Netherlands, Spain, and, at a stretch, Italy—if only because the Italians are loath to be left out. They recognize that Russia’s war of imperial conquest begins with Ukraine but does not end with it and that Kyiv’s capitulation would only free up Russian resources to open new fronts against Europe. Ukraine is, tragically, the gate that prevents the hybrid war already raging in Europe from turning into a much more serious military attack.

The second piece of good news is that Europe has levers—perhaps more than the United States—when it comes to the war in Ukraine. Since Trump took office, U.S. support for Ukraine has ground to a halt. It is Europe that holds most of Russia’s frozen assets, imposes the sanctions that truly bite, supports Ukraine economically, and provides the bulk of military aid. In part due to European investments in Ukraine, a growing share of the country’s defense now rests on its own domestic industry.

This is not to paint an unduly rosy picture. The United States remains absolutely critical to Ukraine and Europe, especially for the intelligence it provides that enables Ukraine to intercept Russian drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure as well as identify targets for deep strikes into Russia. Beyond this, the United States profits by selling weapons that Europeans buy for Ukraine—weapons that Europe does not produce at scale or at all.

This points to a wider conundrum affecting Ukrainian and European security. Europe is working to reduce its vulnerabilities by ramping up defense spending, but often this entails buying more U.S. weapons. It is reducing its short-term vulnerabilities at the cost of increasing its long-term dependence on a United States that now weaponizes its nominal allies’ dependence. Europeans are far from resolving this dilemma.

While a systemic answer to Europe’s security conundrum is not in sight, Europeans do have the levers to prevent Ukraine’s capitulation and create the conditions for a just peace. What is missing—and what must be addressed—are two ingredients.

First is Europe’s ability to focus on its strategic purpose. European leaders and institutions have an abstract understanding of long-term strategy, but in practice, they are often caught up in short-term, particularistic interests. Nowhere is this clearer than in Belgium’s and the European Central Bank’s myopic stances on the use of Russia’s frozen assets to help Ukraine. While there are undoubtedly financial and legal risks involved, these pale in comparison to the political, economic, and security costs for Europe that could follow if Ukraine falls.

The second ingredient is courage. European leaders should muster the courage to go to Washington, politely thank Trump for his “peace” efforts, and persuade him that the world is rife with other conflicts needing his attention. Europeans can say: When it comes to Ukraine, we can handle the war. All we ask is to keep the intelligence flowing and continue greenlighting weapons purchases while we buy time to build our own.

Europe cannot promise to end the war today, but it can commit to building the conditions for sustainable security in the continent. And if flattery is necessary, Europe can even reassure Trump that when the day of peace comes, it will gladly dedicate a monument, a square, or a shiny, golden prize to him.

This post is part of FP’s ongoing coverage of the Trump administration. Follow along here

Foreign Policy · Nathalie Tocci

14. Trump to Close Voice of America’s Overseas Offices and Radio Stations

​Summary:

POTUS is moving to gut Voice of America despite a federal order to maintain operations. Kari Lake has notified Congress of plans to close six overseas bureaus, four marketing offices, and multiple long-range radio transmitters, shifting to ad hoc contractors and claiming $30 million in savings. Journalists, former executives, and lawmakers argue this will dismantle VOA’s partnership network, sharply reduce independent U.S. coverage in restricted environments, and cede information space to Russian and Chinese state media already filling the gap. Courts have threatened contempt, and key senators warn the move will damage U.S. credibility and weaken tools for countering disinformation.

Comment: How can we expect to compete and win in the information and influence environment if we jettison our tools? They cannot be replaced by One America News.

Trump to Close Voice of America’s Overseas Offices and Radio Stations

NY Times · Minho Kim · December 2, 2025

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/us/politics/trump-voice-of-america-overseas-offices.html

The push to close the offices appears to contradict a federal judge’s order from April, which required Trump officials to resume operations at V.O.A.

Listen to this article · 5:21 min Learn more

President Trump’s efforts to dismantle Voice of America have raised concerns that the United States is ceding ground to Russian and Chinese propaganda networks.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

By

Reporting from Washington

Dec. 2, 2025

The Trump administration last week told lawmakers that it would further shrink the broadcasting capacity of Voice of America despite a judge’s order to maintain robust news operations at the federally funded news group, which provides independent reporting to countries with limited press freedoms.

Kari Lake, a Trump ally who leads the broadcaster’s parent agency, wrote in a Nov. 25 notice to Congress reviewed by The New York Times that the administration intended to close its six overseas news bureaus and four overseas marketing offices, including in Jakarta, Indonesia; Islamabad, Pakistan; Nairobi, Kenya; and Prague, Czech Republic.

The plans are part of the Trump administration’s broader, monthslong effort to shutter federally funded news groups. President Trump first moved to shut down Voice of America in March, and has also targeted other broadcasters, such as Radio Free Asia.

The campaign has met resistance from courts and even from some Republican members of Congress, who believe V.O.A.’s reporting helps counter misinformation and propaganda campaigns from American adversaries like China and Russia.

The expected closures appear to contradict a federal judge’s order from April, which required Trump officials to resume operations at V.O.A. so that it would “fulfill its statutory mandate” to serve “as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news.”

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But even after the court ruling, Ms. Lake moved to lay off more journalists and kept most of V.O.A.’s news programming off the air, irking Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who threatened to hold her in contempt.

Ms. Lake argued to lawmakers that the demands of covering breaking news could be handled by contractors when needed.

“None of the closures reduce V.O.A.’s ability to provide authoritative, independent journalism,” Ms. Lake said in a statement. “They are strategically chosen redundancies to save over $30 million in taxpayer dollars.”

She added that planned closures “are not reductions in service,” since Voice of America would “remain responsive to geopolitical events and developments across the globe.”

But Patsy Widakuswara, who led Voice of America’s White House coverage until March and has joined other employees in suing the administration, said the planned office closures were “another nail in the coffin” for the broadcaster.

The offices coordinated with local news stations so that Voice of America’s content featured in their programming through partnerships, said Kate Neeper, a director of strategy at V.O.A.’s parent agency who was put on paid leave and joined the lawsuit. Voice of America reached 360 million people every week in 49 languages until March.

Former V.O.A. reporters pointed out that news services often took weeks or even months to start, and said that Voice of America could not cover news with only contractors.

Ms. Widakuswara said Ms. Lake’s proposal to use contractors was akin to “hiring meteorologists only when it rains.”

The notice to Congress, addressed to the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the Trump administration would also shutter many of the long-distance radio stations that Voice of America and other federally funded news groups had used to counter government censorship. The six transmitting stations expected to close by the end of the year are in Germany, Thailand, Botswana and Djibouti.

Mr. Trump’s efforts to dismantle Voice of America and other federally funded news groups have raised concerns that the United States is ceding ground to Russian and Chinese propaganda networks that have moved aggressively to fill the vacuum.

Before Voice of America pulled back most of its news production, foreign TV news stations that had partnerships with V.O.A. aired its content, including coverage of the White House and Congress.

But many of those networks now rely on Chinese and Russian state-sponsored media. The Chinese language service for Metro TV in Indonesia, for example, now features only content from CGTN, a Chinese state broadcaster, instead of incorporating material from Voice of America, Ms. Widakuswara said.

“Shuttering V.O.A. news bureaus and U.S. transmission stations is a win for Putin, Xi and dictators around the world,” Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement, referring to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Xi Jinping, China’s leader.

She added: “These closures would severely undermine U.S. credibility abroad, weaken our ability to counter disinformation and silence independent reporting in regions where reliable information is already under threat.”

The two U.S. adversaries each spend billions of dollars a year to disseminate content favorable to their governments, including disinformation, according to a recent State Department assessment. U.S.-funded newsrooms received around $850 million in 2024, including $260 million for Voice of America.

Last month, Congress reauthorized a similar level of funding for federally funded news groups through the end of January.

Minho Kim reports on breaking news for The Times from Washington.

NY Times · Minho Kim · December 2, 2025

15.  Opinion | Trump’s closure of Voice of America is coming back to bite him

​Summary:

POTUS shut down Voice of America in March, firing or sidelining most of its 1,300 staff and taking an 83 year old broadcaster dark for the first time since World War II. Before closure, VOA reached over 100 million Spanish speakers weekly, including Venezuelans cut off from independent media. It aired unfiltered U.S. statements, exposed Maduro’s rigged elections, and followed opposition leader María Corina Machado. Its silence leaves a vacuum now filled by Russia Today and Chinese outlets pushing anti American narratives. The editorial board argues VOA cannot topple Maduro but is a vital trusted voice and urges Congress to restore funding.

Comment: Blowback. Unintended consequences. Second and third order effects. Own goal. Shooting ourselves in the foot. Or actions have consequences (Dr Watson).

Opinion | Trump’s closure of Voice of America is coming back to bite him

Washington Post · Editorial Board

As the president threatens Venezuela, Russia and China are filling the information vacuum.

December 5, 2025 at 7:00 a.m. ESTYesterday at 7:00 a.m. EST

President Donald Trump has said he won’t rule out anything when it comes to removing Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro from power. Yet he is missing an important tool from the arsenal: the Voice of America.

Since Trump’s March executive order dismantling the news agency, most of VOA’s 1,300 staff members and contractors have been fired or placed on administrative leave, its website has been frozen and the 83-year-old broadcaster has gone dark for the first time since its founding during World War II.

Before being shuttered, VOA’s weekly Spanish-language audience in Latin America was more than 100 million people, according to an audience survey released in January by the U.S. Agency for Global Media. That’s especially important in Venezuela, where the regime of Nicolás Maduro has closed most independent media outlets and continues to harass journalists. Around eight journalists are in prison. Many more have fled.

Until Trump’s edict, the broadcaster focused on communicating U.S. foreign policy to Venezuelans, including letting audiences hear unfiltered news conferences, briefings and congressional hearings focused on Maduro’s political repression, corruption, economic mismanagement and, yes, Maduro’s drug trafficking ties. VOA reporters reported inside the country on last year’s presidential elections — which Maduro stole. VOA traveled with opposition leader María Corina Machado, who was recently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and interviewed eyewitnesses to Maduro’s election rigging.

No doubt Maduro celebrated VOA’s shortsighted closure. The vacuum is being filled by outlets the regime and its allies control. In addition to the Russia Today TV network, the Chinese Communist Party uses the Xinhua News Agency and CGTN, Beijing’s global broadcasting network, to peddle anti-American content. On Sunday, for example, CGTN aired a segment in which man-on-the-street Venezuelans decry Trump.

VOA itself isn’t going to dislodge Maduro from power: American military might absent a land invasion might not even be able to do that. But in a world of propaganda disguised as fact, the VOA had established itself as a trustworthy source of news in Venezuela.

The fired employees are fighting the broadcaster’s closure. Congress can act by restoring VOA funding, so America’s voice can be heard again.

Washington Post · Editorial Board

16. Caribbean Boat Strikes and the Use (and Misuse) of Special Forces

​Summary:

The Caribbean boat strikes highlight how POTUS is using Special Forces for politically framed “armed conflict” against cartels rather than for irregular warfare tied to a coherent strategy. Elite units are being tasked to destroy suspect drug boats under permissive rules, blurring law enforcement, counterterrorism, and warfighting. This risks legal and ethical overreach, civilian harm, and erosion of norms on force in the Western Hemisphere. It diverts SOF from higher-end irregular warfare, strategic competition, and partner capacity missions, and makes U.S. operators the face of a controversial campaign with unclear objectives, weak interagency integration, and significant blowback potential.

Excerpt:

SOCOM should be focusing Green Berets on the mission of strengthening Latin American and Caribbean partners so they can confront smuggling, trafficking, and corruption themselves. Naval Special Warfare units and Marine special operators can support maritime interdiction. The Coast Guard, an entity of the Department of Homeland Security designed for law enforcement, can contribute a significant effort or even lead outright. Intelligence agencies should be part of the plan from the outset. And all actions—especially sensitive ones—must be coordinated and communicated up, down, and within each element of multiple chains of command.

Comment: It is important to understand the difference between JSOC operations and the missions of Special Forces (Green Berets), PSYOP, Civil Affairs, as well as other SOF organizations (e.g., NAVSPECWARCOM and MARSOC that work through, with, and by indigenous or host nation forces. 

Caribbean Boat Strikes and the Use (and Misuse) of Special Forces

thebulwark.com · Mark Hertling

Our nation’s silent professionals deserve clear chains of command and a real chance at strategic success.

Mark Hertling

Dec 06, 2025

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/caribbean-boat-strikes-special-operations-forces

Adm. Frank Bradley, commander of Special Operations Command (SOCOM), in the U.S. Capitol complex on December 4, 2025 before briefing senators on military strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean. At the time of the September 2, 2025 incident that was the briefing’s main focus, Bradley was commander of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT AMERICAN strikes on boats around the northern coast of South America has extended from the secretary of defense to multiple four-star officers, which may surprise some Americans. Unity of command is, after all, a military principle that has extended into other aspects of American life, including the business world and all kinds of leadership training. To understand the military command dynamics underlying the boat strikes—including the notorious September 2 incident facing scrutiny in Congress—requires understanding why there were multiple overlapping commands at the time. More specifically, the September 2 boat strike was conducted by special operations forces, apparently in a chain of command that circumvented the commander responsible for the area.

In the waters around Venezuela, the Caribbean, and the Eastern Pacific, the United States faces a complex challenge: state corruption, transnational criminal networks, narcotics trafficking, and political instability. It is precisely the kind of challenge for which special operations forces are well suited—if they are properly integrated into a coherent interagency strategy with regular military forces, diplomatic efforts, economic influence, and informational tools, and employed under a unified chain of command. The commander of Southern Command, Adm. Alvin “Bull” Holsey, is the one who owns that battlespace. But Adm. Holsey also works in collaboration with foreign partner governments, with the intelligence community and other parts of the U.S. government, and with the special operations forces (as well as other combatant commands led by four-stars, like Transportation Command and Cyber Command). Whether that is happening effectively should be part of a bipartisan investigation into the September 2 incident.

The recent reports involving engagements with Venezuelan boats illustrate both the promise and the peril of special operations missions outside well-understood combat zones. Precision, professionalism, and partnership are hallmarks of American special operations forces. But as the history of those organizations has taught, they are most effective when embedded in a transparent command structure that aligns tactical actions with interagency and its national strategy. When they are siloed off from the tools of national power (diplomacy, information, economic measures, and military activity) the results can be calamitous.

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THE AMERICAN MILITARY is made up of many tribes, and tribes within tribes. My tribe, for example, is tankers, who trace their history back to the long and illustrious tradition of the U.S. Cavalry. We form part of the larger Army tribe. The Navy has its own tribes—submariners, surface sailors, aviators—and the same goes for the other services.

The special forces are their own tribe, but not a monolithic one and certainly not interchangeable. In truth, Special Operations Command (SOCOM) is a constellation of highly distinct units, purpose-built for different missions, linked by culture and command structure but each with its own identity. I say this not as a former operator—I never wore their tabs, berets, or tridents—but as a conventional commander who trained beside them before 9/11, worked with them across Europe, and fought shoulder-to-shoulder with them in Iraq. The Special Operations community is both extraordinary and widely misunderstood.

The modern SOF story began not with success, but with failure—on a windswept patch of Iranian desert known to the American military as “Desert One.” On April 24, 1980, eight helicopters and a group of Delta Force operators launched a mission to rescue Americans held hostage in Tehran. Everything that could go wrong that night did. Sandstorms grounded aircraft. Communications among the different services were incompatible or failed altogether. Mechanical issues crippled several helicopters. And when the commander made the difficult decision to abort the mission, disaster struck: One helicopter collided with a C-130 cargo plane as it was lifting off. The explosion killed eight American servicemen. The survivors had to exfiltrate under harrowing conditions, leaving aircraft behind.

The tragedy was not just the loss of life; it was the exposure of systemic dysfunction—fragmented command and control, inconsistent training standards between groups, service rivalries, and an absence of a unified doctrine for the most sensitive of missions. Congress took note. So did a young Army officer named Stanley McChrystal, who would later say that Desert One demonstrated how America’s most elite warriors could be rendered ineffective not by the enemy but by the system meant to employ them.

But one of the people who did the most to turn the lessons of the mission into a national capability was Gen. James J. Lindsay, the first commander of SOCOM. Lindsay understood that rescuing hostages, countering terrorism, building partner forces, conducting sensitive reconnaissance, and strengthening allied capabilities required an integrated enterprise—shared vision, shared training, shared doctrine, shared intelligence, and a clear operational chain of command. Under his leadership, SOCOM became not just an administrative headquarters but a global hub for resourcing special operations forces, synchronizing missions, and ensuring they could act as a joint team. Within SOCOM is the subordinate Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), responsible for the most elite counterterrorism units. The modern SOF system—its structure, authorities, and culture—was built from that crucible of failure.

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MY FIRST CLOSE EXPOSURE TO THIS ECOSYSTEM came as commander of the Operations Group at the National Training Center in California. The pre-9/11 training rotations in the middle of the Mojave Desert emphasized large-scale, mechanized combat, but even by then we began realizing that the future battlefield would require integration with the kinds of teams Desert One had taught us to unify. We began inserting Green Beret detachments, SEAL reconnaissance teams, and Air Force pararescue specialists and joint tactical air controllers into our training scenarios. Those first experiments were clumsy at times—conventional units didn’t always know what to make of or do with a six-man detachment with a different mission, different radios, and a cultural approach unlike anything in their doctrine. But by the end of each rotation, armored brigade commanders almost always found themselves saying variations of the same thing: “I didn’t know how much I needed them until I saw how they operate.”

When I was a commander in Europe, I watched an element of SOF, the Army Special Forces, return to their core mission: foreign internal training and defense. The Green Berets stationed in Germany trained European conventional units preparing to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan. They taught tactics, leadership, cultural awareness, and small-unit adaptability. Europeans, especially the Ukrainians, told me it was the best training they had ever received, and it reshaped how they operated beside U.S. forces in combat.

But nothing compared to what I experienced in Iraq when I served as a task force commander and “battlespace” owner. By 2007–08, the war had become a race to dismantle terrorist networks faster than they could regenerate. Special Forces in the Kurdish region were interacting with Peshmerga, and each night the JSOC operators under then-Lt. Gen. McChrystal and his successor, then-Vice Adm. Bill McRaven, were capturing or killing key leaders of al Qaeda in Iraq. As part of that effort, our 1st Armored Division headquarters incorporated a special operations liaison officer—our “SOLO”—who became one of the most important voices in our command post.

Every evening he would brief me on the missions they had planned, often waking me in the middle of the night for approval to strike key targets in our battlespace, and every morning, usually around dawn, he would brief me on the previous night’s operations: the targets they pursued; whether they achieved a “jackpot,” meaning the capture or confirmed elimination of a high-value target; or whether they found a “dry hole,” arriving to discover the individual had already moved or been warned. We all understood that those outcomes weren’t the end of the story, but the beginning gathering intelligence for the next operation. SOF intelligence exploitation was legendary—within hours they could extract information from laptops, phones, documents, family networks, tribal allies or rivals, social patterns, and even pocket litter found on those they had captured or killed, which all fed a cycle of intelligence that made them faster each night. Watching them work was like watching a jazz band—precise, improvisational, and deeply knowledgeable.

Sometimes, the JSOC forces would need to address the same target more than once, which we would refer to as a “repeat strike” or “re-engagement” but never a “double tap.” Recently, especially in discussions about the September 2 incident, the term “double tap” has been used to describe multiple strikes on the same target with a delay in between. It’s a bastardization of the original meaning: In SOF parlance a double tap is not a euphemism for killing the wounded. It describes a disciplined marksmanship technique used when a target presents a weapon or poses imminent threat—two well-aimed rounds directed to immediately stop a hostile act. It is rooted in the laws of war, in self-defense, and in ensuring operators quickly survive dangerous close-quarters battles. The recent casual misuse of that term to describe a possible violation of the laws of war does a disservice to those who must make split-second decisions during close engagements.

In working with my friend and teammate Gen. McChrystal, I know he recognized that SOF excellence alone was not enough. The war was fragmented: JSOC hunted individuals, conventional forces fought for control of terrain, allies provided information, and national intelligence agencies operated in their own lanes. His answer was the fusion cell. Bringing SOF operators, conventional commanders, intelligence analysts, interagency partners, and even some of our Iraqi and Kurdish allies into one room with shared data and shared purpose created a unity of effort that transformed operations in northern Iraq. It remains one of the best examples I have seen of inventive leadership on a modern battlefield, and Stan gets the credit.

But history also teaches that special operations forces can be misapplied. During the Global War on Terror, much of SOF became a global, human-focused counterterrorism machine. For JSOC units, that mission aligned with their design. For others—especially Green Berets—years of direct-action manhunts pulled them away from their foundational mission of building partner capacity, a mission that becomes more important, not less, in a volatile international environment. Over the course of the War on Terror, the tempo of special operations missions accelerated, and the size of special operations forces expanded in tandem. What were once small, closely knit teams became more like militaries in miniature. Col. Richard D. Hooker has noted that “the Navy Special Warfare Community now boasts around 4,000 SEALS, ten times as many as at the height of the Cold War,” and “in 2021, U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM)’s budget request was larger than the entire defense budget of Poland, one of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s largest and strongest militaries.” This expansion roughly coincided with some members of the special operations community becoming celebrities, especially after the highly publicized raid, brilliantly planned and led by Adm. McRaven, that eliminated Osama bin Laden and collected huge amounts of intelligence from his compound. The imbalance away from regular forces in favor of special operations was understandable in wartime, but difficult to unwind after two decades.

Which brings us to today.

As a conventional commander who stood alongside Special Operations Forces in Iraq, at training centers, and across Europe, my respect for them only grew during my time in service. They succeed when their missions are clear, their authorities are coherent, the communication from higher command and the battlespace owner is clear, and their employment is aligned with strategy. They struggle when we romanticize them, misunderstand them, or—worst of all—use them to compensate for a lack of policy or planning.

Too often, senior leaders, unable to agree on a strategy to combine diplomatic, military, economic, and information power to address America’s most difficult problems, choose instead to throw our most highly trained and specialized warriors into harm’s way without sufficient support or guidance. That may have been what happened this fall in the Caribbean.

These quiet professionals deserve better than that. They deserve leaders who understand their capabilities and their limits, policymakers who resist the temptation to see them as a magic wand, and a national strategy that integrates their work with other branches of the military and with the instruments of power. When those conditions exist, SOF remain one of the most effective tools our nation possesses. When they do not, even the best operators cannot rescue us from our own confusion.

As Congress investigates the circumstances of the September 2 boat strike, one question it might ask is whether SOCOM and Southern Command were coordinating properly, or if, for some reason, there were parallel, overlapping chains of command from Secretary Hegseth down to the troops deploying weapons.

SOCOM should be focusing Green Berets on the mission of strengthening Latin American and Caribbean partners so they can confront smuggling, trafficking, and corruption themselves. Naval Special Warfare units and Marine special operators can support maritime interdiction. The Coast Guard, an entity of the Department of Homeland Security designed for law enforcement, can contribute a significant effort or even lead outright. Intelligence agencies should be part of the plan from the outset. And all actions—especially sensitive ones—must be coordinated and communicated up, down, and within each element of multiple chains of command.

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thebulwark.com · Mark Hertling

17. The awful arithmetic of our wars

​Summary:

United States is losing the “awful arithmetic” of modern war. Adversaries use cheap drones and missiles to impose massive costs on U.S. forces and partners, as seen in Ukraine, Israel, the Red Sea, the Caribbean cartel campaign, and Russian drone probes over Poland. Washington answers with billion-dollar platforms and million-dollar interceptors against $10,000 drones and $500 boat crews, creating a losing cost-exchange ratio. U.S. procurement, budgets, and industrial base are misaligned with this new math. Unless America rapidly shifts to scalable, low-cost, massed capabilities and concepts, it may be unable to afford to win future battles.

The awful arithmetic of our wars

If we don't figure out a way to fight far more cheaply, we won’t be able to afford to win a single battle.

defenseone.com · Peter W. Singer

By Peter W. Singer

Strategist, New America

December 1, 2025

https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2025/12/awful-arithmetic-our-wars/409852/

At the lowest point of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln characterized the core factor between victory and defeat as finding a general who understood the “awful arithmetic” of war. War is a contest of blood and treasure; each can, and must, ultimately be counted and measured. It has been the same for every conflict before and after.

Yet this arithmetic is constantly changing, and never faster than right now. If the United States cannot update its calculations to properly reflect our new era, our failure will not just cost us blood and treasure, but will drive us toward defeat.

Cost imposition has long been a tenet of U.S. strategy. During the Cold War, the U.S. launched expensive programs such as stealth and Star Wars not just for their tactical value, but to send a strategic signal to the Kremlin: neither your economy nor your war machine can keep up. Gorbachev, persuaded, gave up the decades-long competition with the U.S.

The very same concept of cost imposition was also elemental to the most celebrated operations of the past year. In Operation Spider’s Web, Ukraine used inexpensive drones, reportedly costing less than $500 each, to damage strategic bombers worth many millions of dollars, degrading Russia’s long-range strike capabilities for years to come. Similarly, in Operation Rising Lion, cheap Israeli drones took out Iranian surface-to-air missiles and radars, paving the way for the destruction of command and nuclear facilities worth tens of billions of dollars. In each, the tactical became the strategic through new operational concepts that leveraged the new math of new technologies.

Now contrast this with our own approaches, which overwhelmingly rely on sophisticated but costly overmatch.

The most lauded U.S. operation of 2025 was Operation Midnight Hammer, our followup to Rising Lion. One estimate put its cost at $196 million, from combining B-2 bomber’s nearly $160,000 per flight hour and Tomahawk missiles' rough price of $1.87 million apiece. (It does not count the initial purchase of the seven B-2 Bombers that cost $2.1 billion each, nor the $4.3 billion submarine that launched the missiles.)

Perhaps it was worth spending one-fifth of a billion dollars to damage Iranian nuclear facilities, but the numbers in Operation Rough Rider—the strikes against the Houthis last spring—illustrate the problem more starkly. The Pentagon spent roughly $5 billion on munitions and operating costs to stop attacks on Red Sea shipping, which simply started back up this month.

The same awful arithmetic haunts the current operations in the Caribbean against the Venezuela-based, government-connected Cartel de los Soles. The entity was recently designated by the Trump administration as a foreign terrorist organization, as part of its argument that US forces are engaged in an “armed conflict.” The cartel was declared by the Department of Justice to be the hub of a cocaine transport network, shipping a reported street value of between $6.25 billion and $8.75 billion in drugs (the cartel gets an unknown, but clearly lesser, percentage of that overall value in actual profit).

To battle this foe, the United States has assembled a fleet that cost at least $40 billion to buy in total. The carrier Ford alone cost $4.7 billion to develop and $12.9 billion to build. The fleet is backed by at least 83 aircraft of assorted types, including 10 F-35Bs ($109 million apiece), seven Predator drones ($33 million each), three P-8 Poseidons ($145 million per), and at least one AC-130J gunship ($165 million). To be sure, all of these assets will continue to serve long after Operation Southern Spear is wound down, but this is how we are using the investment.

But the current cost of operations and expendables hardly tells a better story. The Ford alone costs about $8 million a day to run. The F-35s and AC-130J cost about $40,000 per flight hour; the P-8s, about $30,000; the Reapers, about $3,500.

Analysis of the strike videos on the 21 boats show that U.S. forces have fired AGM-176 Griffins ($127,333 apiece in 2019), Hellfires (running about $150,000 to $220,000) and potentially GBU-39B Small Diameter Bombs ($40,000). In some cases, they are reportedly firing four munitions per strike: “twice to kill the crew and twice more to sink it.”

All this is arrayed to sink motorboats, 21 at last report. One of the boats was described by Pentagon officials as a 39-foot Flipper-type vessel with four 200-horsepower engines. New ones go for about $400,000 on Boats.com, but the old, open top motorbots in the videos are obviously well below that in cost. Their crews have been reported as making $500 per trip.

Put in comparison, the cost of the US naval fleet deployed is at least five times what the cartel makes in smuggling. The air fleet deployed costs at least another two times more. It is roughly 5,000 times the cost of the suspected drug boats that have been destroyed. Indeed, just the cost of operating the Ford off Venezuela for a single day has still not yet equaled the maximum cost the cartel paid for the boats it has lost.

In the air, the U.S. military spent roughly 66,000 times more to buy each unmanned drone in the operation than the cartel paid each man that the unmanned drones killed. The US spent between 80 to 300 times more for each bomb or missile it has used than the cartel paid each man killed by those bombs or missiles.

The math is arguably even worse when we're on the defense.

In September, a wave of 19 Russian drones crossed into Polish airspace.. The Gerbera-type drones cost as little as $10,000—so cheap that they are often used as decoys to misdirect and overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses. NATO countered with a half-billion-dollar response force of F-35s, F-16s, AWACS radar planes, and helicopters, which shot down four of the drones with $1.6-million AMRAAM missiles.

This is a bargain compared to how challenging U.S. forces have found it to defend against Houthi forces using this same cheap tech. Our naval forces have fired a reported 120 SM-2, 80 SM-6, and 20 SM-3 missiles, costing about $2.1 million, $3.9 million, and over $9.6 million each. And this is to defend against a group operating out of the 187th-largest economy in the world, able to fire mere hundreds of drones and missiles. Our supposed pacing challenge, China, has an economy that will soon be the largest in the world and a combined national industrial and military acquisition plan to be able to fire munitions by the millions.

Even in America’s best-laid plans for future battlefields, there is a harsh reality that is too often ignored. The math of current battlefields remains literally orders of magnitude beyond what our budget plans to spend, our industry plans to build, our acquisitions system is able to contract, and thus what our military will deploy.

As a point of comparison, Ukraine is on pace to build, buy, and use over four million drones this year. The U.S. Army, meanwhile, aims to acquire 50,000 drones next year—about 1.25 percent of the Ukrainian total. In its most optimistic plans, it hopes to be able to acquire 1 million drones “within the next two to three years.” ​​

When you spend orders of magnitude more than your foe, you are in what is known as a “losing equation.” And if we don’t change this math, we will need an update to Norm Augustine’s infamous “law” of defense acquisitions. Back in 1979, Augustine calculated that if the Pentagon couldn’t curtail the cost curve of its purchasing, by 2054 we wouldn’t be able to afford a single plane.

The 2025 version is that if we don't master the new math of the battlefield, we won’t be able to afford to win a single battle.

defenseone.com · Peter W. Singer

18. Trump reveals what he wants for the world

​Summary:

POTUS’s new National Security Strategy formalizes an “America First” world vision centered on a Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine and U.S. preeminence in the Western Hemisphere. Border security is cast as the primary element of national security, driving a sustained military buildup in Latin America and the Caribbean tied to migration, drugs, and great power competition. The document is economically nationalist, using tariffs, reshored industry, and “strategic acquisitions” to shape regional alignment. It treats China as a managed competitor, reaffirms the Taiwan status quo, soft pedals Russia, and sharply criticizes Europe’s trajectory while celebrating Trump as “President of Peace.”

​

​Comment: Where you stand depends on where you sit (and how you view this Rorschach test).

Trump reveals what he wants for the world

The National Security Strategy, which presidents usually release once each term, offers a formal statement of U.S. global priorities.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/05/trump-reveals-national-security-strategy-western-hemisphere-europe-00678265?utm

U.S. President Donald Trump's administration revealed its global security priorities in a new document | AP

By Nahal Toosi

12/05/2025 03:22 AM EST

President Donald Trump intends for the U.S. to keep a bigger military presence in the Western Hemisphere going forward to battle migration, drugs and the rise of adversarial powers in the region, according to his new National Security Strategy.

The 33-page document is a rare formal explanation of Trump’s foreign policy worldview by his administration. Such strategies, which presidents typically release once each term, can help shape how parts of the U.S. government allocate budgets and set policy priorities.

The Trump National Security Strategy, which the White House quietly released Thursday, has some brutal words for Europe, suggesting it is in civilizational decline, and pays relatively little attention to the Middle East and Africa.

It has an unusually heavy focus on the Western Hemisphere that it casts as largely about protecting the U.S. homeland. It says “border security is the primary element of national security” and makes veiled references to China’s efforts to gain footholds in America’s backyard.

“The United States must be preeminent in the Western Hemisphere as a condition of our security and prosperity — a condition that allows us to assert ourselves confidently where and when we need to in the region,” the document states. “The terms of our alliances, and the terms upon which we provide any kind of aid, must be contingent on winding down adversarial outside influence — from control of military installations, ports, and key infrastructure to the purchase of strategic assets broadly defined.”

The document describes such plans as part of a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. The latter is the notion set forth by President James Monroe in 1823 that the U.S. will not tolerate malign foreign interference in its own hemisphere.

Trump’s paper, as well as a partner document known as the National Defense Strategy, have faced delays in part because of debates in the administration over elements related to China. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pushed for some softening of the language about Beijing, according to two people familiar with the matter who were granted anonymity to describe internal deliberations. Bessent is currently involved in sensitive U.S. trade talks with China, and Trump himself is wary of the delicate relations with Beijing.

The new National Security Strategy says the U.S. has to make challenging choices in the global realm. “After the end of the Cold War, American foreign policy elites convinced themselves that permanent American domination of the entire world was in the best interests of our country. Yet the affairs of other countries are our concern only if their activities directly threaten our interests,” the document states.

In an introductory note to the strategy, Trump called it a “roadmap to ensure that America remains the greatest and most successful nation in human history, and the home of freedom on earth.”

But Trump is mercurial by nature, so it’s hard to predict how closely or how long he will stick to the ideas laid out in the new strategy. A surprising global event could redirect his thinking as well, as it has done for recent presidents from George W. Bush to Joe Biden.

Still, the document appears in line with many of the moves he’s taken in his second term, as well as the priorities of some of his aides.

That includes deploying significantly more U.S. military prowess to the Western Hemisphere, taking numerous steps to reduce migration to America, pushing for a stronger industrial base in the U.S. and promoting “Western identity,” including in Europe.

The strategy even nods to so-called traditional values at times linked to the Christian right, saying the administration wants “the restoration and reinvigoration of American spiritual and cultural health” and “an America that cherishes its past glories and its heroes.” It mentions the need to have “growing numbers of strong, traditional families that raise healthy children.”

As POLITICO has reported before, the strategy spends an unusual amount of space on Latin America, the Caribbean and other U.S. neighbors. That’s a break with past administrations, who tended to prioritize other regions and other topics, such as taking on major powers like Russia and China or fighting terrorism.

The Trump strategy suggests the president’s military buildup in the Western Hemisphere is not a temporary phenomenon. (That buildup, which has included controversial military strikes against boats allegedly carrying drugs, has been cast by the administration as a way to fight cartels. But the administration also hopes the buildup could help pressure Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro to step down.)

The strategy also specifically calls for “a more suitable Coast Guard and Navy presence to control sea lanes, to thwart illegal and other unwanted migration, to reduce human and drug trafficking, and to control key transit routes in a crisis.”

The strategy says the U.S. should enhance its relationships with governments in Latin America, including working with them to identify strategic resources — an apparent reference to materials such as rare earth minerals. It also declares that the U.S. will partner more with the private sector to promote “strategic acquisition and investment opportunities for American companies in the region.”

Such business-related pledges, at least on a generic level, could please many Latin American governments who have long been frustrated by the lack of U.S. attention to the region. It’s unclear how such promises square with Trump’s insistence on imposing tariffs on America’s trade partners, however.

The National Security Strategy spends a fair amount of time on China, though it often doesn’t mention Beijing directly. Many U.S. lawmakers — on a bipartisan basis — consider an increasingly assertive China the gravest long-term threat to America’s global power. But while the language the Trump strategy uses is tough, it is careful and far from inflammatory.

The administration promises to “rebalance America’s economic relationship with China, prioritizing reciprocity and fairness to restore American economic independence.”

But it also says “trade with China should be balanced and focused on non-sensitive factors” and even calls for “maintaining a genuinely mutually advantageous economic relationship with Beijing.”

The strategy says the U.S. wants to prevent war in the Indo-Pacific — a nod to growing tensions in the region, including between China and U.S. allies such as Japan and the Philippines.

“We will also maintain our longstanding declaratory policy on Taiwan, meaning that the United States does not support any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait,” it states. That may come as a relief to Asia watchers who worry Trump will back away from U.S. support for Taiwan as it faces ongoing threats from China.

The document states that “it is a core interest of the United States to negotiate an expeditious cessation of hostilities in Ukraine,” and to mitigate the risk of Russian confrontation with other countries in Europe.

But overall it pulls punches when it comes to Russia — there’s very little criticism of Moscow.

Instead, it reserves some of its harshest remarks for U.S.-allied nations in Europe. In particular, the administration, in somewhat veiled terms, knocks European efforts to rein in far-right parties, calling such moves political censorship.

“The Trump administration finds itself at odds with European officials who hold unrealistic expectations for the [Ukraine] war perched in unstable minority governments, many of which trample on basic principles of democracy to suppress opposition,” the strategy states.

The strategy also appears to suggest that migration will fundamentally change European identity to a degree that could hurt U.S. alliances.

“Over the long term, it is more than plausible that within a few decades at the latest, certain NATO members will become majority non-European,” it states. “As such, it is an open question whether they will view their place in the world, or their alliance with the United States, in the same way as those who signed the NATO charter.”

Still, the document acknowledges Europe’s economic and other strengths, as well as how America’s partnership with much of the continent has helped the U.S. “Not only can we not afford to write Europe off — doing so would be self-defeating for what this strategy aims to achieve,” it says.

“Our goal should be to help Europe correct its current trajectory,” it says.

Trump’s first-term National Security Strategy focused significantly on the U.S. competition with Russia and China, but the president frequently undercut it by trying to gain favor with the leaders of those nuclear powers.

If this new strategy proves a better reflection of what Trump himself actually believes, it could help other parts of the U.S. government adjust, not to mention foreign governments.

As Trump administration documents often do, the strategy devotes significant space to praising the commander-in-chief. It describes him as the “President of Peace” while favorably stating that he “uses unconventional diplomacy.”

The strategy struggles at times to tamp down what seem like inconsistencies. It says the U.S. should have a high bar for foreign intervention, but it also says it wants to “prevent the emergence of dominant adversaries.”

It also essentially dismisses the ambitions of many smaller countries. “The outsized influence of larger, richer, and stronger nations is a timeless truth of international relations,” the strategy states.

The National Security Strategy is the first of several important defense and foreign policy papers the Trump administration is due to release. They include the National Defense Strategy, whose basic thrust is expected to be similar.

Presidents’ early visions for what the National Security Strategy should mention have at times had to be discarded due to events.

After the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush’s first-term strategy ended up focusing heavily on battling Islamist terrorism. Biden’s team spent much of its first year working on a strategy that had to be rewritten after Russia moved toward a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

###

19. America’s National Security Wonderland

​Summary:

The U.S. national security establishment is trapped in a failing imperial project while pretending it still enjoys unchallenged supremacy. All services face recruitment, readiness, sustainment, and industrial shortfalls, yet Washington sustains the illusion of dominance through fantasy shipbuilding, game changer tech, and manipulated readiness metrics. The Navy cannot realistically fight China; the Army and others burn people and equipment to perform shows of force. Institutions now serve regime credibility as much as warfighting, producing systemic lying and self-delusion. Like late Soviet Moscow, America drifts toward strategic defeat because ideology outruns reality and real reform is politically impossible.

Comment: Written before the new NSS came out. A scathing commentary on our national security community and military. Is the NSS the "corrective" it is billed as and does it "correct" some or any of the issues outlined below?

America’s National Security Wonderland - American Affairs Journal

americanaffairsjournal.org · Malcom Kyeyune

“What did they live on?” said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking. “They lived on treacle,” said the Dormouse, after thinking a minute or two. “They couldn’t have done that, you know,” Alice gently remarked; “they’d have been ill.” “So they were,” said the Dormouse; “very ill.”

—Lewis Caroll, Alice in Wonderland

The twenty-first century was supposed to be the new American century. The Soviet Union had been defeated, and the Western model of liberalism and free markets now stood without any serious ideological or political challengers. Yet today, a mere quarter into this once promising century, the wheels are coming off the wagon. In a remarkably short period of time, America has gone from being the sole superpower on the planet to facing very serious great power competition on multiple fronts. The counterinsurgency “forever wars” in the Middle East, once seen as the future of warfare in the era of global American dominance, are now remembered only as blunders. The war in Ukraine has marked a return to very old-fashioned industrial warfare between large-scale, conscript armies, something which few military planners in Washington ever saw coming before the fact. To add to these rising threats, China is now engaged in a process of naval rearmament that is putting the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century naval arms races to shame.

While America is battling exhaustion and political polarization at home, it is now facing something it’s never faced abroad: it is locked into a security competition against multiple opponents who, when taken together, are in fact vastly superior to America in terms of industrial capacity. This on its own would be an incredibly tough row to hoe, even at the best of times. The times, however, are not particularly good: the U.S. military currently finds itself in a state of acute crisis, beset by a number of intractable problems that neither the political nor military leadership have been able to solve.

The most striking aspect of this situation is that every major branch of the U.S. military is in crisis at the same time. All major branches are struggling with recruitment and retention targets, and the problem is particularly acute for the Army and the Navy. All major branches have serious sustainment and maintenance issues due to a combination of aging equipment and general rust inside the industrial base. All major branches are arguably also facing real problems trying to adapt and update institutionalized twenthieth-century thinking to experiences from twenty-first century battlefields (though the Marine Corps is at least undergoing a serious and controversial restructuring in an attempt to alleviate this).

Looming over all of this, of course, is the big elephant in the room: the budget contraints resulting from America’s massive fiscal deficts. Interest payments on the federal debt are devouring an increasing share of total federal revenues with each passing year. America is already running a World War II–style wartime fiscal deficit in what is officially a peacetime, near-full-employment economy. Though it’s a common refrain to bemoan waste and fraud inside the DoD budget, the simple reality is that a fifty-plus-year-old aircraft carrier hull like the USS Nimitz cannot be maintained forever. The carrier, just like every other military platform, requires somewhat regular replacement due to mechanical wear and tear over time. The U.S. military now has a massive backlog of such aging platforms, and there is simply not enough money to replace them.

For every single one of these particular problems, there are think tank reports and panel discussions aplenty to go around in Washington, with analysts and speakers often putting in genuine, even inspired, efforts into proposing solutions. It is probably accurate to say that the military crisis in America arguably has a costly, sprawling “solutions industry” of nongovernmental organizations dedicated to servicing it. Inside this industry, “policy wonks” of all kinds find ample opportunity to hone their craft: writing proposals for reforming submarine depot maintenance here, or reducing cruise missile overhead costs there. Though all of this activity is in some sense impressive, the uncomfortable reality today is that this “solutions industry” inside D.C. is doing about as well at tackling the military crisis as California’s sprawling NGO ecosystem is at ending that state’s homelessness problem. The “operations” may very well be succeeding, but the DoD “patient” never actually gets better: in the American national security forest, every single tree has a detailed fire mitigation plan, yet the forest as such is still burning down. Why, despite the very real attempts being made to right the ship, does nothing truly seem to work? Rather than add to the pile of à la carte policy solutions, this essay will instead examine why the task of reforming the American military today has become such a sisyphean endeavor.

The well-known world of civil society NGOs alluded to earlier can serve as an appropriate starting point for our queries, despite the obvous differences between liberal NGOs dealing with homelessness or drug addiction (who consume resources year after year and never seem to accomplish very much) and the DoD and its surrounding NGO ecosystem. There are at least two common explanations for the former’s unbroken record of good intentions, frenetic activity, and abject failure to accomplish the stated mission. Explanation number one is simple: solving the homelessness problem is very hard, and so failure is simply to be expected. To expect success is unrealistic, but even failure is presumably better than doing nothing. Thus, repeated failure doesn’t necessarily imply the need for structural reform. Explanation number two, however, is more subtle, and probably far more relevant to understanding the challenges facing the national security ecosystem. This explanation can be summed up by a simple principle: the true purpose of a system is what that system actually does.

What is the purpose of America’s national security apparatus? If one were to give the “official” answer to that question today, it would probably be something along the lines of physically defending America. The uniformed military exists to fight and win wars, the civilian leadership exists to give that military direction, and the greater ecosystem of NGOs and think tanks inside the Beltway exists to provide analysis and policy advice to both.

In reality, however, the ability of the U.S. military to wage physical warfare against peer competitors is in very serious doubt, and readiness and capability across all branches, across a wide variety of metrics, is in serious decline. Moreover, both the civilian and military leadership inside Washington have picked up some institutional habits that are either completely orthogonal to the purpose of kinetic warfare, or entirely harmful to it. Yet the habitual error of Washington’s reform-minded policy wonk is to continue to accept the official story about these institutions as simply true, and to treat the (increasingly numerous) cases that go against this story as either oddities, mistakes, or “bugs in the system” that can and should be “fixed.”

Waiting for Godot

Perhaps the most illustrative example of this mismatch can be found inside the Navy and its spectacularly dysfunctional shipbuilding programs. For several decades, the Navy has had an extremely long string of very bad luck, coupled with even worse decision-making. The larger history of the Navy’s erratic struggle to find its identity in the era after the Cold War is sadly beyond the scope of this essay, but it is probably useful to say that many of the Navy’s current problems at least partially flow from a real confusion as to what its purpose after 1991 would actually be. Both the Zumwalt destroyer program and the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program were once—for their own specific reasons—seen as natural steps toward a “new” Navy in the age of nation‑building and counterinsurgency warfare. Yet both these pro­grams have been catastrophic failures and have produced ship hulls that arguably cannot be used in combat. The Ford class of fleet carriers is so plagued with habitual delays, cost overruns, and reliability issues that they put the sustainability of the current number of carrier groups in question, and the various issues with the Navy’s submarines are also well known at this point. On top of this, the Navy is probably the worst hit among the services by the deeper structural problems facing America today, both in terms of the lack of industrial capacity and the ongoing recruitment crisis.

The issues of the Navy, in other words, go both wide and deep: some of the issues might even be close to unfixable. Yet there is at least one serious issue plaguing the Navy that seems both genuinely irrational and extremely easy to fix, which is why it has garnered the attention of many reform-minded people inside Washington. This is the Navy’s incredibly costly and disruptive habit of ordering ships without working out the full design specs in advance, and then changing the specs in the middle of the process of constructing a hull. Most recently, this unfortunate habit has seriously compromised the Constellation class frigate program, meant to address the fact that the Navy at present lacks a modern, high-performance frigate design. Here, the Navy started with an already existing frigate, the Franco-Italian fremm (European Multi-Mission Frigate), which is a proven and reliable design at a reasonable price point. But rather than leaning into the benefits of working off an already proven design, Navy leadership quickly began making major and wide-ranging changes to it: at the time of writing, the current specs for the Constellation class share around 15 percent design commonality with the original fremm design. Rather than getting a proven ship on time and on budget, the Navy chose to monkey-wrench enough new design considerations into the fremm to turn it into a wholly new ship, arguably at greater cost and complexity than it would have required to design a ship from the ground up. As an added pinch of salt in the proverbial wound, the Navy has kept tinkering with the Constellation design even as the first hulls are being built, meaning it is now committed to either retrofitting the first batch of hulls into whatever the final design ends up being, or living with the added costs of having to operate several noninterchangeable designs. This model of continuously devel­oping a platform after the start of serial production—so-called concurrency—has involved catastrophic drawbacks in the case of the F-35 program, and so it is remarkable that the Navy would want to incorporate this particularly troublesome “feature” into its own programs.

At first glance, this seems like an eminently fixable problem for the Navy and for reformers inside the Beltway. The problem appears as both self-inflicted and deeply irrational when compared to the official goal of the Navy as an institution: fighting and winning kinetic wars. Finalizing a ship design before building it does not make the Navy worse at this task; in fact all recent evidence shows the exact opposite: concurrency costs money and delivers worse products for the DoD than the alternative. In theory, getting rid of this counterproductive habit should be as easy as waving a proverbial magical wand, because there is no reason for the habit to actually exist in the first place.

But how true is this really? Rather than sigh in relief that at least this problem seems easily fixable, the observant military reformer or analyst should here take a step back. What actually needs to be explained here is how this situation even occurred in the first place, and that requires some very serious questions about the nature of the Navy as an institution. If the Navy is habitually doing something that so obviously flies in the face of the logic that supposedly drives it (fighting and winning wars), and that problem seems so obviously and easily fixable, why isn’t the impetus for reform coming from inside the institution itself?

In reality, it is somewhat of an open secret that the Navy today has more than one purpose, and that warfighting is neither the only—nor perhaps even the most important—of its institutional imperatives. The underling issue that Navy leadership has to deal with is that the main scenario the Navy is supposed to prepare for—a kinetic war against China—is actually completely nonsensical, or at least it would have appeared as such to mid-twentieth century military planners. The Pentagon itself estimates that China’s shipbuliding capacity today is roughly 230 times greater than America’s. Many Japanese elites, most notably Admiral Yamamoto himself, were extremely skeptical of the idea that any sort of combination of tactics and strategy could make up for the gulf in industrial potential between Imperial Japan and America, and yet that advantage was an order of magnitude less than the advantage enjoyed by China today; it was far closer to ten to one than a hundred to one. To add insult to injury, one of the central themes of the ultimately disastrous Japanese doctrine of Kantai Kessen—decisive naval battle doctrine—was to leverage the vast size of the Pacific Ocean itself to partially make up for the difference in industrial capacity. The (ultimately vain) Japanese hope was that America would have to stretch its supply lines to the point where the Imperial Japanese Navy could still hope to engage in set piece battles under locally favorable conditions. The Japanese imagined themselves using the tyranny of distance to draw America into one or several confrontations in the mold of the battle of Tsushima, after which the American public or its military planners would hopefully conclude that a protracted war in the Pacific simply wasn’t worth it, resulting in a negotiated settlement where both sides recognized the other’s sphere of influence. The disastrous failure of many of the assumptions underpinning this doctrine would end up dooming the Japanese Empire, but at least the Japanese doctrine made some measure of basic sense. No Japanese planner, no matter how optimistic they were about Japan’s chances, even considered for a second the idea that a war with America was somehow going to be winnable if it had to be fought off the Californian coast.

Today, the Navy is fairly candid about the fact that it lacks enough vessels to actually escort sealift ships across the Pacific. For its part, Military Sealift Command is equally candid about the fact that there aren’t enough ships to actually resupply American forces anyway. Darkening the picture even further, the closure of the Red Hill Underground Fuel Storage Facility at Honolulu has left a large hole in America’s Pacific-facing logistical network, with no realistic replacement seemingly in the pipeline. Pacific wargame scenarios regularly have the American side running out of precision weapons weeks or days into the fighting, with almost no capacity to replenish stocks. This admitted inability to actually sustain munition logistics for the long haul probably doesn’t even matter, however, as American defense companies likely cannot source replacements to Chinese subcomponents and materials at anything approaching necessary scale.

In addition to these problems, the Navy today cannot even keep up with peacetime repair and maintenance demand on its vessels. With surge capacity and spare drydocks already close to nonexistent, the capacity to repair any significant number of vessels damaged in combat is simply beyond American capabilities at present. It is often said that wars are won through logistics, and this is doubly true when those wars are supposed to take place thousands of miles of open ocean away. Yet before the first shot has been fired in anger across the Taiwan strait, the American military has already admitted that it cannot build enough ships, cannot staff the ships that are being built, cannot repair ships that get damaged, cannot protect seaborne logistics, and cannot source enough sealift vessels for those seaborne logistics to matter, and in any case it currently lacks the sailors for those ships anyway. All of these points are not actually controversial in and of themselves: they are all regularly discussed inside the Beltway establishment. What is controversial and in fact incredibly sensitive, however, is to combine all these points of incontrovertible data into the kind of military conclusion that would have appeared as natural and indeed fully inevitable to any sane American or Japanese war planner in the 1930s.

Thus, what appears as a basic kind of “irrationality” inside the Constellation program actually makes a good deal of logical sense. The official premise of the Navy’s activity—preparing to fight China on the other side of the Pacific Ocean—is openly nonsensical and cannot realistically be achieved no matter what Navy leadership does or does not do. The fremm frigate design might be cheap, proven, and effective, but it is just a ship. The moment it is commissioned, it is a known quantity. For every fremm-like frigate America can roll out, China can realistically roll out ten, fifty, or even a hundred equivalents. On the most basic level of military analysis, it essentially doesn’t matter whether the Navy builds another frigate or not, because the math of the situation is simply too overwhelming. On top of that, some of the Navy’s obvious lack of urgency when it comes to getting more ships on the line as quickly as possible likely stems from the fact that it has its hands full just trying to find enough sailors and dry dock time for the ships it already has.

If one considers that the stated purpose of the Navy today is to build ships and win wars, the Constellation program is a disaster in the making. If, however, one considers that the actual purpose of the Navy is to project an image of credibility, then non-finalized, concurrent, ever-shifting designs that never get done and always seem to be just around the corner, just waiting for the inclusion of some “game changer” bit of technology, is actually rational and reasonable. The constant, obsessive fixation with various illusory “game changers” was never in much evidence in America in the 1930s and ’40s, when it enjoyed true industrial supremacy. Now, it is endemic to every branch of the U.S. military, and it makes complete sense given the institutional and ideological pressures that military leadership faces. For its part, given the impossibility of the military math it is faced with, Navy leadership is increasingly standing under the leafless tree and waiting for Godot. Sacrificing the ability to actually build ships on time is not such a great loss, after all, because no ships that can be built today have the power to upend a basic 200:1 ratio in favor of the enemy. Maintaining a narrative that the next American ship (whenever it appears) will have some sort of radical capability that will transform the basic calculus of war actually carries with it demonstrable benefits and a low amount of drawbacks, compared to all the other alternatives. Especially if the careers and self-image of people in Navy leadership are to be considered, it represents the safest and most reliable choice.

Mission: Impossible

This is hardly a point limited to the issue of shipbuilding contracts, or even to the Navy itself. In point of fact, the entire U.S. military today is mired in the same deadlock between an increasingly nonsensical and unfeasible “official” institutional purpose and the implicit demands placed on these institutions: the need to maintain ideological credibility, projecting an image of strength vis- à vis any peer competitor. The suicide epidemic inside the U.S. Army is just one good case study among many with regard to the costs of maintaining this front: it is no coincidence that the most suicide-prone units inside the Army today are the armor units. Both the Army Times and the New York Times have published reports depicting the massive strain these armor units are under today, as they are constantly rotated around the world in an effort to demonstrate that the U.S. military is ready and able to fight whenever and wherever it is called upon. Using increasingly ancient equipment that is prone to mechanical breakdown, with spotty and sometimes insufficient supplies of spare parts, the soldiers inside armor units regularly work truly nightmarish hours. This has predictable effects on these soldiers’ families, as well their own physical and mental health. The constant churn of deployments, exercises, and endless maintenance is rapidly wearing down both the vehicles and men inside units like the 66th Armor Regiment: this is not just a problem of growing malaise and bitterness among the soldiers, but one that has real implications for current and future Army retention.

Yet again, with respect to the official purpose of the Army, this habit of back-breaking, counterproductive exercise and deployment schedules seems like an irrational state of affairs. As long as we only consider the practical warfighting aspect of this situation, the “problem” seems entirely self-inflicted, and the “fix” is both obvious, simple, and free. If the grueling tempo of your exercises and rotations (ostensibly meant to improve or at least demonstrate unit readiness) is actually having a negative effect on your ability to fight, simply do fewer exercises and relax the operational tempo. But the point of an institution is what it actually does; for the Army, this means that it is more concerned with convincing the American public—and a gerontocratic, increasingly senile American leadership class—that it is still the same army as it was back in the good old days. Today, that adage is increasingly only true for the wrong reasons: M1A1 tank production ended all the way back in 1992, but the image of the high tech, cutting edge, materially superior U.S. military has carried on for decades. In 2025, nineteen-year-old mechanics are trying to keep thirty- or forty-year-old tanks running for yet another “show of force” deployment overseas, but the American political class is very obviously still stuck in their own timeless Neverland, still imagining that what was new in 1992 or 1978 is just as new and groundbreaking today. This outdated ideological belief, together with the reality of aging equipment and the changing requirements of warfare, means that all the services are now trapped, like Alice in Wonderland, by the curse of the Red Queen’s mirror: in order to stay in the same place and not move an inch, they must run faster and faster every year. The Air Force is saddled with maintaining bomber airframes whose production lines ended decades ago; the Army is cannibalizing its own motor pools and driving its own soldiers to quit the service or take their own lives in order to keep appearances going. The Navy now has fewer than three hundred total vessels in the fleet, but it is still being given the same amount of forward presence missions as when it had twice that number. It still deploys its carrier strike groups regularly across the world, but the actual number of ships deployed in those strike groups has shrunk dramatically since the 1990s.

Faced with this creeping crisis inside the military, the political class in Washington seems happy to contribute to it further by issuing increasingly out-of-touch demands and edicts. For example, the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) carried with it a new statutory requirement that the Navy maintain at least thirty-one “operational” amphibious warfare ships. Of course, this statutory demand arrives when the readiness of the Navy’s fleet of amphibious ships is already in steep decline. The likely result of Congress simply mandating a thirty-one “operational” ship requirement at a time when the Navy lacks the practical capacity to actually fulfill it is a situation often mocked in old jokes about the most dysfunctional parts of the Soviet Union. Going forward, the Navy will in all likelihood simply lie and pretend that non-seaworthy, de facto mothballed ships are actually “operational,” and Congress will mostly go along by pretending to actually believe the lie. Yet an even more glaring illustration of the gap between ideological projections and reality came more recently in the form of the military’s embarrassing and ultimately fruitless attempts at constructing an aid pier in Gaza.

Most coverage of that event focused on the political issues surrounding the pier, and the general geopolitical context of the Gaza crisis that the U.S. military was recklessly being thrust into. What fewer people picked up on, however, was that the mission was doomed to fail from the start, purely due to technical reasons: the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (jlots) system being put in place was simply not rated to handle the regular sea states in the area. The almost immediate scuttling of the Gaza pier due to damage from rough seas was not a freak accident, or attributable to some sequence of bad luck: it was a completely foreseeable and indeed inevitable outcome. The relevant point that needs to be made regarding the Gaza pier has nothing to do with the Gaza crisis itself; rather, it is that the military was made to expend real logistical assets (assets which are in increasingly short supply) on a mission that could not work even on paper. No one with relevant experience inside the military would have been ignorant of something so basic as looking up a sea state chart; yet at no point was the practical impossibility of the mission allowed to prevent it from going forward. To put it bluntly, the military was given a deeply ideological mission, one that would assuredly result both in failure and damage to or destruction of limited logistical assets. Military leadership, knowing which side their bread was actually buttered on, complied: the mission duly failed, and the limited equipment was damaged and destroyed.

The amount of fraud and deception that goes into maintaining this ideological, implicit institutional purpose of the American military is difficult to overstate. Nor is it even a real secret: as far back as 2015, the Army War College published a report on this very issue, in which the authors laid out their findings of widespread juking of stats and lying about requirements, personnel levels, and so on. This widespread epidemic of lying—already serious enough back in 2015—was not due to individual moral failings, nor “bugs in the system”; more ominously, most of the lying actually formed a sort of institutional grease that was increasingly becoming required just to keep the wheels turning. The more recent New York Times article on military suicides gives a particularly macabre example of how this works in practice: here, a unit commander compels a soldier with acute suicidal ideation to deploy overseas just so he can include that soldier in the readiness statistics. Once he arrives, he is then immediately sent back stateside again, as he cannot actually legally participate in the exercise or even be trusted in the presence of any loaded firearms.

Yet again, from a warfighting perspective, this behavior shouldn’t actually be happening. But it is happening, because within the institutional setting of the military—which is heavily shaped by the expectations set by a deeply ideological civilian and uniformed leadership—this sort of behavior not only makes sense, it is often required. To buttress this point with a non-Army example, a major theme covered in the reporting of the 2010s USS Fitzgerald and USS McCain collisions (which together led to the loss of seventeen sailors and constitute two of the most serious disasters the Navy has ever suffered in peacetime) was that ship captains were expected to sail even if their personnel situation or maintenance backlogs should not have allowed it; captains lied to their admirals who in turn lied to their political superiors. Rather than grapple with how lying had become an institutional requirement inside the Seventh Fleet, the Navy instead chose to blame these accidents on the ship captains themselves, even though the captains had repeatedly issued warnings to their superiors about the risk of serious accidents.

A Fading Wonderland

Here, we must finally make a very basic critique of the entire national security establishment in America, and particularly of the people intending to bring about reform. No thinker, no policy wonk or international relations buff inside the Beltway, would have any problem whatsoever with the suggestion that the military apparatus inside a rival country like Russia, China, or Iran was in fact not a “pure” kinetic instrument but also a tool of ideology. Indeed, the suggestion that modern-day Russia possesses a “pure” military, completely shorn of any function as a tool of regime legitimacy and regime ideology, would typically be dismissed inside the Beltway. Of course the Russian military faces a steady flow of demands on its behavior conditioned by the Kremlin’s desire to appear credible and tough; of course this happens even in cases where this competes with the practical demands of warfighting. This dual nature of the Russian or Chinese militaries—both tools of kinetic warfare and tools of ideology—is simply accepted without argument in D.C., just as everyone willingly accepts, without the need for any particular evidence, that the tension between these two functions often results in a meaningful degradation of capability and readiness for these militaries. Yet for all this casual acceptance of the very real nature of this dangerous and destructive institutional dynamic abroad, America’s most serious thinkers generally display a shocking naïveté and lack of awareness about how this same sort of dynamic plays out inside America itself.

The purpose of an institution is what that institution actually does. The Army and Navy today both prepare for war, and also sacrifice their own resources and cannibalize their own readiness in order to maintain a Potemkin village of capability for public and congressional consumption. In the case where these two demands intersect, narrative maintenance tends to win over practical warfighting concerns. The Army unit commander who sends a suicidal soldier to Poland or Romania for thirty-eight hours in order to juke the stats is only punished if the media get ahold of the story; the commander who refuses to do so and voluntarily files poor readiness reports to his superiors is punished by default. America’s military brass regularly respond to impractical or nonsensical demands from the political leadership through lying or juking the stats. Army unit commanders and Navy ship captains, faced with similarly impossible requirements, lie to their superiors. Their subordinates, in turn, lie to their commanders, and so on it goes all the way down through the ranks. In this context, reform is impossible without first addressing why this entire sprawling network of institutionalized lying has come into being in the first place.

Criticizing the logic of the Navy endlessly waiting for Godot in terms of frigate design without ever examining the even more lopsided logic of how the Navy is supposed to use that frigate is self-defeating. Currently, the idea is that the Navy will use said frigate to fight a war on the other side of the Pacific, against an industrially superior power, while lacking the capacity to sustain logistics, replace casualties, or repair combat damage. No serious American military planner from the mid-twentieth century (back when the United States enjoyed a massive industrial advantage compared to the rest of the world) would consider this to be a coherent or practical goal to begin with. Let us thus put the real nature of the issue at stake in the most blunt terms possible: the Navy is being asked to maintain the dream of the American empire. Lacking a political class willing to seriously acknowledge or address the very real crisis this empire now faces, the burden of that political crisis is being shifted onto the shoulders of admirals and generals who were never intended to take on that role in the first place, nor do they have the capability to do so. Yet even so, by promising some unspecified, undefinable capability at some hazy point in the future, the Navy is, in its own peculiar way, doing the best job it can with the hand it has been dealt. This job cannot be done by delivering a handful of unremarkable Italian frigates, frigates the Navy cannot realistically repair in wartime nor fully crew in peacetime in any case. The Navy is not just building ships; it is trying to shield an increasingly fragile American leadership class from reality, and like the other services, it is paying a ruinous cost to do so.

The task facing the serious military reformer in 2025 is not actually to look for points of “irrationality” inside the Pentagon that can then be treated with various “quick fixes.” While there is much inside the American national security apparatus that is broken and in need of repair, efforts to do so will come to nothing unless the most basic question of all is answered first: what is the intended point of the U.S. military? Is it to fight wars and physically protect America? Is it to protect the ideological credibility and legitimacy of the current American political class? Is it some possible mix of the two? If you cannot answer which one of these purposes your “fixes” to the military are meant to address, your efforts at reform will invariably be defeated by institutional pressures for which you have no answer.

Additionally, “credibility” or “regime legitimacy” are in no way frivolous or unnecessary requirements. In the years leading up to the bankruptcy that sparked the French revolution, the controller-general of finances to Louis XVI consciously did not try to cut back on “frivolous” spending at Versailles, reasoning (probably quite correctly) that cutting this very obvious waste would cost more money than it would save, as it would likely signal to creditors that France had passed the financial point of no return. For the American empire, facing a recruitment crisis, a hollowed out defense industrial base, and looming fiscal ruin, ideological credibility may be just as important as physical capability.

Today, the most earnest policy wonk in D.C. finds himself tumbling, like Alice down the rabbit hole, into a strange world where the rules make no sense, and where things are all out of place. Fixes are proposed; panels are held; good, sensible reforms are constantly suggested: yet nothing works, everything keeps getting worse, and there seems to be no way out of the crisis. But the strangeness of this world is all an illusion; an effect of the blindfolds put on by those inside it. To the average American war planner of the early twentieth century, the things that are being spoken of as normal today would have appeared as truly insane. Yet the people inside the Beltway today are no more “mad” than their more confident twentieth-century predecessors; they are simply acting rationally in the context of a very different set of institutional pressures.

The missing link inside the American policy establishment today is a basic discussion about the future and sustainability of the empire in light of America’s industrial weakness and cultural confusion. Powerful ideological and political constraints, however, currently make such discussions not just impossible but also career-ending for any individual who would dare to attempt them. The result of this chronic unwillingness to even acknowledge basic first principles inside Washington is to trap the Navy, Army, and all the other branches of the U.S. military on the far side of the Red Queen’s magic mirror: forcing them to constantly make impossible trade-offs and sacrifices just to postpone necessary discussions a little bit into the future, dooming them to running faster and faster just so that America’s leadership class won’t ever have to move an inch. In this clash between ideology and reality, ideology is almost always the victor. And it is winning at the cost of destroying the U.S. military itself.

To a student of human history, the woeful state of America’s national security establishment does not appear as some sort of great mystery. It is far from unique; in fact, it might not even be noteworthy. It is just the normal stuff of human history, going back thousands of years. The USSR is still very much in living memory; what went on in that empire in its final decade wasn’t all that different from what is happening in America today. Despite all the hype, America’s empire is not actually very exceptional; it is far more similar to than different from history’s many other empires that have all risen to wealth and glory only to then fall away. The cancer eating away at the U.S. military is of a similar genus to that which once ate away at the Red Army; the oblivious and out-of-touch responses coming from elites inside Washington aren’t particularly different from the attitudes of Soviet elites of days past. Having foolishly succumbed to the slow-acting poison of an ideology that proclaims that America possesses the first and only nonideological military in the world, America’s civilian and military elites now find themselves trapped in a grim and decaying Wonderland of their own making.

This article originally appeared in American Affairs Volume IX, Number 1 (Spring 2025): 213–27.

Notes

Photo credit: U.S. Naval Institute.

1 To get a sense of how massive this problem actually is, the 2022 Government Accountability Office report on weapon system sustainment for airframes is a good starting point. Almost every airframe type used by the services has growing and very serious sustainment bottlenecks. U.S. Government Accountability Office, “Weapon System Sustainment: Aircraft Mission Capable Goals Were Generally Not Met and Sustainment Costs Varied by Aircraft,” November 2022.

2 See, for example, Jerry Hendrix, “Sunk at the Pier: Crisis in the American Submarine Industrial Base,” American Affairs 8, no. 2 (Summer 2024): 22–34; U.S. Government Accountability Office, “Navy Readiness: Actions Needed to Address Costly Maintenance Delays Facing the Attack Submarine Fleet,” November 2018.

3 Though it is beyond the scope of this essay, it should nevertheless be noted that the extent of the current recruitment crisis is often severely understated in the media. The debates around this issue tend to focus on the military’s struggles to meet its on-paper authorized strength and its peacetime commitments. What’s less often talked about is that the U.S. military at present has essentially no realistic way to absorb and replace any casualties in real warfare: Katie Crombe and John A. Nagle, “A Call to Action: Lessons from Ukraine for the Future Force,” US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters 53, no. 3 (Autumn 2023): 21–31.

4 See, for example, David B. Larter, “‘You’re on Your Own’: US Sealift Can’t Count on Navy Escorts in the Next Big War,” DefenseNews, October 10, 2018.

5 Davis Winkie, “Broken Track: Why the Iron Knights Chose to Speak Out about Suicides,” Army Times, March 12, 2024; Janet Reitman, “A Disaster of the U.S. Military’s Own Making,” New York Times, June 19, 2024.

6 Sam Lagrone, “‘Poor Material Condition’ of Navy Amphib Fleet Prevent Marine Deployments, Training, Says GAO,” USNI News, December 3, 2024.

7 Leonard Wong and Stephen J. Gerras, Lying to Ourselves: Dishonesty in the Army Profession (Carlisle, Penn.: U.S. Army War College Press, 2015).

8 For those unfamiliar with this controversy inside the mid-2010s Navy, the award-winning ProPublica investigation is a good entry point: T. Christian Miller, Megan Rose, and Robert Faturechi, “Fight the Ship,” ProPublica, February 6, 2019.

americanaffairsjournal.org · Malcom Kyeyune

20. The rise of the disinformation-for-hire industry

​Summary:

A new global industry now sells disinformation as a commercial service, turning propaganda into an outsourced business that gives authoritarian regimes reach with plausible deniability. Private firms run full spectrum Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference campaigns: fake social media armies, hacking, leaks, deepfakes, narrative management. Cases like “Team Jorge” show companies claiming to have tilted dozens of elections using AI driven sock puppets. Russian linked outfits mirror old troll factories while masking state control. These hybrid online offline operations exploit AI to scale cheaply, creating an asymmetric information battlefield where autocracies attack and democracies struggle to defend open societies.

Commentary: Business is good. And growing.

The rise of the disinformation-for-hire industry - EUvsDisinfo

euvsdisinfo.eu

The emergence of a global, large-scale disinformation industry has privatised influence operations, granting states strategic reach with plausible deniability.

A quiet revolution has taken place in the world of propaganda. Operations that used to be run by authoritarian governments and intelligence agencies are now outsourced to private firms that sell disinformation and deception as a service. From fake social-media armies to AI-driven smear campaigns, disinformation and Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) have become a global business, giving authoritarian regimes new ways to influence others – and to deny everything.

From state propaganda to disinformation for hire

For decades, information operations were tightly controlled by states. The Soviet Union perfected the craft of dezinformatsiya; later, Russia institutionalised it through modern digital operations such as the Internet Research Agency (IRA)(opens in a new tab).

But over the past decade, this model has commercialised. Disinformation and deception have become a for-profit service offered by companies with intelligence, military, or marketing backgrounds. These firms, operating around the world, sell complete FIMI campaign packages that include fake social-media campaigns, hacking, data leaks, and ‘narrative management’ in order to spread false and manipulated content in democratic countries.

Outsourcing as a shield

This outsourcing provides both efficiency and deniability. Authoritarian states are now actively trying to externalise information operations to private intermediaries, while shielding themselves from diplomatic and legal consequences.

Through this model, malign actors can also experiment with risky tactics such as AI-generated content, hacking, or deepfakes – operations that would be politically or diplomatically explosive if carried out directly by state institutions. In doing so, they can target foreign populations through tailored influence campaigns while maintaining plausible deniability by claiming no connection to the private entities running them.

Outsourcing also enables information laundering — hiding the true origin of disinformation by passing it through private firms, fake accounts, and proxy media. As these actors repeat and amplify the message, it begins to look organic and locally produced. This lets malign actors spread targeted narratives while denying any involvement.

All this is the informational equivalent of using mercenaries: the client enjoys the results without bearing the blame.

Team Jorge and the commercialisation of deception

The 2023 Forbidden Stories investigation(opens in a new tab) into an entity called ‘Team Jorge’ exposed the inner workings of this new influence-for-hire ecosystem. The firm claimed to have interfered in 33 presidential elections, winning 27 of them. Its clients included political parties, corporations, and, allegedly, state-linked actors.

At the heart of Team Jorge’s system was Advanced Impact Media Solutions (AIMS), software capable of creating and coordinating thousands of fake social-media accounts, complete with synthetic photos, biographies, and backstories. These avatars could be mobilised to flood debates, spread narratives, or harass opponents.

Russia continues to be a major player in this outsourced ecosystem. Privately owned companies such as the Social Design Agency (SDA)(opens in a new tab) and Structura(opens in a new tab) now run large-scale influence operations that mirror, and in many ways replace, the functions of the old St. Petersburg troll factories. These firms manage covert online assets, push state-aligned narratives, and provide the Kremlin with an additional layer of deniability.

Undercover journalists recorded the firm demonstrating hacking techniques, media infiltration, and the planting of fabricated news stories. The scale of these operations and their accessibility to paying clients revealed how disinformation has become a global commodity.

Hybrid operations: where online meets offline

Modern influence campaigns no longer live solely online but operate in the hybrid space between digital and physical realities.

The Internet Research Agency (IRA)(opens in a new tab) demonstrated this during the 2016 US election when Russian operatives posing as American activists organised real-world rallies, paid participants, and coordinated online amplification around them. What began as meme warfare ended as physical mobilisation.(opens in a new tab)

Today’s hybrid operations blend hacking(opens in a new tab), covertly funded local influencers(opens in a new tab), and covert media fronts. Campaign operators build credible-seeming news sites(opens in a new tab) and influencer personas(opens in a new tab) to insert tailored narratives into the public sphere. Once in circulation, these narratives mix with authentic content and spread across both digital and traditional media, making manipulation difficult to detect.

Automation and AI: the new force multiplier

The original troll-farm model – hundreds of young workers posting manually in shifts – is being replaced by AI-driven automation(opens in a new tab).

Systems like Team Jorge’s AIMS, or newer tools powered by large language models, can now manage thousands of fake accounts and generate multilingual content tailored to target audiences in real time(opens in a new tab). AI allows campaigns that once required hundreds of people to be run by a handful of operators or even a single individual. What once took a troll farm and a whole building in St. Petersburg now takes a laptop.

Asymmetrical information warfare

The emergence of these influence-for-hire firms has created a new strategic imbalance – asymmetrical information warfare.

In this asymmetry, autocracies enjoy maximum reach with minimal risk. At home, they are protected by censorship, control, and deniability. Democracies, however, are more exposed. Bound by transparency and law, they face maximum vulnerability with limited defences.

This imbalance is not just political, but structural. Authoritarian regimes can use disinformation and AI tools to shape global narratives, influence elections abroad, and undermine trust while trying to avoid direct accountability. Democracies, meanwhile, must play defence on open networks designed for free expression.

The stakes for democracy and the road ahead

These operations are already reshaping political realities. Influence-for-hire firms have targeted elections in Africa, Europe, and Latin America(opens in a new tab). Disinformation campaigns amplify polarisation, delegitimise media institutions, and exploit social divisions to weaken democratic cohesion.

The marketisation of disinformation risks creating a global grey zone where truth is optional and accountability elusive. As AI tools become cheaper and more capable, these operations will likely only grow in scale and sophistication.

Recognising this asymmetry and responding with resilience and regulation is the only way to prevent truth itself from becoming a commodity.

euvsdisinfo.eu

21. How Army Special Operations Forces Are Rewiring Green Berets and Rangers for the Next Great Power Struggle

​Summary:

Army Special Operations is shifting from counterterrorism to a multi domain knife fight under a hostile digital sky. ARSOF is wiring Green Berets and Rangers into a SOF–Space–Cyber triad that links small teams to space sensors, cyber tools, electronic warfare, and precision fires. In the Asia-Indo-Pacific, Theater Information Advantage Detachments put PSYOP and information warfare at the center of campaigning against China. Ukraine’s lessons drive dispersion, signature control, and drone centric tactics. Rangers evolve into a hunter killer mesh with FPV swarms and kill webs. The next war demands AI literate, influence savvy, partner focused operators who can survive inside a peer sensor grid.

Comment: I recall reading Brigadier Richard Simpkin's book, Race to the Swift in the 1980s in which he said something to the effect of ... In a future land battle, the decisive asset is not a massed formation at the FEBA, but small mobile elements able to penetrate or infiltrate into the enemy’s depth, survive under his surveillance, and use secure communications to bring concentrated fires on critical targets across the depth of his system.​ Is this partly a realization or adaptation of his vision for the modern era?

How Army Special Operations Forces Are Rewiring Green Berets and Rangers for the Next Great Power Struggle

BY Guy D. McCardle / December 5, 2025

https://sofrep.com/news/how-army-special-operations-forces-are-rewiring-green-berets-and-rangers-for-the-next-great-power-struggle/

The next Army special operations fight will unfold in the shadows of a digital battlespace, where dispersed teams use drones, data, and deception to stay alive inside a peer adversary’s sensor net.

An operator guides an FPV-style reconnaissance drone through a mock urban battlespace, training for the sensor-saturated fights that define modern special operations. Image Credit: Shutterstock

The next U.S. special operations fight will not resemble the last twenty years of counterterrorism. Imagine a knife fight under a digital sky. Picture a Green Beret detachment scattered across Baltic woodland while a Russian style sensor grid hunts for a whisper of electronic life. Picture a Ranger platoon practicing how to disrupt an armored column with FPV drones, anti-armor fire, and real-time cues from space and cyber units. That is the world Army Special Operations Forces are tuning themselves for, and the overhaul is accelerating.

From Counterterrorism To Multi-Domain Competitors

The Army’s Multi Domain Operations concept lays out the challenge. A future conflict with China or Russia will unfold across land, sea, air, space, cyberspace, and the information environment. ARSOF leadership has been blunt about the need to shift. Official strategy calls for a fully multi-domain capable ARSOF formation by 2028, tightly integrated with the joint force and positioned forward in key regions.

This is not theory. Operational demand on U.S. Army Special Operations Command has surged by roughly 180 percent over the past three years. That spike includes global crisis response missions, which means ARSOF must evolve while sustaining heavy commitments.

The answer is a tighter bond among special operations, space forces, and cyber units. Senior leaders describe this as a SOF–Space–Cyber triad that blends global access, cyber tools, electronic warfare, and precision effects into a single menu for commanders.

For operators, that means access to space-derived situational awareness, cyber-enabled shaping operations, and precision fires once reserved for larger formations.

The Pacific Testbed For Information Warfare

Nowhere is this transformation clearer than in the Indo-Pacific. The Army has reorganized its information forces by activating Theater Information Advantage Detachments. The first unit, stationed in Hawaii, is built to help commanders contest adversary narratives, counter disinformation, and shape public perception across the region. It includes specialists in cyber, intelligence, civil affairs, electronic warfare, PSYOP, and information operations.

That places Army PSYOP units at the center of a theater-wide influence architecture. Regional battalions aligned with Pacific commands support efforts to detect, counter, and exploit information trends long before a crisis ignites.

This framework is designed for friction with China. A Special Forces unit working with island partners is now linked to an information advantage network that can pair local messaging with cyber activity, electronic warfare, and space-based tracking. The mission is simple but delicate: complicate Beijing’s planning cycle without tipping into open conflict.

AI, Kill Webs, And The New Operator Toolkit

Artificial intelligence is rapidly shifting from a lab experiment to a battlefield requirement. The Maven Smart System, an outgrowth of Project Maven, has shown in exercise conditions that it can help small teams process vast amounts of sensor data. Some trials demonstrated the ability to manage volumes near a thousand target indicators per hour, turning what once required a full operations center into something a small team can exploit.

Drone obtained telemetry lets targeting experts overlay key operational markings for a more comprehensive targeting package. Image Credit: Palantir

On the tactical edge, Rangers have been experimenting with human-machine teaming through events like Project Convergence. In these scenarios, Ranger elements controlled drone swarms linked into a joint kill web that combined land, air, and maritime sensors. The regiment has also adopted FPV strike drones modeled after Ukraine’s battlefield innovations.

The future operator must be fluent in this environment. AI-enabled sensors are becoming as fundamental as radios. The expectation is that a team can pull from an intelligent sensor grid, fuse inputs, and guide partner forces while staying hidden from adversary surveillance.

Green Berets And The Ukraine Reality Check

Ukraine’s battlefield is shaping U.S.combat doctrine in real time. The dominance of drones, the violence in the electromagnetic spectrum, and the rapid destruction of large headquarters all point to a battlefield where SOF cannot readily survive without dispersion, mobility, and tight coupling to conventional fires.

Special Forces units are adjusting their irregular warfare toolkit accordingly. Training emphasizes signature control, redundant communications, and the ability to shift between guiding long-range fires, supporting resistance networks, and conducting sabotage and reconnaissance inside contested terrain. The old model of a stable team house with reliable air superiority is gone forever.

Modern irregular warfare means living inside a target box without being detected, while enabling local partners to apply constant pressure against a peer adversary.

Rangers And The Hunter Killer Mesh

The 75th Ranger Regiment’s dedicated intelligence battalion gives Rangers their own analytical and digital targeting capability. Combine that with FPV drones, small autonomous systems, and the joint kill web architecture, and the regiment looks less like a pure raid force and more like a mobile hunter-killer mesh built for contested environments.

A Ranger strike package might dismantle an enemy air defense node one night and open a corridor for joint fires the next. Precision raids remain part of the job, but the regiment is now expected to blind, disrupt, and fracture enemy formations for larger forces.

Why This Overhaul Matters

Great Power competition is already underway. Its front line is an irregular contest fought in the shadows, in the information space, and inside the electromagnetic spectrum. When open conflict erupts, it will erupt fast.

ARSOF is preparing for that moment by grooming operators who can navigate this chaos with speed and good judgment. Green Berets and Rangers will enter the next fight as multi-domain integrators, information warriors, and AI-literate tacticians who can still lead a partner force through a more conventional battle space.

If the last two decades built America’s counterterror experts, the next decade will forge the specialists required for a digital battlefield shaped by missiles, drones, data, and resistance networks working beneath a hostile sky.

—

** Editor’s Note: Thinking about subscribing to SOFREP? You can do it now for only $1 for your first year. Pull the trigger on this amazing offer HERE. – GDM

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

About the author

Guy D. McCardle is a sixteen-year veteran of the United States Army and most recently served as a Medical Operations Officer during OIF I and OIF II. He holds a degree in Biology from Washington & Jefferson College and is a graduate of the US Army Academy of Health Sciences. Guy has been a contributing writer to Apple News, Business Insider, International Business Times, and Medical Daily. He has over 8,000 answers and more than 30,000 followers on Quora, where he is a top writer on military topics. McCardle is the Managing Editor of the SOFREP News Team, a collective of military journalists.

22. RICHARD SHULTZ Obituary

​The loss of a great American and strategic thinker.

Although he graduated from Miami University with his PhD just as I was beginning as an undergraduate (Political Science focusing on political revolutions) his work was already on our course syllabi. But I did not meet him personally until sometime after 2010 but I of course followed his work throughout my entire career.

From the 1970s:

“The Limits of Terrorism in Insurgency Warfare: The Case of the Viet Cong.”

“Breaking the Will of the Enemy During the Vietnam War: The Operationalization of the Cost–Benefit Model of Counterinsurgency Warfare.”

“Conceptualizing Political Terrorism: A Typology.”

RICHARD SHULTZ Obituary

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/bostonglobe/name/richard-shultz-obituary?id=60211705

SHULTZ, Richard H. Jr. Richard H. Shultz, Jr., renowned American scholar in international security studies Professor Richard H. Shultz Jr., a renowned American scholar in international security studies at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, passed away at his home in Medford, Massachusetts, on Saturday, November 22, 2025. He was 78. Shultz was born on October 25, 1947, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the youngest child of Carmel Vetere and Richard H. Shultz, Sr. He had three older sisters, Teresa, Leonora and Michelina. Growing up in a steel mill town and having worked on the Reading Railroad as a young man, he realized that there was a larger, more interesting world beyond the streets of his childhood. Under the guidance of Coach Tony Cernugal, Shultz developed into a promising high school football player. His talents on the football field provided an opportunity to pursue higher education, with Shultz ultimately attending the University of Richmond, where he studied political science and continued playing the game he loved. He pursued Ph.D. studies at Miami University, graduating in 1976. His dissertation, The Origins and Development of U.S. Counterinsurgency Strategy: The Vietnam Case Study, chaired by David S. McLellan, showed his early passion for the study of internal conflicts and irregular wars. In 1983, Shultz joined the faculty of The Fletcher School as an associate professor of international politics working alongside his mentor and close friend, Professor Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr., who directed the International Security Studies Program (ISSP) from 1987 to 1989. ISSP was founded in 1971 when U.S. college campuses were deeply divided over the Vietnam War. It was the first graduate program on security studies in the United States outside of the military war colleges. Over the next 42 years, Shultz became one of the most influential teachers and scholars in security studies as well as a beloved mentor to thousands - generations - of U.S. and international students, practitioners, and academics. He started teaching the field's foundational course, The Role of Force in international politics, in 1983. Shultz demanded his students arrive at 7:30 a.m. twice a week for his lectures and Socratic recitations on military power, the causes of war, national security policy and strategy, power in the 21st century, and the impact of technologies on the conduct of war. The largest course at The Fletcher School year after year, Role of Force alumni reflect the pride of having endured the early hours and a weighty reading list. Over the years, Shultz developed courses on internal conflict and irregular war; origins, conduct, and termination of war; 21st century intelligence and national security; and crisis management. In his final semester, he crafted a new seminar, Comparative Civil Military Relations, to examine how civilian and military leaders negotiate the role of the military in the political arena and the role of civilians as military overseers. Shultz authored, co-authored, and edited 26 books and monographs, as well as numerous academic articles on the study of counterinsurgency, irregular warfare, intelligence studies, special operations, and counterterrorism. After the Department of Defense declassified its archives about U.S. activities in North Vietnam, he was invited to the Pentagon to write the first history in The Secret War against Hanoi: Kennedy's and Johnson's Use of Spies, Saboteurs, and Covert Warriors in North Vietnam (New York: Harper Collins, 2000). Working in collaboration with the Marine Corps History Division and with its oral history collection, he published The Marines Take Anbar: The Four-Year Fight Against Al Qaeda (Annapolis, MD: The Naval Institute Press, 2013). In Transforming US Intelligence for Irregular War: Task Force 714 in Iraq (Georgetown University Press, 2020), he details on how JSOC's Task Force 714 was the first component of the U.S. military to transform into an intelligence-driven organization capable of analyzing massive amounts of intelligence - "big data" - through the adoption and employment of state-of-the-art data integration systems. His latest book manuscript was written at the behest of DoD's Algorithmic Warfare Team to detail Project Maven, the Pentagon's project to employ artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and computer vision for fighting against ISIS, al Qaeda, and their geographically dispersed proxies more effectively. He sought out opportunities to teach alongside military and defense practitioners at U.S. military schools holding three chairs: The Olin Distinguished Professorship of National Security Studies at the U.S. Military Academy; Secretary of the Navy Senior Research Fellow at the U.S. Naval War College; and Brigadier General H. L. Oppenheimer Chair of War-fighting Strategy, U.S. Marine Corps. He was concurrently a senior fellow at the U.S. Special Operations Command's Joint Special Operations University. Passionate about experiential student learning in and beyond the classroom, he assumed the directorship of ISSP in 1989 and supervised the International Security Studies curriculum as part of Fletcher's interdisciplinary model of learning. He nurtured the U.S. Military Fellows program, which welcomes mid-career practitioners from every armed service each year to study, conduct research, and interact with current students. He led or co-led the Simulex and Red Team simulations that provided students with the opportunity to experience crisis management. From 1997-2021, he chaired or served as a reader on 92 doctoral dissertation committees - a number that would rise to more than 100 by 2025. Shultz had greatest affection for his students. First semester students and alumni of 40 years describe his ability to connect with each student across more than 80 countries and walks of life and how he would actively encourage them to come meet with him. Eventually he would count among his former students future heads of state, ministers, ambassadors, and secretaries of defense. Shultz was an incredibly proud and loving father of his son Nick, a Tufts graduate who studied finance and entrepreneurial leadership. Nick has pursued a highly successful career in finance in New York City, the world's center of the global finance industry. Above all else, Shultz was most proud to be a high school football dad - encouraging Nick to keep playing even when it was the last thing he wanted to do. They both agreed this was the right decision. Their shared love and passionate support for the Boston Red Sox also remained constant throughout both of their lives. Shultz was devoted to his wife of 32 years, Casey Chapman; they were married in the Goddard Chapel on the Tufts campus. Along with raising their son, they traveled the world together, exploring cultures, music, and especially cuisines from the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul to community dinner in Copenhagen. They looked forward to their weekly hump-day dinner at Sarma, a ritual established in 2018. Conversation was passionately political in nature, including both domestic and global issues, and they often returned home with the leftovers. Along with Casey and Nick, Shultz is survived by numerous nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews and many friends, colleagues and students. He was especially close to his nephew and niece, Anthony and Darrah Mont of York, Maine; and his brothers-in-law, Bob Chapman of Bedford, New Hampshire and Mark Maioriello of Mt. Laurel, New Jersey.

View the online memorial for Richard H. Jr. SHULTZ

To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.

Published by Boston Globe from Dec. 5 to Dec. 7, 2025.

23. Asia Indo Pacific Faces Shadow War From Dark Quad

​Comment: I have not heard of the Grand Pinnacle Tribune. When I saw the title I thought, excellent, an article that would complement my thoughts and recent essay. But apparently Evrim Agaci appears to have adapted this SWJ article for the Grand Pinnacle Tribune and appears to have interpreted it as a new bipartisan strategy. I think he is conflating the DRAFT bipartisan DISRUPT Act with a proposal for a broad strategy proposed by the article in SWJ. And he has added a perspective from India.

GRAND PINNACLE TRIBUNE

by Evrim Ağacı

World News

05 December 2025

Asia Indo Pacific Faces Shadow War From Dark Quad

A new bipartisan U.S. strategy and rising authoritarian coordination challenge the balance of power as political warfare intensifies across the region.

https://evrimagaci.org/gpt/asia-indo-pacific-faces-shadow-war-from-dark-quad-518875

Key Points

• Identify the Asia-Indo-Pacific as the central arena for irregular political warfare led by the 'Dark Quad' of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.
• Describe irregular warfare tactics used by the Dark Quad, including disinformation, cyber operations, economic coercion, and covert action.
• Highlight U.S. legislative efforts like the DISRUPT Act to develop integrated strategies against CRINk, emphasizing the need for a dedicated political warfare agency.

The Asia-Indo-Pacific region is rapidly emerging as the central battleground in a new kind of global contest—one that sidesteps traditional warfare in favor of subtle, persistent political and irregular strategies. As outlined in a December 5, 2025 analysis published by Small Wars Journal, this contest is being driven by a loose but potent alignment of four authoritarian powers: China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Collectively dubbed the “Dark Quad” or CRInK, these nations have fused their ambitions and operations to challenge the established international order across both Eurasia and the Pacific.

Unlike the great power confrontations of the past, the current struggle is not defined by open battles or dramatic military clashes. Instead, it is waged in the shadows—through influence, legitimacy, and the strength of alliances. The front lines run through villages, ports, digital networks, and, perhaps most critically, the hearts and minds of the people living under daily pressure from authoritarian influence. As Small Wars Journal warns, "Our adversaries are already waging war. They accept Mao’s maxim that politics is war without bloodshed. They see conflict as permanent."

At the heart of this contest is what experts call irregular warfare—the military arm of political warfare. Irregular warfare, as defined by joint doctrine and reinforced by recent Congressional action, encompasses campaigns that assure or coerce through indirect and asymmetric means. These activities are conducted by, with, and through both regular and irregular forces, often operating below the threshold of open conflict to achieve national objectives. The adversaries in the Dark Quad have mastered this approach, leveraging a mix of disinformation, cyber operations, economic coercion, and covert action to expand their influence and undermine free societies.

China, for instance, wields its so-called "three warfares" doctrine—combining psychological, legal, and public opinion warfare—with remarkable discipline. Russia employs a blend of intelligence, cyber, information, and paramilitary tools in what it calls "new generation warfare." Iran spreads its influence through proxies and a light-footprint approach, while North Korea relies on political warfare and blackmail diplomacy as its main levers of power. All four have demonstrated a keen understanding of the power of narrative, corruption, and covert action to achieve their goals without firing a shot.

Against this backdrop, calls are growing in Washington for a more coherent and proactive U.S. strategy. The Small Wars Journal article draws a direct parallel to President Reagan’s Cold War-era National Security Decision Directive 32 (NSDD 32), which provided a unified political warfare strategy that integrated economic, informational, diplomatic, and covert actions to counter Soviet power. Advocates now argue that a modern equivalent is urgently needed, one tailored specifically to the Asia-Indo-Pacific and focused on irregular and political warfare as core missions, not niche activities.

Congress has already taken a significant step in this direction with the introduction of the bipartisan DISRUPT Act. This legislation directs key U.S. agencies—including the Departments of State, Defense, Treasury, Commerce, the CIA, and the Director of National Intelligence—to develop a whole-of-government strategy aimed at disrupting and constraining CRInK cooperation. The Act recognizes that a crisis involving any one of these four adversaries could quickly escalate into a multi-theater challenge, and it calls for intelligence integration, technology controls, sanctions, and coordinated planning across government agencies.

However, as the Small Wars Journal analysis cautions, "legislation alone cannot create a campaign." To operationalize the DISRUPT Act in the Asia-Indo-Pacific, experts are urging the creation of a new political warfare agency—essentially a modern version of the World War II-era Office of Strategic Services (OSS), but designed for the digital age. This new entity, whether called a Political Warfare Service 2.0 or an Office of Strategic Disruption, would be tasked with fusing intelligence, influence operations, cyber and economic warfare, resistance support, and covert action into unified campaigns. Its primary mission: to lead the implementation of DISRUPT against the Dark Quad in the region where the stakes are highest.

Central to this approach is the recognition that the security challenges of the Korean Peninsula and the Taiwan Strait are deeply interconnected. Treating them as separate planning problems, the article argues, is a recipe for failure. Instead, a modern NSDD must integrate these challenges into a single, comprehensive strategy that sees the region as a unified theater of contestation. The ultimate objective, particularly on the Korean Peninsula, should be a free, unified, stable, and non-nuclear Korea anchored in liberal constitutional governance.

But strategy alone is not enough. The article laments what it calls "definition paralysis" in Washington—a tendency to debate labels and terms rather than taking decisive action. The greatest obstacle, it suggests, is not a lack of capability but a lack of mindset. In the words of the article, "Irregular warfare forces us to think about people first. It demands we understand the psychological, cultural, and historical foundations of conflict. It reminds us that legitimacy is more powerful than fear."

Meanwhile, real-world events are underscoring the urgency of this strategic shift. On December 5, 2025, Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in New Delhi for his first state visit to India since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to reporting from Bloomberg. Welcomed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi with an embrace and a private dinner, Putin’s visit highlights the complex, shifting alliances that define the region. Despite U.S. disapproval and hefty trade tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump’s administration, India is seeking to assert its strategic autonomy and deepen ties with Russia—a move that complicates Western efforts to isolate Moscow and illustrates the multi-dimensional nature of the current contest.

The Asia-Indo-Pacific thus stands as the decisive theater for irregular warfare, where the authoritarian powers of the Dark Quad are applying pressure most aggressively and where American allies face daily coercion. As Small Wars Journal puts it, "If we wait for crisis, we will find ourselves reacting to a script written by Beijing, Moscow, Tehran, and Pyongyang." The region’s future—and, by extension, the character of the international order for the coming century—will be shaped not by who has the biggest arsenal, but by who can most effectively wield influence, build legitimacy, and sustain resilient alliances.

The choice before policymakers is stark: organize, resource, and conduct political and irregular warfare on terms favorable to free societies, or allow the Dark Quad to dictate the pace and terms of competition. The tools are at hand—a modern NSDD, the legislative foundation of the DISRUPT Act, and the potential for a new agency dedicated to political warfare. What remains is the will to act.

As the world’s attention remains fixed on flashpoints from the Korean Peninsula to New Delhi, the Asia-Indo-Pacific’s fate will hinge on how well free nations adapt to the realities of twenty-first-century political warfare. Those who understand and embrace this new form of contest may yet shape the future—before it is shaped for them.

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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