Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"An illusion can never be destroyed directly, and only by indirect means can it be radically removed... A direct attack only strengthens a person in his illusions, and at the same time embitters him.:

– Soren Kierkegaard

“Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.”

– Albert Einstein, 1949

"In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind."

– Louis Pasteur

1. Sen. Joni Ernst: USAID Is a Rogue Agency

2. Expired and Expiring Authorizations of Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2024

3. China’s Strategy in Trade War: Threaten U.S. Tech Companies

4. Defending USAID Is Political Suicide for Democrats

5. How Much the U.S. Spent on Foreign Aid—and Where It Went

6. Betsy DeVos: Shut Down the Department of Education

7. Trump defends Musk and says Doge will look at military spending

8. Deterring China, slashing waste top Pentagon priorities, Hegseth says

9. From the Fox News Interview: President Trump predicts Elon Musk will find 'hundreds of billions' in waste in next DOGE directives

10. Trump Predicts Chiefs Will Win Super Bowl in Pregame Interview With Bret Baier

11. Trump defends Elon Musk as 'terrific' during Super Bowl interview

12. Was Trump Super Bowl interview with Fox News edited? Abrupt cut raises questions

13. Gulf of America Day, 2025: BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A PROCLAMATION

14. The Vibe Shift Comes to the Super Bowl. Plus. . .

15. How American Educators Are Conning Kids

16. How Can We Measure if Defense Innovation Works?

17. Software-Defined Warships: The Navy’s Digital Future of Necessity

18. Melting Frontiers: A Bold Vision for US Strategy in a Warming Arctic

19. What Ukraine Can Teach the World About Resilience and Civil Engineering

20. Explosive-Laden Goggles Sent To Russian FPV Drone Operators

21. Trump says he wants to negotiate about Ukraine. It's not clear if Putin really does

22. Hegseth Wants $50,000 for 'Emergency' Paint Job to Move into Military Family Housing, Lawmakers Say

23. Musk: "shut [VOA, RFE/RL] down... Europe is free now (not counting stifling bureaucracy)"

24. Hegseth Wants $50,000 for 'Emergency' Paint Job to Move into Military Family Housing, Lawmakers Say

25. Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Restores Maximum Pressure on Iran

26. actions and consequences – that wee penny going extinct

27. AI and Counter-terrorism

28. GOP support for Musk influence with Trump falls dramatically: Poll

1. Sen. Joni Ernst: USAID Is a Rogue Agency

I think what the good Senator may be inadvertently saying is that Congress has not done its job of providing sufficient oversight. The Fourth Estate has previously exposed the allegations.

Excerpt:

The question we should be asking isn’t why USAID’s grants are being scrutinized, but why it took so long.

I think we are seeing the "Great Reset"of the government bureaucracy which is potentially a very good thing. I support the idea. There is the potential to rebuild a lot of agencies and organizations from the ground up. But if it is done using extra-constitutional powers and methods that put national security at risk then what do we have left of our American constitutional form of government?

And as shown by the Senator's OpEd and the quick survey of sources below Congress could have done its job and now members seem to be jumping on the DOGE bandwagon to cover Congressional incompetence to hide Congressional failures.

And the investigation I would like to see is how much Congress has USAID to fund pet projects of their constituents and NGOs they support which are often in contravention of national security strategy and specifically an Ambassador's mission strategic plan or at least we're not effectively supporting it.

But again, I think one of the positive things that could come from the DOGE work is a demand that the question be asked and answered: how does this program, action, or funding effectively support US national security and American values? This question should be the basis for debate in Congress as they pass laws and appropriate funding for actions and programs. Some will oppose that question and say we must take into account humanitarian situations. There are many humanitarian actions that support US national security and American values. But there has to be the realization that the US cannot solve all the world's problems. But failure to contribute leaves a wide vacuum for China to fill and other members of the Dark Quad to exploit. We must understand the strategic competition we are in throughout the world and ensure all our tools of national security and foreign policy are wielded effectively.

Wuhan and Sex Trafficking issues:

Allegations have surfaced that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) provided funding to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China, primarily through grants awarded to EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based nonprofit organization. EcoHealth Alliance collaborated with the WIV on research involving bat coronaviruses.

Between 2014 and 2019, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and USAID granted over $1.4 million to EcoHealth Alliance, which was subsequently used for genetic experiments at the WIV. These experiments involved combining naturally occurring bat coronaviruses with SARS and MERS viruses, resulting in hybridized coronavirus strains. Such research is often referred to as gain-of-function, as it aims to enhance the transmissibility or pathogenicity of pathogens.

nypost.com

In addition to these grants, USAID funded the PREDICT program, a $210 million initiative aimed at identifying and monitoring pathogens with pandemic potential. Through PREDICT, USAID provided grants to various organizations, including EcoHealth Alliance, to study viruses in wildlife and assess their potential to infect humans. EcoHealth Alliance collaborated with several institutions, including the WIV, to conduct research on bat coronaviruses. This partnership involved collecting samples from bats and studying their viruses to understand the risk of spillover into human populations. The goal was to enhance global preparedness for potential pandemics by identifying and characterizing viruses before they could cause widespread outbreaks.

timesofindia.indiatimes.com

The emergence of COVID-19 has led to scrutiny of these collaborations, with some suggesting that research conducted at the WIV could be linked to the pandemic’s origin. However, as of now, there is no conclusive evidence to support the claim that the virus originated from a laboratory incident. The World Health Organization and other international bodies continue to investigate the origins of SARS-CoV-2 to provide a clearer understanding.

In summary, USAID's funding to the WIV was channeled through EcoHealth Alliance as part of broader efforts to study and prevent pandemics by researching viruses in their natural reservoirs. While these collaborations have come under scrutiny, investigations into the origins of COVID-19 are ongoing, and definitive conclusions have yet to be reached.

Allegations have surfaced suggesting that USAID (United States Agency for International Development) may have inadvertently provided funding to organizations or programs linked to sex trafficking. These claims often stem from concerns about insufficient oversight of grant recipients or unintended consequences of aid programs. However, concrete evidence directly implicating USAID in supporting sex traffickers is limited.

For instance, a 2011 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) highlighted weaknesses in USAID's monitoring processes, which could potentially allow funds to be misused. The report emphasized the need for improved oversight to ensure that aid does not inadvertently support human trafficking activities. [Source: GAO Report, 2011]

Additionally, in 2018, a controversy arose when it was revealed that a contractor receiving USAID funds was implicated in labor trafficking violations. While this case did not involve sex trafficking specifically, it underscored the challenges USAID faces in monitoring its contractors and the importance of stringent oversight mechanisms. [Source: The Guardian, 2018]

USAID has acknowledged these challenges and has implemented measures to strengthen oversight and prevent misuse of funds. The agency has established strict guidelines and monitoring systems to ensure that aid reaches its intended beneficiaries and does not contribute to human trafficking or other illicit activities. [Source: USAID Anti-Trafficking Policy]

In summary, while there have been concerns and isolated incidents suggesting that USAID funds may have been misused, there is no substantial evidence to indicate that the agency has directly supported sex traffickers. Continuous efforts are being made to enhance oversight and prevent any potential misuse of aid funds.

Sen. Joni Ernst: USAID Is a Rogue Agency

It dodges congressional questions about money that went to sex traffickers and the Wuhan virus lab.

https://www.wsj.com/tech/china-trade-war-us-tech-03578671?mod=hp_lead_pos2

By Joni Ernst

Feb. 9, 2025 11:43 am ET

Illustration: Martin Kozlowski

In moments of crisis, America can be counted on for leadership. Our nation’s compassionate giving has saved millions of lives around the world that were at risk from starvation or disease. All Americans should be able to take great pride in our generosity. And the government agencies coordinating aid efforts should be eager to share details about how they’re using taxpayers’ money to make the world a better place.

Yet the U.S. Agency for International Development, entrusted with disbursing tens of billions of aid dollars to other nations annually, is a rogue bureaucracy. I’ve uncovered that the agency often acts at odds with our nation’s best interests and uses intimidation and shell games to hide where money is going, how it’s being spent and why.

USAID repeatedly rebuffed my requests for a list of recipients of U.S. tax dollars sent to Ukraine, claiming that the information was classified. Despite the pushback, I persisted. Eventually, USAID permitted my staff to review documents under surveillance in a highly secure room at USAID headquarters, with note-taking prohibited.

What warranted such secrecy? We learned that the aid that was supposed to alleviate economic distress in the war-torn nation was spent on such frivolous activities as sending Ukrainian models and designers on junkets to New York City, London Fashion Week, Paris Fashion Week and South by Southwest in Austin, Texas.

I faced the same stonewalling from USAID when I asked about tax dollars being diverted from project missions for largely unrelated costs, known as the negotiated indirect cost rate. The agency claimed that it wasn’t possible to track. My team debunked that by providing USAID staff with a link to a public database. The agency fired back, warning that divulging this information would violate federal laws, including the Economic Espionage Act.

When I launched a formal investigation in cooperation with the House Foreign Affairs Committee, USAID relented. Turns out, the agency is allowing grantees to skim significant amounts of money, up to and even beyond half of the total, for themselves.

We need guarantees that U.S. assistance is helping people in need, but a recent review by the agency’s own inspector general found USAID still “does not have proper documentation to support indirect costs charged” by grant recipients.

I shouldn’t have to ask these questions. All federal spending is required to be publicly available on the website USAspending.gov, a searchable database created nearly two decades ago by a bipartisan law.

USAID’s sketchy spending schemes were the impetus for this law aimed at making federal funding more transparent. Congressional investigators in 2005 caught the agency supporting an organization involved with the trafficking of teenage girls in Asia. USAID staff called the claims “destructive” and vehemently denied them. The evidence proved otherwise. A pass-through group, set up with the help of former agency employees, was found funneling U.S. tax dollars into abetting the sex trade operation.

The agency has learned to exploit loopholes in the law, as my investigation into the origins of the pandemic exposed. The watchdog organization White Coat Waste Project was the first to release evidence that both USAID and Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases were financing bat studies involving coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Yet no grants to the Chinese lab appeared in USAspending.gov. Audits later uncovered that more than a million dollars from the U.S. government were paying for the dangerous research. The bulk of the money was provided by USAID, not Dr. Fauci.

USAID evaded the obligation to report this transaction to USAspending.gov by using multiple pass-through organizations, including the nefarious EcoHealth Alliance, which is now barred from receiving U.S. government grants.

What was our international development agency developing at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology? If the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation are correct that the Covid virus likely originated from a lab leak, USAID may have had a hand in a once-in-a-century pandemic that claimed the lives of millions.

There’s no shortage of other questionable USAID projects. More than $9 million intended for civilian food and medical supplies in Syria ended up in the hands of violent terrorists. Another $2 million was spent promoting tourism to Lebanon, a nation the State Department warns against traveling to due to the risks of terrorism, kidnapping and unexploded land mines. USAID spent millions of dollars paying people to dig irrigation ditches in Afghanistan and encouraging farmers to grow food crops instead of poppies for opium. The result: Poppy cultivation nearly doubled.

Many other groups supported by USAID are doing great work, such as caring for orphans and people living with HIV. Imagine how much more good work could be supported with the dollars that instead ended up enriching terrorists, sex traffickers, mad scientists and drug cartels.

After keeping its spending records hidden from Congress and taxpayers, USAID employees are now protesting the review of the agency’s records by President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency. It’s no surprise that Washington insiders are more upset at DOGE for trying to stop wasteful spending than at USAID for misusing tax dollars.

The question we should be asking isn’t why USAID’s grants are being scrutinized, but why it took so long.

Ms. Ernst, an Iowa Republican, is founder and chairwoman of the Senate DOGE Caucus.

WSJ Opinion: Hurricane Elon Musk Hits Washington

Expired and Expiring Authorizations of Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2024

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60580?utm

Report's Home Page

Data and Supplemental Information

Related Publications

Download

Notes

Summary

The Congressional Budget Office tracks authorizations of appropriations that have specified expiration dates and identifies, annually, appropriations that are provided for authorizations that have expired or that will expire by the end of the current fiscal year. For this report, CBO identified 1,264 authorizations of appropriations that expired before the beginning of fiscal year 2024 and 251 authorizations that are set to expire before the end of the fiscal year. CBO also found that $516 billion in appropriations for 2024 was associated with 491 expired authorizations of appropriations.

Background

Some provisions of law authorize the Congress to provide funds through a future appropriation act to administer a program or function. Such authorizations of appropriations, which are the subject of this report, differ from other authorizations (sometimes called enabling or organic statutes) that create a federal agency, establish a federal program, prescribe a federal function, or provide for a particular federal obligation or expenditure within a program. Appropriations provide funding to agencies to administer programs and functions.

Authorizations of appropriations constitute guidance for future Congressional decisions about funding that may be necessary to implement enabling statutes; the authorizations may be contained in the enabling statutes or enacted separately. Such laws may authorize appropriations for one year, for multiple years, or in perpetuity, and those authorizations may be definite (specifying the exact amount of funding that may be provided) or indefinite (authorizing the appropriation of “such sums as may be necessary,” with no specified upper limit). CBO refers to both definite and indefinite authorizations of appropriations as explicit. (CBO does not track implied authorizations of appropriations.)

Section 202(e)(3) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 (2 U.S.C. §602(e)(3)) requires CBO to report annually to the Congress on the following:

All programs and activities funded for the current fiscal year for which the authorizations of appropriations have expired and
All programs and activities for which the authorizations of appropriations will expire during the current fiscal year.

The information summarized in the following section is drawn from the agency’s Legislative Classification System (LCS), the database of explicit authorizations of appropriations that are not permanent, which underlies the report.1 Later in this report, CBO describes the method it uses to determine which authorizations have expired or will expire and discusses uncertainty in the aggregated information.

Historically, House and Senate rules restrict lawmakers from considering an appropriation if it lacks a current authorization.2 The determination of whether that is the case is made by the Speaker of the House or the Presiding Officer of the Senate on the basis of advice from the relevant chamber’s Office of the Parliamentarian. Although this report is intended to aid the Congress by identifying explicit authorizations of appropriations that expired before, or will expire during, this fiscal year, it is not and should not be considered definitive with respect to the application of House or Senate rules.

For this report, funding for programs and activities with expired authorizations includes only those appropriations that could clearly be associated with the authorization in legislative text or legislative history. Other appropriations may be available to carry out such programs and activities.

Authorizations and Appropriations Identified for This Report

The last piece of legislation that CBO analyzed to identify authorizations for this report was Public Law 118-63, the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024, which was enacted on May 16, 2024. CBO identified 1,264 authorizations of appropriations that expired before the beginning of fiscal year 2024 and 251 authorizations of appropriations that were set to expire by the end of fiscal year 2024.3 CBO estimates that $516 billion was appropriated for 2024 for activities with expired authorizations, which the agency identified for each House and Senate authorizing committee (see Table 1) and appropriations subcommittee (see Table 2).4

Table 1.

Summary of 2024 Appropriations With Expired Authorizations, by House and Senate Authorizing Committee

Notes

Table 2.

Summary of 2024 Appropriations With Expired Authorizations, by Appropriations Subcommittee

Notes

In CBO’s estimation, 49 percent of authorizations identified for this report expired at least a decade ago; the oldest expired in 1980. More than 70 percent of such authorizations were for specified amounts of annual funding that, when combined, totaled $101 billion for the year when they were last in effect. The remainder authorized appropriations of indefinite amounts.

The $516 billion in funding for fiscal year 2024 for which authorizations have expired can be attributed to 491 expired authorizations contained in 177 laws out of all 304 laws with expired authorizations. Of that total, $395 billion is associated with specified authorizations and $121 billion with indefinite authorizations. Nearly two-thirds ($320 billion) of that $516 billion was provided for activities whose authorizations expired more than a decade ago.

CBO cannot identify appropriations for fiscal year 2024 for 773 expired authorizations—that is, clear connections cannot be made between the language of those authorizations and the statutory text and corresponding legislative history of appropriation legislation for 2024.5

Overall, according to CBO’s records, funding for expired authorizations dropped from $519 billion in 2023 to $516 billion in 2024—a decrease of about 1 percent.6

Funding for expired authorizations is mostly attributable to a small group of expired authorizations: Twenty-four laws accounted for $470 billion of the $516 billion in total funding for expired authorizations that CBO identified (see Table 3).7 Twenty-one of those 24 laws also accounted for most of the funding in 2023 for expired authorizations.

Table 3.

Public Laws That Are Major Sources of Expired Authorizations of Appropriations With Identifiable Appropriations in 2023 and 2024

Notes

Specified authorizations of appropriations set to expire during 2024 total $892 billion this year (see Table 4). Most of that amount is authorized for defense activities, which, historically, have been reauthorized annually.

Table 4.

Summary of Authorizations of Appropriations Expiring on or Before September 30, 2024, by House and Senate Authorizing Committee and Appropriations Subcommittee

Notes

The supplemental data file posted along with this report provides detailed information about the status of individual explicit authorizations of appropriations.

How CBO Determines Expired and Expiring Authorizations of Appropriations

The process of assembling information on expired and expiring authorizations of appropriations occurs in three phases. First, CBO’s analysts review newly enacted laws to identify provisions that establish or modify explicit authorizations of appropriations that are time-limited. Second, they catalog information about those authorizations in the agency’s LCS database. Third, they review appropriations enacted for the current fiscal year to assess whether those acts provide funding for expired authorizations.8

Phase 1: Review Authorizations

CBO’s analysts review the text of newly enacted legislation to identify provisions that create new authorizations of appropriations or that amend, extend, or repeal existing ones. To be included, each authorization must meet three criteria:

It authorizes an appropriation explicitly. Many federal activities are governed by an enabling authorization (such as an organic statute that outlines an agency’s mission and authorities) and by an explicit authorization of appropriation; others might not have an authorization of appropriation. This report considers explicit authorizations of appropriations only. A key determinant for inclusion is the text of the law, which often includes the words “authorization of appropriation.”
It would receive funding in an appropriation act. This report focuses on authorizations for funding that CBO expects would be provided in legislation under the jurisdiction of the House or Senate Committee on Appropriations.
It has a specified expiration date. Authorizations of appropriations do not fit within the scope of this report if they are permanent or lack an end date.9 Because the report excludes explicit authorizations that do not expire, it cannot be considered an exhaustive list of enacted authorizations of appropriations.

Phase 2: Catalog Authorizations

During the second phase of the process, analysts update the LCS, recording new authorizations as well as repeals, modifications, and extensions. The LCS contains information about each authorization: the committees of jurisdiction, references to the public law or section of the U.S. Code that contains the authorization, the expiration date, and the latest amount authorized prior to expiration. If the authorized amount is indefinite, the LCS shows a zero.

To ensure the reliability of data cataloged during the second phase, CBO is required by law to consult with staff of Congressional committees. CBO shares a preliminary version of the data for the upcoming report and asks staff members to review items within each committee’s jurisdiction. That process helps CBO identify and correct errors in the LCS—particularly errors related to committees’ jurisdiction and the status of authorizations.

The goal for this phase is to ensure that the data related to authorizations are entered into the LCS in a way that helps analysts identify subsequent appropriations for those authorizations in future years, if they expire. In some cases, authorizations are combined to make it easier for analysts to identify appropriations for a given program or activity. For example, large authorization bills—such as the annual National Defense Authorization Act and the biennial Water Resources Development Act—can contain hundreds of discrete authorizations of appropriations for a broad range of activities of a federal department or agency. CBO consolidates many of those authorizations in the LCS to be consistent with the way related appropriations are typically provided. As a result, the number of expired or expiring authorizations in the LCS can be smaller than the actual number of discrete authorizations contained in those laws.

By contrast, if there is ambiguity about whether two authorizations of appropriations may interact or overlap, both are included in the LCS. That way, each explicit authorization is cataloged as closely as possible to the way it appears in the law. However, that treatment may result in multiple entries for some amounts authorized to be appropriated. For example, if an explicit authorization of appropriations for a series of grant programs is in place and a new law establishes an explicit authorization for a specific type of grant, analysts may not be able to determine whether the new authorization is meant to be additional to or derived from the existing authorization. In that case, CBO catalogs both the new authorization and the existing one in the LCS, potentially causing the amount authorized to be counted more than once.

Phase 3: Identify Appropriations for Expired Authorizations

Once full-year appropriation acts for the fiscal year covered by the report are enacted, CBO begins the third phase of the process. Analysts start by assessing the list of authorizations that have expired as of that time. Then, they review appropriation legislation that provides funding for the current fiscal year, including any supplemental appropriations, any permanent or advance appropriations already in place, and authorizing legislation that may include appropriation language.10 Analysts also consult detailed tables provided by the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations and the joint explanatory statements. (Joint explanatory statements accompany appropriation acts and further specify the allocation of budget authority at a more detailed level.)

The goal for this phase is to connect appropriations with expired authorizations on the basis of the appropriation acts’ text and the corresponding legislative history. CBO’s ability to make such connections is limited by the amount of detail provided in those laws and in related materials. Without a clear link, CBO cannot always associate an expired authorization with an appropriation—even if a federal agency could determine subsequently that appropriations are available for purposes covered by an expired authorization. In such cases, CBO might not identify those amounts in the LCS if the language of the authorization and the appropriation do not align. If authorizations overlap or interact, CBO tries to identify an appropriation for each authorization.

CBO aims to ensure consistency in the LCS’s records of appropriations for expired authorizations. When more than one appropriation is identified for a single expired authorization, the amounts are consolidated and attributed to that authorization for that year. If an appropriation can be associated with more than one authorization in the LCS, CBO links that appropriation with just one authorization.

Uncertainty of the Reported Statistics

Cataloging authorizations and identifying appropriations involves analysts’ judgment. For that reason, the report’s statistics are subject to uncertainty. Understating or overstating the number of authorizations can skew the number of expired authorizations with identified funding and the dollar amounts of appropriations provided for expired authorizations. Thus, this report should not be construed as providing precise information about the current state of authorizations and related appropriations. Likewise, uncertainty in the cataloging of authorizations and appropriations affects the accuracy of comparisons between datasets from year to year. Comparisons of data between one report and another indicate broad overall trends, not precise differences.

1. That database is available in the workbook posted as supplemental data at www.cbo.gov/publication/60390. The data supersede preliminary data that did not associate appropriations with authorizations; see Congressional Budget Office, “Expired and Expiring Authorizations of Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2024—Information for Legislation Enacted Through September 30, 2023” (January 2024), www.cbo.gov/publication/59684.

2. See clause 2(a)(1) of rule XXI, “General Appropriation Bills and Amendments,” of the Rules of the House of Representatives, H.R. Doc. 115-177 (2019), p. 871, https://tinyurl.com/53ethuav; and clause 1 of rule XVI, “Appropriations and Amendments to General Appropriations Bills,” of the Standing Rules of the Senate, S. Doc. 113-18 (January 2013), p. 11, https://tinyurl.com/cttpbya8.

3. Some of the expired and expiring authorizations identified for this report may have been reauthorized by legislation enacted after May 16, 2024.

4. In identifying appropriations for this report, CBO reviewed all appropriation acts (enacted as of April 23, 2024) that provide funding for fiscal year 2024. Specifically, divisions A through F of P.L. 118-47 and divisions A through F of P.L. 118-42 contain the 12 regular annual appropriation acts for 2024. CBO also reviewed divisions A through C of P.L. 118-50 (which provide security-related supplemental appropriations for 2024); the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2024 and Other Extensions Act (P.L. 118-15); the Further Continuing Appropriations and Other Extensions Act, 2024 (P.L. 118-22); the Further Additional Continuing Appropriations and Other Extensions Act, 2024 (P.L. 118-35); the Extension of Continuing Appropriations and Other Matters Act, 2024 (P.L. 118-40); the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (P.L. 117-58); and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, 2022 (P.L. 117-159).

5. Regardless of whether CBO could identify appropriations for this report, a federal agency may be able to determine that funding for 2024 is available for purposes covered by an expired authorization.

6. The 2023 total differs from the sum stated in last year’s report ($510 billion) because it reflects updates to account for supplemental appropriations enacted after the release of that report and to correct database errors that CBO identified while preparing this edition of the report.

7. For this edition of the report, a law counts as a major source of appropriations for expired authorizations if more than $3 billion in appropriations was identified for the law’s expired authorizations in 2023 or 2024.

8. CBO reviews appropriation acts for explicit authorizations of appropriations and updates the LCS accordingly. CBO’s catalog of authorizations as compiled from the LCS is published with each edition of the report. See Congressional Budget Office, “Expired and Expiring Authorizations of Appropriations,” https://tinyurl.com/yc8pnkfu.

9. If an authorization does not specify a particular expiration date but specifies a fiscal year, then CBO lists September 30—the last day of the fiscal year—as the expiration date.

10. When a supplemental appropriation is enacted after CBO publishes the report for a fiscal year, CBO updates the LCS to reflect changes to funding for expired authorizations as well as corrections to database errors that CBO identified while preparing the report. CBO does not revise the issued report, but in the next edition of the report, it provides details on the amount of supplemental appropriations that were identified and associated with authorizations that had expired when the previous report was published.

This Congressional Budget Office report satisfies the requirements of section 202(e)(3) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, as amended. The report is intended to assist the Congress by identifying authorizations of appropriations that have expired or will expire in the current fiscal year. Previous editions, which until 2016 were titled Unauthorized Appropriations and Expiring Authorizations, are available from CBO’s web page for major recurring reports, “Expired and Expiring Authorizations of Appropriations,” at https://tinyurl.com/yc8pnkfu.

Olivia Yang wrote the report with guidance from Megan Carroll and Esther Steinbock and assistance from Youstiena Shafeek. The information in it was prepared by Breanna Browne-Pike, Joanna Capps (formerly of CBO), George McArdle, Amy McConnel, Mark Sanford, Youstiena Shafeek, Esther Steinbock, J’nell Blanco Suchy, and Olivia Yang. Youstiena Shafeek fact-checked the report. Shane Beaulieu and Patrice Watson of CBO, staff members of the Congressional Research Service, and many staff members of Congressional committees provided assistance.

Chad Chirico, Christina Hawley Anthony, Ann E. Futrell, Sam Papenfuss, and Robert Sunshine reviewed the report. John Skeen edited it, and Casey Labrack and Jorge Salazar prepared the report for publication. The report is available at www.cbo.gov/publication/60390.

CBO seeks feedback to make its work as useful as possible. Please send comments to communications@cbo.gov.

Phillip L. Swagel

Director

3. China’s Strategy in Trade War: Threaten U.S. Tech Companies

Xi to Google and Apple: We are coming for you.

China’s Strategy in Trade War: Threaten U.S. Tech Companies

Preparing for Trump talks, Beijing starts probe of Google and keeps Apple and Broadcom in its sights

https://www.wsj.com/tech/china-trade-war-us-tech-03578671?mod=hp_lead_pos2

By Liza Lin

and Raffaele Huang

Feb. 9, 2025 9:00 pm ET

Nvidia’s headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif. Beijing has ordered an antitrust investigation into the company. Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News

SINGAPORE—Chinese officials are building a list of U.S. technology companies that can be targeted with antitrust probes and other tools, hoping to influence the tech executives who are heavily represented in President Trump’s orbit.

People familiar with Beijing’s strategy said the goal was to collect as many cards as possible to play in expected negotiations with the Trump administration over U.S.-China issues, including the tariffs that Trump has imposed on Chinese goods.

Beijing has already said it is investigating Nvidia and Google over alleged antitrust issues. Other American companies in its sights include Apple, Silicon Valley tech company Broadcom and semiconductor-design software vendor Synopsys, said people familiar with the matter. Synopsys has a $35 billion acquisition awaiting approval by Beijing.

China needs all the leverage it can get to hit back at the U.S., and antitrust is one of the most useful, said Tom Nunlist, a Shanghai-based tech policy specialist at consulting firm Trivium China.

“China is on a chip-gathering exercise,” said Nunlist, likening the countries to poker players. “They want to come to the table to negotiate and need something to play with.”

Google’s Sundar Pichai, standing at Elon Musk’s right, was among top technology executives at President Trump’s inauguration ceremony. Photo: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

The strategy carries risks. American companies recently have been less willing than in Trump’s first term to go to bat for China, and the threats could backfire by discouraging companies from investing in the country when that is what Beijing wants.

Beijing has added to its regulatory tools in recent years, drawing lessons from America’s approach. In 2020, it created an “unreliable entity list” of companies—mimicking a U.S. entity list that blocks Chinese technology leader Huawei and others from doing business with Americans. In 2022, China amended its antitrust law to tighten rules on anticompetitive mergers.

Chinese officials hope to get the attention of people in Trump’s world including the executives who sat by his side on inauguration day such as Google’s Sundar Pichai and Apple’s Tim Cook, said people close to Beijing’s policymakers.

Moments after an additional 10% U.S. tariff on Chinese goods took effect Tuesday, China said it had opened an antitrust probe against Google.

China was irked in 2019 when Google, complying with U.S. rules, restricted Huawei from using the Android operating system for mobile devices. Huawei later lost access to Google’s app and other proprietary software and was forced to develop its own operating system.

Google took part in the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai last year. Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Another tit-for-tat move came in December, when the Biden administration ratcheted up controls on China’s access to high-end semiconductors. A week later, China said it had started investigating Nvidia, which makes the most powerful chips for developing artificial intelligence, over a merger in 2019.

The probe centers on whether Nvidia discriminated against Chinese companies when it stopped selling them certain products, people familiar with the matter said. U.S. export controls since 2022 restricted Nvidia from selling its most advanced AI chips to China. Nvidia declined to comment.

Apple has been at odds with Chinese tech companies over its practice of taking a cut when app developers charge for in-app services such as buying tokens to play a game. Tencent, a Chinese videogame leader, and ByteDance, the parent of TikTok, have brought to Apple their concerns that some App Store policies are unfair.

Similar complaints have been scrutinized by regulators around the world. Apple has said its policies ensure the quality and safety of apps.

While Chinese regulators initially watched the commercial dispute from the sidelines, in recent weeks they have taken a closer look, people familiar with the matter said. Some officials view Apple’s charges in China as unreasonably high and believe Apple’s rules governing app payments hinder competition, the people said. As a result, Beijing sees the company as another card it can play in talks with the U.S.

Tencent’s offices in Shanghai. Photo: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg News

Mergers between multinationals typically require approval from antitrust regulators around the globe, and they can fall apart if they fail to gain even one major-country approval.

In 2018, amid U.S.-China trade conflicts in the first Trump administration, Qualcomm terminated its proposed purchase of Dutch chip maker NXP Semiconductors after failing to obtain clearance from China.

U.S. chip maker Broadcom’s takeover of VMware, valued at $61 billion when it was unveiled in May 2022, was in peril until a meeting between Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in November 2023. The two leaders agreed to dial down tensions. Shortly afterward, China greenlighted the deal at the 11th hour with conditions, requiring Broadcom to ensure supply to Chinese customers.

China has increasingly attached such conditions to deals, especially semiconductor mergers, meaning the companies remain vulnerable to regulatory action even after the deals close, lawyers say. U.S. chip companies Intel and AMD have had deals approved with conditions in China in the past few years.

“By enforcing strict compliance conditions, Beijing can exert pressure on firms and impose penalties for noncompliance,” said Angela Zhang, a professor at the University of Southern California specializing in Chinese antitrust law.

Still, she said, “Beijing has to be cautious when taking action against U.S. firms, especially those it relies on for critical components like Nvidia.”

One deal in limbo is chip-design software vendor Synopsys’s proposed $35 billion acquisition of engineering software company Ansys. Beijing was unhappy when Synopsys, complying with U.S. export controls, cut off China’s access to some software for designing advanced chips. In December the Chinese antitrust regulator told Synopsys it would suspend its review, citing insufficient materials, people close to the deal said.

A Synopsys spokesperson said the company was confident the review would be resolved favorably and expected the transaction to close in the first half of 2025.

National security is another tool China can use to curtail U.S. companies. In 2023, China banned major Chinese firms from buying from U.S. chip maker Micron Technology, after it said a cybersecurity probe identified national-security risks. The Commerce Department said at the time that the restrictions had no basis in fact.

Write to Liza Lin at liza.lin@wsj.com and Raffaele Huang at raffaele.huang@wsj.com

4. Defending USAID Is Political Suicide for Democrats

Defending USAID Is Political Suicide for Democrats

https://www.thefp.com/p/defending-usaid-is-political-suicide

Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland speaks outside the United States Agency for International Development in Washington, D.C., on February 3. (Bill Clark via Getty Images)

By Ruy Teixeira

02.09.25 — U.S. Politics

Once again, the party shows it has learned

nothing from November 5.

If you want evidence that Democrats have learned nothing from their November 5 shellacking, just watch this video.

It’s from a protest outside the Capitol last week at which Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, one of several top lawmakers in attendance, led chants of “Hey, hey, ho, ho! Elon Musk has got to go!”—and vowed to protect USAID in the courts, or by threatening parliamentary maneuvers against President Trump’s nominees.

In policy terms, the Democrats have a point. The legality of DOGE’s strike on the agency is unclear. For the incredible amount of wasteful stuff in its budget—why did USAID grant $1.5 million for “diversity, equity, and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities”—USAID also provides basic aid, like nutrition and health assistance, to needy countries.

But politically, none of that matters a whit. Trump occupies the high ground in this fight, which is probably why he and Musk picked it. If voters dislike anything, it’s bureaucracy and foreign aid. And USAID is a 10,000-employee bureaucracy—housed in a palatial building on prime downtown real estate—that spends $40 billion a year on other countries.

“You don’t fight every fight. You don’t swing at every pitch,” as the former Democratic Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel told Politico. “And my view is—while I care about the USAID as a former ambassador—that’s not the hill I’m going to die on.”

Skepticism about foreign aid is one of the most consistent and durable findings of public opinion research. In a 2023 AP-NORC poll, 69 percent of respondents thought U.S. government spending in this area was “too much”; 20 percent, “about right”; and just 10 percent “too little.” In contrast, support for more spending in most domestic areas (healthcare, education, infrastructure, Social Security, etc.) is quite strong.

As veterans like Emanuel know, anti–foreign aid sentiment runs highest among working-class voters, precisely the people who have been defecting from the Democrats for Trump, and without whose votes the party cannot recover. Cutting foreign aid spending is about 10 points more popular among voters without college degrees than among the college-educated.

For many of the latter, who constitute the core of the modern Democratic Party, it’s self-evident that spending millions fighting climate change or promoting gender equity abroad serves U.S. interests and discharges a moral obligation.

Chris Van Hollen epitomizes this kind of Democrat. A son of Foreign Service officers, he was born in Pakistan, spent much of his childhood in Asia, and acquired degrees from Swarthmore and Harvard; his first work experience included stints on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff. Before winning a Senate seat in 2016, he represented a suburban D.C. House district inhabited by many State Department and USAID officials.

Defenders of foreign aid usually respond to critics by lecturing them that it represents no more than 1 percent of federal spending, and therefore they should look elsewhere to balance the budget. This argument totally misses the point that taxpayers place a higher priority on unmet needs at home.

Americans are willing to help alleviate genuine suffering abroad, and to do so generously, but want to be assured the government has already done its best to take care of domestic needs. USAID’s budget would cover the $23 billion maintenance backlog at the national parks, for example, with money left over.

In response to such concerns, the “only 1 percent” line provides nothing but a patronizing non sequitur.

As David Axelrod remarked to Politico, regarding the USAID battle, “Democrats have become—in the minds of a lot of voters—an elite party, and to a lot of folks who are trying to scuffle out there and get along, this will seem like an elite passion.”

Okay, let’s recap the situation:

1. Democrats are unconditionally defending an obscure government institution at a time when even well-known and previously trusted institutions are regarded with intense suspicion. A key finding from New York Times polling in the 2024 election cycle was that voters overwhelmingly believe the political and economic system in America needs either major changes, or to be completely rebuilt.

2. This particular obscure institution does one of American voters’ least favorite things: provide foreign aid.

3. Finally, not only are Democrats blanket defending an obscure institution that does something American voters don’t particularly want to, they are defending it without explaining their own priorities. What aid would they preserve and what would they get rid of? It is a legitimate issue, in light of concerns about USAID, which is not a “criminal organization,” as Musk called it, but does have long-standing issues with efficiency and focus.

Voters might listen to Democrats who approached foreign assistance in the spirit that President Bill Clinton approached affirmative action: “Mend it, don’t end it.”

That spirit of open reform will be desperately needed across all issue areas as Democrats try to counter Trump’s excesses.

He is guaranteed to do many things that are genuinely unpopular and impinge upon voters’ lives in areas like healthcare, education, and the cost of living. Democrats should keep their powder dry for those fights.

That could make them politically stronger over time and conceivably even better able to restore essential foreign assistance programs. Grandstanding in an unequivocal defense of USAID, by contrast, provides a frisson of #Resistance feeling—and little else.

5. How Much the U.S. Spent on Foreign Aid—and Where It Went

The Wall Street Journal's analysis of USAID.

See the charts, graphs, and data at the link: https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/how-much-the-u-s-spent-on-foreign-aidand-where-it-went-a8c66088?st=VWPcX7&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Say what you want about DOGE, it is making Americans think about US national security and foreign policy activities which I think is a good thing.

And of course this aspect of USAID has been either unknown, little known, or underappreciated.

Programs often associated with foreign aid, such as humanitarian assistance, made up a large slice of the total. But significant funding also went to strengthening militaries in allied nations and helping governments phase out fossil fuels or contain the production of opioids that could end up in the U.S.

This brings up a point we should be considering: we have DOD, State, and USAID all providing some form of security assistance to our friends, partners, and allies. Is that assistance properly synchronized and orchestrated to meet US national security objectives? Who should be ensuring that such orchestration and synchronization takes place and which organizations are capable of doing so? These are critical questions that DOGE will never get to because they are probably not solved by an algorithm. But we have an opportunity with the "Great Reset" of the federal bureaucracy that is taking place with DOGE to look at some of these key national security issues. I know there are some who think that using USAID to provide military assistance provides some kind of cut out for the US or somehow blurs our fingerprints. But it leaves us vulnerable to the sensational accusations in the article from Iran I posted yesterday. See this:

'Aiding chaos': USAID’s role in engineering regime change, social unrest worldwide

https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2025/02/08/742401/aiding-chaos-usaid-role-engineering-regime-change-social-unrest-worldwide

How Much the U.S. Spent on Foreign Aid—and Where It Went

The Trump administration has largely dismantled USAID and brought American assistance to a near-halt

By Gabriele SteinhauserFollow

and Ming LiFollow

Updated Feb. 10, 2025 12:10 am ET

The U.S. was the world’s largest funder of foreign aid for decades—propping up education, health services and human rights in developing countries and supporting the militaries of strategic allies.

Programs often associated with foreign aid, such as humanitarian assistance, made up a large slice of the total. But significant funding also went to strengthening militaries in allied nations and helping governments phase out fossil fuels or contain the production of opioids that could end up in the U.S.

President Trump ordered a freeze on much of that spending for 90 days. Then, on Jan. 28, Secretary of State Marco Rubio signed a waiver for lifesaving humanitarian assistance supposed to allow projects such as field hospitals in war zones to resume. Administration officials say they will assess whether the U.S. assistance is in line with the president’s “America First” agenda.

Aid as a share of each donor’s economy

The U.S. spent nearly $65 billion on foreign aid in 2023, the most recent year for which internationally comparable data is available. In dollar terms, that was more than any other rich country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

But as a percentage of its economy, the U.S. lagged behind countries such as Japan, the U.K. and France.

World’s biggest foreign aid funders and their economic commitment in 2023

Country

Total foreign aid

Share of national income

U.S.

0.24%

$64.69 billion

Germany

0.82%

37.90

Japan

0.44

19.60

U.K.

0.58

19.07

France

0.48

15.05

Canada

0.38

7.97

Netherlands

0.66

7.36

Italy

0.27

6.12

Sweden

0.93

5.62

Norway

1.09

5.55

Source: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development via One Campaign

USAID handled the most aid of any U.S. agency

The U.S. Agency for International Development, which was established in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy, was responsible for around two-thirds of U.S. foreign assistance.

The administration’s move to dismantle USAID has left big questions over who will oversee whatever programs are allowed to resume after the 90-day freeze.

Much of the remaining foreign aid came from the State Department, including sanitation and clinics in refugee camps and military assistance. The Health and Human Services Department monitored and helped contain dangerous diseases such as Ebola abroad. The U.S. Treasury funded contributions to international financial institutions such as the World Bank and provided technical assistance to finance ministries in developing countries to prevent debt crises.

How U.S. foreign aid is distributed

A large proportion of U.S. aid ended up in overseas communities via the United Nations and other multilateral agencies, as well as American and international nonprofits such as Mercy Corps, CARE or the International Rescue Committee that give grants to smaller, local organizations.

Who distributes the aid

12%

31%

46%

11%

Direct transfers

to foreign

organizations

and governments

U.S.

government

costs

Contributions to

multilateral agencies

Channeled via American

companies and non-profits

Millenium

Challenge

Corporation

Malaria

and TB

programs

HIV/AIDS

programs

Humanitarian

and emergency

relief

17%

World Bank and

regional development

banks (largely for Ukraine)

World Food Program

Gavi and

the Global Fund

to Fight AIDS,

TB, and Malaria

Note: For fiscal years 2021–24 and excludes military aid

Source: Center for Global Development

Aid amounts depend on need and strategic importance

Low-income countries suffering large humanitarian crises due to conflicts, such as Sudan, Ethiopia or the Democratic Republic of Congo, have been key targets for American aid. But need wasn’t the only determining factor for how much U.S. aid a country received. Allocation decisions were often tied to a nation’s importance to American national security and global priorities.

U.S. foreign assistance in 2023

No data

$10M

$25M

$100M

$500M

$1B

$50M

$10B

Ukraine

$17.2B

U.S.

Israel

$3.3B

Note: For the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1, 2022, and ended on Sept. 30, 2023

Source: U.S. government

Daniel Kiss/WSJ

Until Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Israel, a high-income country, was the top recipient of U.S. assistance for many years and remained in the number two spot in the 2024 fiscal year. Jordan and Egypt, two other key allies in the Middle East, were also among the top five overall recipients. Since 2022, Ukraine had been getting far more U.S. aid than any other country, even when military assistance is excluded.

Africa’s share of total U.S. foreign aid and the proportion of aid that went to low-income countries, meanwhile, declined over the past decade.

The real-world impact of aid programs

New cases of children orphaned by AIDS

Annual deaths of children from AIDS

1.75 million

250 thousand

Pepfar in effect since 2003

1.50

200

1.25

150

1.00

0.75

100

0.50

0.25

1990

’95

2000

’05

’10

’15

’20

1990

’95

2000

’05

’10

’15

’20

Source: Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, Oxford University

Some of the clearest evidence of the impact of American aid comes from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or Pepfar. Since it was created in 2003 by President George W. Bush, Pepfar has been credited with saving some 26 million lives, mostly in African countries. New transmissions have fallen and, thanks to U.S.-funded antiretroviral drugs, HIV is no longer a death sentence but a chronic disease that can be managed.

The Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, or UNAIDS, projects that by the end of the decade Pepfar would prevent an extra 5.2 million AIDS-related deaths and 6.4 million new infections. If Pepfar was discontinued, 460,000 more children would die of HIV-related causes by 2030 and 2.8 million more children will be orphaned by AIDS, according to another model.

Estimates for new HIV infections

4.5

million

4.0

Upper bound

3.5

3.0

All ages

2.5

Lower bound

2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5

1990

'95

2000

'05

'10

'15

'20

Source: AIDSinfo

U.S. funding for vaccines, nutrition and malaria prevention has contributed to a sharp decline in deaths among children under the age of five in developing nations. A 2022 study published in the journal Population Health Metrics, for instance, found that countries that received above-average funding from USAID saw under-five mortality reduced by 29 deaths per 1,000 live births.

In other areas, U.S. assistance has been less successful.

USAID and the State Department spent tens of millions of dollars in recent years training local militaries and supporting good governance in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso—three countries in Africa’s Sahel region where coups have ousted elected leaders and the new ruling juntas kicked out U.S. troops to forge closer ties with Russia.

Write to Gabriele Steinhauser at Gabriele.Steinhauser@wsj.com and Ming Li at ming.li@wsj.com

6. Betsy DeVos: Shut Down the Department of Education

Say what you want about the debate over disbanding the Department of Education, Ms DeVos is at least offering some solutions (though they support one political view and they will be panned by those with opposing political views).

She brings up another point that is not discussed: the overlap actions and authorities of various executive branch agencies. All of her proposals can be debated but one point jumps out to me. Should the Department of Education have responsibility for civil rights law enforcement? Another DOGE task as part of the "Great Reset" of the federal bureaucracy could be an assessment of overlapping authorities and jurisdictions among various executive department agencies and possibly streamline the process to ensure the right agencies have the right authorities and jurisdiction. I am sure their magic algorithms could come up with some program to assess them (though perhaps not since all they seem to be able to do is follow the money).

Excerpts:

Fortunately, there is a clear remedy.

First, Congress should send education funding straight to states and schools as a block grant. This would take away more than half of the department’s duties, while materially increasing the amount of funding going to educating students. Congress should also waste no time in passing universal school choice—giving education funding directly to families, not to schools or the education system—further improving the education landscape without growing the government.

Next, give the responsibility for enforcing civil rights law—from preventing discrimination to protecting students with disabilities—to the Department of Justice. It already has its own civil rights division that, unlike the DOE’s, can actually sue schools when they break the law. This would lead to more law enforcement and fewer agenda-driven “Dear Colleague” edicts that aim to reshape society, rather than enhance education.

Finally, put the student loan program in the hands of bankers, not education bureaucrats, ideally at actual financial institutions, or at minimum, under the purview of the Department of Treasury. The private sector, in particular, can offer better rates, terms, and quality than the federal government has proven capable of doing. This would also serve to curb runaway tuition increases, which have been fueled in no small part by the perception of “free” government money.

With those issues solved, a federal Department of Education would no longer have any pretext to exist. While it is true that no federal agency has ever seen its doors closed, there must be a first for everything. On the merits, the Department of Education has earned such a historic distinction.

Betsy DeVos: Shut Down the Department of Education

I served as the 11th U.S. secretary of education. That’s how I know it’s beyond repair.

https://www.thefp.com/p/betsy-devos-shut-down-the-department-of-education-trump-elon

(Tom William via Getty Images)

By Betsy DeVos

02.06.25 — U.S. Politics

1,243

1,282

Since its creation in 1979, the Department of Education has sent well more than $1 trillion to schools with the express purpose of closing the gaps between the highest and lowest performers. Today, those gaps are as wide as they have ever been, and by many measures, even wider.

Last week, the latest Nation’s Report Card came out, giving us a clear assessment of where student achievement stands. The report, published by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), tells us that in reading and math, most students were even further behind than they were in 2022. Which was worse than where they were in 2019. Which was worse than 2013.

How bad is it? Seven in 10 American fourth graders are not proficient readers, meaning they struggle with reading grade-level literature and comprehending informational texts. Forty percent graded out at “below basic,” meaning they struggle with basic comprehension. In math, the picture is similar: six in 10 fourth graders are behind in math.

The gap between the highest and lowest performers has grown by 10 percent since 2019. Don’t be fooled into believing this is a Covid-19 by-product. The lowest performing eighth-grade readers are significantly worse off than their peers were in 1992, the first year the NAEP was administered. In fact, their scores this year are the lowest in recorded history:

(via nationalreportcard.gov)

Consider this “Exhibit A” as to why the Department has failed at its mission and no longer needs to exist.

I can understand how that idea, which President Donald Trump is committed to advancing, might sound a bit radical. But having spent four years on the inside as secretary of education, struggling to get the department’s bureaucracy to make even the smallest changes to put the needs of students first, I can say conclusively that American students will be better off without.

Nothing could be more important to our success as a nation than having well-educated citizens. But don’t be fooled by the name: the Department of Education has almost nothing to do with actually educating anyone.

The Department of Education does not run a single school. It does not employ any teachers in a single classroom. It doesn’t set academic standards or curriculum. It isn’t even the primary funder of education—quite the opposite. In most states, the federal government represents less than 10 percent of K–12 public education funding.

So what does it do? It shuffles money around; adds unnecessary requirements and political agendas via its grants; and then passes the buck when it comes time to assess if any of that adds value.

Here’s how it works: Congress appropriates funding for education; last year, it totaled nearly $80 billion. The department’s bureaucrats take in those billions, add strings and red tape, peel off a percentage to pay for themselves, and then send it down to state education agencies. Many of them do a version of the same and then send it to our schools. The schools must then pay first for administrators to manage all the requirements that have been added along the way. After all that, the money makes it to the classroom to help a student learn—maybe.

In other words, the Department of Education is functionally a middleman. And like most middlemen, it doesn’t add value. It merely adds cost and complexity.

The only certain benefactor of the DOE’s existence is its patron saint: the teachers unions. After all, it was the endorsement of President Jimmy Carter by the biggest teachers union—the National Education Association—that gave us a federal education department in the first place. That original sin explains much of what’s transpired since.

We all know how unacceptable the situation is in K–12. But the results aren’t much better in higher education.

Consider the colossal fiasco the Biden administration made of FAFSA, the college financial aid form. Every parent of a college-aged student is painfully aware of the mess this became—as a result of a congressional order in 2021 to simplify the form, no less. The prior administration screwed it up so badly that even Sen. Bernie Sanders was left with no choice but to criticize them.

Simultaneously, the agency focused on “canceling” student loans, despite being told explicitly by the Supreme Court that its schemes were plainly illegal. A department so brazenly willing to defy the rule of law and the separation of powers is one whose existence should most certainly be reevaluated.

These financial and operational calamities alone make the case to shutter the department. But closing down the DOE would also bring an end—at long last—to federal ideological intrusion.

Look no further than the Biden-Harris administration’s radical Title IX regulation that, among many other defects, allowed men to play on women’s sports teams and invade their private spaces. This was ostensibly done in the name of civil rights protection, but it deeply eroded civil rights protections for women. This is only one example of how even a straightforward law like Title IX can be weaponized by the Department of Education’s bureaucracy against students, schools, the law, and common sense.

Title IX is not the exception to the rule. Think about the department’s negligence in responding to antisemitism as campus protests interrupted—and in some cases brazenly prevented—learning following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks. Or the department’s effort, in the early days of the Biden administration, to effectively bribe schools into teaching the discredited 1619 Project under the guise of a “civics instruction” grant.

Other examples are legion—and from both parties. Educators resisted the heavy-handed No Child Left Behind mandates from the Bush administration as much as they did the strings-laden Race to the Top program from the Obama administration. While they shared vastly different goals, they both featured the same core defect: heavy-handed federal intrusion into what have always been state policy matters.

The department’s mere existence as a political body—and make no mistake, what happens inside the DOE is very political—creates a magnetic pull toward overreach. As we are beginning to learn from the Department of Government Efficiency, when there is a lever of power that can be pulled, people in Washington just want to pull it.

Fortunately, there is a clear remedy.

First, Congress should send education funding straight to states and schools as a block grant. This would take away more than half of the department’s duties, while materially increasing the amount of funding going to educating students. Congress should also waste no time in passing universal school choice—giving education funding directly to families, not to schools or the education system—further improving the education landscape without growing the government.

Next, give the responsibility for enforcing civil rights law—from preventing discrimination to protecting students with disabilities—to the Department of Justice. It already has its own civil rights division that, unlike the DOE’s, can actually sue schools when they break the law. This would lead to more law enforcement and fewer agenda-driven “Dear Colleague” edicts that aim to reshape society, rather than enhance education.

Finally, put the student loan program in the hands of bankers, not education bureaucrats, ideally at actual financial institutions, or at minimum, under the purview of the Department of Treasury. The private sector, in particular, can offer better rates, terms, and quality than the federal government has proven capable of doing. This would also serve to curb runaway tuition increases, which have been fueled in no small part by the perception of “free” government money.

With those issues solved, a federal Department of Education would no longer have any pretext to exist. While it is true that no federal agency has ever seen its doors closed, there must be a first for everything. On the merits, the Department of Education has earned such a historic distinction.

Betsy DeVos served as the 11^th U.S. secretary of education and is the best-selling author of Hostages No More: The Fight for Education Freedom and the Future of the American Child.

7. Trump defends Musk and says Doge will look at military spending

DOGE is coming for Defense. The thing that Defense leaders need to do is embrace this opportunity to cut all the pet projects that Congress has forced upon the services. Offer all of them up so DOGE can take its scalpel (or machete or chainsaw) to them.

But on a serious note, there is probably huge potential for force structure cuts and other cuts such as to weapons systems in R&D that will be ill informed by the algorithm of the wiz kids (who likely have no coup d'oiel - they lack the necessary education and experience to cut through the fog and friction of war as Clausewitz teaches us in the quest for military genius).

Defense could benefit from the "Great Reset"of the federal bureaucracy.

Military leaders could take this as an opportunity to streamline functions and align the right forces and functions and weapons systems to protect necessary capabilities. Offer the rights one up for cuts to DOGE so they can take all the credit for making the hard decisions (though I expect of all the executive agencies Congress will push back the most on defense cuts but there are so Congressional pet project).

Defense is going to take a haircut - do they want it to be styled or simply have their heads shaved?

Trump defends Musk and says Doge will look at military spending

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czrljmzyz7xo

13 hours ago

Save

Mike Wendling

BBC News•@mwendling

0:39

Trump asked if he trusts Elon Musk

President Trump has defended Elon Musk's drive to shut down sections of the US government amid legal challenges, transparency concerns and questions over conflicts of interest.

"He's not gaining anything. In fact, I wonder how he can devote the time to it," Trump said Sunday.

Democrats have accused Musk of personally benefiting from some of the changes that the Trump administration is trying to push through, such as the proposed closure of the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Trump said Musk's unofficial Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) would soon examine spending in the military and the Department of Education, possibly in the next "24 hours".

"Let's check the military," he said. "We're going to find billions, hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse, and the people elected me on that."

Earlier on Sunday, US defence secretary Pete Hegseth told Fox News he "welcomes" Doge putting military spending under the microscope.

"When we spend dollars, we need to know where they're going and why, and that has not existed at the defence department," he said.

Trump's comments on Musk and Doge came from an interview with Fox News journalist Bret Baier during a pre-game broadcast leading up to Sunday's Super Bowl.

During the interview, the president also said he was not satisfied with actions taken by Mexico and Canada on illegal drugs and border crossings.

He also said he was serious about his proposal to turn Canada into the 51st US state, an idea the wide majority of Canadians oppose.

Getty Images

Legal battles over Doge

Doge employees have entered several government departments since Trump took office and led the charge to try to shut down USAID.

In recent days, some Doge staffers have been spotted at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau - an agency set up to protect consumers in the wake of the 2007-8 financial crisis.

CFPB employees in the bureau's Washington office have been told to work from home for at least a week, according to an email seen by BBC News.

However Trump's opponents have filed legal challenges to try to halt some of the changes and several of the president's executive orders.

On Saturday, a federal judge blocked Doge from accessing the personal financial data of millions of Americans held in Treasury Department records.

US District Judge Paul Engelmayer ordered Musk and his team to immediately destroy any copies of records.

The Trump administration has not responded to requests about Doge's activities, funding or the number of people it employs.

Courts have also paused Trump's order to end birthright citizenship, a plan to put thousand of USAID staff on leave and a large buyout offer to federal employees.

Republicans including Vice President JD Vance criticised Engelmayer's ruling. Vance alleged the injunction was illegal and wrote on X: "Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power."

Alina Habba, a Trump aide, told Fox News earlier Sunday that there would be "repercussions for people" trying to "step in Trump's way".

Democrats meanwhile stepped up their criticism of Musk and Trump, but with Republicans in control of the White House and Congress, they have little leverage outside of legal action.

"Our courts are working as they should," Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar told CBS's Face the Nation. "What is not working is the way that the executive branch is behaving."

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy says Musk "stands to gain from the closure of USAID".

"It makes America much less safe around the world, but it helps China," Murphy told ABC News. "Elon Musk has many major business interests at stake inside Beijing."

Murphy called the Trump administration's actions "the most serious constitutional crisis" since the Watergate scandal.

"The president is attempting to seize control of power and for corrupt purposes," he claimed.

Getty Images

The Super Bowl, the professional American football championship game, is being held in New Orleans on Sunday.

Trump picks Kansas City to win Super Bowl

Trump's interview restarted a tradition dating back about 20 years. The presidential interview has been absent from the Super Bowl pre-game for the last two editions after former President Joe Biden twice declined to appear.

President Trump himself refused to talk to NBC in 2018. This year he becomes the first US president to watch the game in person.

Fox News anchor Baier asked Trump about the differences between his second presidency and taking office for the first time in 2017.

"I had tremendous opposition [last time], but I didn't know people and I didn't have the kind of support I needed," Trump said. "I was a New York person, not a [Washington] DC person."

In response to a question about Canada, Trump said US trade deficits would justify annexation.

"I think Canada would be much better off being a 51st state, because we lose $200bn a year with Canada. And I'm not going to let that happen. It's too much," he said. "Now, if they're a 51st state, I don't mind doing it."

Administration officials have previously said the figure of $200bn includes both defence spending and the US trade deficit.

When asked if Canada and Mexico had satisfied the demands which led to tariff threats, Trump responded: "No, it's not good enough. Something has to happen, it's not sustainable."

The president also praised both Super Bowl teams and ultimately picked Kansas City to win the championship.

8. Deterring China, slashing waste top Pentagon priorities, Hegseth says

Again, DOGE is coming for Defense.

Every SECDEF has been either co-opted by the Defense community (Military Industrial Congressional Complex) or stymied by it (such as Rumsfeld and Gates, though of course Gates did cut the F-22).

Just because the Secretary says he wants to focus on warfighting and lethality does not mean cuts are not coming. Defense is not "protected" from DOGE in any way.

And the difference today is that no SECDEF had the tool that Secretary Hegseth has at his disposal and that is DOGE. He is more likely to listen to and embrace the recommendations of DOGE than he is the recommendations of military leaders defending against the slash and burn that is going to likely be taking place very soon.

The question for defense leaders is do you want to shape or be shaped? Can you identify and make the right cuts to help DOGE help you? Yes these are scary times for those who want to maintain the status quo. But this is also an opportunity to to embrace the "Great Reset" of the federal bureaucracy and do what most military leaders have long wanted to do but have always kept buried deep inside because they would be viewed as heretics if they try to "right size" their defense programs (or worse to cut something).

Shape or be shaped. Or find a sword or hill to fall or die on.

Deterring China, slashing waste top Pentagon priorities, Hegseth says

Defense News · by Stephen Losey · February 8, 2025

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday pledged to demonstrate to China that the United States will continue supporting its allies in the Indo-Pacific region.

The U.S., however, is not going to create unnecessary conflict with Beijing, Hegseth said in a question-and-answer session during a town hall with Defense Department personnel.

“We’re clear-eyed about the communist Chinese, the [People’s Republic of China], but we’re also not attempting to initiate conflict or create conflict where it otherwise doesn’t need to exist,” Hegseth said. “We’re going to stand strong with our partners. And then President Trump, at his strategic level, is the one who’s having the conversations to sort of ensure that we don’t ever have a conflict.

“We don’t want that, [the Chinese] don’t want that,” Hegseth continued. “We just have to remain strong in order to be in the best possible position.”

The Pentagon posted a transcript of the town hall Friday evening, after a livestream of the event was cut off following Hegseth’s 15 minutes of opening remarks.

Hegseth’s comments about China came after an Air Force official asked him whether the Defense Department would be more assertive in the “gray zone” area — short of war — to deter China and Russia.

“There’s gray zone activities that exist, some of which you can acknowledge, some of which you cannot,” Hegseth said. “But certainly, we want to send the signals to China that the [Indo-Pacific] area will be and continues to be contested.”

In response to a question about potential staff cuts at DOD, Hegseth also said that “there are thousands of additional … positions [across the Defense Department] that have been created over the last 20 years that don’t necessarily translate to battlefield success.”

“[There are] additional staff, additional layers of bureaucracy [and] additional flag officer positions that we would be remiss if we did not review,” he said.

Hegseth noted that the department operates in a “budget constrained environment,” and highlighted the armored cavalry unit at Fort Bliss, which has had to cut a series of upcoming training assignments due to tight budgets.

“When you’re living off of continuing resolutions and caps, and then you have contingency operations and things that change, suddenly you have shortfalls and now unit training falls by the wayside,” Hegseth said. “From my perspective, that’s completely unacceptable.”

Hegseth said that in addition to rooting out waste, fraud and abuse, the Pentagon needs to slash hierarchies and layers of bureaucracy that aren’t serving the military.

That could also involve a reduction in the number of four-star generals and flag officers, he said.

“We won World War II with seven four-star generals,” Hegseth said. “Today we have 44. Do all of those directly contribute to warfighting success? Maybe they do. I don’t know, but it’s worth reviewing to make sure they do.”

During the town hall an official from the Pentagon’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation office, which provides independent analysis on DOD programs, asked whether the military’s acquisition process should focus on smaller capabilities that could be fielded more quickly, or larger-scale capabilities that can do more to deter adversaries.

“In a perfect world, I would say both,” Hegseth said, citing the effectiveness of low-cost drones in the war in Ukraine.

The Pentagon can work with Silicon Valley and fast-moving new contractors that are able to rapidly field new systems, he said.

And the Pentagon needs to speed up its testing process so commanders can see how new systems work in the field, and then scale up production once it’s clear how much practical use those new technologies have.

Additionally, Hegseth noted one question that highlighted the challenges facing military families, such as frequent moves, was “100% right.” And he suggested that massive military programs may need to take a backseat to family concerns.

Families’ frustrations are “a massive readiness and retention issue and a morale issue,” he said.

“Funding one more multibillion-dollar system is not as important as funding the families and the capabilities of our human systems that make it all happen.”

About Stephen Losey

Stephen Losey is the air warfare reporter for Defense News. He previously covered leadership and personnel issues at Air Force Times, and the Pentagon, special operations and air warfare at Military.com. He has traveled to the Middle East to cover U.S. Air Force operations.

9. From the Fox News Interview: President Trump predicts Elon Musk will find 'hundreds of billions' in waste in next DOGE directives

I did not know until yesterday that no President had ever attended a Super Bowl game.

Here is the link to the Fox interview with the President. I could not find a transcript of it.

As it aired: the Trump pregame interview on FOX

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5GU7vvvRgA

There will be an additional segment of the interview on Fox News with Brett Baier at 6pm tonight.

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6368466826112

Here is a link to the President's official Super Bowl message:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/02/presidential-message-on-super-bowl-lix/

President Trump predicts Elon Musk will find 'hundreds of billions' in waste in next DOGE directives

Trump said waste in the Education and Defense Departments are next on the chopping block

https://www.foxnews.com/media/president-trump-predicts-elon-musk-find-hundreds-billions-waste-next-doge-directives

By Taylor Penley Fox News

Published February 9, 2025 11:24am EST

Trump reveals next directives for Musk, DOGE

'Fox News Sunday' anchor Shannon Bream previews an exclusive excerpt of President Donald Trump's interview with Fox News' Bret Baier.

President Donald Trump detailed his plans to instruct DOGE lead, Elon Musk, to probe the Education and Defense Departments for wasteful spending. The President told Fox News chief political anchor Bret Baier in an exclusive pre-Super Bowl interview that the billionaire entrepreneur has been a trustworthy ally in fulfilling his promise to cut the red tape.

"He's not gaining anything. In fact, I wonder how he can devote the time to it," Trump said.

"I'm going to tell him very soon… to go check the Department of Education. He's going to find the same thing. Then I'm going to go into the military. Let's check the military. We're going to find billions, hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse, and the people elected me on that."

MEET THE YOUNG TEAM OF SOFTWARE ENGINEERS SLASHING GOVERNMENT WASTE AT DOGE: REPORT

President Trump speaks to Fox News' Bret Baier in a pre-Super Bowl interview. (Fox News)

Baier's interview with Trump, slated to air during a special 3 p.m. time slot on Sunday — mere hours before the Super Bowl LIX coin toss — will focus on the changes the Trump administration has enacted since his inauguration last month and the first 100 days of his presidency.

Among those changes has been implementing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Since Jan. 20, the department aimed at upending federal agencies has traced where money has been going.

The moves have been met with outrage from some Democrats, including a group who attempted to enter the Department of Education in light of possible cuts last week. Thirty House Democrats attempted to enter the Department of Education building in Washington, D.C., on Friday morning to meet with acting Education Secretary Denise L. Carter, but they were stopped by security.

President Donald Trump and Republicans have advocated shutting down the Department of Education, saying that the states are better equipped to handle education. Trump on Tuesday said that if Linda McMahon, his pick for education secretary, is confirmed, she should work to "put herself out of a job."

ELON MUSK OUTLINES ‘SUPER OBVIOUS’ CHANGES DOGE AND TREASURY HAVE AGREED TO MAKE

Elon Musk is leading the Department of Government Efficiency. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

"The people want me to find it [the wasteful spending]," Trump told Baier.

"And I've had great help with Elon Musk, who's been terrific."

Additional portions of Trump's interview will air during the Monday, February 10th edition of "Special Report with Bret Baier."

10. Trump Predicts Chiefs Will Win Super Bowl in Pregame Interview With Bret Baier

Oops.

Only report from the Wall Street Journal on the interview.

Trump Predicts Chiefs Will Win Super Bowl in Pregame Interview With Bret Baier

Annie Linskey

and

Joe Flint

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/super-bowl-2025-chiefs-eagles/card/trump-predicts-kansas-city-will-prevail-04hdotQQYF75Pk29Uy27?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1

President Trump predicted that Kansas City will win the Super Bowl, during a pregame interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier. “When a quarterback wins as much as he’s won--I have to go with Kansas City,” Trump said after praising Patrick Mahomes.

Trump also noted that the quarterback’s wife, Brittany Lynne Mahomes, has been supportive of Trump and his MAGA movement. “He has a phenomenal wife,” Trump said.

The pregame presidential Super Bowl interview is the first one since President Biden sat down with NBC in 2022.

The tradition is relatively new and doesn’t happen every year. The first president to be part of Super Bowl programming was George W. Bush in 2004. Barack Obama also did interviews with the networks that aired the big game during his two terms.

Trump continued the tradition on Fox in 2017, but declined to sit with NBC News in 2018. Biden didn’t do an interview in 2023 or 2024 when the Super Bowl aired on Fox and CBS, respectively.

Presidential interviews ahead of the game usually feature a mix of serious and light questions and represent a chance to reach a huge audience. Trump is also expected to attend the game, making him the first sitting president to do so.

11. Trump defends Elon Musk as 'terrific' during Super Bowl interview

NPR's analysis of the President's Interview.

I did not recall this piece of information from history.

The president played football at the New York Military Academy.

Trump defends Elon Musk as 'terrific' during Super Bowl interview

NPR · by Luke Garrett · February 9, 2025

President Trump sits for an interview with FOX News Channel's Bret Baier at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla. Fox News/Fox News

President Trump defended his first three weeks back in the White House — punctuated by federal government disruption and promises of American expansionism — during an interview with FOX News Channel's Bret Baier that aired on Super Bowl Sunday.

One of Trump's biggest moves in his second term in the White House was asking billionaire Elon Musk to lead an entity, called the Department of Government Efficiency, to focus on cutting federal spending.

"I've had a great help with Elon Musk, who's been terrific," Trump said during the interview, which was pre-taped and aired as Trump flew to New Orleans to attend the Super Bowl in person, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to do so.

Sponsor Message

Musk, a tech magnate turned special government employee, has had nearly unrestricted access to federal government departments and information — including Social Security and bank account numbers. A federal judge on Saturday temporarily blocked access to Treasury Department to DOGE following a lawsuit from 19 Democratic attorneys general, citing the risk of "irreparable harm."

"I disagree with it 100%," Trump said of the ruling. "I think it's crazy. And we have to solve the efficiency problem."

When asked about his confidence in Musk, Trump said his intentions were good.

"Trust Elon?" Trump said, "Oh, he's not gaining anything. In fact, I wonder how he can devote the time to it. He's so into it."

With Trump's support, Musk and his DOGE unit have drastically cut funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development and promised to "shut it down." On Friday, a court temporarily stopped the Trump administration from shutting the agency down completely.

Trump said he's directed Musk and his team to investigate the departments of Education and Defense next.

"We're going to find billions, hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse," the President said. "And, you know, the people elected me on that."

Space X — one of Musk's companies — has received billions of dollars in government contracts from the Department of Defense.

Canada as "51st state"

During his inauguration speech, Trump promised to "pursue our Manifest Destiny into the stars" and send astronauts to Mars. In the intervening weeks, Trump has also talked about buying Greenland, making Canada the "51st state," taking back the Panama Canal and owning Gaza — all without excluding the possibility of using U.S. troops to achieve these expansionist goals.

Trump doubled down on his wish for Canada to join the U.S. during his interview with FOX News Channel's Bret Baier.

Sponsor Message

"I think Canada would be much better off being a 51st state, because we lose $200 billion a year with Canada," Trump said.

Last week, Trump threatened stiff tariffs on Mexico and Canada, but delayed them for 30 days after both countries promised to send 10,000 troops to guard their U.S. borders. On Sunday, the president said those actions weren't enough to stop the eventual tariffs.

"No, it's not good enough," Trump said. "It's not sustainable, and I'm changing it."

While flying on Air Force One to New Orleans, Trump told reporters he will issue a 25% tariff on aluminum and steel imports on Monday. Additionally, he plans to announce reciprocal tariffs on "everyone" on Tuesday or Wednesday: "If they charge us, we charge them. That's all," he said. "Every country will be reciprocal."

He also stood by his wish that the U.S. will own and take over Gaza.

Trump on the Super Bowl

Trump's interview with FOX News aired hours before the coin toss at the Superdome in New Orleans, La.

"I thought it would be a good thing for the country to have the president be at the game," Trump said of his decision to attend in person.

When asked who he thinks will win the NFL championship, the president picked the Chiefs because of quarterback Patrick Mahomes.

"I guess you have to say that when a quarterback wins as much as he's won, I have to go with Kansas City," the president said. "I have to go with Kansas City. At the same time, Philadelphia has a fantastic — it's going to be just a great game."

The president played football at the New York Military Academy. Trump later went on to own the New Jersey Generals in the United States Football League. The USFL briefly competed with the NFL, before folding.

Sponsor Message

In 2018, Trump disinvited the Eagles from the White House after they won the Super Bowl LII. At the time, the team wouldn't promise that all its players would stand with a hand on their heart for the national anthem.

Trump criticized players who knelt during the national anthem to protest racism — the movement started by Colin Kaepernick in 2016.

The president's Super Bowl attendance comes after the NFL's decision to remove the "End Racism" slogans which had been written in end zones since 2021. "Choose Love" will be stenciled into the end zone on Sunday.

"We have to come together," Trump said on Sunday. "But to come together, there's only one thing that's going to do it, and that's massive success. Success will bring the country together, but it's hard."

NPR · by Luke Garrett · February 9, 2025

12. Was Trump Super Bowl interview with Fox News edited? Abrupt cut raises questions

Uh oh. More controversy.

I guess I do not have an eye or ear for television. I did not notice this when I watched the interview.

If this is true, I would have thought Fox News would have learned from the 60 Minutes Kamala Harris debacle. I (and many other Americans) may not have noticed or would have caught this, but professional media observers will always likely expose these things.

Perhaps this is why I could not find a transcript of the interview on either the White House or Fox News web sites.

Was Trump Super Bowl interview with Fox News edited? Abrupt cut raises questions

Published: Feb. 09, 2025, 6:00 p.m.https://www.nj.com/news/2025/02/was-trump-super-bowl-interview-with-fox-news-edited-abrupt-cut-raises-questions.html

President Donald Trump, center, with his grandson Theodore, left walks on the field before the start of the NFL Super Bowl 59 football game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs, Sunday, Feb. 9, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)AP

By Kevin Manahan | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

When “60 Minutes” edited an interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, who was the Democratic presidential candidate, Donald Trump, mainstream Republicans and MAGA followers howled, demanding to see a transcript, which was recently released by the FCC and CBS.

Trump has sued CBS, and this past week, he amended his lawsuit, demanding $20 billion while claiming the network deceptively edited the interview in an effort to prop up her election chances.

On Sunday, during Trump’s interview with Fox News anchor Bret Baier, there’s an apparent edit that comes after Baier asks Trump how he will bring the country together. Media members are asking for a transcript.

“Just because interview editing is now a big thing,” Bulwark editor and MSNBC contributor Sam Stein tweeted. “You can tell there is an edit cut here at 11 seconds in. Don’t know what was left out. Is there a right to see the full transcript? Is this now an FCC matter?”

Here’s the edit Stein mentioned:

During the interview, which aired Sunday during the Super Bowl preshow, Trump said he is serious about wanting Canada to become the 51st state.

“Yeah it is,” Trump told Baier when asked whether his talk of annexing Canada is “a real thing” — as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently suggested.

“I think Canada would be much better off being the 51st state because we lose $200 billion a year with Canada. And I’m not going to let that happen,” he said. “Why are we paying $200 billion a year, essentially a subsidy to Canada?”

The U.S. is not subsidizing Canada. The U.S. buys products from the natural resource-rich nation, including commodities like oil. While the trade gap in goods has ballooned in recent years to $72 billion in 2023, the deficit largely reflects America’s imports of Canadian energy.

Trump has repeatedly suggested that Canada would be better off if it agreed to become the 51st U.S. state — a prospect that is deeply unpopular among Canadians.

Trudeau said Friday during a closed-door session with business and labor leaders that Trump’s talk of making Canada the 51st U.S. state is “a real thing” and is linked to his desire for access to the country’s natural resources.

“Mr. Trump has it in mind that the easiest way to do it is absorbing our country and it is a real thing. In my conversations with him on,” Trudeau said, according to CBC, Canada’s public broadcaster. “They’re very aware of our resources of what we have and they very much want to be able to benefit from those.”

In the interview, which was pre-taped this weekend in Florida, Trump also said that he has not seen enough action from Canada and Mexico to stave off the tariffs he has threatened to impose on the country’s two largest trading partners.

“No, it’s not good enough,” he said. “Something has to happen. It’s not sustainable. And I’m changing it.”

Trump last week agreed to a 30-day pause on his plan to slap Mexico and Canada with a 25% tariff on all imports except for Canadian oil, natural gas and electricity, which would be taxed at 10%, after the countries took steps to appease his concerns about border security and drug trafficking.

While traveling Sunday on Air Force One to the championship game in New Orleans, Trump said that he would on Monday announce a 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports into the U.S., including from Canada and Mexico and a plan for reciprocal tariffs later in the week.

“Very simply it’s if they charge us, we charge them,” he said.

Trump’s participation in the interview marked a return to tradition. Presidents have typically granted a sit-down to the network broadcasting the Super Bowl game, the most-watched television event of the year. But both Trump and his predecessor, Joe Biden, were inconsistent in their participation.

Biden declined to participate last year and in 2023, when efforts by his team to have Biden speak with a Fox Corp. streaming service instead of the main network failed. During his first term, Trump participated in three out of four years.

13. Gulf of America Day, 2025: BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A PROCLAMATION

I did not see this coming.

Presidential Actions

Gulf of America Day, 2025

February 9, 2025

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/gulf-of-america-day-2025/

Today, I am very honored to recognize February 9, 2025, as the first ever Gulf of America Day.

On January 20, 2025, I signed Executive Order 14172 (“Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness”). Among other actions, that Executive Order required the Secretary of the Interior, acting pursuant to 43 U.S.C. 364 through 364f, to “take all appropriate actions to rename as the ‘Gulf of America’ the U.S. Continental Shelf area bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the State of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida and extending to the seaward boundary with Mexico and Cuba in the area formerly named as the Gulf of Mexico.”

I took this action in part because, as stated in that Order, “[t]he area formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico has long been an integral asset to our once burgeoning Nation and has remained an indelible part of America.”

Today, I am making my first visit to the Gulf of America since its renaming. As my Administration restores American pride in the history of American greatness, it is fitting and appropriate for our great Nation to come together and commemorate this momentous occasion and the renaming of the Gulf of America.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim February 9, 2025, as Gulf of America Day. I call upon public officials and all the people of the United States to observe this day with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this ninth day of February, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-five, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-ninth.

14. The Vibe Shift Comes to the Super Bowl. Plus. . .

It was an interesting "vibe" as they say. I thought the commercials were mostly quite patriotic. I guess it was disinformation about Elon Musk buying commercial air time to expose fraud, waste, and abuse at USAID. I kept asking myself where would be a good place to insert that without looking petty and upsetting the patriotic vibe that most of the commercials had (the commercials were either patriotic or attempted to be humorous). If they had aired such commercials they would have been very out of place and would likely have backfired because they would have upset the positive vibe of the game and its commercials (unless you were a Chiefs fan).

But perhaps the disinformation people were confused because there was a Starlink and T-Mobile commercial with what looks like a very powerful new capability (and one I wish we could establish over north Korea and every authoritarian country - you knew I could go there.)

The Vibe Shift Comes to the Super Bowl. Plus. . .

C.J. Gardner-Johnson and Jalyx Hunt of the Philadelphia Eagles celebrate after beating the Kansas City Chiefs 40–22 to win Super Bowl LIX. (Gregory Shamus via Getty Images)

The educators conning kids. Tyler Cowen on Trump. Ruy Teixeira on the Dems. And much more.

By River Page

02.10.25 — The Front Page

It’s Monday, February 10. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Coming up: Why USAID is the wrong hill for Dems to die on; why Trump is flooding the zone; how American educators are conning kids; and much more.

But first: The Super Bowl.

Boring game, huh? The Eagles beat the Chiefs in a 40–22 blowout that will have pleased my colleague Joe Nocera, but will not be remembered as a classic.

The Super Bowl isn’t just a game, it’s a cultural barometer—and sometimes, a crystal ball. In 2016, Beyoncé danced on the Super Bowl stage to her new song “Formation,” flanked by backup dancers dressed like Black Panthers. Controversy ensued, foreshadowing the great war over woke that would dominate for years to come.

This year, another vibe shift. The NFL changed the message stenciled into the end zone from “End Racism” to “Choose Love.” Trump showed up—the first sitting president to do so—and his favorite patriotic walk-on song, “God Bless the USA,” was heard playing in the stadium. Kendrick Lamar’s halftime performance featured a nagging Uncle Sam character (played by Samuel L. Jackson) who told the rapper not to be “too ghetto,” but when backup dancers dressed in red, white, and blue formed the American flag, it felt more patriotic than political, even though his song “Alright” is perhaps best known as BLM’s unofficial anthem. And in another patriotic move, Kendrick performed “Not Like Us,” his Grammy Award–winning diss track against one of America’s new trade war enemies—Canadian rapper Drake.

Speaking of Canada, even the ads couldn’t escape the vibe shift. In the wake of Trump’s proposed, but currently delayed, 25 percent tariffs against Canadian goods, the province of Ontario ran an ad reminding Americans that Canucks are important trade partners and good neighbors, eh bud?

Speaking of “bud,” Bud Light launched a new ad to convince America they aren’t woke anymore. Still reeling from its disastrous 2023 campaign with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, which spurred an effective conservative boycott, the beer’s new commercial featured Peyton Manning, Post Malone, and Shane Gillis—a comic who was infamously fired from Saturday Night Live in 2019 for affecting a Chinese accent on a podcast. (Read Anson Frericks’ great essay on the Bud Light saga.)

Bud Light wasn’t the only company with a subtle rebrand. After a backlash last year over their support for trans women participating in female sports, Nike launched a new ad putting female athletes front and center. The tagline: You can’t win, so win. Well, maybe they can’t win because they’re competing against biological males, Nike. Still, the ad is about female sports and features only female athletes, which is radical conservatism by Nike’s standards.

And the least subtle rebrand of all? Hardee’s—or, for some reason, Carl’s Jr., if you’re west of the Mississippi—brought back its sexy bikini ads after ditching them eight years ago. The real MAHA? Make America Horny Again.

Defending USAID Is Political Suicide for Democrats

On Friday, a judge temporarily blocked Musk and Trump’s plans to put 2,200 U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) staffers on paid leave, in response to a lawsuit brought by two unions. The judge also reinstated 500 employees who had already been placed on leave. The order will remain in effect until midnight on Valentine’s Day, and the judge will also consider a request for a longer-term pause at a hearing on Wednesday. The unions argued that the government was violating the Constitution and harming workers by taking them out of their jobs.

Unions and judges aren’t the only ones trying to stand in the way of Musk and Trump’s plans for USAID. Congressional Democrats have suddenly become USAID’s greatest defenders, leading a rally in Washington to protect the agency.

The D.C. crowd may have cheered them on but the rest of the country won’t, says Free Press columnist Ruy Teixeira. He points out that most Americans agree that the U.S. spends too much money on foreign aid, and the working class is particularly skeptical of foreign handouts. In their rush to shoot down Musk, have Democrats aimed the gun at their own feet?

Read Ruy’s new column, “Defending USAID Is Political Suicide for Democrats.”

15. How American Educators Are Conning Kids

Our daughter is a 25 year old 10th grade English teacher. One of the things we have discussed is that she is still seeing the impact of COVID on student's English abilities. She teaches regular and advanced English. Her anecdotal evidence is that students whose parents made them read and had the discipline to make the online classes work have fared better. She is young enough to compare her high school experience that was pre-COVID with today's high school children. But for the most part the distance and online learning during COVID was an abject failure for young people and students are easily 2 or more years behind and it is hard to make them catch up to where they should be to meet the standards that are necessary for success in life. So it appears that some school systems have changed the standards.

How American Educators Are Conning Kids

As U.S. students keep falling behind, educators keep lowering standards. ‘It’s like telling everyone they’re a great swimmer when you know half of us are drowning.’

https://www.thefp.com/p/american-educators-lowering-cut-scores-declining-standards-reading-math

(Valerie Winckler via Getty Images)

By Frannie Block

02.09.25 — Education

“We should have the best education system in the world. We should have an education system that reflects us being a superpower. But there is no one with a straight face who can say that the United States has a world-class education system.”

That damning verdict comes from Pete Shulman, the former deputy commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Education.

Shulman, who worked for the Miami-Dade County school system for five years before helping lead New Jersey’s public schools, recently launched “Wake Up Call NJ,” a campaign alerting parents to the crisis in our nation’s schoolrooms.

And that crisis, according to the latest Nation’s Report Card, is bleak: U.S. students are further behind in reading and math than they were in 2012.

What’s more, American students in the bottom 10th and 25th percentiles “are performing lower than they did in the early 1990s,” said Martin West, the dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a member of the National Assessment Governing Board. This disparity between the highest- and lowest-achieving students is known as the “achievement gap”—and the U.S. now appears to have one of the largest in the world, compared to other wealthy nations.

There are a number of theories as to why proficiency rates are declining. The pandemic lockdowns that started in 2020 and the omnipresence of cell phones in schools haven’t helped.

But instead of trying to solve the problem, a number of educators are actually covering it up—by lowering the educational standards in their states.

In 2024, Oklahoma schools seemed to perform a miracle. In 2022, the Nation’s Report Card scored only 24 percent of the state’s fourth graders as “proficient” in reading. But in 2024 the state reported that 47 percent of its fourth graders were reading at grade level—almost doubling the previous figure.

If that sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is.

In the last year, Oklahoma lowered its “cut scores”—which is the score a student needs to hit on a test to be considered proficient. This happened quietly, without a formal announcement of the move, meaning many Oklahoman parents assumed their kids had vastly improved at math and reading when, more likely, nothing had changed.

This trend is also happening in New York State. After not a single eighth grader in the upstate city of Schenectady (population 68,000) tested “proficient” in math in 2022, state officials lowered cut scores the following year. “We don’t want to keep going backwards,” the co-chair of an advisory committee told a local outlet, justifying the change. “We’re at this new normal.”

Wisconsin also lowered cut scores last year. This led to more than 50 percent of the state’s elementary schoolers testing proficient in math and reading in 2024, compared to 41 percent the previous year.

Jill Underly, the Wisconsin state superintendent, told The Free Press that the state exam “is more accurate and reflective of student performance for Wisconsin families.” Representatives from the Oklahoma and New York Departments of Education did not respond to Free Press requests for comment.

Now, Illinois too is considering lowering its cut scores. Both the Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents and the state superintendent, Tony Sanders, have endorsed the plan, meaning it’s likely to gain traction this year. Sanders claims Illinois’s standards are higher than in other states, which has created “an uneven playing field that is sending the wrong messages to students and families across Illinois.”

Bruce Rauner, who served as Illinois governor from 2015 to 2019, told me the move to lower cut scores, if it happens, will be “a tragedy.”

“We can’t kid ourselves or mislead parents or students or teachers on where the students really stand,” Rauner said. He added that increasing standards is “hard,” and it “takes focus and discipline and resources,” which is why so many states are lowering the bar.

“It’s the easy way out,” Rauner said.

Meanwhile, moms and dads are clueless about these maneuvers. A 2023 nationwide survey of almost 2,000 parents showed that almost nine in 10 believed their child was at or above grade level in reading and math. In fact, data suggests less than half of American kids are able to perform at grade level in these subjects.

Grade inflation is likely to blame, according to Cindi Williams, co-founder of Learning Heroes, the nonprofit that commissioned the survey.

“Grades are the holy grail for a parent. It’s a single source of information,” she said. This, she argues, is “the reason nobody’s asking for a better system, or for change.”

“You can’t solve a problem you don’t know you have.”

Meanwhile, the drive toward lowering standards is spreading fast. Last November, voters in Massachusetts decided to drop the requirement that students pass an exam in order to graduate from high school. In 2027, New York will start phasing out the state’s standardized Regents exams in the name of “equity.” Colorado recently decided to “temporarily” lower the passing score for the SAT math exam for the next two years, in response to fears that around 3,400 kids wouldn’t be able to graduate this May. New Jersey teachers no longer need to pass state-issued reading and writing exams to become certified educators. And multiple states, including California and Arizona, are even making it easier for law students to pass the bar exam.

“Why would anyone want to lower standards?” Shulman asked me, furious. “It’s like telling everyone that they’re a great swimmer when you know half of us really are drowning.”

For more on declining U.S. education standards, read Betsy DeVos’s Free Press op-ed, “Shut Down the Department of Education.”

Frannie Block

Frannie Block is a reporter for The Free Press. She started her career as a breaking-news journalist for the Des Moines Register, where she covered topics ranging from crime and public safety to food insecurity and the Iowa caucus.Make a comment

16. How Can We Measure if Defense Innovation Works?

DOGE is going to tell us. I don't mean that to be a snarky comment but as part of the "Great Reset" of the federal bureaucracy I hope the wiz kids will be able to provide metrics from their algorithms so we can make assessments in the future.

Conclusion:

As the tenth anniversary of our existence approaches, defense innovation organizations are still muddling the message on their value. It is time for a more robust framework that organizations can apply quantitative rigor to. By measuring impact on the warfighter, impact on the civil innovation base, and impact on the Department of Defense, defense innovation organizations can demonstrate their value to Congress, Department of Defense and service leadership, companies, and investors in clear, easily understandable ways.

How Can We Measure if Defense Innovation Works? - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Casey Perley · February 10, 2025

The Pentagon still lacks clear ways to measure if the organizations charged with innovation in the Department of Defense actually work.

In 1964, the federal government funded 67 percent of research and development in the United States. By 2020, that figure had fallen to 21 percent. With defense budgets remaining relatively flat, it is more important than ever for the Department of Defense to adopt commercial technology.

For 10 years, the Department of Defense has been standing up defense innovation organizations to make itself a better partner to tech companies. The Defense Innovation Unit was created in 2015, followed by the Chief Data and Artificial Intelligence Office, the Office of Strategic Capital, AFWERX, the Army Applications Laboratory (which I lead), NavalX, and others. The theory behind these organizations is that by eliminating barriers to entry, they can more effectively pivot commercial technology to solve military problems. But how does the Defense Department know if these organizations are succeeding?

Even in the commercial sector, measuring innovation is a challenge. In the Department of Defense, each innovation organization has a slightly different mission and does not judge success the same way. Furthermore, each stakeholder for whom innovation organizations must show value — Congress, military service leadership, companies and their investors — is concerned with something different. No one metric suits all needs.

Based on my experience at Army Applications Laboratory, I think defense innovation organizations should be grading themselves on three things. The first is impact on the warfighter: Are they transitioning usable technologies for important problems quickly? Second is impact on the civil innovation base: Are they motivating more work among companies who don’t usually work with the Department of Defense? Third is impact on the Department of Defense: Are they developing best practices that get adopted by other organizations? Which matters more depends on the specific mission of each innovation organization.

At the Army Applications Laboratory, our mission is to get the best technology in the hands of warfighters faster by expanding access to the civil innovation base. So, for us, our impact is primarily measured by technology transition and identification and support of companies with limited defense experience. An organization whose mission is to get technology to the warfighter in two years or less will focus most on the impact of their technology projects. What follows is a guide for how innovation organizations can measure all three.

Become a Member

Impact on the Warfighter

Impact on the warfighter is the return on investment for projects. It aims to measure if an organization is working on important or tough problems; transitioning technology that helps solve those problems and, if so, to where; decreasing the cost of developing technology or the time it takes to get to warfighters; and how likely warfighters are to use the technology.

In the commercial sector, return on investment is measured through the equation: profit equals revenue minus cost. It’s not that easy for the military. Many innovation organizations track technology transition rates, the amount of co-investment and follow-on contracts, and how long it takes from a project’s start until the technology is in warfighters’ hands as surrogates. All are good to know. But none of these benchmarks track warfighter impact. For that, the innovation organization must establish the military utility of a project and if their solution is one that warfighters are going to use. Military utility relative to cost is the return on investment for a defense innovation project.

The first step in determining military utility is developing the military business case, which clearly lays out the military problem the project will address, the utility of the technology when applied to that problem, and how to know if it is working.

By explicitly defining the military utility at the beginning of a project, solvers can ensure experiments generate data to support or refute their theory of success. Does the data suggest a tenfold improvement in battlefield capability or a 67 percent decrease in maintenance costs? Defining those metrics early makes it easier to be intellectually honest. Without that, the inclination is to choose the most attractive metric to declare success at project completion.

At least as important is that, by articulating the business case, the innovation organization develops a hypothesis it can test at the outset. Is the supposed problem real? Would the warfighter use the solution? Would those who buy things on the warfighter’s behalf buy this? Unless the answer to all the above is yes, resources are better used elsewhere.

Writing down the military business case is just the beginning. To make investment decisions, leaders need a way to clarify apples-to-oranges comparisons. How does the military utility of a battlefield capability like a munition compare to that of an institutional improvement like facilities cost savings? To determine this, innovation organizations should ask, on a scale from one to five, to what extent would the technology improve military advantage over adversaries? Is it minor, moderate, considerable, significant, or decisive?

Admittedly, this is more art than science. Some capabilities, like loitering munitions with 20 times the current range, are easy to put on this scale. Others, like facilities improvements or better training tools, are harder. But it can be done. A technology that cuts building construction costs will score well if the savings allow facilities to be built that otherwise would have been unfunded. A logistics solution that increases vehicle fleet readiness by several percentage points could also score well because it would get vehicles back in the fight sooner.

Even if organizations are solving important problems, there’s a case to be made that an innovation organization’s transition rate for those technologies can be too high. In my view, for an organization focused on technologies that are somewhere between early-stage proof of concept and minimum viable product, the Army Application Laboratory’s historic transition rate is too high at 47 percent. It shows we might not be accepting enough technical risk, accepting double instead of striving for tenfold solutions.

Plotting military utility scores against technical risk for projects can tell an innovation organization a lot about the kinds of problems it prefers, and its risk tolerance. It can also tell them if they are playing it safe. High-value and low-risk projects are ideal, and some of those solutions are ones only an innovation organization is likely to find. But, when the price is right, high-value and high-risk projects as well as low-value and low risk projects make good sense.

The technical risk assessment should account for different variables, depending on the goal. The Army Application Laboratory brings technologies to the level of a minimum viable product and then puts them on a path to the warfighter. While we would consider manufacturability, we would not consider a company’s manufacturing capacity. In cases where an organization is focused on reaching first unit equipped, something akin to the Department of Energy’s adoption readiness level framework could be used.

User adoption is the last key to military utility. A great solution to an important problem is no solution at all if the people meant to employ it do not agree. They simply will not use it. Army Applications Laboratory gauges this with the CONEX metric.

The CONEX is a standardized metal shipping container. To be ready to deploy on short notice, Army units keep the containers on hand and use them for storage. When the Army gives units tools they do not find useful, the CONEX is where they stay.

Understanding this, when getting unit feedback on technology, the Army Application Laboratory asks soldiers to rate, from zero to 10, how likely they are to take it out of the CONEX and use it under three conditions: if provided as designed, if provided as shown to them that day, and if provided as it would be if engineers incorporated the feedback the soldiers had provided.

The first question translates to, “If this does what we say it will, how likely are you to use it?” We ask this because, if they’re using a very early version, we don’t want them to score it as if it is going to be the final solution. The second question — whether they would use the technology in its current state — is useful for two reasons. First, we can see if the metric improves over time. Second, it could be a demand signal for procurement.

The last question asks, “If this does what you want it to do, how likely are you to use it?” We ask that because sometimes if a minor detail — like the button on the left should be on the right — is tanking user adoption scores, we want to know.

Over the lifetime of a project, the CONEX metric should improve: the mean should increase, and the standard deviation should narrow. When we are confident that over half of units would rather have the tool than not, it may be time for a limited issue to allow continuous experimentation. If the CONEX metric stays low, we may be solving the wrong problem or offering an inadequate solution. It could also be a signal to divest.

A common critique of innovation organizations is that their efforts are not tied to acquisition programs — the most common way to get technology to the warfighter. This is true. For a thorough description of the challenge, see the 2023 RAND research report, “Strengthening the Defense Innovation Ecosystem.” But a traditional program of record is just one way to get technology to the warfighter. Of the 20 technologies we transitioned, 22.7 percent transitioned to programs of record, and 9.1 percent transitioned directly to operational units. An additional 31.8 percent transitioned to further research and development efforts, to give their technology more time to develop.

Impact on the civil innovation base

For many innovation organizations, expanding the Department of Defense’s access to hard-to-reach parts of the U.S. civil innovation base is an end unto itself. Much has been made of the tech community’s reluctance to work on defense. But, as the United States faces down adversaries like China and Russia, sentiment has shifted. Broadly speaking, convincing U.S. companies that they should contribute to the common defense is pushing on an open door. The question, especially for smaller companies, is whether selling to the Department of Defense makes good business sense.

Innovation organizations working to address this should measure three things. First, are they successfully reaching outside the traditional defense ecosystem? Second, have they become better partners to industry? Third, are they providing investors with the kinds of returns that will motivate more investment in defense technologies?

This is much easier to measure than military utility. Innovation organizations know who is in their investment portfolios and who is applying to their solicitations. These are sometimes called vanity metrics because they seem to measure volume of activity rather than outcomes. But there is value in showing the spread of companies on contract by technology sector and geography. Innovation organizations should also know what proportion of the companies they work with are aspiring new entrants to the defense market versus established players.

To take it to the next level, innovation organizations should measure the extent to which they are enabling other Department of Defense organizations to start work with companies with whom they have not worked before. A company that has long worked with the Air Force may be new to the Army. One part of the Army may not know about a solution it can get from a company already on contract with another part of the Army. Because companies struggle to see across Department of Defense stovepipes, promising solutions die. To measure this, get data from Department of Defense stakeholders on which companies they had previously not worked with and which they had not known about.

For an innovation organization trying to bring smaller companies into defense, speed to capital is critical. Few of these companies can afford to wait one or two years from the time they reach an agreement to the time they are paid. For this, the key metrics are time from proposal down-select to contract award and time from contract award to first payment.

Meanwhile, companies’ investors are looking for meaningful returns in five to seven years. If that seems unlikely, they will steer their companies away from defense. Therefore, innovation organizations should track the number and magnitude of follow-on contracts awarded to the companies in their portfolios, wherever they come from.

Impact on the Department of Defense

Most defense innovation organizations have few or no unique authorities. They succeed by finding better ways to work through existing processes. In doing so, they tend to solve process problems. Some are unique to their mission, but most are not. Those best practices can be shared and scaled. Innovation organizations should measure the extent to which their methods are being adopted by others.

This too is relatively easy to know. When other organizations see innovation organizations doing things that they want to do as well, they call to ask how it was done. That leads to sharing products and points of contact. It tends to become a running dialogue. This makes it easy to monitor how your process innovations are being implemented elsewhere. Innovation organizations should take credit for that.

For example, some innovation organizations excel at involving warfighters in problem framing and solution development, getting acquisition professionals involved early to facilitate transition, informing requirements, or creating expeditious contract vehicles. All the above help technology cross the valley of death, and should be shared widely.

Conclusion

As the tenth anniversary of our existence approaches, defense innovation organizations are still muddling the message on their value. It is time for a more robust framework that organizations can apply quantitative rigor to. By measuring impact on the warfighter, impact on the civil innovation base, and impact on the Department of Defense, defense innovation organizations can demonstrate their value to Congress, Department of Defense and service leadership, companies, and investors in clear, easily understandable ways.

Become a Member

Casey Perley, PhD, is the executive director of the Army Applications Laboratory, where she has served since 2019. Prior to joining the Army Applications Laboratory, she studied biological pathogens in high containment at the U.S. Army Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent those of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or any part of the U.S. government.

Image: Lance Cpl. Richard Perez Garcia via DVIDS.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Casey Perley · February 10, 2025

17. Software-Defined Warships: The Navy’s Digital Future of Necessity

DOGE should be able to help here. This should be in its wheelhouse and should exploit its comparative advantage. We should be asking, how can DOGE help here?

Conclusion:

Today’s warship design choices cast decades-long shadows. But today’s, unlike last decade’s, offer the opportunity to bake software into the heart and bones of warships — this is the only way U.S. warships will evolve with the demands of this dangerous decade and those that follow. China is moving out on software-defined warships. It’s time the U.S. Navy did too.

Software-Defined Warships: The Navy’s Digital Future of Necessity - War on the Rocks

Artem Sherbinin and Austin Gray

warontherocks.com · by Artem Sherbinin · February 10, 2025

In 2024, U.S. Navy warships received their first ever over-the-air software updates in combat. In the Red Sea, these upgrades improved the Aegis combat systems’ capabilities against cruise and ballistic missile attacks by Houthi militants.

Over-the-air software updates are nothing new. In the commercial world, they happen every night — on your laptop, phone, car, or even refrigerator. These updates work on any hardware that runs software, but have the most impact on software-defined platforms. Here, software sits at the center of the design, and can dynamically manage sensors, computing power, or weapons.

This was a departure from how traditional industries viewed platforms — change came in the form of physical alterations, which can be slow and expensive to develop and implement. For example, a car with defective brakes would require an automaker to issue a recall costing millions of dollars and tens of thousands of maintenance hours to replace physical parts. Meanwhile Tesla, whose cars are software-defined, “recalled” millions of its vehicles in this situation using an over-the-air update. Likewise, in the Russo-Ukrainian War, necessity has driven Ukrainian technologists to push nightly software updates to their frontline technology. Thus, the primary advantage of a software-defined platform is speed of upgradability.

In both the marketplace and in war, the speed, ease, and cost of improvement dictate success or failure. John Boyd called this the “observe-orient-decide-act (OODA) loop.” Digital technologies have a tighter OODA loop. Consequently, warfighting platforms will rapidly increase in capability due to the rate of improvement of software. This “first derivative phenomenon” may sound technical, but is quite simple: Production and update timelines for software are far shorter than for hardware. War is now software-defined.

These are issues we both deal with in our day-to-day work. One of us, Artem, is working as a surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy to realize this future. The other, Austin, is building this technology in the private sector for defense and commercial markets. Our service as naval officers gives us a high level understanding of the technology and policy, and our current roles show us how seapower is delivered at the tactical level. To be sure, Austin has a commercial interest in this space but thinks about this technology every hour of every day, as anyone who has started a company and bet their career must. More importantly, he sits alongside engineers from commercial robotics, automotive, and autonomous vehicles — builders unconstrained by the cultural inertia in naval requirements, and only driven to deliver a working, software-defined ship. Despite sitting on opposite sides of the metaphorical government-industry contracting table, we found it easy to find a common argument.

It’s time warships move into the software-centric reality of the 21st century. Should their designs continue to center on humans and hardware, they will not evolve fast enough and – as a result — will become steel tombs.

Become a Member

Software-Defined Warfare: What It Is and Why We Care

Although software is proving its primacy on the battlefields from the Black Sea to the Red Sea, legacy surface fleets remain lagging adopters. Software evolves overnight while warships evolve over 40-year capital cycles. They are anchored in decades-old hardware. For example, Industrial Revolution-era advances in steel and steam engines, available in the 1880s, took until the military buildups of the 1910s and 1930s to fully arrive in navies.

Software will generate similar capability increases continuously, because the “learn-update-employ” cycle is so much faster. Warships will not wait for a lengthy post-battle refit — they will be updated days or hours after an engagement. Moreover, software updates compound with steady hardware improvement and tactical innovation, thereby producing exponential increases in lethality.

Figure 1: Surface warship capability increases since the industrial age (source: authors)

Digital warfare, fought from software-defined naval platforms, offers the only rapidly evolving toolkit that can match the blistering pace of technological change — the U.S. Navy’s warships can and should be software-defined. We’ll digest this hypothesis platform by platform. We highlight ongoing digitization efforts, suggest some more quick wins, and analyze potential next steps to keep America’s surface fleet operational and lethal for decades to come. The impetus for immediate change cannot be greater — a new fleet will not be available to meet the 2027 challenge, but software updates can be ready in time to make America’s navy exponentially more lethal.

As the United States pursues speed, it should play to its strengths. America has the best software engineers, the world’s most valuable technology companies, and the intellectual property that other economies pay for. Just as industrial warfare was uniquely suited to America’s strengths in World War II, a digital war is one that the United States is well-equipped to win. America is good at software. The U.S. Navy should be too.

Yet bringing software-defined warships to the fleet will be challenging. Even with thoughtful hardware upgrades and deep technology refreshes, the bones of ship-board computing — including the critical power, cooling, and wiring to support new shipboard servers and processors, and by extension compute-intensive software such as artificial intelligence — are brittle.

Computers on Keels

Future warships will be software-defined. Just as Tesla offered the first “sophisticated computer on wheels,” new classes of warships will be much more sophisticated computers on keels. To achieve this end state, software-defined warships will need easily upgradable computing and networking hardware, standardized software architectures, and a digitally savvy acquisitions workforce.

First, software-defined warships should have powerful computing and networking hardware such as graphical processing units, central processing units, routers, switches, and more. These pieces of hardware should be easy to install and upgrade to account for the rate of change in commercial technologies. Moreover, shipboard compute hardware should prioritize commercial architectures such as x86 or ARM, as opposed to custom chip sets to enable any American company to build software for America’s warships. Vertical integration between hardware and software, like Apple, may seem preferable, especially if you are a prime defense contractor, but it rarely achieves the same effects in military systems as building a common platform for a wide range of developers to build on top of, like Android.

To further leverage America’s commercial leadership in software, software-defined warships should have standardized and modular software architectures for their information technology and operations technology systems. In other words, the software and data layers of warships’ overall technology stacks will become the “digital keel” of their present and future capabilities. Leveraging commercial standards and open-source tool sets will be critical to shortening the time between updates. Just like in World War II when manufacturing standardization enabled American shipyard workers to produce Liberty-class ships in just five days, digital standardization will open the U.S. Navy to a wider commercial market, and enable American software engineers to produce software updates for its warships in even shorter cycles. Crucially, those software engineers are essential both in and out of government.

Lastly, as warships become increasingly digital, they will simultaneously become increasingly vulnerable to cyber threats. On Sept. 21, 1997, the USS Yorktown, a Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser was serving as a test bed for the Navy’s “smart ship” program, when it suddenly lost power, and remained “dark” for over two hours. The culprit — a divide-by-zero arithmetic exception in the engineering control system. In 2024 and beyond, hackers could force similar errors, neutralizing warships at sea without firing a kinetic shot. Accordingly, the adoption of cyber principles such as zero-trust, will be critical to hardening digital infrastructure at sea. Equally, some systems, such as navigation, engineering, and combat systems may remain air-gapped, or at best communicate with the outside world via a one-directional data diode — new data is extracted, but systems updates are performed manually vice over the air.

Tomorrow’s Digital Warships

Unmanned ship design offers an early view of the software-centric platforms that will enable digital warfighting at sea. Without crew, these vessels should have vast amounts of sensing, compute, and software — enough to replace the crew and pass actionable information to off-ship humans through a narrow data pipe. In 2022, China offered the first software-defined warship combat system architecture, which may have been for the JARI unmanned surface vehicle. Ships that have this architecture can change their tasks or mission focus with a quick upgrade, perhaps even over-the-air.

Although most of the attention for new ships has centered on design maturity rather than digital leap-ahead, DDG-X, the Navy’s future destroyer, offers a view into how Navy leaders are internalizing the power of software-defined warships. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday, discussing DDG-X alongside existing fleet capabilities, explained that more compute and software would sit in ship server rooms, rather than on the weapons themselves. This design choice allows quick upgrades across hardware resources. Additionally, sailors can recommend, choose, and download apps on ships, a software update familiar from commercial practice. The Navy’s research and development budget justification for DDG-X design emphasizes “flexibility to rapidly and affordably upgrade.” However, if Navy engineers ignore software architecture choices in the design phase, the service risks the desired flexibility and upgradability end states.

The Navy’s large and medium unmanned surface vessel programs are already headed in a software-centric direction. Although early prototypes were software-skinny retrofits, DARPA’s No Manning Required Ship program started from a cleansheet, and keeps computers, not humans, at the center of its design. The Navy’s unmanned ship program office maintains an unmanned software architecture, with dedicated software interfaces defined for navigation, sensing, communications, engineering operations, auxiliary systems, payload management, and more. All these logical tasks will be performed by software, as by humans on manned ships. All of them will be adaptable and reconfigurable once digitized.

As software becomes core to warship design, operations, and maintenance, the automotive industry will remain a guiding light. Tesla, updating wirelessly from the driveway while you sleep, may be the standard bearer, but all cars are getting a lot more software. Over the next decade, industry trends suggest software could become over a third of the value in the automotive industry. Today, it is still a sliver.

Tonight’s Digital Fight: The 2027 Upgrades

If cars still have a long way to go down the digitization path, ships are decades further behind. The average U.S. car has been on the road for 12.6 years, making them four years older, on average, than the oldest Apple AirPods. Ships, on average, have been at sea for 22 years, and many U.S. warships were built in the 1990s, all before the oldest MacBook. Although the structural bones of naval ships are old, the U.S. fleet carries advanced digital technology.

Today, the U.S. Navy’s warships are the antithesis of easily upgradable. Seemingly digital systems, such as warships’ afloat network and computing environment, take months to install. Software updates arrive quarterly, far too slowly, for more advanced unmanned systems. This is to say nothing about the Navy’s cumulative 20 years of ship maintenance delays — where warships sit idle undergoing modernization and repair. Some ship upgrades should become simple software changes. Yet in early 2025, most systems rely on physical hardware changeouts. As a sage robotics chief technology officer once told us, “early hardware decisions cast long shadows.” In naval architecture, these shadows often last 20 to 40 years.

The U.S. Navy has so far not adopted software-defined principles as part of the design of its warships. In fact, its warships — the most advanced in the world — are largely no different than those built to fight the Soviet Union in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Some of those warships are still active today, such as the aging Ticonderoga-class cruisers, whose AEGIS combat systems are hardware-centric and do not have software-focused metrics, dollars, or design.

One priority on legacy warships is upgrading sensors and systems to keep, process, and share more of their data. Efforts like this enable fusion, whether it be for target tracking or maintenance insight. Another effort seeks to balance the compute load between ashore cloud and afloat servers — an area where many of the upgrades can already be digital. And yet another is the constant struggle of bandwidth management, using software to help ship and satellite antennas prioritize the data packets passing through their narrow pipes.

Digitizing U.S. warships is an urgent priority. The Navy cannot wait a decade for the Integrated Combat System , which is set to finally decouple software from hardware. The chief of naval operations outlined her vision for a high-technology Navy in Project 33. Alongside new platforms, such as software-defined unmanned ships, she emphasizes reducing maintenance delays. On older ships, maintenance should wait for specialized hardware technicians and replacement part backlogs. Getting to a fleet that can stay agile with rapid software updates will keep us ready for 2027, 2028, and whatever comes next. When the balloon goes up, ships can’t turn back to port for another upgrade — they need updates, tweaks, and agility that can arrive in their server room in seconds.

“The [littoral combat ship] is back,” Secretary of the Navy Del Toro stated emphatically from an event last month. His enthusiasm for the Navy’s most troubled (funded) ship program arose for one reason: upgrades. After experimentation, littoral combat ships now equipped with MK70 missile launchers can help address the Navy’s missile magazine challenges in the Indo-Pacific. However, this upgrade took years. Hardware upgrades, especially when the hardware baseline is not ready for them, take vast amounts of time and resources. Software upgrades, on digital platforms where the hardware is ready to interface with evolving software, take minutes. The Navy is right to celebrate ship upgrades, but needs to push this culture deeper into acquisition and requirements offices where platform hardware choices lock in the “upgradeability” for decades.

Shipbuilding Woes versus Software-Defined Ships

While warfighters focus on upgrading the existing fleet for tonight’s fight, requirements and program officers have a generational opportunity to shape the first software-defined ships with industry. Not only will these OODAloop-closing warships be far more lethal — they will be much easier to build.

Applying the principles of consumer and industrial robotics to shipbuilding will deliver a producible, upgradeable, and highly reliable warship. Because hardware will stay on the vessel for a long time, early engineering should focus on designing systems that will accept many future software upgrades, even when all the future requirements are not known a priori. Much of the hardware should still be flexible, so the design shouldn’t include only bespoke, high-lead time components.

Today, most major components on U.S. warships have 18-month lead times because they are only produced for U.S. warships by specialty defense manufacturers. These bespoke components are also very expensive. During installation, bespoke components require much more specialized labor — the number-one cost in shipbuilding — for wiring, calibration, and fine-tuning of interfaces.

Software-defined ships will be assembled from commercial hardware supply chains, where everything is already mass-producible and interfaces are standardized. As more of the value of the ship becomes software and replaceable hardware, ships will become more attritable, or risk-worthy, too.

Lastly, the core systems of the ship, such as power generation, cooling, and other critical hull, mechanical, and engineering hardware — these should be very close to 100 percent reliability. The rest of the software-defined ship — the compute, the upgrades, the software — will all rely on the core hull, mechanical, and engineering systems. The best software won’t make a difference if the hardware is broken.

Full Steam Ahead

As an ambitious new executive branch looks for opportunities to reinvigorate U.S. naval power, software-defined warships have never held such tangible promise. With technology-savvy leaders in the Department of the Navy, software can eat even cold, grey, steel ships. Pentagon leaders should empower the clean sheet innovators in uniform who can help sell the vision of this technology inside the building. They can promote the civilian leaders who understand it to drive change for decades. They can give both budget authority. Moving real programmatic dollars will send industry the signal that government customers need this capability. Crucially, this does not mean only adding to the budget, but also making thoughtful divestments from legacy capabilities that are no longer suited to an era of software defined warfare.

Congress has an important role too in digitizing the fleet. Congressional experts have long scrutinized expensive shipbuilding investments and will treat software-centric ships no differently. Of late, the frigate and littoral combat ship have come under withering review for the lack of design maturity. If “tech bros” appointed to Pentagon jobs arrive on Capitol Hill with new software-first destroyer designs, they will face the same questions as any new shipbuilding program. Sen. Roger Wicker’s FORGE Act offers an example of how Congress can facilitate adoption of commercial technology in the Defense Department. A similar bill to facilitate and incentivize the digitization of large capital assets such as warships would be a welcome addition to the next National Defense Authorization Act. Appropriators can de-risk some of the authorizers’ ideas by committing one of the U.S. Navy’s aging Ticonderoga-class cruisers to serve as a “digital test ship” to inform future software-defined warship designs.

Today’s warship design choices cast decades-long shadows. But today’s, unlike last decade’s, offer the opportunity to bake software into the heart and bones of warships — this is the only way U.S. warships will evolve with the demands of this dangerous decade and those that follow. China is moving out on software-defined warships. It’s time the U.S. Navy did too.

Become a Member

Artem Sherbinin is an active-duty surface warfare officer currently serving as chief technology officer at U.S. Naval Surface Forces Command’s Task Force Hopper. He holds degrees from the U.S. Naval Academy and Georgetown University.

Austin Gray is co-founder and chief strategy officer of Blue Water Autonomy, a venture-capital backed defense technology shipbuilder. He previously worked in a drone factory in Kyiv and serves in the U.S. Naval Reserves as an intelligence officer. He holds degrees from Davidson College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard University.

The authors deployed together to the Western Pacific as part of the USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group in 2020.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are their own, and do not reflect the views or official policies of the U.S. Navy, the Department of Defense, or any part of the U.S. government.

Image: Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Gregory Johnson via Department of Defense

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Artem Sherbinin · February 10, 2025

18. Melting Frontiers: A Bold Vision for US Strategy in a Warming Arctic

Excerpts:

The Arctic is Changing—So Must Our Strategy

The far north is a rapidly transforming geopolitical arena where the United States must act with urgency if we are to maintain strategic dominance, power projection, and peaceful operations in the blue Arctic. Climate change has done more than alter the landscape—it has rewritten the strategic calculus of the region, exposing new vulnerabilities and opportunities that the United States cannot overlook. Russia and China are aggressively positioning themselves for Arctic dominance, while the US response has remained cautious, reactive, and dangerously slow. Although “monitor-and-respond” can be a valuable strategy in some instances, it will likely prove wholly insufficient to respond to the unfolding realities of this emerging seascape.

History warns us that those who fail to adapt to emerging battlefields cede the advantage to those who do. The Arctic, once an afterthought in military and geopolitical planning, is fast becoming the new frontier in global strategic competition. As new trade routes emerge, resource claims solidify, and military posturing escalates, the United States must transition from passive observation to active presence. We must invest in icebreakers, bolster Arctic forces, expand infrastructure, and make Arctic training a core element of military education. We cannot wait until the Arctic is fully blue to recognize its strategic value; we must act now.

Melting Frontiers: A Bold Vision for US Strategy in a Warming Arctic - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Sylvia Jordan · February 7, 2025

Share on LinkedIn

Send email

“The position of the United States upon the two oceans would be either a source of great weakness or a cause of enormous expense.” When Alfred Thayer Mahan penned these words, Alaska was not yet a state and the Arctic was still a vast icescape. But now Mahan’s predictions must undergo a twenty-first-century update to account for the arrival of the third frontier: a blue Arctic. As ice melts, new trade routes will emerge, resources long hidden beneath the ice will become accessible, and a new strategic battleground will emerge at the top of the world. While politicians and pundits debate the validity of climate change and its causes, the Arctic continues to melt, with blue waterways capable of supporting deep-draft commercial and military vessels predicted by 2050. Although continued focus on the Indo-Pacific, Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Red Sea regions holds merit, accepting risk in the Arctic may result in failure to prepare for and adapt to the significant diplomatic, economic, cultural, and military transformations already in the making.

As the Arctic’s melting ice opens new shipping routes, thaws previously ice-protected shores, and unlocks access to untapped resources, the far north takes on new strategic importance. Indeed, the Bering Strait—expected to become the Arctic’s Gibraltar—is already a chokepoint for global shipping and military operations. Furthermore, Russia’s militarization of Arctic territories and China’s growing Arctic ambitions demand our urgent attention. In order to safeguard our national interests and promote global stability, the United States must ignore the red herring of climate debates and instead accept the reality of ice melt by honing a comprehensive and aggressive Arctic strategy. We have not a moment to waste: already lagging years behind our competitors in this arena, such a combined effort among US military, federal, and private entities will require decades of planning.

Climate Change and Warfare: An Environmental History

While Earth’s climate is changing at a faster pace than ever before, climatic episodes over the past two thousand years—like the Roman Climate Optimum (200 BCE–150 CE), the Little Antique Ice Age (300 CE–700 CE), the Medieval warming period (950 CE–1250), and the Little Ice Age (1350–1850)—offer important perspective. In this era of human-influenced climate change, these periods tell us that climate change does not always spell disaster. Indeed, studies of these periods tell us that climate influences the conduct or outcome of war rather than determining it. Our modern era of climate change can certainly exacerbate vulnerabilities for those militaries who ignore it; but for those who most capture the winds of history into the sails of their respective war machines, it can provide strategic opportunities.

Climate can influence who you fight, what you fight over, when you fight and where, and perhaps most importantly, why you fight. Changing Arctic conditions demand strategists consider those five W’s in a twenty-first-century context. Before 2050, the United States, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland must assess how the diminishing North Pole ice wall will transform into blue borders accessible not only to trade, but also to other strategic competitors, like Russia and China. The importance of such considerations could hardly be overstated: Arctic flashpoints include vast mineral resources, largely untapped oil and gas reserves, and disputes over sovereignty within exclusive economic zones and resultant trade wars. In the past, such considerations have only been necessary in the summer months (except for submarine and long-range air assets), when climate conditions were most hospitable to both land and sea forces. Yet melting ice is projected to allow for year-round naval and commercial shipping competition as early as 2050—with sea trade via the region expected to double by 2035. Compared to the Panama and Suez Canals, the Northern Sea Route offers significantly reduced transit times—and with it, fuel costs—thus rendering it perhaps the most lucrative alternative to traditional shipping lanes.

But why reallocate resources from our present strategic footprint? Simply put, the Arctic is quickly evolving into the new dance floor for geopolitical competition (including, in its most extreme manifestation, warfare), replete with all the classic Thucydidean trappings of fear, honor, and interest. This is not an exaggeration: Russia and China have already signaled their desire for Arctic dominance. With the world’s largest icebreaker fleet, Russia poses the most dominant and formidable force in the region. Russia has seized the strategic and operational advantage, maintaining near-continuous operations in the Arctic, sharpening firsthand experience in the seascape, and challenging any foreign militaries who dare transit these frigid waters. Not far behind Russia, China—the self-proclaimed “near-Arctic state”—has similarly declared itself a regional force. China has invested heavily in its Polar Silk Road, thus expanding its maritime and global spheres of influence and all but guaranteeing strategic and economic returns in the region.

US Arctic Strategy

In recent years, DoD’s Arctic Strategy has undergone considerable review and revision. Indeed, current policy is drastically different from the policies of a decade ago. These new strategic visions no doubt have heightened our awareness of the Arctic’s growing geopolitical importance, and these policies are not without their strengths. But our most recent strides leave one wondering: Are we doing enough? The United States is an Arctic nation, but does our strategic policy fully reflect this? Current US strategy acknowledges, for example, the Arctic is not just warming—it’s becoming a new arena for strategic competition. In this light, the strategy’s “monitor-and-respond” approach reads as both too passive and too reactive for the competitive contest likely to develop in the far north. While we recognize the innate importance of robust monitoring and other intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities in the region, we also acknowledge that China and Russia are already conducting combined exercises off the coast of Alaska. Considered in this light, our monitor-and-respond strategy resembles the military equivalent of relying on a giant Ring camera: it’s great for observation, but insufficient for deterring adversaries and projecting power.

More alarming still, the United States lags woefully behind her fellow great powers in Arctic preparations. By the time the United States published its first radical transformation of Arctic strategic policy, it was decades, even centuries, behind Russia’s interest in the region—an interest that transformed into action by the 2000s. Likewise, China has been honing its Arctic intentions since 2013, when it gained “observer” status in the Arctic Council. The following year, Russia created its Arctic Joint Strategic Command, and just three years after that, declared its plans to “phase NATO out of the Arctic.” By 2018, China published its first Arctic policy white paper, and shortly after launched its first domestically built icebreaker. In 2023, Russia declared the Arctic its second priority—a priority Moscow is well positioned to promote with its already robust Arctic presence and operating bases. Two of the world’s most powerful militaries have signaled their intent to establish strategic, diplomatic, and economic dominance of the world’s smallest ocean. Can the United States really afford to simply monitor and respond?

We recognize this call to action is not without significant obstacles. As our most current Arctic Strategy rightly points out, we must “balance against other DoD global commitments”—and we have to determine how to do this in an environment replete with fiscal, structural, environmental, and manpower challenges. We are not suggesting that DoD abandon our global commitments in favor of Arctic operations. We are arguing, however, that the department cannot abandon Arctic power projection in favor of keeping global commitments. It will be hard. It will stretch our forces and our capabilities. But it is worth remembering that Russia is doing both. China is doing both. And increasingly, they are doing both together—including in back-to-back naval exercises in 2022 and 2023 off the coast of Alaska. Accordingly, we must do both, and we must start now. US Arctic strategy and policy must shift from a future-oriented mindset of what we will do when time and resources allow to an ethos of what we are doing now, lest we look back in 2030 or 2050 at what we should’ve, could’ve, or would’ve done differently to prepare for a blue Arctic. In this light, aiming principally to “manage risk in the region” is not an acceptable substitute for establishing presence. The United States must take action now to ensure we are prepared to successfully maintain peace and prosperity in the blue Arctic.

Policy Recommendations

We do not diminish the immense difficulties the United States faces in implementing such active—but vital—strategic and operational postures. Establishing a presence in the Arctic and also maintaining presence and capability in other global regions with US interests at stake will stretch our manpower and our assets. But we argue our stated objectives can be achieved in the following ways:

1. Increase year-round air, land, surface, and subsurface operations in the Arctic now. We can ill afford, as the 2024 DoD Arctic Strategy puts it, to “explore options to improve mobility in all seasons and variable conditions across the Arctic’s diverse geography and weather” when our adversaries are already past the exploratory and into the operational phase. The Arctic is a highly dynamic operational environment that forces even the most seasoned DoD operators to perform familiar tasks in new ways. We must practice these tasks in adverse conditions now.

2. Assess manpower and other resource alignment against the full range of US global interests and ensure the Arctic is appropriately resourced. Based on the findings, DoD should be prepared to consider an increase in the size of the US military while simultaneously ramping up sustained year-round Arctic operations.

3. Build or obtain more polar-capable icebreakers now. Russia’s icebreaker fleet far exceeds ours. Indeed, even our “near-Arctic” peer competitor, China, has more. Expanding the icebreaker fleet will ensure year-round access to and presence in Arctic waters.

4. Establish an Arctic combatant command—USARCTCOM. The Arctic region, although small, is currently divided between at least three combatant commands. Establishing a separate, Arctic-specific command not only signals its strategic importance, but also prevents geographic task saturation as national defense, economic prosperity, and safe navigation of the high seas becomes top priorities in the blue Arctic.

5. After establishing USARCTCOM, stand up Eighth Fleet to cover the Arctic Ocean and its accompanying borders. With the new fleet, the Navy should establish an Alaskan joint fleet concentration area, to include a new naval operating base on the Alaskan coast for air, surface, and subsurface assets—much like our current bases in Norfolk and San Diego. This fleet concentration area would not replace operating forces in the Pacific Northwest, which should continue to focus on Third Fleet operations.

6. Reconcentrate existing military cold-weather assets to the new Alaskan fleet concentration area. For the Marine Corps, an additional mountain weather training center should be established, which would focus on sustained Arctic peace- and wartime operations. In the Army, the reactivation of the 11th Airborne Division in 2022 was an important step, but the service should add an additional division to complement it. This fleet concentration area should also be the home port for all icebreaker and cold-weather surface assets.

7. Invest in Arctic-specific infrastructure. The Arctic is a highly dynamic operating area. DoD planners should therefore feel empowered not only to think outside the box, but also to dream big as they determine how best to operate in such challenging conditions. Ports, communications networks, and radar systems will be needed, of course, but how do we build a fleet capable of continuous US Arctic power projection, freedom of navigation, and protection of our people, our borders, and our assets? Rather than a separate icebreaker fleet, should we instead consider merging platforms—finding ways to blend the new with the old? Could something as lethal and impressive as a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and icebreaker ever become a reality? Perhaps it’s not feasible at the moment, and the mere suggestion might seem ludicrous to some. But in a new frontier, we must push the boundaries, expand the realm of the possible, and offer creative solutions to our modern challenges.

8. Make Arctic studies and training a mandatory and highlighted aspect of officer training. Operations in the Arctic are not business as usual. Like other operating areas, forces operating in the far north are still required to successfully accomplish tasks and achieve objectives, but in weather conditions that shift on a dime. Therefore, increasing Arctic training at the officer candidate–level is a low-budget, but highly effective way to develop warfighters who are prepared to think outside the box in these extreme, unique, and adverse conditions. Mandatory curriculum on cold-weather operations that incorporate field and fleet lessons learned from the Arctic should be developed and taught. The curriculum should explain the challenges of operating in extreme weather, climate change, space weather, communications blackouts, and the midnight sun. The services should also consider sending some officer candidates, cadets, and midshipmen to summer training, immersion trips, and internships in the region—with follow-on debriefing periods at corresponding DoD offices.

The Arctic is Changing—So Must Our Strategy

The far north is a rapidly transforming geopolitical arena where the United States must act with urgency if we are to maintain strategic dominance, power projection, and peaceful operations in the blue Arctic. Climate change has done more than alter the landscape—it has rewritten the strategic calculus of the region, exposing new vulnerabilities and opportunities that the United States cannot overlook. Russia and China are aggressively positioning themselves for Arctic dominance, while the US response has remained cautious, reactive, and dangerously slow. Although “monitor-and-respond” can be a valuable strategy in some instances, it will likely prove wholly insufficient to respond to the unfolding realities of this emerging seascape.

History warns us that those who fail to adapt to emerging battlefields cede the advantage to those who do. The Arctic, once an afterthought in military and geopolitical planning, is fast becoming the new frontier in global strategic competition. As new trade routes emerge, resource claims solidify, and military posturing escalates, the United States must transition from passive observation to active presence. We must invest in icebreakers, bolster Arctic forces, expand infrastructure, and make Arctic training a core element of military education. We cannot wait until the Arctic is fully blue to recognize its strategic value; we must act now.

Sylvia Jordan is an active duty US Navy officer and PhD student in the Department of History at Georgetown University. After four sea tours, she is now serving as a permanent military instructor at the US Naval Academy, and from there, remains interested in the development and execution of Arctic operations and strategy.

Antonio Salinas is an active duty US Army officer and PhD student in the Department of History at Georgetown University. Following his coursework, he will teach at the National Intelligence University. Salinas has twenty-six years of military service in the Marine Corps and the Army and has led soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. He is the author of Siren’s Song: The Allure of War and Boot Camp: The Making of a United States Marine.

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

Image credit: Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ryan U. Kledzik, US Navy

Share on LinkedIn

Send email

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Sylvia Jordan · February 7, 2025

19. What Ukraine Can Teach the World About Resilience and Civil Engineering

What Ukraine Can Teach the World About Resilience and Civil Engineering

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/02/10/what-ukraine-can-teach-the-world-about-resilience-and-civil-engineering/

by Jonas Christensen, by Andriy Tymoshenko, by Daniel Armanios

02.10.2025 at 06:00am

Editors Note: This paper was originally published in the Fall 2023 edition of ISSUES in Science and Technology. ISSUES is a quarterly journal published by the National Academy of Sciences and ASU. The journal is a forum for discussion of public policy related to science and technology. Its content encompasses a broad range of themes and perspectives related to the ways that societies seek to advance knowledge and innovation to achieve social goals. ISSUES is part of SWJ’s parent organization ASU Media Enterprise.

Disclaimer: this study was based on 2022-2023 data so whether these propositions stand the test of time in light of newer developments, besides more systematic tests of these assertions and their underlying assumptions, is a promising empirical opportunity.

Bringing sociology into civil engineering helps explain how Ukraine’s social and physical systems work together to keep the lights on amid constant attacks.

When Russian airstrikes cut off water to 80% of Kyiv at the end of October 2022, utility workers were able to restore the flow within 24 hours. Against a steady barrage of missiles, drones, artillery, and cyberattacks, the country’s infrastructure has proven remarkably resilient. Real-time monitoring shows that the Ukrainian rail system had, as of August 2023, experienced only one complete shutdown since the start of the war, lasting just two hours. Early on, the country’s ability to rapidly adapt—for example, using commercial drones on the battlefield and modified jet skis for sea attacks—helped it handle military strikes and shifting front lines. A war that was expected to end with Ukraine’s defeat in only three days is, as of this writing, entering its twentieth month.

There is no denying the physical devastation. As of April 2023, the Kyiv School of Economics estimated $150 billion in infrastructure damage in Ukraine, with damage to or destruction of about 170,000 residential buildings (including almost 20,000 apartment buildings), plus over 1,300 schools that have also been destroyed, according to UNICEF. This makes the resilience of the nation’s services and utilities even more remarkable.

Our point here is not to minimize the pain, damage, and trauma the war has wrought. In fact, what we find remarkable is the opposite: how Ukraine prevented the toll from being far worse. Two of us (Christensen and Tymoshenko) are management and development consultants working in Ukraine who focus on reconstruction planning, energy infrastructure, and managing large portfolios of development projects. Several months ago, we got in touch with Armanios, who studies how organizational sociology applies to large-scale engineering systems. We were all looking to explore how under-recognized mechanisms of resilience might be applied to rebuilding Ukraine. Here is our synthesis of many months of discussions.

Ukraine’s resilience in the face of Russian attacks has been accomplished via a remarkably adaptable assemblage of local, national, and transnational infrastructure.

Ukraine’s resilience in the face of Russian attacks has been accomplished via a remarkably adaptable assemblage of local, national, and transnational infrastructure. Sociologists have written extensively about situations in which multiple levels of society, each with its own systems of organization, work together (the technical term in sociology is “hinged ecologies”). Ukraine’s experience reveals several factors that help catalyze and smooth interactions between these multiple levels: societal solidarity, informal networks, decentralization, learning spillovers, and modular, distributed infrastructure. From these factors, we developed five propositions, grounded in Ukraine’s experience, with the preservation of physical infrastructure playing a pivotal role. Each proposition has a lesson for other societies facing threats, whether from war, climate change, or economic disruption.

Proposition 1: A common threat brings people together

Longstanding research shows that shared threats drive social cohesion. Ukraine saw an unprecedented surge in solidarity after the Russian invasion. Polling data a few months into the war showed a record high of 85% of Ukrainians self-identifying foremost as Ukrainian citizens (instead of as members of a minority group or residents of their regions)—up from 64% the previous year. The army had the trust of 97% of the population; President Volodymyr Zelensky, 85%. Before the war, Zelensky’s approval rating was just 30%.

These levels of trust are remarkable given that the country experienced two revolutions since the turn of the century: the 2004–2005 Orange Revolution and the 2014 Revolution of Dignity, both of which reflected high levels of social discontent. Just as with other post-Communist countries, Soviet rule instilled and perpetuated deep distrust, with Ukrainians having some of the lowest levels of trust in their fellow citizens compared with other post-Soviet nations prior to the current war. The Kremlin’s invasion plans relied on this distrust, expecting Ukrainians’ uneasy support for their government to collapse after the invasion, with Ukrainians further receding into their households and families.

Ukraine saw an unprecedented surge in solidarity after the Russian invasion.

Instead, Ukrainians came together across political and social divides to fight for the survival of their state and society. Tens of thousands queued up to join the armed forces—so many that volunteers were turned away. We (Christensen and Tymoshenko) saw social groups interacting more broadly post-invasion as they joined efforts to impede the invasion and adapt in the face of adversity. Anticipating that moving people to hospitals would become difficult, some families even assembled first aid kits and organized volunteer training to allow emergency care to happen within their neighborhoods. An art collective in Kyiv sent the group’s artworks off to safety and began welding tank-stopping barricades and making bulletproof vests. Local organizations, and even Ukrainians returning from abroad, began producing military barricades and sewing camouflage netting. People in villages, together with internally displaced Ukrainians, built checkpoints and staffed them together. Despite physical danger, volunteers gathered and delivered food to people in towns under siege, as happened in Chernihiv. In these examples, we see the insights of management scholar John Kotter—that threats breed urgency. The newfound social cohesion that arose from this urgency expressed itself in diverse, improvised, and collaborative efforts to shore up infrastructure and provide community services.

Proposition 2: Informal supply networks boost adaptability

Within 24 hours of the invasion, Kyiv’s deputy mayor, with some national assistance, modified the app used to buy tickets on public transit to give warnings for air raids and directions to the closest bomb shelter. It could also help people find the nearest working gas station. Another government app, Diia, which civilians used to pay taxes and apply for passports, was quickly adapted so citizens could report enemy movements to assist in Ukrainian reconnaissance, listen to the radio during blackouts, apply for relief funds, to name a few improvisations. Research has documented how technologies can change social processes and how social processes can, in turn, change technologies (the technical term in sociology is “imbrication”). The Ukrainian experience has shown how informal networks can boost and catalyze these cycles of mutual social-technological adaptation and, in so doing, increase resilience to attack.

Citizens turned fishing nets into camouflage nets and car batteries into backup power stations. Entrepreneurs and volunteers launched projects to supply drones, medical supplies, electric bikes, and cars to assist in the war effort. Existing social networks joined across national, regional, and local levels; new networks formed across sectors as people in private companies, nonprofit organizations, and government teamed up. Crowd-sourced projects brought together individuals with no direct connections. One existing European network mobilized to distribute donated generators to Ukrainian cities, for instance.

When attacks disrupted critical supply chains, networks pivoted to restore them. Sometimes they revived conventional suppliers; sometimes, they found ingenious new ways to provide essential materials and capabilities. For example, a beer brewery used its equipment to make Molotov cocktails. (Similar processes were seen in US breweries during the Prohibition era when they adapted their machinery to produce soft drinks instead of banned beer.) Undergirding these many efforts in Ukraine were crosscutting groups of volunteers, foundations, nongovernmental organizations, and various companies working together to shore up supply and service gaps to ensure civilians could get necessities and the military could maintain the fight.

The common thread across these examples is well established in both sociology and anthropology: when there are resource gaps, informal networks can creatively recombine what is at hand to come up with “good enough” solutions. During crises, fulfilling precise specifications for optimal operation is often impossible. There must be contingencies to make do with nontraditional supplies, especially for frequently required repairs. However, to do so, people often must go beyond their typical channels.

The Ukrainian experience has shown how informal networks can boost and catalyze these cycles of mutual social-technological adaptation and, in so doing, increase resilience to attack.

In such situations, informal networks reveal unexplored channels with analogous skills and capacity. Research in Africa has found that such efforts can lead to pathbreaking and scalable innovations in realms as diverse as moviemaking and workforce training. Replete in examples across Ukraine are citizens leveraging social networks that transcend typical infrastructure sectors in construction and transportation. These networks linked automotive, information technology, manufacturing, and even artists’ groups in metalworking and sculpting to identify untapped resources that could lead to adequate solutions for shoring up Ukrainian infrastructure—and defense.

Policymakers can facilitate this search for untapped potential. For instance, documenting who knows what and who has what with something as simple as a spreadsheet can help people identify, create, and navigate such networks. The International Association for Public Transport provides a downloadable Excel master list of organizations with spare parts that can meet local Ukrainian infrastructure needs. In Ukraine, the company Nonsilo created a tool to update such an Excel sheet in real time, allowing any company wanting to support Ukraine’s efforts to list what they have to contribute. These networks were improvised in crisis. Policymakers can help bolster such lists even before crises hit by cultivating linkages across networks of experts, communities of practice, industry associations, and even artist collectives.

Proposition 3: Decentralized management enables more agile response

After the 2014 revolution, fiscal management in Ukraine was shifted from the central level to groups of local municipalities, called amalgamated territorial communities (ATCs), with greater decisionmaking, tax-collecting, and self-governing powers than were previously ceded to provinces, or oblasts. That shift allowed ATCs to keep more of their tax revenues so they could increasingly self-manage and deliver local public services.

While difficult at the time, decentralization has engendered trust and empowered Ukrainian communities to repair damaged infrastructure much more quickly. A 2023 survey found high levels of social cohesion, with support for local institutions even higher than for most centralized ones—and this trust has paid dividends. For example, Ukrainian forces restored some power to Kharkiv’s damaged electricity grid within a day of recapturing the oblast. Local authorities and private companies worked together to restore power across Kyiv and major cities after the October 2022 missile and drone strikes. By November, local authorities had organized thousands of “Points of Invincibility” for recharging gadgets, getting warm, and going online, often in local health facilities and businesses.

This mix of greater social cohesion and more agile decentralized governance catalyzed smaller-scale local adaptations throughout society that only further enhanced resilience. For instance, one cafe owner bought thermoses to keep coffee warm during blackouts and switched to desserts that didn’t need refrigeration. Such flexibility would not have been possible with purchases and menus decided centrally.

Although local control can increase social cohesion, it can also complicate larger-scale coordination. Prior to the Russian invasion, intergovernmental organizations such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recommended that Ukraine strengthen centralized governance; the OECD continued to express those concerns even as the war unfolded.

Decentralization has engendered trust and empowered Ukrainian communities to repair damaged infrastructure much more quickly.

Getting the right balance will be pivotal in sustaining and rebuilding Ukraine. In other contexts, such as rural water systems in Egypt, decentralizing regionally (rather than centralizing nationally) is proposed to sustain system agility. As Ukraine gains experience in coordinating across ATCs, these regional governance structures can achieve economies of scale while leveraging the social proximity needed to better adapt infrastructure to local needs and capabilities. In so doing, coherent national efforts can be achieved without compromising the flexibility needed when local attacks or disasters destroy essential infrastructure.

Proposition 4: Learning, especially from prior crises, enhances response

Learning can spill across crises. Before the Russian invasion, the COVID-19 pandemic prompted Ukrainian companies, schools, and government authorities to transition to remote work and transfer computing operations into secure cloud systems. So when the attacks came, companies knew which functions to prioritize, how to reorient their operations, and how to build transnational networks to deliver their services. In fact, Ukrainian exports of information technology services in the first six months of 2022 were reported to have actually increased by 23% over the same period the year before. Utilities suppliers also drew on lessons learned during the 2014 Russian occupation of Crimea and fighting in the Donbas region to recover from hostile attacks. Hydropower operators, for example, gained experience working on mined land during these crises.

Such learning across crises in Ukraine is consistent with sociological research, especially on social movements, describing how lessons can be transferred across organizations. Studies have shown how social movements can help identify and share knowledge on effective tactics among participating groups, and even across movements.

Collecting such information more strategically is increasingly important. In the United States, the National Science Foundation has proposed a federal program to create “critical technology analytics” that would generate and share data and analysis, such as anticipating bottlenecks. In response to COVID-19, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act both emphasize greater focus on shoring up vulnerabilities identified in global supply chains across critical technologies.

Proposition 5: Modular, distributed, and renewable energy infrastructure is more resilient

Although the country relies on large nuclear power plants to meet electricity demand, Ukraine’s renewable energy production has been increasing. The head of Ukraine’s largest renewable energy company estimates that his firm alone has produced over 200 million kilowatt-hours of green electricity since the start of the Russian invasion—with a significant part of it coming from wind farms and solar power plants in occupied areas in Ukraine’s south and southeast.

Renewable energy, such as from wind or solar, is both modular and distributed, so when individual units are destroyed, they can be replaced independently of the entire system. As a result, damage to a single wind turbine or solar panel (or even solar farm) has much less impact on the energy system overall. Moreover, renewable energy can be generated closer to the point of use, avoiding the need to carry energy over long distances and reducing reliance on vulnerable transmission lines. Similarly, renewable energy sources do not require fuel deliveries and require less maintenance, so they can continue to function when supply chains elsewhere are disrupted.

Energy infrastructure that combines all these features (i.e., generated close to users, made of independently operable units, and renewable) is much harder for aggressors to disable over long periods. It is more difficult to target, harder to disrupt, and easier to fix. Ukraine’s grid infrastructure is already experiencing some of these benefits, which will only further accrue as more renewable energy sources come online.

Renewable energy, such as from wind or solar, is both modular and distributed, so when individual units are destroyed, they can be replaced independently of the entire system.

This demonstrates that distributed, modular energy systems could be significant in strategic defense. Historically, major infrastructure projects have been taken up under a similar pretense of national defense. For example, President Eisenhower, himself a former general, successfully argued for building interstate highways, still the United States’ biggest public works project, on national defense grounds. Similarly, energy security is used to make the case for more renewable energy in the United States, and even for Ukraine’s entry into the European Union.

Communities and infrastructure need one another

In armed conflicts, infrastructure is both a target and a defense. The same is true amid disasters such as floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes. Between calamities, though, infrastructure rarely garners attention and is often taken for granted—as seen in society’s slow-walked responses to the challenges of climate change. Despite ongoing efforts to raise awareness, such as the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Infrastructure Report Cards, it often takes disasters like high-profile bridge failures to stir up popular willingness to invest in infrastructure.

Observing the reciprocal resilience between infrastructure and society in wartime can help explain how it can better function during peacetime. During many months of discussions among ourselves (and with generous colleagues, including economic sociologist Marc Ventresca, psychologist and decision scientist Baruch Fischhoff, and former Ukrainian deputy minister Dmytro Romanovych), we came to appreciate how the Ukrainian experience provides vivid, elevating, and tragic examples of the role that infrastructure plays in those processes.

Ukraine’s resilience is grounded in a remarkably synergistic amalgam of local, national, and transnational systems. Each system helps catalyze and coordinate activities across diverse organizations, groups, and individuals. They range from local volunteers delivering supplies for national aid workers to company executives repurposing factories. The success of their efforts demonstrates in practice the theories embodied in our five propositions. Each proposition reveals details worthy of further study and improves understanding of how to make civil infrastructure more adaptable in the face of crises. These lessons could inform the decisions made by funders such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and United Nations when making investments in infrastructure, so that they enhance the physical and social networks essential to sustained resilience amid disruption.

Dams and Grids: How Resilience Factors Play Out

To help see the combined value of our propositions, we apply them to two examples: the Russian energy infrastructure attacks in October 2022 and the collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam in June 2023 (with the caveat that there are significant differences between dams and electrical grids).

In October 2022, heavy damage had been done to at least 30% of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, and by November, around 50% was significantly damaged. Yet the system was able to remain operational through self-instituted rolling or emergency blackouts to reduce the peak load. By mid-December, most of Ukraine’s large generation and transmission capacities were affected, along with significant amounts of the country’s oil and gas infrastructure. These systems mobilized quickly in response and leveraged the decentralized ATCs to do so. Informal supply networks were able to provide many of the more standardized or extra spare parts. While there were some vulnerabilities around centralized grids, infrastructure was adequately distributed to maintain at least some minimum viable operation. Moreover, after over eight months of conflict and prior aggression, there was ample experience and learning for how to deploy fixes quickly. By April 2023, Ukraine had stabilized its domestic power supply and even resumed exporting electricity.

The collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam in June 2023 offers a valuable counterpoint of fragility. Due to the size and operations of the dam, the project is overseen by the state-owned hydroelectricity company Ukrhydroenergo. Moreover, the dam provides electricity and flood protection to three ATCs: Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Dnipro. Thus, completely decentralized authority was not possible. Even if the dam was salvageable after its collapse (and Ukrhydroenergo deemed it “beyond repair”), the engineering and parts for such dams are highly specialized, so only a few entities have the capability to provide assistance. This means informal supply networks are infeasible. That said, there is potential for learning spillovers from the nearby Dniepier Hydroelectric Station, which was destroyed twice during World War II, such as how to use temporary cofferdams and bridging works to facilitate inspection and repair.

The table below synthesizes our insights across these two case study vignettes.

Proposed Factors for Infrastructure Resilience

EditProposed Factors for Infrastructure ResilienceStrikes on Energy Infrastructure

(October 2022)Collapse of Nova Kakhovka Dam

(June 2023)Mobilization to shared threatXXDecentralized managementX-Informal supply networksX-Learning spillovers

XXDispersed, modular infrastructureX-Recovery speedFasterSlower

Tags: civil engineering, Resilience, social cohesion, Ukraine

About The Authors

Jonas Christensen
Jonas Skovrup Christensen is an international management and development consultant based in Ukraine.
View all posts
Andriy Tymoshenko
Andriy Tymoshenko is the head of Strategy and Operations Management Consulting at KPMG Ukraine.
View all posts
Daniel Armanios
Daniel Armanios is the BT Professor of Major Program Management at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.

20. Explosive-Laden Goggles Sent To Russian FPV Drone Operators

Learning lessons from Israel?

Who says drone operators are not on the front lines of combat?

This will make every drone operator afraid to put on his goggles.

Explosive-Laden Goggles Sent To Russian FPV Drone Operators

Russia is searching for the perpetrators of a scheme designed to blow up the heads of FPV drones operators, or at least induce fear of their kit.

Howard Altman

Posted on Feb 7, 2025

twz.com · by Howard Altman

Russian officials are investigating a plot that allegedly sent explosive-laden first-person view (FPV) goggles to drone units in the hope they would detonate, killing or injuring the operator. It mirrors the mass attack Israel carried out against Hezbollah last September, using thousands of explosive-packed pagers and walkie-talkies. More than two dozen Hezbollah members were killed and thousands wounded in that incident. You can read more about that here.

Investigators reportedly interceded before any of the explosives-rigged goggles were activated.

Straight from the Israeli Playbook: Russia Intercepts Explosive-Laden AR Goggles Meant for Frontline Troops

Russian authorities have intercepted a shipment of FPV goggles rigged with explosives, allegedly intended to detonate upon first use.

According to Russian war… pic.twitter.com/brmncNweZt

— DD Geopolitics (@DD_Geopolitics) February 7, 2025

“ATTENTION! According to our sources, enemy saboteurs have attempted a mass terrorist act on Russian territory using volunteers (without their knowledge),” the Russian Razved Dozor Telegram channel wrote Friday. “The competent authorities are already working on the situation.”

“There are reports from military personnel of multiple cases of volunteers delivering mined FPV Skyzone Cobra goggles,” Razved Dozor claimed. “The goggles contain improvised explosive devices (IED) with 10-15 grams of plastic explosive. Detonation occurs when the goggles are turned on.”

Razved Dozor posted several pictures and a video claiming to show these goggles and the explosives embedded in them.

Russians complain about receiving humanitarian aid with explosives – FPV drone goggles that explode upon activation. Inside, an explosive device was found, discovered only during use. pic.twitter.com/iHesNJtZLF

— WarTranslated (@wartranslated) February 7, 2025

The goggles were sent in humanitarian aid packages by unwitting volunteers, Razved Dozor noted. As FPV drones have played an increasingly important combat role, there have been crowd-sourced efforts by both sides to supply drones, goggles and other required equipment to front-line troops.

It is unclear how many of these sabotaged goggles were sent out. Authorities intercepted several after the condition of the boxes raised suspicions.

“The boxes with the glasses themselves show weak signs of being opened,” the Russian Readovka news outlet reported on Friday. ”Only thanks to the vigilance of the military was it possible to avoid a catastrophe. Information about what happened has already been passed on to the security forces, and the perpetrator of the assassination attempt is being identified.”

“The sender is listed as a certain Roman,” Readovka noted. “The parcels were sent via SDEK,” a large global logistics company.

A box of allegedly explosive-laden FPV goggles sent to Russian troops. (Via X)

Though the goggles contained only a small amount of explosives, “the power of the explosion would have been enough to break a temple,” the popular Alex Parker Returns Telegram channel explained. “The work was done rather sloppily, traces of opening were visible on the glasses and therefore sabotage was miraculously avoided. I am sure that this is only the beginning and further intensity of such sabotage will only increase. What a horror.”

Ukrainians “were able to repeat the trick with pagers,” Alex Parker Returns suggested in a reference to the Israeli pager and walkie-talkie attack on Hezbollah.

The first wave of those explosions, on Sept. 17, 2024, targeted pagers used by Hezbollah that were triggered simultaneously. The second wave of explosions, on the following day, targeted walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah. You can read more details about how it unfolded in our reporting here.

A photo taken on Sept. 18, 2024, in Beirut’s southern suburbs shows the remains of exploded pagers on display at an undisclosed location. . (Photo by AFP)

While the Israeli and suspected Ukrainian plots to embed explosives in devices used by their enemies are similar, there is one big difference. The Israeli attack was far more sophisticated, with pagers and walkie-talkies triggered by a specific message command sent simultaneously to thousands of devices. It also came after years of espionage work, which included setting up front companies and an elaborate supply chain. The FPV plot just required the goggles to be powered up, meaning that if one exploded, it would likely warn other operators, reducing the number of casualties.

Russian milbloggers remain concerned that this may be only the beginning of a much larger campaign, with good reason.

The fact that a sabotage attempt of this nature has occurred means that any electronics that troops interface with could be at risk of similar tampering. Having to physically disassemble every device that is needed to fuel a very hot war would drastically slow down supply chains. It also causes deep psychological effects on troops who now have to wonder if any item they pickup is similarly equipped.

We will have to wait and see how the Russian military reacts at scale going forward.

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com

Howard Altman

21. Trump says he wants to negotiate about Ukraine. It's not clear if Putin really does

It takes two to tango as they say.

Trump says he wants to negotiate about Ukraine. It's not clear if Putin really does

By EMMA BURROWS

Updated 8:53 AM EST, February 9, 2025

AP · February 8, 2025

Nearly three years after President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, his troops are making steady progress on the battlefield. Kyiv is grappling with shortages of men and weapons. And the new U.S. president could soon halt Ukraine’s massive supply of military aid.

Putin is closer than ever to achieving his objectives in the battle-weary country, with little incentive to come to the negotiating table, no matter how much U.S. President Donald Trump might cajole or threaten him, according to Russian and Western experts interviewed by The Associated Press.

Both are signaling discussions on Ukraine -– by phone or in person -– using flattery and threats.

Putin said Trump was “clever and pragmatic,” and even parroted his false claims of having won the 2020 election. Trump’s opening gambit was to call Putin “smart” and to threaten Russia with tariffs and oil price cuts, which the Kremlin brushed off.

Trump boasted during the campaign he could end the war in 24 hours, which later became six months. He’s indicated the U.S. is talking to Russia about Ukraine without Kyiv’s input, saying his administration already had “very serious” discussions.

He suggested he and Putin could soon take “significant” action toward ending the war, in which Russia is suffering heavy casualties daily while its economy endures stiff Western sanctions, inflation and a serious labor shortage.

But the economy has not collapsed, and because Putin has unleashed the harshest crackdown on dissent since Soviet times, he faces no domestic pressure to end the war.

“In the West, the idea came from somewhere that it’s important to Putin to reach an agreement and end things. This is not the case,” said Fyodor Lukyanov, who hosted a forum with Putin in November and heads Moscow’s Council for Foreign and Defense policies.

Talks on Ukraine without Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Putin wants to deal directly with Trump, cutting out Kyiv. That runs counter to the Biden administration’s position that echoed Zelenskyy’s call of “Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.”

“We cannot let someone decide something for us,” Zelenskyy told AP, saying Russia wants the “destruction of Ukrainian freedom and independence.”

He suggested any such peace deal would send the dangerous signal that adventurism pays to authoritarian leaders in China, North Korea and Iran.

Putin appears to expect Trump to undermine European resolve on Ukraine. Likening Europe’s leaders to Trump’s lapdogs, he said Sunday they will soon be “sitting obediently at their master’s feet and sweetly wagging their tails” as the U.S. president quickly brings order with his ”character and persistence.”

Trump boasts of his deal-making prowess but Putin will not easily surrender what he considers Russia’s ancestral lands in Ukraine or squander a chance to punish the West and undermine its alliances and security by forcing Kyiv into a policy of neutrality.

Trump may want a legacy as a peacemaker, but “history won’t look kindly on him if he’s the man who gives this all away,” said Sir Kim Darroch, British ambassador to the U.S. from 2016-19. Former NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu said a deal favoring Moscow would send a message of “American weakness.”

Echoes of Helsinki

Trump and Putin last met in Helsinki in 2018 when there was “mutual respect” between them, said former Finnish President Sauli Niinistö, the summit host. But they are “not very similar,” he added, with Putin a “systematic” thinker while Trump acts like a businessman making “prompt” decisions.

That could cause a clash because Trump wants a quick resolution to the war while Putin seeks a slower one that strengthens his military position and weakens both Kyiv and the West’s political will.

Zelenskyy told AP that Putin “does not want to negotiate. He will sabotage it.” Indeed, Putin has already raised obstacles, including legal hurdles and claimed Zelenskyy has lost his legitimacy as president.

Putin hopes Trump will “get bored” or distracted with another issue, said Boris Bondarev, a former Russian diplomat in Geneva who quit his post after the invasion.

Russian experts point to Trump’s first term when they said Putin realized such meetings achieved little.

One was a public relations victory for Moscow in Helsinki where Trump sided with Putin instead of his own intelligence agencies on whether Russia meddled in the 2016 election. Another was in Singapore in 2018 with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un when he failed to reach a deal to halt Pyongyang’s nuclear program.

Previous peace talks

The Kremlin last year said a draft peace agreement that Russia and Ukraine negotiated in Istanbul early in the conflict — but which Kyiv rejected — could be the basis for talks.

It demanded Ukraine’s neutrality, stipulated NATO deny it membership, put limits on Kyiv’s armed forces and delayed talks on the status of four Russian-occupied regions that Moscow later annexed illegally. Moscow also dismissed demands to withdraw its troops, pay compensation to Ukraine and face an international tribunal for its action.

Putin hasn’t indicated he will budge but said “if there is a desire to negotiate and find a compromise solution, let anyone conduct these negotiations.”

“Engagement is not the same as negotiation,” said Sir Laurie Bristow, British ambassador to Russia from 2016-20, describing Russia’s strategy as “what’s mine is mine. And what’s yours is up for negotiation.”

Bondarev also said Putin sees negotiations only as a vehicle “to deliver him whatever he wants,” adding it’s “astonishing” that Western leaders still don’t understand Kremlin tactics.

That means Putin is likely to welcome any meeting with Trump, since it promotes Russia as a global force and plays well domestically, but he will offer little in return.

What Trump can and can’t do

Trump said Zelenskyy should have made a deal with Putin to avoid war, adding he wouldn’t have allowed the conflict to start if he had been in office.

Trump has threatened Russia with more tariffs, sanctions and oil price cuts, but there is no economic “wonder weapon” that can end the war, said Richard Connolly, a Russian military and economic expert at London’s Royal United Services Institute.

And the Kremlin is brushing off the threats, likely because the West already has heavily sanctioned Russia.

Trump also can’t guarantee Ukraine would never join NATO, nor can he lift all Western sanctions, easily force Europe to resume importing Russian energy or get the International Criminal Court to rescind its war crimes arrest warrant for Putin.

Speaking to the Davos World Economic Forum, Trump said he wants the OPEC+ alliance and Saudi Arabia to cut oil prices to push Putin to end the war. The Kremlin said that won’t work because the war is about Russian security, not the price of oil. It also would harm U.S. oil producers.

“In the tradeoff between Putin and domestic oil producers, I’m pretty sure which choice Trump will make,” said Alexandra Prokopenko, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin.

Trump could pressure Russia by propping up the U.S. oil industry with subsidies and lift the 10% trade tariffs imposed on China in exchange for Beijing limiting economic ties with Moscow, which could leave it “truly isolated,” Connolly said.

Europe also could underscore its commitment to Kyiv – and curry favor with Trump – by buying U.S. military equipment to give to Ukraine, said Lord Peter Ricketts, a former U.K. national security adviser.

Lukyanov suggested that Trump’s allies often seem afraid of him and crumble under his threats.

The “big question,” he said, is what will happen when Putin won’t.

——

This story has been updated to correct that the summit with North Korea in Singapore was in 2018, not 2019.

AP · February 8, 2025

22. Hegseth Wants $50,000 for 'Emergency' Paint Job to Move into Military Family Housing, Lawmakers Say

I wish he would be able to experience the hardships of the troops living in government housing but I doubt not think that will happen.

Hegseth Wants $50,000 for 'Emergency' Paint Job to Move into Military Family Housing, Lawmakers Say

military.com · by Rebecca Kheel · February 7, 2025

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is looking to live in military family housing and requested to use $137,000 in taxpayer funding for repairs -- including nearly $50,000 for an "emergency" paint job -- a pair of top Democratic lawmakers said in a letter Friday demanding more details.

While it is not unprecedented for a defense secretary to live in military housing, it is far more common for them to find private housing. And the reported price tag to fix up Hegseth's military house comes as rank-and-file service members continue to struggle with crumbling, unsafe living conditions and as the Trump administration has been looking to slash government spending elsewhere.

"We know that many service members and their families currently live in unacceptable housing conditions including houses with mold, lead paint, and other hazards," Democratic Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida and Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut said in their letter to Hegseth about his housing. "What commitment will you make to provide service members with a similarly high quality of housing for themselves and their families?"

DeLauro is the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, and Wasserman Schultz is the ranking member of the panel's subcommittee in charge of military construction funding.

Under the law, Congress must be notified if maintenance and repairs for housing meant for general and flag officers is going to cost more than $35,000.

In that context, lawmakers were notified late last month that the Army was looking to spend $137,297 on maintenance on an unoccupied family housing unit, according to Wasserman Schultz and DeLauro's letter. The total cost included $49,900 for an "emergency" paint job, the letter added.

On Wednesday, almost a week after the initial notification, the lawmakers found out Hegseth will be moving into the house that's being repaired, the letter said.

The Pentagon did not respond to Military.com's requests for comment Friday on the claims in the letter.

The apparent urgency to fix up Hegseth's housing comes as service members have struggled for years with subpar housing and an inability to get timely repairs.

A series of 2018 Reuters articles exposed systemic issues with privatized military housing for families such as mold, rodent infestations and shoddy repairs, and military families have continued to report similar issues in the years since.

Young enlisted troops in the barracks, too, have faced unsafe living conditions. A 2023 Government Accountability Office report found rampant problems with overflowing sewage, mold, bed bug infestations and squatters.

At least one defense secretary has lived in military housing before. Bob Gates lived in a home on a Navy compound in Washington, D.C., when he was defense secretary, Stars and Stripes reported in 2008. Gates was the first defense secretary to live in military housing, according to the news outlet.

Most defense secretaries find their own homes. For example, Hegseth's immediate predecessor, Lloyd Austin, lived in a nearly $3 million, 8,700-square-foot house in Great Falls, Virginia, according to Task and Purpose.

When Gates lived in military housing, he paid more than $6,500 in monthly rent. At the time, defense officials expressed concern that he was required to pay more than three times as much as an officer would to live in the same house, because officers only had to pay the amount of their basic allowance for housing, according to Stars and Stripes.

The Pentagon did not answer Military.com's question about whether Hegseth will pay rent and how much.

In response to the concerns in 2008, Congress passed a law in that year's annual defense policy bill saying rent for a defense secretary living in military housing must be 105% of the monthly BAH rate for a four-star general living with dependents in the same area.

"The Department of Defense requested this provision in the belief that housing the secretary of defense in established quarters on a secure military installation is far more cost-effective than installing, maintaining and protecting sensitive Department of Defense equipment, along with secure information facilities and security and detection systems, in private residences," a Senate report about that year's bill said.

The report also said DoD believed that it would reduce disruptions to the public and costs for security protection.

Under the law, the rent is supposed to cover "maintenance, protection, alteration, repair, improvement or restoration."

In their letter to Hegseth, Wasserman Schultz and DeLauro also asked about what rent he will pay and whether any other defense secretaries lived in military housing that needed funding to be repaired first.

The pair also asked why exactly there needs to be an emergency paint job, as well as for a list of available officers' housing that doesn't require as costly maintenance as the house Hegseth is choosing.

They requested a response by Feb. 21.

The first Trump administration had several scandals involving Cabinet officials and their housing or furnishings.

Scott Pruitt, who served as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency at the beginning of the first Trump administration, was forced to resign amid several scandals, including allegations that he got a sweetheart deal to rent a D.C. condo from an energy lobbyist.

Mike Pompeo reportedly lived in Army housing when he was secretary of state. According to Politico, he first tried to live in Navy housing, but lawyers for that service called the idea "problematic" and raised "factual, legal, fiscal and ethical" concerns.

And Ben Carson, who served as housing and urban development secretary, faced allegations that he misused funds for fancy office furniture, though he was cleared of wrongdoing.

military.com · by Rebecca Kheel · February 7, 2025

23. Musk: "shut [VOA, RFE/RL] down... Europe is free now (not counting stifling bureaucracy)"

I am going to fall on my sword over this at least with my work with my beloved Korean service of VOA and RFA. This will be one of the most foolish and backward strategic decisions we make but it will make China, Russia, Iran, and north Korea very happy. They want the end of these news services because they are a threat to their regimes because they inform the people in these countries and information is a threat to the despots.

The problem is that the DOGE wiz kinds cannot use their algorithms to measure effects like they can do with TokTok and social media in free countries so they can use their althrothims to determine the efficacy of eh rork of VOA, etc.

It is really frustrating to see Mr. Musk want to do something so ignorant. But it pains me because he is so brilliant and has developed such great and important capabilities. I am thinking most importantly of Starlink. As noted in the Super Bowl commercial yesterday, T-Mobile and Startlink are partnering to connect our cell phones directly to satellite access. This could be a game changer in authoritarian countries. I wish the USG would contract with Starlink to put stagelliete over north Korea and develop software to connect the 8 million smartphones in north Korea to the Starlink network.

Musk: "shut [VOA, RFE/RL] down... Europe is free now (not counting stifling bureaucracy)"

Sensible talk when your friends are Russia, China, and other autocracies

https://mountainrunner.substack.com/p/musk-shut-voa-rferl-down-europe-is

Matt Armstrong

Feb 09, 2025

Two days ago, I wrote about a possible and logical future rearrangement of the US Agency for Global Media. The short of it was I could see the administration 1) moving the Voice of America (VOA) back into the State Department and under Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and 2) consolidating the “grantee” networks – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Free Asia (RFA), and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN) – under RFE/RL.1 The consolidation was scoped out in detail in 2011. It could and should have been done then or subsequently when I was on the Broadcasting Board of Governors (2013-2017), the agency that subsequently had the board removed and renamed the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM).2

My comments were predicated on what appeared to be the administration’s intent to keep some semblance of the agency. The Project 2025 handbook dedicated ten pages (albeit at times sophomoric3) to the US Agency for Global Media. Project 2025 recommended keeping the agency. Also, the administration nominated Brent Bozell III to be the USAGM CEO. The administration also stated it would appoint Kari Lake as the Director of the Voice of America, but this appointment has little to no weight as it seems more like a temporary parking spot.

By the way, Project 2025 recommended possibly placing VOA in the State Department under the Bureau of Global Public Affairs (GPA). That’s naïve and worse than attaching it to the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs as effectively a sister bureau to GPA. Then again, I’ll be the first to admit that empowering this under secretary is wishful thinking, considering that administrations going back to 1999 when the office was established only confirmed a person to the position only 55% of the time. Would Lake still want to be the VOA Director reporting to the Assistant Secretary for GPA?

However, this administration demonstrably lacks any semblance of logic, practicality, planning, coordination, or any other word remotely related to coherent consideration of ways, means, and objectives. We know this to be true. Today, the Eye of Musk gazed upon USAGM.

“Yes, shut them down,” he tweeted, referring to RFE/RL and VOA, maybe because he knows only what’s tweeted at him. In this case, the “host of the largest show on X” attributed Ric Grennell as saying “Radio Free Europe and Voice of America are media outlets paid for by the American taxpayers. It is state-owned media.4 These outlets are filled with far left activists. I’ve worked with these reporters for decades. It’s a relic of the past. We don’t need government paid media outlets.”

Musk, the head of “DOGE” wrote, “Europe is free now (not counting the stifling bureaucracy)… Nobody listens to them anymore… It’s just radical left crazy people talking to themselves while torching $1B/year of US taxpayer money.”

The past that created these so-called relics – by the way, Senator Fulbright called these “Cold War relics” when he tried to shutter them in 1972 because, in part, he felt they antagonized an otherwise peaceful Russia – is still with us, that past-which-is-present is why they are still with us. The purpose of USAGM’s networks, including VOA and RFE/RL, is to provide accurate and trustworthy news and information to audiences suffering under censorship, audiences inundated by massive amounts of disinformation, and audiences lacking access to professional journalism. The networks report the news truthfully from the perspective of the target audience, not a US perspective shipped abroad, about what’s happening locally, regionally, globally, and, sometimes, the news refers to the United States (note: not everything is about the US) as it matters to the audience. In short, the networks support US national security by attacking the disinformation, misinformation, and gaps of information that do and might undermine our security now and in the near future. They do this through professional journalism and stories focused on the principles of democracy.5

Subscribed

To describe the geographic places, I’ve long used the shorthand that USAGM’s markets are those places Special Operations Command is, could be, or recently was operating in.

I’d write that “Europe is free now” is an ignorant statement to make, but doing so grants the benefit of the doubt, and that is not earned for someone that reason would demand is or can be thoroughly informed. Russia intensely dislikes both RFE/RL and VOA and has worked aggressively against both. It was not merely my role as Governor on the former Broadcasting Board of Governors, now the US Agency for Global Media since the board was removed, that led Russia to sanction me (was it their first or second sanctions list?), but my engagement in that position with the countries on the frontline of Russia’s attacks that probably led to them sanctioning me. (I am not aware of any other BBG Governor getting sanctioned by Moscow. Surely there are others.)

In short, autocratic regimes and wannabe autocrats do not like USAGM’s operations.

That said, there are many problems, which I’ve discussed briefly in many posts here, including the one two days ago positing a restructuring (rather than termination) of US international broadcasting.

I’ve also long pointed out that the fundamental objective of USAGM going back to the original legislative authority for VOA passed in January 1948 was to become unnecessary when private media was deemed adequate. This is why VOA and the other USAGM networks provide their content for free to local media and audiences and why VOA conducts media training for local press: to develop local journalism because that’s a key pillar to whatever form of democracy will spring up in that land. This latest attack on USAGM embodies why information freedom has dropped this century.

If you want some serious details on why VOA was kept after World War II, see Part I: Why We Have the Voice of America. I intended that post to be part one of three, but now I’m unsure if it matters.

Part I: Why we have the Voice of America

Matt Armstrong

December 23, 2024

Today’s US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) has a simple and essential purpose: to deliver news and information to undermine the effects of disinformation, misinformation, and the lack of information, including outright censorship, in…

Read full story

Taking a step back, yesterday, a person close to USAGM I’ve known for a dozen years emailed about my prediction the grantees would be consolidated. This person said the grantees tried to get language in the National Defense Authorization Act last year to protect their independent status. That was not a surprise. In discussions, I often refer to the grantees’ politicking to preserve their fiefdoms, and I did so in the earlier post about USAGM.

I searched the language my correspondent emailed and discovered two things. First, it sure looks like the fiefdom protection language is law, though not through the NDAA (see page 10 of this or find Sec. 7401 here ), which Biden signed into law. Here is the critical line: “…a grantee may not be debarred or suspended without consultation with the Chief Executive Officer and a three-fourths majority vote of the Advisory Board in support of such action.” (Something doesn’t seem right here. I don’t know what, but something seems off with this.)

Remember, this administration fired the Advisory Board, so the three-fourths majority vote is impossible. The money spigot can always be turned off or nearly so.

The second thing I discovered is the Senate wants USAGM to look into establishing a new organization. The African Broadcasting Networks is “…to promote democratic values and institutions in Africa by providing objective, accurate, and relevant news and information to the people of Africa and counter disinformation from malign actors, especially in countries in which a free press is banned by the government or not fully established, about the region, the world, and the United States through uncensored news, responsible discussion, and open debate.”

Why the Senate wants to create a new grantee, especially when, generally speaking, VOA is quite good across Africa, is beyond me. I can only guess it’s because people behind grantees have better relations with Congress than VOA does.

Note the language for the ABN above. That’s identical to the spirit and principle behind VOA, RFE/RL, and the other networks.

No doubt that the attacks on USAGM will increase. Today, Grenell tweeted or retweeted (X’d? re-x’d?) about this several times, including once where he suggests a VOA reporter is “treasonous” for posting a quote from someone else about USAID.

A couple of closing thoughts. First, any meaningful discussion may be moot because Musk’s attention on USAGM may be functionally fatal. Such an agency will be hard, if not impossible, to rebuild. Which, it’s reasonable to surmise, is the point. Second, this potentially tees up a confrontation between Republicans aggressively against Chinese influence operations where USAGM’s networks VOA and RFA are engaged. While the effectiveness of RFA is questionable, it’ll be interesting if House Republicans who have held hearings on Chinese political warfare, I testified at one a while ago, will be happy with dissolving or bankrupting RFA’s, RFE/RL’s, and VOA’s programs combating the People’s Republic of China’s malign influence operations across Asia, Latin America, and Africa (yes, RFE/RL territories are included here, they don’t just operate in Europe). Third, I think it’s increasingly likely USAGM as a whole will vanish into the night, much to the great pleasure and astonishment of Russia, China, Iran, smaller countries, and many terrorist and insurgent groups.

Last, the “far-left” claim is absurd. This claim is anchored in dislike or discomfort for the truth. It is sloganeering in place of raising legitimate concerns about the need to manage the organization and its subcomponents better. That latter part is a leadership issue, and I can go on and on discussing problems that have and have not been addressed. When you see someone throw that charge out there, realize they don’t want a real conversation or to make the hard decisions involving actual leadership, management, and strategy.

These networks provide real value to US national security, but I’ll be the first to assert aggressively, based on my firsthand experience, that they need leadership.

Leadership doesn’t come from pithy tweets.

It’s fine to claim USAGM and its networks are “relics,” but back it up. “Europe is free” is a non-starter, a strawman that reveals ignorance and a failure to engage with the subject, at the very least. More likely, it’s a gift to adversaries.

I still think we’ll likely see some restructuring with the grantees and probably a shift with VOA. If so, it’ll look more like the attempt to create the Freedom News Network (see my discussion of that attempt here), which, for some, will have a better ring than Radio Free something.

I should note there were discussions during the Obama administration about restructuring. I mentioned in a previous post the OMB’s interest in subsidizing up to half of the then-BBG’s budget through advertising. And then there was the guy with the Secretary of State’s ear who had the bright idea it would be wonderful to reduce BBG to just 5, 6, or 7 languages and surge into others as necessary. I have no idea what was discussed during the Biden administration, but I do know – and stated to those who asked – that the wrong people were picked for key leadership positions, and they harmed the agency’s reputation and potential.

At this point, since any effective governance, strategizing, resourcing, planning, legal maneuvering, or any sort of needs-based assessment is nowhere to be seen or even hinted at, we can only guess what will happen tomorrow.

Thanks for reading. I'm now back to what I should have been doing: finishing editing and rewriting my PhD dissertation.

The Voice of America was at the State Department from September 1945 through August 1953. From September 1945, VOA was under the authority of the Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs. From January 1952 until August 1953, it was under the authority of the Administrator of the International Information Administration, a semi-autonomous organization created by Secretary of State Dean Acheson to protect from and elevate relative to the State Department’s bureaucracy that was hindering the broad international information efforts at every chance. In August 1953, the State Department eagerly ejected most of its global engagement operations to the newly created US Information Agency.

These networks are called grantees because they are independent non-profit organizations funded by individual grants from the US Agency for Global Media.

The removal of the oversight board, which was a functional firewall against political interference in operations, was an inside job that included deception and lies to the Senate and the State Department, willful violation of directions from the majority of the board, and willful withholding and attempted obfuscation of progress of the bill to eliminate the board. No serious analysis was done, let alone expert review or comment. One major proponent and possibly the key enabler told me after I called out the issue, though by then, it was too late as I then learned of the deceptions, not to worry. Though the CEO would now be a political appointee nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate rather than serving at the pleasure of the bipartisan board, he asserted ahistorically it would be just like the USIA Director, which was not a political position.

I was surprised to read the bio of the author of these ten pages. If they had submitted that as a paper in the graduate course on public diplomacy I taught years ago at the Annenberg School of Journalism and Communication, I’d have given it a B-. Of the many issues with the text, one described an arrangement as “historically” a certain way. I don’t think it’s historically accurate to portray something I caused to be created in 2016 (or perhaps it was 2015), for the reasons the author calls out. Perhaps that example if petty of me.

I can’t say that I know Ric Grennell, but we traded an email to two in the prior decade. He contacted me in 2010, or possibly 2011, to discuss a negative article he was writing about RFE/RL (I am pretty sure it was RFE/RL, though it could have been the BBG or VOA). I distinctly remember a) sitting at my kitchen table while talking to him on the phone and b) refusing to agree with his argument. I pushed back, saying his arguments were unfounded and inaccurate as I countered with operational and statutory facts.

I strongly prefer “democratic principles” or some variation rather than simply “democracy.” After all, are we talking about US, UK, German, French, Japanese, or someone else’s version of democracy? None, the basic principles of the rule of law, accountability, transparency, etc.

24. Hegseth Wants $50,000 for 'Emergency' Paint Job to Move into Military Family Housing, Lawmakers Say

I wish he would be able to experience the hardships of the troops living in government housing but I doubt not think that will happen even though will be living in military housing (I assume at Fort McNair).