Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will."

– Mahatma Gandhi

“The more you know, the less you want to know. For whoever has not suffered, because of knowledge will not have known anything."

– Emil Cioran

“Madness: to depart from reason 'with confidence that one is following it.'”

– Michel Foucault, Madness & Civilization

John Moses Browning's most famous Valentine's gift to gun owners was U.S. Patent 984,519 for a handgun later known just as the 1911.

The 15-page patent application, filed Feb. 17, 1910, included 38 points of claim and three sheets of drawings, building on Browning's previous 1897 patent (#580,924) for a magazine pistol.

The patent was issued Feb. 14, 1911, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Happy (belated) Valentines Day!

(the only handgun I own)

1. Zelenskyy, Scholz take strong stands as new line from Washington under Trump jolts Europe

2. A New Spy Unit Is Leading Russia’s Shadow War Against the West

3. DOGE's Latest Target is Seen as a Gift to the CCP - The Wire China

4. The Indispensable Role of Exercises in National Preparedness

5. NATO Is Ukraine’s Future and Always Will Be

6. Peace Through Weakness in Ukraine?

7. 3D analysis shows how helicopter pilots could have mixed up jets in DCA crash

8. Records show how DOGE planned Trump’s DEI purge — and who gets fired next

9. To secure Taiwan, the United States must first secure Ukraine

10. Republican Chair of Armed Services Blasts Pete Hegseth’s ‘Rookie Mistake’ Giving ‘Tucker Carlson’-Style Speech On Ukraine

11. China fueling a political explosion in the Philippines

12. Trump officials fired nuclear staff not realizing they oversee the country’s weapons stockpile, sources say

13. The reason Trump wants nuclear disarmament in the US

14. Trump wants nuclear arms talks with Russia and China

15. What the Pentagon might learn from Ukraine about fielding new tech

16. Space as a Gray Zone: The Future of Orbital Warfare

17. Putin’s Worst Nightmare? NATO Is Stronger Than Ever

18. America Opens the Door to Its Adversaries

19. Read: JD Vance’s full speech on the fall of Europe

20. Transcript of WSJ Interview with JD Vance

21. JD Vance’s Munich speech laid bare the collapse of the transatlantic alliance

22. At Munich conference, Vance warns European allies of ‘threat from within’

23,This Progressive Has a Plan to Win Trump’s Base. Steve Bannon Calls It ‘Brilliant.’

1. Zelenskyy, Scholz take strong stands as new line from Washington under Trump jolts Europe

It is a new world order and not like the one George H.W. Bush called for in 1991.

https://prospect.org/justice/new-world-dis-order/

Some may see the irony that this "new line from Washington" could make the US vulnerable to China and the entire Dark Quad. Many will look at this as a position of US strength. Others will view this as a sign of American weakness. But this position might not achieve the effects even the strongest proponents want it to achieve. How should we objectively assess and analyze this apparently new national security position of the US and not just tout pablum like "no more entanglements?" How are all US allies assessing this? And as important, how is the Dark Quad assessing this and how do we think they might exploit this?

Zelenskyy, Scholz take strong stands as new line from Washington under Trump jolts Europe

By PHILIPP JENNE, SUSIE BLANN and JAMEY KEATEN

Updated 7:06 AM EST, February 15, 2025

AP · February 15, 2025

MUNICH (AP) — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Saturday shot back strongly in defense of his stance against the far-right and said his country won’t accept people who “intervene in our democracy,” a day after U.S. Vice President JD Vance scolded European leaders over their approach to democracy.

The German leader spoke with just eight days before crucial elections in Germany, with polls showing the far-right Alternative for Germany party currently in second.

Vance said Friday at the Munich Security Conference that he fears free speech is “in retreat” across the continent.

“Germany is a very strong democracy, and as a strong democracy, we are absolutely clear that the extreme right should be out of political control and out of political decision making processes, and that there will be no cooperation with them,” Scholz said. “We really reject any idea of cooperation between parties, other parties and this extreme right parties.”

A day earlier, Vance said that many Americans saw in Europe “entrenched interests hiding behind ugly Soviet-era words like misinformation and disinformation, who simply don’t like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion or, God forbid, vote a different way, or even worse, win an election.”

Scholz, shooting back, said “free speech in Europe means that you are not attacking others in ways that are against legislation and laws we have in our country.” He was alluding to rules in Germany that restrict hate speech.

The comments came as European leaders have been trying to make sense of a tough new line from Washington on issues including democracy and Ukraine’s future, as the Trump administration continues to upend trans-Atlantic conventions that have been in place since after World War II.

U.S. President Donald Trump held a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin this week in which he said the two leaders would likely meet soon to negotiate a peace deal over Ukraine. Trump later assured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that he, too, would have a seat at the table. The war was sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine three years ago.

Already Friday, the Ukrainian leader said that his country wants security guarantees before any talks with Russia. Shortly before meeting with Vance in Munich, Zelenskyy said he will only agree to meet in-person with Putin after a common plan is negotiated with Trump.

After a 40-minute meeting with Zelenskyy, Vance said the Trump administration wants the war to end.

Beforehand, Vance lectured European officials on free speech and illegal migration on the continent, warning that they risk losing public support if they don’t quickly change course.

“The threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia. It’s not China. It’s not any other external actor,” Vance said in a speech that drew a tepid response. “What I worry about is the threat from within — the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America.”

On the sidelines of the event, Vance met with Alice Weidel, co-leader of the far-right and anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party, nine days before a German election.

Mainstream German parties say they won’t work with the party — in a longstanding stance to shun the extreme right in a country scarred by Nazism.

Vance later headed back to Washington.

Among other speakers set to take the dais in Munich were NATO chief Mark Rutte and foreign ministers from countries including Canada, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia and from Syria’s new government.

___

AP · February 15, 2025

2. A New Spy Unit Is Leading Russia’s Shadow War Against the West

Is it naive to think that we can have a productive relationship with Putin?

But it appears the Russians do not fail to learn, do not fail to adapt, and do not fail to anticipate.

Can we keep up with the DST (Department of Special Tasks)?

Most importantly, is the turmoil taking place in the US government and specifically in the US intelligence community hindering our ability to defend against this threat? Or will that turmoil create space and opportunities for Putin and the DTS to exploit?

Just as President Reagan created the Active Measures Working Group in the 1980s (which as we know was not perfect and had its flaws but at least we tried to do something) what are we going to do about this new organization and its capabilities and threats to us?

Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications: How One Interagency Group Made a Major Difference

https://ndupress.ndu.edu/portals/68/documents/stratperspective/inss/strategic-perspectives-11.pdf

Excerpts:

Hostile activities by the SSD peaked last summer, but have subsided recently, according to U.S. and European officials. The lull in activity could be aimed at creating diplomatic space for Moscow to negotiate with the new U.S. administration, according to the two European intelligence chiefs.

In May, Ukraine’s security service said it had foiled a plot by Russia to set several supermarkets and a cafe on fire. Ukraine said the plan had been coordinated by Maj. Yuri Sizov.

Western intelligence officials said Sizov, who is an officer in Senezh, now part of the SSD, coordinated another operation days later to set a mall in the Polish capital of Warsaw ablaze. He has since been sanctioned by the EU for his role in the plots.

Then, in July, similar incendiary devices that were sent via DHL ignited in transit hubs in Leipzig, Germany, and Birmingham, England. If one of the devices had ignited while on a flight, it could have taken down the plane, the former head of Germany’s internal intelligence agency, Thomas Haldenwang, told lawmakers in October. That didn’t happen only because a connecting flight was late, and the device went off while at the airport, he said.

...

Some lawmakers and security officials have called for the West to step up covert efforts in response to Russia’s operations.

The U.S. should enhance and leverage its own clandestine activities, including in and around Russia, to deter further aggression from the Kremlin, said Nick Thompson, a former CIA paramilitary officer.

That was echoed by Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who said in a recent hearing that the CIA “needs to become bolder and more innovative in covert action.”

Appathurai, the NATO official, warned that the U.S. and its allies needed to adopt a wartime mindset “across society” in response. Failing to do so in the face of growing Russian aggression would be dangerous, he said.

A New Spy Unit Is Leading Russia’s Shadow War Against the West

The operations of Moscow’s Department of Special Tasks have included attempted killings, sabotage and a plot to put incendiary devices on planes

https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/russia-spy-covert-attacks-8199e376?mod=hp_lead_pos2

The Department of Special Tasks is based in the headquarters of Russian military intelligence, a complex on the outskirts of Moscow known as the aquarium. Photo: Natalia Kolesnikova/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

By Bojan PancevskiFollow

Updated Feb. 15, 2025 12:01 am ET

Russia’s spy services have a shadowy new unit taking aim at the West with covert attacks across Europe and elsewhere, Western intelligence officials say.

Known as the Department of Special Tasks, it is based in the Russian military-intelligence headquarters, a sprawling glass-and-steel complex on the outskirts of Moscow known as the aquarium. Its operations, which haven’t been previously reported, have included attempted killings, sabotage and a plot to put incendiary devices on planes.

The department’s creation reflects Moscow’s wartime footing against the West, the officials said. It was set up in 2023 in response to Western support for Ukraine and includes veterans of some of Russia’s most daring clandestine operations in recent years, according to two European intelligence chiefs and other U.S., European and Russian security officials.

The Kremlin sees the West as complicit in Ukraine’s attacks on Russia such as the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, the killings of senior officials in Moscow, and Ukrainian strikes using long-range Western missiles, according to these officials. Ukraine has denied it was behind the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines.

“Russia believes it is in conflict with what it calls ‘the collective West,’ and is acting accordingly, up to and including threatening us with nuclear attack and building up its military,” said James Appathurai, deputy assistant secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in charge of hybrid warfare.

“These are, as usual, completely unsubstantiated accusations,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

The new department, which is known to Western intelligence officials by its Russian acronym SSD, is believed to be behind a host of recent attacks against the West, including the attempted killing of the chief executive of a German arms maker and a plot to put incendiary devices on planes used by shipping giant DHL.

The SSD has brought together various elements of Russia’s intelligence services. It has taken over some powers from the FSB, the country’s largest intelligence service, and absorbed Unit 29155, which Western intelligence and law-enforcement officials say was behind the 2018 poisoning of a Russian double agent, Sergei Skripal, in the U.K.

The SSD has at least three broad tasks, according to Western intelligence officials: carrying out killings and sabotage overseas, infiltrating Western companies and universities, and recruiting and training foreign agents. The department has been seeking to recruit agents from Ukraine, developing nations and countries seen as friendly to Russia, such as Serbia. The department also runs an elite special operations center, known as Senezh, where Russia trains some of its special forces.

Lt. Gen. Ivan Kasianenko, left, and Col. Gen. Andrey Averyanov. The two men run the operations of the SSD.

Russian authorities, Sergei Bobylev/TASS/ZUMA Press

Two men—Col. Gen. Andrey Vladimirovich Averyanov and his deputy, Lt. Gen. Ivan Sergeevich Kasianenko—oversee the operations of the SSD. Averyanov, a veteran of Russia’s Chechen wars, is wanted by Czech police for his suspected role in an operation to blow up an ammunition depot in 2014, an attack that killed two people. President Vladimir Putin awarded him Russia’s highest honor, the Hero of Russia medal, following his involvement in the occupation and annexation of Crimea.

Western intelligence officials said they believe his deputy, Kasianenko, coordinated the operation to poison Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in the U.K. Both survived the poisoning but were critically injured. A third woman died after picking up a perfume bottle contaminated with the poison that the attackers had discarded. Russia denied involvement in the poisoning.

Kasianenko’s role includes overseeing covert operations in Europe and the takeover of the Wagner paramilitary operations in Africa after the killing of its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in 2023. Details of Kasianenko’s role haven’t been previously reported.

Kasianenko was born in 1975 in Kazakhstan, then part of the Soviet Union. Known internally by his initials KIS, he joined Russia’s military intelligence, known as the GRU, after serving in Russia’s air force.

A Persian speaker who once operated in Tehran under the guise of a diplomatic posting, Kasianenko was recently involved in facilitating a transfer of skills and technology from Russia to Iran, according to European intelligence officials. Tehran provides drones and missiles for Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

Kasianenko was earlier identified by Christo Grozev, an investigative journalist, in a report for the online news outlet the Insider. Grozev said he originally identified GRU operatives from a scene in a recent documentary about the Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan, “Hollywoodgate.” He was then able to obtain phone records of one of the operatives, which showed that he had been interacting with Kasianenko.

In December, the European Union sanctioned a unit of the department, without identifying the SSD by name, for orchestrating “coups, assassinations, bombings, and cyberattacks” in Europe and elsewhere. The U.S. indicted members of the SSD on similar charges in December. The State Department is offering a reward of up to $10 million for any information about five members accused of cyberattacks on Ukraine.

A picture, provided by Ukraine’s security service, shows an incendiary bomb, which Kyiv says was planted by proxies of the SSD in a supermarket in Ukraine. Photo: SBU of Ukraine

Hostile activities by the SSD peaked last summer, but have subsided recently, according to U.S. and European officials. The lull in activity could be aimed at creating diplomatic space for Moscow to negotiate with the new U.S. administration, according to the two European intelligence chiefs.

In May, Ukraine’s security service said it had foiled a plot by Russia to set several supermarkets and a cafe on fire. Ukraine said the plan had been coordinated by Maj. Yuri Sizov.

Western intelligence officials said Sizov, who is an officer in Senezh, now part of the SSD, coordinated another operation days later to set a mall in the Polish capital of Warsaw ablaze. He has since been sanctioned by the EU for his role in the plots.

Then, in July, similar incendiary devices that were sent via DHL ignited in transit hubs in Leipzig, Germany, and Birmingham, England. If one of the devices had ignited while on a flight, it could have taken down the plane, the former head of Germany’s internal intelligence agency, Thomas Haldenwang, told lawmakers in October. That didn’t happen only because a connecting flight was late, and the device went off while at the airport, he said.

Security officials said the incendiary devices that ignited in July appeared to be part of a test run for putting similar devices on planes bound for North America. Warnings were quietly sent in August to major shipping companies, airlines and airports, and some of them enhanced security screenings, according to officials and industry representatives familiar with the procedures.

The details of the plot, which was discovered in late summer 2024, were first reported by The Wall Street Journal. The threat was assessed to be so high that the then national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Central Intelligence Agency chief William Burns called Russian leaders in August and asked them to stop the attack, according to U.S. and Russian officials. The calls were first reported by the New York Times.

Western security officials say two incendiary devices were part of an SSD operation aimed at starting fires on planes bound for the U.S. and Canada. Investigators say the devices were hidden in electric massagers.

Sullivan called Yuri Ushakov, an aide to Putin and a former ambassador to the U.S. Burns called his counterpart, Sergei Naryshkin, as well as Russia’s most senior security official, Sergei Shoigu, according to three people familiar with the conversations.

Both Shoigu and Ushakov, who are among a handful of officials with regular access to Putin, denied any knowledge of the DHL plot, these people said.

The SSD operates under broad orders from Putin, but the commanders might not seek approval for specific operations, Western and Russian officials said.

The department has been particularly focused on Germany because Russia sees the country as a weak link in NATO, due to its dependence on Russian energy, growing anxiety about nuclear escalation and sympathy for Russia among some politicians and voters, according to European, American and Russian intelligence officials.

In May last year, operatives from the SSD set fire to a factory in Berlin owned by Diehl, a company that supplies weapons systems to Ukraine, according to U.S. and European intelligence and security officials.

Around the same time, U.S. intelligence told Germany that it had uncovered a plan to assassinate leaders of Europe’s armaments industry, including Armin Papperger, the chief executive of Rheinmetall, the biggest supplier of artillery ammunition to Ukraine and which is also building a tank factory in the war-torn country.

Firefighters in Germany work to put out a fire at a factory that supplies weapons systems to Ukraine. Western officials say SSD operatives started the blaze. Photo: Lisi Niesner/Reuters

There have been attacks elsewhere in Europe as well. In June, French authorities arrested a dual Ukrainian-Russian national after a makeshift bomb exploded in his hotel room. French authorities indicted him on terrorism-related charges, saying he had planned to bomb a home improvement store.

Some lawmakers and security officials have called for the West to step up covert efforts in response to Russia’s operations.

The U.S. should enhance and leverage its own clandestine activities, including in and around Russia, to deter further aggression from the Kremlin, said Nick Thompson, a former CIA paramilitary officer.

That was echoed by Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who said in a recent hearing that the CIA “needs to become bolder and more innovative in covert action.”

Appathurai, the NATO official, warned that the U.S. and its allies needed to adopt a wartime mindset “across society” in response. Failing to do so in the face of growing Russian aggression would be dangerous, he said.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

How should the West respond to the apparent Russian attacks on the West? Join the conversation below.

Write to Bojan Pancevski at bojan.pancevski@wsj.com

Appeared in the February 15, 2025, print edition as 'Russian Spy Unit Spreads Violence, Sabotage in West'.

3. DOGE's Latest Target is Seen as a Gift to the CCP - The Wire China

One criteria for funding should be any program that is a thorn in the side of the CCP. I am critical of NED and other US government agencies because they sometimes fund groups that do not have sufficient alignment with US interests and the fact that no one is coordinating, synchronizing, or orchestrating these grants from various agencies to achieve effects in accordance with American values and US national security interests. Without such coordination (and OVERSIGHT) we will continue to have the problems (and "scandals") that many have identified on social media.

I would love for DOGE to ask (and answer) the question I have long asked that follows this list.

1. Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance (DRG) – USAID

Mission: Promotes democratic governance, human rights, and rule of law through foreign assistance.
Activities: Supports electoral processes, civil society development, and anti-corruption initiatives.
National Security Contribution: Strengthens global stability, reducing conditions that lead to conflict and extremism.

2. Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) – State Department

Mission: Promotes democracy, protects human rights, and advances labor rights worldwide.
Activities: Funds human rights organizations, monitors abuses, and engages in diplomatic efforts.
National Security Contribution: Counters authoritarian influence and strengthens alliances with democratic nations.

3. Bureau of International Information Programs (IIP) – State Department (Now under Global Public Affairs)

Mission: Conducts public diplomacy through strategic messaging to global audiences.
Activities: Manages foreign language media, digital diplomacy, and international exchanges.
National Security Contribution: Counters disinformation and builds foreign support for U.S. policies.

4. Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), and Radio Free Asia (RFA)

Mission: Provides independent news and information to countries with restricted press freedom.
Activities: Broadcasts in multiple languages to authoritarian regimes and conflict zones.
National Security Contribution: Weakens adversary control over information and supports democratic movements.

5. National Endowment for Democracy (NED)

Mission: Supports democracy through grants to civil society organizations.
Activities: Funds independent media, human rights groups, and political development programs.
National Security Contribution: Prevents authoritarian influence and promotes global stability.

6. Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) – Department of Defense

Mission: Oversees U.S. security assistance programs, including Foreign Military Sales (FMS), International Military Education and Training (IMET), and Excess Defense Articles (EDA).
Activities:
Manages arms transfers to U.S. allies and partners.
Oversees training programs for foreign militaries.
Supports defense institution-building efforts.
National Security Contribution: Strengthens allied military capabilities, enhances interoperability with U.S. forces, and counters adversarial military influence.

7. Bureau of Political-Military Affairs (PM) – State Department

Mission: Manages diplomatic-military relations, arms transfers, and security assistance.
Activities:
Implements Foreign Military Financing (FMF) to provide military aid to allies.
Administers the Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) program for private-sector defense exports.
Coordinates peacekeeping and security sector reform efforts.
National Security Contribution: Strengthens global security architecture and ensures allies can deter threats.

8. International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) – State Department

Mission: Supports law enforcement, counter-narcotics, and criminal justice reform worldwide.
Activities:
Trains foreign police and counter-narcotics forces.
Builds capacity in legal systems to combat corruption and organized crime.
Provides equipment and resources for law enforcement.
National Security Contribution: Strengthens governance in fragile states, reduces drug trafficking, and disrupts transnational criminal networks.

9. Army Special Forces (Green Berets) – USSOCOM

Mission: Conducts unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense (FID), and counterterrorism.
Activities:
Trains allied and indigenous forces in combat and irregular warfare.
Conducts counterinsurgency operations.
National Security Contribution: Builds partner capacity to resist insurgencies, counters terrorist networks, and enhances U.S. influence in contested regions.

10. Civil Affairs (CA) – USSOCOM

Mission: Conducts military-to-civilian engagement to support stabilization efforts.
Activities:
Assists local governance and humanitarian operations.
Supports civil-military relations in post-conflict zones.
Works with U.S. embassies, NGOs, and international organizations.
National Security Contribution: Reduces local grievances that fuel instability and insurgency.

11. Psychological Operations (PSYOP) – USSOCOM

Mission: Influences foreign audiences to support U.S. objectives.
Activities:
Produces and disseminates strategic messaging via media and digital platforms.
Conducts influence operations against enemy forces.
Uses disinformation and counter-propaganda to disrupt adversary narratives.
National Security Contribution: Undermines enemy morale, counters extremist propaganda, and shapes global perceptions in favor of U.S. interests.

12. Special Activities Division (SAD) – CIA

Mission: Conducts covert operations in politically sensitive environments.
Activities:
Paramilitary Operations Group (SAD/PAG): Engages in covert combat, sabotage, and intelligence gathering.
Political Action Group (SAD/PAG): Conducts psychological warfare and covert influence operations.
National Security Contribution: Enables the U.S. to operate in denied areas, disrupts enemy operations, and advances U.S. strategic objectives without direct military involvement.

13. Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (OUSD-P)

Mission: Develops defense strategy and oversees security cooperation programs.
Activities:
Directs Defense Institution Building (DIB) programs.
Coordinates train-and-equip programs for partner nations.
Manages counterterrorism partnerships.
National Security Contribution: Enhances the effectiveness of partner military forces and prevents U.S. adversaries from gaining influence.

14. U.S. Coast Guard International Affairs and Foreign Training

Mission: Provides maritime security training and counter-narcotics assistance to foreign nations.
Activities:
Trains foreign coast guards and maritime police.
Conducts joint patrols with partner nations.
Supports maritime law enforcement and border security.
National Security Contribution: Strengthens global maritime security and prevents illicit trafficking.

These agencies collectively advance U.S. national security through:

Building military alliances via arms sales and training.
Strengthening governance and rule of law to counter extremism.
Conducting covert and special operations to disrupt adversaries.
Shaping global narratives through strategic communication.
Supporting partner law enforcement and security institutions to stabilize fragile states.

The question is who is coordinating, synchronizing, and orchestrating these organizations and activities to achieve national security objectives? Who is developing the strategy and the supporting campaign plan(s) and ensuring synchronized execution?

And how are we achieving the five effects outlined above?

I would like for DOGE to develop an algorithm that can measure all of the above. Can their math and business models be effective and sufficient for evaluating national security objectives and outcomes? Especially those that take years to achieve and some (like strategic communications) are ongoing and never concluded). I don't think national security results in a product produced.

DOGE's Latest Target is Seen as a Gift to the CCP - The Wire China

The National Endowment for Democracy has long been a thorn in the CCP's side. On Tuesday, its funding was frozen.

By Eliot Chen — February 12, 2025

thewirechina.com · · February 13, 2025

Damon Wilson, President of the National Endowment for Democracy, delivers the keynote speech at the closing ceremony of a summit on Hong Kong, held in Washington, D.C., July 25, 2023.

The Treasury Department has frozen funding disbursements to the National Endowment for Democracy, a U.S.-government funded organization that promotes democracy around the world and is a longtime bugbear of the Chinese Communist Party.

The freeze has imperiled several China-related civil society groups, including think tanks and organizations that have long played a role in highlighting labor and human rights issues in China, as well as disseminating independent news about the country. Three recipients of NED funding told The Wire they received calls from NED representatives on Tuesday relaying that it had suspended payments to them because its own funding had been frozen. News of the funding blockage was first reported by The Free Press.

An excerpt from ‘Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid’, signed by President Trump January 20, 2025. Credit: The White House

Two people told The Wire that the problem stems from Treasury’s payments system, which disburses money approved by Congress. Staffers from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficient (DOGE) gained access to the system last week.

On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that suspends foreign aid for 90 days — an order that froze foreign aid distributed by the State Department and all but gutted the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

But according to a person familiar with the NED’s finances, NED’s funding should fall outside of the executive order’s purview. Only a small portion of NED’s budget come directly from the State Department’s foreign assistance funding, all of which was halted last week, the insider says. The vast majority comes — via the Treasury payments system — from the portion of the State Department’s budget allocated to internal operations and related agencies. It is unclear why the funding was cut off.

In a document NED shared with its funding recipients on Wednesday, a senior grants manager wrote that the organization has “no clarity on how long this might last.”

“While not technically suspended,” the document says, “the NED has exhausted funds for grantmaking on hand, and we do not know when we will have access to additional funds.”

The Treasury Department did not respond to a request for comment. DOGE could not be reached for comment.

A lot of dissidents and activists don’t want to make it public but have received money from NED. It is unlikely that most of the organizations can get alternative funding.

Teng Biao, a prominent U.S.-based Chinese human rights lawyer

Advocacy groups say cutting off NED, which was allocated $315 million by Congress for the 2025 fiscal year, will make it harder to get information about what’s happening in China. It would also be a major victory for Beijing, which has publicly expressed its derision towards NED for decades, including imposing sanctions on its officials in 2020.

“The impact will be hugely negative,” says Teng Biao, a prominent Chinese human rights lawyer now based in the United States. “A lot of dissidents and activists don’t want to make it public but have received money from NED. It is unlikely that most of the organizations can get alternative funding.”

Credit: @elonmusk via X

Last week Elon Musk reposted a list of “red flags” about NED “corruption” on X that seemingly came from Grok, Musk’s AI chatbot. The list included that NED’s staff and leadership were predominantly Democrats, that it “manipulates public opinion by funding media outlets and NGOs that promote narratives favorable to U.S. interests,” and that Russia had labeled NED an “undesirable” organization. Musk himself wrote that “NED is a SCAM.”

Also last week, a conservative think tank founded by Russell Vought, the recently confirmed director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, released a paper accusing NED of a number of violations, including that it “abandoned” its bipartisan approach “in an overt effort to stop and then stymie President Trump” and funnelled grant money to “entities that promulgate the established ideological consensus within the State Department and CIA.”

On August 10, 2020, China announced that the then President of the NED, Carl Gershman, had been sanctioned. Credit: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China

The latter claim echoes longtime accusations made by the Chinese government, which for years has said NED is a front for the CIA and responsible for meddling and fomenting unrest in China. A lengthy report by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs last year accused it of committing “innumerable evil deeds.” In 2020, Beijing sanctioned four people affiliated with NED and an affiliate group, the National Democratic Institute, accusing it of destabilizing Hong Kong.

Maya Wang, associate China director at Human Rights Watch, which does not receive government or NED funding, calls such accusations bogus. The type of organizations that NED supports are vilified by the Chinese government, she says, but “what they do is really what would be fairly common civil society work in a normal society, such as writing a report about the situation of human rights lawyers [or] funding a court case in which the defendant is subjected to torture and wrongful conviction.”

Robert O’Brien as featured on the NED’s Board of Director’s page. You can read Robert O’Brien’s Q&A with Bob Davis here. Credit: National Endowment for Democracy

NED has historically enjoyed bipartisan support in Washington, including from many in Trump’s circle. Robert O’Brien, who served as Trump’s national security advisor from 2019 to 2021 and rejoined the administration on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board on Tuesday, was elected to NED’s board just last month. Elise Stefanik, Trump’s nominee for ambassador to the U.N., also previously served on NED’s board. Before he was nominated as secretary of state, Marco Rubio was on the board of the International Republican Institute, an NED subsidiary organization. Four Republican senators — Senators Tom Cotton (R-AR), an outspoken China hawk, as well as Joni Ernst (R-IA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Dan Sullivan (R-AK) — are also on the board of IRI.

Chinese rights and advocacy groups have grown increasingly dependent on NED and U.S. government funding in part due to China’s stranglehold on civil society and growing influence abroad, says Human Rights Watch’s Wang.

“China’s economic power means big donors anywhere in the world worry about the impact of their donations on their business ties,” she says. “Since China is no longer a developing country, other governments that offer development aid won’t give to Chinese civil society. The U.S. disproportionately donates to democracy and human rights groups more than other governments.”

One casualty already from NED’s funding freeze is China Labor Watch, a New York-based labor rights organization that has exposed abuses at countless factories in China, including Apple suppliers, and Chinese-run factories in countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative.

Li Qiang, who fled China and founded CLW in 2001, told The Wire that the organization had grown more dependent on U.S. government funding in the last three years after the Biden administration’s State Department expanded grants to his organization. With less than a month of operating runway at a given time, the 90-day suspension of foreign aid had left him no choice but to drastically cut costs, he said. News on Tuesday that NED was also freezing its assistance has only deepened CLW’s financial troubles.

China Digital Times, an online news site that has received NED support since 2013, is also at risk. The site has long managed a repository of leaked Chinese government censorship directives and helped to amplify dissenting voices on the Chinese internet, serving as a vital source of information about China for researchers and governments. Just last week, the Canadian government said it used CDT’s research to identify a Chinese state-sponsored disinformation campaign targeting ex-deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland, who is running to replace Justin Trudeau as prime minister.

An excerpt from a statement issued by Canada’s Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force, highlighting the use of China Digital Times in its research. Credit: Global Affairs Canada

For CLW’s Li, Musk’s politicization of NED has an eerie familiarity. He sees DOGE’s hunt for fraud and waste as reminiscent of “the type of anti-corruption campaign in China where whoever stands up against [the government] gets audited or branded as corrupt.”

“I left China precisely to escape from this kind of state-sanctioned repression of activism and civil society,” he says. “Now the U.S. is doing similar things. If people don’t stand up, then why don’t I just go back to China?”

Eliot Chen is a Toronto-based staff writer at The Wire. Previously, he was a researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Human Rights Initiative and MacroPolo. @eliotcxchen

thewirechina.com · by Ella Apostoaie · February 13, 2025

4. The Indispensable Role of Exercises in National Preparedness

The title of Shawn's essay does not foreshadow this critically important and powerful critique of readiness in the conclusion:

Excerpts:

Over the last three decades, the United States’ capability to mobilize and sustain major combat operations over months and years has not only atrophied but plausibly regressed back to the levels of preparedness during the NIFTY NUGGET and REX-78 era. One cannot say for certain, however, because no one in the federal government is even responsible for the issue of national mobilization. Likewise, there is no federal exercise program to demonstrate the true state of national readiness to respond to a wartime national emergency. The Joint Force, largely led by the army, has reinstituted mobilization planning and a MOBEX program in the aftermath of the 2017–18 North Korea crisis. However, in terms of scale and scope, participation, and senior executive involvement, planning has fallen quite short of the NIFTY NUGGET program. There also remains no appreciable interagency exercise program akin to the REX series.

Continuing to avoid the matter is negligence. The U.S. government, including the Defense Department, is obligated to immediately institute an exercise program similar to NIFTY NUGGET and REX-78 to better understand the true state of the United States’ preparedness for a major national wartime emergency. This would enable fact-based resourcing decisions to be made to prepare the nation for the next major war and give the United States an improved chance to terminate a war on favorable terms. It would be better for all if no war occurred, but that scenario is more likely if the United States is strong.

The Indispensable Role of Exercises in National Preparedness | The National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR)

by Shawn P. Creamer

February 13, 2025

Shawn Creamer argues that the United States lacks a coherent strategy with a defined theory of victory. His commentary surveys several historical precedents and identifies weaknesses that must be addressed.

nbr.org

The United States is unprepared to fight another major power or a coalition of powers in a multiyear, multi-theater war by the end of this decade. Despite numerous warning signs, the U.S. government has not fully recognized the gravity of the threat it faces. The risk of major-power rivalry escalating into a war is already high and continues to increase as autocrats disproportionately become stronger and more capable over time relative to the United States and the West. Absent a serious, disciplined, and resourced program of national revitalization, rearmament, and emergency preparedness, the options for the United States and its allies to achieve a favorable outcome will be low. This is due to the simple fact that our adversaries are vigorously preparing and, as a result, will be better positioned for a protracted war that lasts beyond one year.

Preparedness is achieved through the development of a coherent strategy, followed by detailed planning, which in turn identifies resourcing for the strategy to be realized. Disciplined follow-through is essential. Exercises are a critical component in the process of building preparedness. As the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) explained: “To simply write a plan on a piece of paper and then not test it, in my judgement, is worse than having no plan at all, because it beguiles people into believing that something is there, and it isn’t.”

Unfortunately, the United States lacks a coherent strategy with a defined theory of victory of what would be acceptable criteria for war termination. Its plans lack rigor, are disproportionately regionally focused, are limited to the initial decisive phase of conflict, and rely on overly optimistic assumptions. Decisions about resourcing and weapons programs are routinely ends unto themselves, with little relationship to any warfighting doctrine that the Joint Force intends to win by. Exercises, if properly constructed and prosecuted, could simulate realistic challenges to be demanding tests of plans, procedures, and force adequacy. Regrettably, this is not the case. Most exercises conducted by the Joint Force lack real cogency in terms of testing plans or the force. The objectives are either disproportionately skewed toward the tactical edge of warfighting or include baked-in circumstances that guarantee victory.

To better understand why joint and service exercise programs are insufficient for the world we live in today, this commentary surveys several historical precedents and identifies weaknesses that must be addressed.

The Role of Exercises for National Preparedness during the Cold War

In the late 1970s, the United States was similarly unprepared for war. A malaise had set in after the triple shocks of the loss in Vietnam, Watergate, and the economic fallout of transitioning off the gold standard. The Joint Force was hollow. It lacked spirit, manpower, and the requisite equipment and munitions to fight and win. The future did not look bright. It was then, when beset by a host of downward spiraling problems, that the United States launched a decade long, multi-administration, presidential-driven national emergency preparedness program.

The spark came in 1976 when the U.S. Army executed Mobilization Exercise (MOBEX) 76. MOBEX-76 was a 31-day exercise involving 6 installations, 590 reserve component units, 31 state adjutant generals, and 18 army reserve commands to “test recently revised mobilization plans and procedures, evaluate the U.S. Army’s capability to support full mobilization for a conflict in Europe, and assess non-deploying support requirements.” The exercise identified 186 mobilization problems “associated with mobilizing and deploying both active and reserve components.”

MOBEX-76 validated many of the readiness concerns held by senior U.S. government officials at the time. While many officials recognized some significant readiness problems, it was underappreciated just how unprepared the nation was for a serious regional conflict, much less a general war against the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. The true state of national readiness was exposed in the fall of 1978, when the U.S. government conducted a series of parallel mobilization and deployment exercises.

In the months of October and November, the Defense Department sponsored a one-day exercise focused on mobilization and deployment called PETITE NUGGET, followed by a Joint Staff–executed 21-day simulated MOBEX called NIFTY NUGGET. NIFTY NUGGET was a command post exercise involving no forces, only headquarters staff and leadership. The Federal Preparedness Agency, the predecessor to FEMA, sponsored a parallel MOBEX designated Rehearsal Exercise 78 (REX-78) “to evaluate the mobilization capabilities of other federal agencies and departments, and to determine how well DoD and the other agencies were able to work together.” Combined, these two parallel exercises involved 24 military commands and 30 civilian agencies in reinforcing Europe following a simulated no-notice attack on NATO forces in Europe by the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact.

The NIFTY NUGGET and REX-78 exercises shocked the U.S. government not because NATO lost the war but because it lost so badly. The federal government demonstrated that it was wholly unprepared for a major national emergency of this scale, that “‘come as you are’ is not, and should not be a feature of a successful mobilization scheme,” particularly if a country seeks to win a protracted general war. Key observations from the exercises included the following:

Widespread lack of war plan understanding existed across the Defense Department and the U.S. interagency.
The U.S. interagency did not understand its role in national mobilization or how to support the Defense Department.
The U.S. interagency could not communicate internally or with the Defense Department.
The Joint Force’s strategic lift capacity proved wholly insufficient for the demands of the war, and what capacity was available was disorganized in execution.
The Joint Force experienced significant equipping and consumable shortfalls in areas necessary to the force in the field.
Industry proved incapable of surging to meet current fighting needs and was unable to source material to generate new or reconstitute attritted formations.
The Selective Service System failed.
Trained military manpower outside of the active force and drilling reservist force demonstrated that it was insufficient to source replacements or generate new units.
Federal government agencies were crippled by the military’s draw on the trained military manpower pool (e.g., veterans were 50% of the Border Patrol in 1978).

NIFTY NUGGET and REX-78 led to a decade of strategic concentration on preparing the nation for a global general war. In the aftermath of these exercises, the federal government created FEMA to unify national emergency authorities and agencies, followed by the development of the Federal Master Mobilization Plan and the institution of an interagency exercise program to more frequently evaluate national mobilization preparedness. The Defense Department’s exercise program, executed by the Joint Staff, reinforced the need for what eventually became the Reagan administration’s rearmament program, leading to the formation of U.S. Transportation Command.

The decade-long national preparedness program that followed NIFTY NUGGET and REX-78 was a major contributing factor in the decisive Operation Desert Storm victory in 1991. When one critically studies the historical record, the United States would have struggled mightily to mobilize and deploy 500,000 troops if NIFTY NUGGET had not been followed by PROUD SPIRIT in 1980, POTENT PUNCH in 1981, PROUD SABER in 1982, PROUD SCOUT in 1987, and PROUD EAGLE in 1989. In addition to the aforementioned military exercises led by the Joint Staff, FEMA continued to execute its REX-series of exercises in parallel to test the federal government’s readiness to individually and collectively fulfill its obligations under the Federal Master Mobilization Plan.

A series of lower-level and supporting functional mobilization exercises were instituted within the Defense Department, which worked on identified shortfalls or what were referred to as remedial action projects. These lower-level exercises were particularly noteworthy for how they sought to tackle problems with trained military manpower. In 1981–82, the army and the Selective Service System agency co-ran exercise GRAND PAYLOAD, which was a Joint Force limited test of plans for the induction of untrained military manpower during mobilization. Starting in 1984, the army began running exercise CERTAIN SAGE, which was an annual army retiree muster that tested the ability to recall retirees to fill existing manpower shortages within formations, serve as replacements, and serve as force expansion cadre. In 1987 the Defense Department sponsored a civilian mobilization exercise (CIVMOBEX-87) in conjunction with the exercise PROUD SCOUT to assess new guidance and workforce management authorities and test the “ability to hire additional civilians quickly and to replace civilians called to military duty.”

National Preparedness in the Post–Cold War Era

Following the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the decisive Operation Desert Storm victory, the United States halted and then cashiered its national emergency preparedness program and the majority of the exercises addressing large-scale mobilization problems. At the time, the consensus within the federal government was that “the need for mobilization functions on a scale sufficient to support mobilization for a major conventional war has virtually vanished,” based on the assessment that any “residual concern (i.e., the reemergence of a belligerent and expansionist Russia or a militarily capable and belligerent China) is remote.”

Over the last three decades, the United States’ capability to mobilize and sustain major combat operations over months and years has not only atrophied but plausibly regressed back to the levels of preparedness during the NIFTY NUGGET and REX-78 era. One cannot say for certain, however, because no one in the federal government is even responsible for the issue of national mobilization. Likewise, there is no federal exercise program to demonstrate the true state of national readiness to respond to a wartime national emergency. The Joint Force, largely led by the army, has reinstituted mobilization planning and a MOBEX program in the aftermath of the 2017–18 North Korea crisis. However, in terms of scale and scope, participation, and senior executive involvement, planning has fallen quite short of the NIFTY NUGGET program. There also remains no appreciable interagency exercise program akin to the REX series.

Continuing to avoid the matter is negligence. The U.S. government, including the Defense Department, is obligated to immediately institute an exercise program similar to NIFTY NUGGET and REX-78 to better understand the true state of the United States’ preparedness for a major national wartime emergency. This would enable fact-based resourcing decisions to be made to prepare the nation for the next major war and give the United States an improved chance to terminate a war on favorable terms. It would be better for all if no war occurred, but that scenario is more likely if the United States is strong.

Shawn Creamer is a retired U.S. Army Colonel. He served as an infantry officer for more than 29 years, with more than 14 years assigned to or directly working on Indo-Pacific security issues and more than 5 years working on large-scale mobilization. He was a U.S. Army War College Fellow with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Security Studies Program. In retirement, he is serving as a fellow with the Institute for Corean-American Studies and as a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Strategy Initiative, the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative, and the GeoStrategy Initiative in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

Endnotes

[1] For one assessment, see the July 2024 report of the Commission on the National Defense Strategy, available at https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/nds_commission_final_report.pdf.

[2] “FEMA Director Louis O. Giuffrida Radio Interview—Part 1,” YouTube, video, April 21, 1983, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjHVFvJ7lL4.

[3] The current construct of relying on combatant commands to develop war plans for geographic and functional support and then integrate them may be sufficient for limited wars and small contingencies, but it is insufficient for a multi-theater or global general war. This is because combatant command responsibilities and vision are too parochial and regionally focused for global war planning and prosecution. The commands are not always right, and the Department of Defense is not structured to effectively control the unified commands—geographic and functional—in a global crisis or a general war.

[4] As an example, the U.S. Army with much fanfare established the Futures Command in 2018 to develop the next generation of advanced weapon systems. Yet it embarked on what is intended to be a modernization effort costing tens of billions of dollar without a codified doctrine for the systems to achieve desired warfighting outcomes.

[5] In terms of force adequacy, while exercises do expose leader shortcomings, exercise programs should be “concerned not so much with determining who was right or wrong but rather what was right or wrong; and, where weaknesses were found, what corrective action might be undertaken.” Office of Net Assessment, Evaluation Report of Mobilization and Deployment Capability in Connection with Exercise NIFTY NUGGET (Washington, D.C.: Computer Network Corp., 1979), 3.

[6] The transition off the gold standard increased the devaluation of the U.S. dollar, exacerbating other economic stressors and producing a period of stagflation.

[7] Much of the credit lies with the officials in the Carter administration for acknowledging the problem, establishing the foundations of the national emergency program, and using the White House to drive the program. The Reagan administration assumed and advanced this program, maintaining the centrality of the White House to the process.

[8] Department of the Army Historical Summary, Fiscal Year 1977 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1979), 26.

[9] Office of Net Assessment, Evaluation Report of Mobilization and Deployment Capability in Connection with Exercise NIFTY NUGGET, 1.

[10] James W. Canan, “Up from Nifty Nugget,” Air and Space Forces Magazine, September 1, 1983, https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/0983nifty; and Office of Net Assessment, Evaluation Report of Mobilization and Deployment Capability in Connection with Exercise NIFTY NUGGET, 2.

[11] James Wood, Mobilisation: The Gulf War in Retrospect (Canberra: Australian National University, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, 1992), 11.

[12] Consumables include munitions, parts, and food, among other supplies.

[13] Trained military manpower includes the Individual Ready Reserve, military retirees, and the veteran population.

[14] In 2024, 25% of the Department of Homeland Security workforce fell into this trained military manpower category.

[15] FEMA has a critical role in national emergency preparedness that should not be understated. It is the responsibility of FEMA, not the Defense Department, to coordinate the federal government’s preparedness. That said, the agency cannot accomplish its mission without the Defense Department being actively involved. Quinton Lucie, “How FEMA Could Lose America’s Next Great War” Homeland Security Affairs, May 2019.

[16] Wood, Mobilisation, 5–9, 12–13; Katherine L. Kuzminski and Taren Sylvester, “Back to the Drafting Board: U.S. Draft Mobilization Capability for Modern Operational Requirements,” Center for a New American Security, June 18, 2024; and L. Dow Davis, “Reserve Callup Authorities: Time for Recall?” Army Lawyer, April 1990, 11–12.

[17] U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Exercise PROUD SABER 83 Detailed Analysis Report (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Defense, April 28, 1983), XI-1–XIII-29.

[18] GRAND PAYLOAD was a live exercise of the induction process of the Selective Service System that took registered individuals and inducted them into the armed forces. It was executed in two parts, with part one utilizing existing Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) personnel as live reactors to test the induction system, while actual army accessions were used as live reactors in part two. See Herbert E. Langendorff Jr., Mobilization Processing of Untrained Manpower (Carlisle Barracks: U.S. Army War College, 1982), 69–78.

[19] Exercise CERTAIN SAGE ran annually through 1989. A typical exercise involved several hundred volunteer military retirees to test and refine recall procedures and to exercise the process of matriculating retirees back onto active duty.

[20] Headquarters of the U.S. Army, Army Historical Summary, Fiscal Year 1989 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1998), 68.

[21] James Witt, “Report to the National Security Council on Implementing the National Security Resource Preparedness Responsibilities of the Federal Emergency Management Agency,” memorandum for national security advisor to the president Anthony Lake, April 21, 1994.

[22] Much of the credit to the resurrection of the Army MOBEX program lies with General Mark Milley, when he was the Army Chief of Staff. General Milley personally sat on top of mobilization readiness forums and mandated senior leader participation. It was a priority because he made it so. After his departure to become the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the MOBEX program was viewed as important, but not a priority. The program has been sustained the last several years largely by U.S. Army Forces Command and its subordinate command, First Army. Sustained effort by both commands to not just keep the MOBEX program alive but demonstrate its importance for the nation’s ability to fight a long war has resulted in a sizable increase in interest and participation. Elements of the broader Joint Force have also started to reopen the vaults of their largely shuttered mobilization planning and MOBEX programs, including the Office of the Secretary of Defense, which recently named an executive agent for national mobilization. While some progress is being made, much more work is required.

nbr.org

5. NATO Is Ukraine’s Future and Always Will Be

Excerpts:

Ukraine will always be a many-faceted headache for the alliance. No deal would stop it from being one democratic election away from a government bent on riling up voters over stolen lands. NATO wants no part of this. It would be a constant incitement to the Igor Girkins on both sides, i.e., nationalist adventurers seeking to embroil the alliance in revanchist intrigues. It would be an incitement to the Kremlin’s strategists, always on the lookout for new ways to test the West’s cohesion.

Mr. Hegseth vaguely walked back his words a day later. But let’s face it: His concession was less a concession than an admission that saves the U.S. a pantomime of negotiating with Mr. Putin over an outcome no more agreeable to the U.S. and its major allies than to Russia.

Meanwhile, it supplies real leverage to keep Mr. Putin outside the talks that matter, which he should have no role in: What the U.S. and Europe will do for Ukraine after a cease-fire is reached. Does Mr. Trump see it this way? Beats me. Some statements and signals suggest so. It should be a very simple calculation for Mr. Putin: Get out now while the getting is good, because Europe and the U.S. are committed to raising the Ukrainian military to a NATO standard even without it being a NATO member.

Mr. Putin has learned his military is no match for a properly equipped NATO force. His Ukraine misadventure is rapidly degrading his ability to compete in the long run. Mr. Putin will continue to pretend his war isn’t a disastrous miscalculation for which his country will be paying for generations to come. The peanut gallery should not be fooled.

NATO Is Ukraine’s Future and Always Will Be

An illusory concession to Vladimir Putin clears the way for the business that really matters.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/nato-is-ukraines-future-and-always-will-be-30d53115?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.

Feb. 14, 2025 3:42 pm ET

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks to the press prior to a NATO defense ministers' meeting at the alliance's headquarters in Brussels, Feb. 13. Photo: Wiktor Dabkowski/Zuma Press

Vladimir Putin might be out of touch but not so out of touch that he would have paid a penny for the concession Pete Hegseth allegedly offered him, suggesting that membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was off the table for Ukraine.

Of 32 members of the alliance, which unanimously must admit any new member, only nine have seriously advocated for Ukraine. These are mostly countries that unfortunately don’t make up with their front-line status what they lack in manpower and gross domestic product. In fact, if Mr. Putin wanted to make real trouble, he’d be the one demanding membership for Ukraine just to watch the mumblers and prevaricators (which includes the U.S. and other big members) get all wheezy. Were he half as far-seeing as purported, this might be his scheme to confound the alliance—at least it would be if he didn’t also need Ukraine nonmembership as a “victory” to present to his own people.

So the harrumphing of a handful of countries about the U.S. giving away the store depends on a great deal of disingenuousness plus the big dogs keeping mum or mouthing slogans about Ukraine’s “irreversible path” to membership (i.e., once it stops mattering).

The important focus should be elsewhere. Donald Trump is Donald Trump. If he saw Europe as the source of political and resource commitment to Ukraine’s future security that would let him reach one kind of deal, he would jump at it. If Europe is not willing, then he will look for a different kind of success that will be less to Europe’s and Ukraine’s liking.

This is the state of play now.

It’s true Mr. Trump might be seeing different opportunities and incentives if the Biden administration had proceeded differently. These possibilities are no longer in play but don’t kid yourself: President Biden wasn’t paralyzed by Russian nukes as if Mr. Putin is suicidal. Mr. Biden wanted to keep the stakes low lest voters at home take fright at his shambling state and promptly disqualify him for the second term that was Mr. Biden’s sole, exclusive priority until he was forced out of the race on July 21.

But the news is also potentially better than it seems. NATO won’t be Ukraine’s savior but the right kind of Ukraine deal can be NATO’s savior.

The right kind of peace deal would be a quasi-template for the alliance’s own future. It would internalize one big lesson of the war: Russia is a conventional military power that can be thwarted, defeated and deterred by conventional means.

It would internalize a second lesson. Banished would be the convenient nuclear fatalism that Germany especially has relied on over the decades to justify its passivity. Europe’s security no longer needs to depend on Washington’s willingness to risk nuclear war over Estonia. In the post-Cold War world, nuclear threats turn out to be of little actual use to an aggressor at least against the first party-victim of its aggression. If the Ukraine war proves anything, the nuclear taboo holds for a country like Russia because, to put it simply, Russia still needs customers for its oil if it’s to survive.

Ukraine will always be a many-faceted headache for the alliance. No deal would stop it from being one democratic election away from a government bent on riling up voters over stolen lands. NATO wants no part of this. It would be a constant incitement to the Igor Girkins on both sides, i.e., nationalist adventurers seeking to embroil the alliance in revanchist intrigues. It would be an incitement to the Kremlin’s strategists, always on the lookout for new ways to test the West’s cohesion.

Mr. Hegseth vaguely walked back his words a day later. But let’s face it: His concession was less a concession than an admission that saves the U.S. a pantomime of negotiating with Mr. Putin over an outcome no more agreeable to the U.S. and its major allies than to Russia.

Meanwhile, it supplies real leverage to keep Mr. Putin outside the talks that matter, which he should have no role in: What the U.S. and Europe will do for Ukraine after a cease-fire is reached. Does Mr. Trump see it this way? Beats me. Some statements and signals suggest so. It should be a very simple calculation for Mr. Putin: Get out now while the getting is good, because Europe and the U.S. are committed to raising the Ukrainian military to a NATO standard even without it being a NATO member.

Mr. Putin has learned his military is no match for a properly equipped NATO force. His Ukraine misadventure is rapidly degrading his ability to compete in the long run. Mr. Putin will continue to pretend his war isn’t a disastrous miscalculation for which his country will be paying for generations to come. The peanut gallery should not be fooled.

Peace Through Weakness in Ukraine?

Against Putin unlike everywhere else, Trump makes concessions first.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/donald-trump-ukraine-russia-negotiations-pete-hegseth-nato-europe-93fce205?mod=Searchresults_pos2&page=1

By The Editorial Board

Feb. 13, 2025 5:56 pm ET

Russian President Vladimir Putin Photo: gavriil grigorov/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

President Trump has begun his promised effort to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine, and the initial signs are discouraging. He’s making concessions to Vladimir Putin without anything in return, and he’s informing Ukraine after the fact. Does Mr. Trump want to negotiate peace with honor that will last, or peace through weakness that will reward the Kremlin?

Let’s stipulate that Joe Biden left Mr. Trump a bloody mess. Early in the war the Ukrainians fought the Russians back from Kyiv, Kharkiv and Kherson and later drove Mr. Putin’s Black Sea fleet into retreat. But further counteroffensives were crippled by the U.S. failure to provide adequate or timely arms. The Biden policy boiled down to giving Kyiv just enough weapons not to lose in a rout but not enough to win. And never properly explaining to Americans the stakes or a strategy.

Mr. Trump is probably also right that Mr. Putin wouldn’t have invaded in 2022 if he had been U.S. President. But Presidents don’t get to choose the world they inherit. The Ukraine war was likely to end with a settlement no matter who won the U.S. election in November, but the details are crucial to the security of Europe and the U.S.

***

On that score, Mr. Trump is treating Mr. Putin and Russia unlike any other negotiating counterpart. His usual method is to make maximalist demands and negotiate down: We’ll take back the Panama Canal! But here he’s making major concessions first.

Most concerning is that Mr. Trump seems to be excluding Ukraine as a negotiating party, much less partner. He announced his “peace” negotiation after a phone call with Mr. Putin and informed Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky after the fact.

Mr. Zelensky said Thursday he won’t honor an agreement that Russia and the U.S. make without Ukraine. And he has cause to fear that Mr. Trump might box him out, as Mr. Trump did the Afghan government during his first-term talks with the Taliban.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that Ukraine couldn’t join NATO and that returning to its borders before Russia’s first invasion in 2014 is “unrealistic.” Mr. Hegseth walked back his NATO point on Thursday, saying Mr. Trump would decide the question. But the President then said he liked Mr. Hegseth’s original statement.

Mr. Hegseth tried to reassure Europe by saying “a durable peace for Ukraine must include robust security guarantees to ensure that the war will not begin again.” But then he put the onus on “capable European and non-European troops,” with no U.S. troops. Where those non-European troops would come from is a mystery, and perhaps a mirage.

What has kept the peace in Korea for more than 70 years is a U.S. deterrent force backing a formidable South Korean military. Would the U.S. really let Mr. Putin roll over European forces in Ukraine in the future?

If Ukraine is going to cede territory to Russia, it needs credible security guarantees so Mr. Putin or his successor can’t rearm and invade again in the future. Kyiv will need a continued supply of foreign weapons and its own robust military industrial base. And if NATO is out, the U.S. could reassure by moving the bulk of its European military presence from Germany to Poland and letting American contractors help the European peacekeepers in Ukraine.

It’s important to challenge Europe to spend more on its own defense and do more for Ukraine. But Mr. Hegseth’s remarks strongly implied that the Trump position is that Europe may soon be on its own. The U.S. will focus on China and its own border, he said. And he proposed “a division of labor that maximizes our comparative advantages in Europe and Pacific respectively.”

The risk here is that deterrence isn’t divisible. Mr. Trump is wrong if he thinks letting Russia dominate Ukraine will result in less U.S. involvement in Europe or enhance deterrence in the Pacific. The U.S. will end up spending far more on defense and deploying more troops in Europe to defend Poland, the Baltic states, and NATO commitments. If he abandons Ukraine, he’ll soon find that China is even more emboldened to take Taiwan.

Mr. Trump likes to negotiate from strength, but on Ukraine he sounds like the one who wants a deal more. Mr. Putin, meanwhile, is continuing to bomb Ukraine’s cities and power plants and take territory in the east—albeit at enormous human cost.

If Mr. Trump wants to end the war on honorable terms, he may have to demonstrate he can raise the pressure on Mr. Putin. The U.S. can increase military support to Ukraine, remove limits on the use of weapons, and intensify pressure on Russia elsewhere around the world. Why does the Wagner Group still have a free ride in Africa?

Mr. Trump has to decide if he wants an honorable peace in Ukraine, or risk his own Afghanistan or Vietnam.

To secure Taiwan, the United States must first secure Ukraine

By Brian Kerg

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/issue-brief/to-secure-taiwan-the-united-states-must-first-secure-ukraine/

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US defense priorities appear to be at a crossroads. Can the United States materially sustain Ukraine in its fight with Russia while preparing for a possible fight with China in defense of Taiwan? There appears to be a competition for resources between two seemingly distinct US foreign policy objectives. But if Russia defeats Ukraine and a future war between the United States and China occurs over Taiwan, the Russo-Ukrainian War will prove to be the first phase of this Sino-US War. The defense of Taiwan tomorrow is intrinsically linked to the defense of Ukraine today. If the United States hopes to secure Taiwan—either through deterrence or through victory in a future fight—the United States must first ensure that Ukraine maintains its sovereignty despite the Russian invasion.

Two threats, one dilemma

Ukraine is in an existential fight with Russia, resisting a murderous invasion through the resolve, courage, and endurance of the Ukrainian people. Ukrainian resistance is all the more impressive considering Russia’s significant advantages in resources and manpower, and the brutal disregard for human life that it transforms into tactical gains on the battlefield. Given this disparity in military advantage, sustaining Ukrainian resistance requires external support from a coalition of partners providing security assistance in the form of weapons, munitions, and materiel. The United States is, and remains, one of the key members of the coalition that supplies Ukraine.

At the same time, China continues its pressure campaign against Taiwan while increasing military preparedness for a cross-strait invasion. Whether China’s pressure campaign or a future military attack succeeds, the aim is the same: to destroy the sovereignty of a free and democratic Taiwan and subordinate it to communist China.

China is recognized as the premier threat to US national security interests, and the United States is committed to Taiwan’s defense. As such, US, allied, and partnered readiness for this contingency must be adequately resourced. This is essential to deterrence and, should deterrence fail, to fighting and winning.

Therein lies an apparent dilemma. Doesn’t the constant push of US military support to Ukraine drain the United States of critical resources needed to defend Taiwan? This supposed conflict led some commentators to speculate that supporting Ukraine undermines preparedness for a Taiwan fight.

Their case is simple, arguing that supporting Ukraine drains the finite US resources that should be husbanded and prioritized for deterring and fighting China. Every missile, tank, and artillery shell sent to Ukraine is one less round that could be fired in a China contingency. If preparing for a future war with China is the priority, they argue, the United States should deprioritize what they argue is a proxy war it is fighting against Russia.

The fates of Ukraine and Taiwan are entwined

But if this is so, why is Taiwan’s official position that the Russian invasion should be stopped? Why do its officials say the United States should maintain unwavering support to Ukraine, even at Taiwan’s expense? Joseph Wu, formerly the foreign minister of Taiwan under the Tsai Ing-Wen administration and now the secretary general of Taiwan’s National Security Council, argued compellingly that US aid to Ukraine is critical for deterring China, and that a Russian victory would embolden China to move against Taiwan.

While it is true that resources are finite, framing support to Ukraine or Taiwan as mutually exclusive is a false dilemma that is strategically unsound and unproductive to policymaking. More than that, it belies a lack of appreciation for strategic timing and sequencing, and for the connection between Russian aggression in Europe and Chinese aggression in the Pacific.

Ukraine isn’t preparing for a potential future war against Russia; it is fighting for its very survival against Russia right now. While Russia isn’t the premier threat to the United States, it remains an acute threat to US interests, one of which is a free Ukraine. With US support, Ukraine is bleeding Russia dry—in a financial bargain for the United States, with no cost of US lives, and without the political risk associated with the commitment of forces on the ground. Russian threats to interpret Western support as acts of war have proved to be mere saber rattling, as the United States has crossed each Russian red line with no significant consequence.

Russia’s inability to fight the war to a close has drained its military resources to such a degree that, despite its aspirations for great-power status, it must accept external support to continue its campaign. Much of this material and financial aid comes from China, indebting Vladimir Putin to Xi Jinping. A more shocking demonstration of Russia’s need for military support was its acceptance of North Korean troops into the theater of war.

Moreover, the protracted nature of the war continues to have deleterious effects on Russian national power. If this trend continues and Ukraine maintains its sovereignty at the war’s end, what was formerly an acute threat to US interests will be a mere shell of its former self. Russia, as a broken husk, will not reap the economic rewards of conquering Ukraine in its entirety and will be greatly hampered in terms of affecting US operations in a potential fight with China. In addition, US forces that might have needed to be husbanded to defend against Russian aggression and deployed to Europe to honor US treaty alliance commitments to NATO could instead reinforce military requirements for the Pacific in the defense of Taiwan. Finally, China will be further deterred from aggression in the face of sustained US resolve to support Ukraine. Despite the duration of the conflict, maintaining US support to Ukraine will be seen as a parallel for how stalwart US support would be to Taiwan if China threatened it.

The opposite is also true. Should US support to Ukraine fade and Russia emerge victorious, Russia will siphon economic power from the resources it takes from a conquered Ukraine, reconstitute its military power, and become emboldened toward greater aggression throughout Europe. China, too, will become emboldened by the faltering US resolve that led to Ukraine’s defeat, assured that the United States lacks the stomach to hold out against aims for which China is willing to fight. And in a future Taiwan contingency, Russia would be postured to support China in its time of need and reciprocate via material support, while also posing a significant threat to the rest of Europe. This would pin vital US forces and munitions to the European continent, where they will be of no assistance in a fight for the defense of Taiwan. Because of its strategic effects, the lost war against Russia will have proven to be the first phase in the eventual war against China. To defend Taiwan tomorrow, the United States must continue defending Ukraine today.

There is no zero-sum game between Ukraine and Taiwan

In addition, claims that US support to Ukraine prevents it from adequately supporting Taiwan’s defense overinflate the material cost to the United States and disregard the benefits to the industrial base surrounding US weapons production.

There is not a one-for-one tradeoff or a zero-sum game of munitions availability pitting Ukraine against Taiwan. Many of the systems optimal for use in the defense of Ukraine are not suited for a Taiwan defense scenario, and vice versa. US aid provided to Ukraine since the Russian invasion is suited to fighting a continental land war characterized by mass and attrition, incorporating modern technologies. Specifically, this has consisted largely of artillery and mortar rounds, tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers, anti-armor systems, and short-range unmanned aerial systems. All of these would be ill-suited for the air, maritime, and littoral fighting that would dominate a Taiwan scenario. There is little direct competition between these systems and those optimized to defend Taiwan and fight China, which also characterizes the bulk of foreign military sales to Taiwan, which include sales of hundreds of Harpoons, Patriot assistance, Sidewinder missiles, and Switchblade loitering munitions, among others.

Finally, the provision of US arms to Ukraine has served as a test run for the US military industrial base, revealing challenges, stovepipes, and other hurdles to meeting timely production goals. This postured the United States to course correct, yielding congressional action to accelerate support to Taiwan, including the Taiwan Enhanced Resilience Act, which authorized Foreign Military Financing to Taiwan for the first time and amended Presidential Drawdown Authority to provision Taiwan directly with US Department of Defense stocks and services. As US support for Ukraine’s defense continues to stress test it, the US industrial base will only grow more capable and resilient, and will be better prepared to accelerate production for the defense of Taiwan. Rather than a zero-sum game, investing in Ukraine’s defense now creates more opportunity for Taiwan tomorrow.

To win in Taiwan tomorrow, the United States must win in Ukraine today

Under today’s conditions, the United States is supporting, by proxy, a single-front war against a decaying Russia. If this future holds and Russia fails to meet its wartime objectives, the United States can later focus the preponderance of its strength against China to deter its aggression against Taiwan and, if necessary, posture to win.

But deprioritizing Ukraine will lead to its defeat and set conditions for the United States to face a future two-front war against an emboldened China and a reconstituted Russia. This is a matter of strategic sequencing of the existential needs of the moment and how they will impact the existential needs of the future. If the United States is firmly committed to the defense of Taiwan against a future Chinese invasion, it should focus on defeating Russia in Ukraine today.

Lieutenant Colonel Brian Kerg is an active-duty US Marine Corps operational planner and a nonresident fellow in the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He is also a 2025 nonresident fellow with the Irregular Warfare Initiative, a 501(c)3 partnered with Princeton’s Empirical Studies of Conflict Project and the Modern War Institute at West Point.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent the positions or opinions of the US Marine Corps, the Department of Defense, or any part of the US government.

The Tiger Project, an Atlantic Council effort, develops new insights and actionable recommendations for the United States, as well as its allies and partners, to deter and counter aggression in the Indo-Pacific. Explore our collection of work, including expert commentary, multimedia content, and in-depth analysis, on strategic defense and deterrence issues in the region.

10. Republican Chair of Armed Services Blasts Pete Hegseth’s ‘Rookie Mistake’ Giving ‘Tucker Carlson’-Style Speech On Ukraine

This may be the common knee jerk reaction. But as a friend pointed out, this could all be part of a more sophisticated "rope-a-dope" strategy that will create the conditions for a knockout or a win by exhaustion.

Perhaps Senator Wicker is not read-in to the strategy. On the other hand, maybe he is read-in and his comments are designed to support the designed perception and the strategy is more sophisticated than people can see.

Some quotes:

"The battlefield is a scene of constant chaos. The winner will be the one who controls that chaos, both his own and the enemy’s."

– Bonaparte

"In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity."

– Sun Tzu

"War is the realm of uncertainty; three quarters of the factors on which action is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty. The commander must work within this fog with the light of reason and calculation."

– Clausewitz

"Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt."

– Sun Tzu

https://www.mediaite.com/news/republican-chair-of-armed-services-blasts-pete-hegseths-rookie-mistake-giving-tucker-carlson-style-speech-on-ukraine/?utm

David GilmourFeb 14th, 2025, 7:29 am

3719 comments

Play Video

Senate Armed Services Chair Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) slammed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s “rookie mistake” for publicly saying a return for Ukraine to pre-2014 borders with Russia was “unrealistic.”

Speaking at the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Brussels on Wednesday, during his first visit to NATO headquarters, Hegseth underlined the administration’s commitment to peace between Ukraine and Russia as a “top priority” but laid out its opposition to the country’s NATO membership and the “illusionary goal” that the country could return to pre-war borders, pivoting from what is considered by analysts as a major point of leverage for future negotiations.

At the Munich Security Conference in Germany, Wicker said he was “surprised” by the secretary’s speech in a comment to Politico, which he called “the kind of thing Tucker Carlson could have written.”

Having just shepherded the secretary’s nomination last month, Wicker said: “Hegseth is going to be a great defense secretary, although he wasn’t my choice for the job. But he made a rookie mistake in Brussels, and he’s walked back some of what he said but not that line.”

He continued: “I don’t know who wrote the speech — it is the kind of thing Tucker Carlson could have written, and Carlson is a fool,” referencing the MAGA commentator who has visited Moscow twice in the past year.

He added: “I prefer we didn’t give away negotiating positions before we actually get started talking about the end of the Russia-Ukraine war.”

Wicker agreed that it was not “practical” for Ukraine to join NATO but pushed back against President Donald Trump’s thoughts on Thursday that Russia might be readmitted to the G7, branding Russian President Vladimir Putin as “war criminal who needs to be in prison for the rest of his life.”

As the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Wicker led the hearings culminating in the former Fox & Friends co-host’s confirmation as Secretary of Defense.

11. China fueling a political explosion in the Philippines

China's Unrestricted Warfare and Three Warfares are hard at work in the Philippines (and probably among all US allies in different forms).

Let us think about China's vision (my interpretation):

My assessment is that China seeks to export its authoritarian political system around the world in order to dominate regions directly and/or indirectly through proxies, co-opt or coerce international organizations, create economic conditions favorable to China alone, while displacing democratic institutions through subversion. It takes a long term approach, employing unrestricted warfare and its three warfares to set conditions and achieve objectives, with the main objective being the unification of China (i.e., the recovery of Taiwan)

This is strategic competition between the PRC and US and the US' friends, partners, and allies who are under threat. The question is, does the US recognize the game China is playing and what is the US willing to do to compete with China or is it going to cede the playing field of the gray zone between peace and war to China?

Excerpts:

A major area of concern for a liberal democracy like the Philippines, meanwhile, is the proliferation of Beijing-backed troll farms and propagandists who have been actively spreading pro-China narratives that often discredit the incumbent government.

A recent AidData study showed that as many as 10,000 fake accounts were run by China-based elements. According to the findings, Beijing has been engaged in a two-pronged approach that seeks to sow political divisions in the Philippines while undermining a unified national response to the South China Sea disputes.

“China is not engaging in all these media cooperation and development finance [projects] in a vacuum. It’s happening alongside very visible disputes in the South China Sea,” Samantha Custer, director at AidData, told reporters following the release of their 51-page study in September.

“Less direct is the proliferation of online troll farms and other fake accounts that [Beijing] can use to spread mis- or disinformation to foreign publics, along with partnerships with social media influencers,” the study argued.

In response, Philippine authorities are now pushing for revisions of the country’s archaic espionage and treason laws to cope with emerging threats and the increasingly hybrid nature of warfare in the 21st century.

The Philippines is also doubling down on intelligence-sharing with key allies, especially the US and Japan, to crack down on Chinese malign influence operations. For the first time in Philippine history, high-stakes elections have coincided with intensified proxy wars among superpowers backing rival political dynasties.

China fueling a political explosion in the Philippines - Asia Times

Marcos Jr takes electoral aim at rival Dutertes’ China links while uprooting Beijing’s alleged espionage and influence operations

asiatimes.com · by Richard Javad Heydarian · February 14, 2025

MANILA – The Philippines kicked off its midterm election cycle in turmoil, with the Ferdinand Marcos Jr administration engaged in a two-front assault targeting his former ally-turned-enemy the Dutertes on one hand and their perceived backers in Beijing on the other.

Setting the stage for a raucous campaign, nearly two-thirds of the Philippine House of Representatives, which is broadly aligned to the president, overwhelmingly voted to impeach Vice President Sara Duterte on the grounds of alleged corruption and abuse of power, not least a not-so-veiled threat to assassinate Marcos Jr.

Days later, Marcos Jr took up the cudgels against the Dutertes with unusually combative rhetoric. During a recent campaign sortie in his home province of Ilocos Norte, where he accompanied the administration’s senatorial and key local government bets, Marcos Jr unleashed a broadside attack against his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte and his clan’s aligned candidates.

“None of [my preferred candidates] are accomplices in pocketing sacks of money, exploiting the pandemic crisis and letting our countrymen get sick and die,” he declared, referring to the Duterte administration’s alleged abysmal handling of and numerous corruption scandals during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“None of them acts like the acolyte of a false prophet who is languishing due to his defiling of our youth and women. None of them defends the hotbeds of crime and sexual harassment against women—the POGOS [Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators],” he added, referring to Pastor Apollo Quiboloy, an erstwhile Duterte ally detained on charges of sex and human trafficking, as well as the proliferation of dodgy online Chinese casinos during the previous Rodrigo Duterte administration.

The Filipino president has also upped the ante by effectively accusing his Duterte-aligned rivals of being Chinese puppets while emphasizing his comparatively uncompromising stance on the South China Sea disputes.

“None of them claps for China and is even happy whenever we are being water cannoned, our Coast Guard rammed, fishermen blocked, their catches stolen and our islands retaken as their own territory,” he declared, referring to the Duterte era’s soft-pedaling on China’s aggressive actions in the disputed waters.

Marcos Jr’s tough rhetoric has coincided with a systematic crackdown on alleged Chinese influence operations in the Philippines. Over the past month, the Philippine intelligence and security authorities have apprehended various Chinese nationals allegedly involved in espionage activities while the Philippine legislature has conducted hearings subpoenaing suspected pro-China propagandists.

Public pressure has also been building on Beijing-friendly candidates such as Ronald Dela Rosa, former President Duterte’s police chief, who has suddenly and expediently adopted a tougher stance on the South China Sea disputes.

Since rising to elected power, Marcos Jr has steadily adopted a firmer stand on China while doubling down on enhanced defense relations with Western partners, including mutual defense treaty ally the US.

He has also rolled back other key Duterte policy legacies such as the bloody “drug war”, which claimed the lives of tens of thousands of suspected drug dealers in extrajudicial killings.

In response, the ex-president broke with tradition and, since last year, has effectively called for the resignation of his successor in favor of his daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte. In his latest outburst, Duterte again accused Marcos Jr of being a “heroin addict” without providing evidence.

With his daughter now facing potential impeachment in the Senate, the upper chamber tasked with conducting impeachment trials, the former president also openly quipped about “killing” more than a dozen senators to pave the way for his favored candidates.

Latest surveys consistently show that pro-Duterte candidates are lagging against Marco Jr’s preferred bets, who have dominated the so-called “magic 12” circle of potential winnables.

Although the Dutertes remain popular on their home island of Mindanao and still enjoy the support of major religious groups, they’ve met their match in the Marcos Jr administration’s well-oiled machinery. And they stand to lose at the polls amid accusations of acting as Beijing’s proxies amid growing anti-China sentiment in the Philippines.

Earlier this year, the Marcos Jr administration announced that it had purged the Dutertes from the National Security Council, where both the vice president and ex-presidents are usually either ex-officio or executive members. Now, pro-Duterte candidates are also feeling the China-related heat.

“I’ll be frank with you. I am willing to kill myself in the [South China Sea] if they say I am pro-China. I am eager to wage war there in the West Philippine Sea,” re-electionist Senator Ronald dela Rosa, a staunch Dutetre ally, told reporters in a recent press conference.

“Pro-China? I challenge them, if they want, I will give them a gun and maybe we will attack the bullies in the West Philippine Sea,” he added, somewhat obscurely.

What was once seen as an invincible tandem between the Philippines’ two most powerful political dynasties has steadily turned into a heated war of words. Encouraged by Washington and other key allies, the Marcos Jr administration has stepped up efforts to curb Chinese influence that penetrated the country during Duterte.

Last month, Philippine authorities announced the arrest of five Chinese nationals accused of espionage. According to the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), the five suspects were caught taking alleged sensitive video footage through drones and military-grade cameras disguised as civilian security closed-circuit TVs (CCTVs).

Days earlier, a Chinese national, along with two local accomplices, were caught in a vehicle carrying surveillance equipment while roaming sensitive military facilities. Philippine security agencies claim that the alleged spies were providing real-time data on strategic locations, including images of Philippine air and naval bases.

They were also accused of recording the movements of Philippine warships engaged in resupply missions in contested South China Sea features.

Top Philippine security officials have suggested the recent arrests are only the “tip of the iceberg” of coming suppression operations, reflecting Manila’s concerns about the infiltration of Chinese agents and their related assets in recent years.

“When you say gray zone, most people only think of Chinese activities out at sea, but information and psychological warfare have also become part and parcel of their malign influence,” National Security Council assistant director General Jonathan Malaya told The Japan Times in a recent interview.

The Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department, meanwhile, has allegedly been actively weaponizing its influence among sympathetic groups, including Chinese-Filipino business groups that are dependent on imports from and access to Chinese markets.

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“They are very active here in the Philippines and have significantly ramped up their actions since February 2023 when the Philippine government implemented a policy to expose and shed light into what’s happening in the West Philippine Sea,” Malaya added, referring to the Philippines’ “Transparency Initiative” focused on exposing China’s aggression in disputed waters.

A major area of concern for a liberal democracy like the Philippines, meanwhile, is the proliferation of Beijing-backed troll farms and propagandists who have been actively spreading pro-China narratives that often discredit the incumbent government.

A recent AidData study showed that as many as 10,000 fake accounts were run by China-based elements. According to the findings, Beijing has been engaged in a two-pronged approach that seeks to sow political divisions in the Philippines while undermining a unified national response to the South China Sea disputes.

“China is not engaging in all these media cooperation and development finance [projects] in a vacuum. It’s happening alongside very visible disputes in the South China Sea,” Samantha Custer, director at AidData, told reporters following the release of their 51-page study in September.

“Less direct is the proliferation of online troll farms and other fake accounts that [Beijing] can use to spread mis- or disinformation to foreign publics, along with partnerships with social media influencers,” the study argued.

In response, Philippine authorities are now pushing for revisions of the country’s archaic espionage and treason laws to cope with emerging threats and the increasingly hybrid nature of warfare in the 21st century.

The Philippines is also doubling down on intelligence-sharing with key allies, especially the US and Japan, to crack down on Chinese malign influence operations. For the first time in Philippine history, high-stakes elections have coincided with intensified proxy wars among superpowers backing rival political dynasties.

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asiatimes.com · by Richard Javad Heydarian · February 14, 2025

12. Trump officials fired nuclear staff not realizing they oversee the country’s weapons stockpile, sources say

Oops.

Learning by doing. I guess the DOGE wiz kids are getting an education in how the government works.

Not everything can be run like a business and by a balance sheet and bottom line.

In their defense perhaps due to classification it appears even DOE may not know what the NNSA does.

But we should keep in mind that what has always made America great is that we correct our mistakes.

Trump officials fired nuclear staff not realizing they oversee the country’s weapons stockpile, sources say | CNN

CNN · by Rene Marsh, Ella Nilsen · February 15, 2025

'Cutting for cutting's sake': Reporter reacts to Trump administration firing of nuclear stockpile employees

01:16 - Source: CNN

'Cutting for cutting's sake': Reporter reacts to Trump administration firing of nuclear stockpile employees

01:16

CNN —

Trump administration officials fired more than 300 staffers Thursday night at the National Nuclear Security Administration — the agency tasked with managing the nation’s nuclear stockpile — as part of broader Energy Department layoffs, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.

Sources told CNN the officials did not seem to know this agency oversees America’s nuclear weapons.

An Energy Department spokesperson disputed the number of personnel affected, telling CNN that “less than 50 people” were “dismissed” from NNSA, and that the dismissed staffers “held primarily administrative and clerical roles.”

The agency began rescinding the terminations Friday morning.

Some of the fired employees included NNSA staff who are on the ground at facilities where nuclear weapons are built. These staff oversee the contractors who build nuclear weapons, and they inspect these weapons.

It also included employees at NNSA headquarters who write requirements and guidelines for contractors who build nuclear weapons. A source told CNN they believe these individuals were fired because “no one has taken anytime to understand what we do and the importance of our work to the nation’s national security.”

Members of Congress made their concerns about the NNSA firings known to the Energy Department, a Hill staffer told CNN. A person with knowledge of the matter told CNN that senators visited Energy Sec. Chris Wright to express concern about the NNSA cuts.

“Congress is freaking out because it appears DOE didn’t really realize NNSA oversees the nuclear stockpile,” one source said. “The nuclear deterrent is the backbone of American security and stability – period. For there to be any even very small holes poked even in the maintenance of that deterrent should be extremely frightening to people.”

The Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which enriches and stores uranium for America's nuclear weapons.

Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Shutterstock

NNSA has a total of 1800 staff at facilities around the country. The only probationary staffers exempt from the Thursday-night firings were those who work at its Office of Secure Transportation, the office in charge of driving or otherwise transporting nuclear weapons around the country securely, one person familiar told CNN.

“There is strong support on the Hill for NNSA in nuclear modernization writ large,” one source told CNN. “Clearly, NNSA is a critical agency. There have been lawmakers with concerns.”

The agency made the about face Friday morning; during a meeting, acting NNSA administrator Teresa Robbins said the agency had received direction to rescind the termination of probationary employees. Probationary workers have typically been employed for less than a year, or two years in some cases, and have fewer job protections and rights to appeal.

Robbins added on Friday that if probationary NNSA employees had not yet been fired, their jobs were now safe and all NNSA employees whose access to the agency’s network and internal IT systems was shut off would be turned back on, one source told CNN.

The source said Robbins added, “There is a good probability that most or all probationary employees who were fired could return.”

Another source cautioned the situation was extremely fluid and said “we don’t know” how many people will be returning.

An NNSA spokesperson referred CNN’s questions to DOE.

“The Energy Department will continue its critical mission of protecting our national security and nuclear deterrence in the development, modernization, and stewardship of America’s atomic weapons enterprise, including the peaceful use of nuclear technology and nonproliferation,” the DOE spokesperson told CNN.

Political officials at the Energy Department told its non-political HR administrators to cite poor performance personnel files as a justification for firing the employees, the source said. Frustrated by the pressure from political appointees, two of those HR employees submitted their resignations on Friday.

A DOE spokesperson declined to comment on the poor-performance rationale for the firings. CNN has reached out to the two employees who resigned.

In addition to overseeing America’s nuclear weapons, the NNSA also helps secure nuclear material nationwide. Sources told CNN it’s a critical mission, pointing to the Russian drone attack on a Chernobyl power plant reactor in Ukraine on Thursday.

“NNSA maintains sensors in Ukraine to help track nuclear risks, whether intentional or unintentional,” a source said, adding the layoffs are “frightening.”

CNN · by Rene Marsh, Ella Nilsen · February 15, 2025

13. The reason Trump wants nuclear disarmament in the US

Or would this be cutting off our nose to spite our face?

Is saving money worth the potential national security risk?

If we lead the way in cutting our nuclear stockpiles do we think China, Russia, and north Korea will follow suit?

If we entered into large scale nuclear arms reduction talks do we think any of the axis of upheaval/Dark Quad would negotiate in good faith and allow effective verification?

While saving money is good, the fundamental questions to ask and try to answer (but one which can never be answered satisfactorily except only in theory) is: will nuclear weapons reductions, either unilaterally or as part of larger arms control reductions negotiations, improve or diminish our national security and the safety of the nation?

Or another cynical way to ask the question is, how many nuclear weapons do we need to still be able to destroy the entire world? If we have more than enough perhaps we could save some money because we can only destroy the world once. Anything over and above a single destructive world ending nuclear strike is a waste of money. (note attempt at my sarcasm in some of my questions but not all)

The reason Trump wants nuclear disarmament in the US

President’s unexpected call to cull weapons stockpile could be the key to shrinking spending

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/politics/2025/02/14/this-is-the-reason-trump-wants-to-denuclearise-the-us/?utm

Memphis Barker

Senior Foreign Writer

Trump wants nuclear arms talks with Russia and China

By Zeke Miller, The Associated Press and Michelle L. Price, The Associated Press

Defense News · by Zeke Miller · February 13, 2025

President Donald Trump said Thursday that he wants to restart nuclear arms control talks with Russia and China and that, eventually, he hopes all three countries could agree to cut their massive defense budgets in half.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump lamented the hundreds of billions of dollars being invested in rebuilding the nation’s nuclear deterrent and said he hopes to gain commitments from the U.S. adversaries to cut their own spending.

“There’s no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons, we already have so many,” Trump said. “You could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons, and they’re building nuclear weapons.”

“We’re all spending a lot of money that we could be spending on other things that are actually, hopefully much more productive," Trump said.

While the U.S. and Russia hold massive stockpiles of weapons since the Cold War, Trump predicted that China would catch up in their capability to exact nuclear devastation “within five or six years.”

He said if the weapons were ever called to use, “that’s going to be probably oblivion.”

Trump said he would look to engage in nuclear talks with the two countries once “we straighten it all out" in the Middle East and Ukraine.

“One of the first meetings I want to have is with President Xi of China, President Putin of Russia. And I want to say, ‘Let’s cut our military budget in half.’ And we can do that. And I think we’ll be able to.”

Trump in his first term tried and failed to bring China into nuclear arms reduction talks when the U.S. and Russia were negotiating an extension of a pact known as New START. Russia suspended its participation in the treaty during the Biden administration, as the U.S. and Russia continued on massive programs to extend the lifespans or replace their Cold War-era nuclear arsenals.

15. What the Pentagon might learn from Ukraine about fielding new tech

Excerpts:

First, the U.S. Defense Department might benefit from leveraging commercial technology more aggressively. In many domains, commercial technology is more advanced and less expensive than military tech. In fact, Ukraine’s experience suggests that the advantage of adapting commercial technology may be particularly strong during an ongoing conflict, when capability gaps appear suddenly, and urgency precludes undergoing traditional acquisition processes.

...

And the second lesson: Brave1 has demonstrated how government innovation agencies can accelerate the acquisition and deployment of weapons systems during conflict. Brave1 is modeled after Defense Innovation Unit, established in 2015, so the Pentagon already recognizes the value of such an organization. But Brave1′s approach—using an online platform to connect warfighters with specific operational needs to technology developers—illustrates one method of meeting rapidly changing needs during conflict.

There are other lessons the Defense Department might take from Ukraine’s experience as well. For instance, Ukraine has expedited fielding by delegating procurement authority to the platoon level. It has also successfully established a high-tech military industry cluster in Kyiv. Of course, the U.S. and Ukraine have different industrial and geopolitical contexts, but that shouldn’t prevent the U.S. defense leaders from extracting lessons about ways to rapidly equip warfighters with new technology.

What the Pentagon might learn from Ukraine about fielding new tech

Defense News · by Jon Schmid and Erik E. Mueller · February 14, 2025

During the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have fielded a high volume of new weapons technology that has been invaluable in collecting intelligence, enabling drone strikes, and guiding removal of landmines.

This came as something of a surprise. And Ukraine’s success may have lessons to offer the U.S. Department of Defense as the government explores new avenues for efficiency.

Before the war, Ukraine’s military acquisition system was slow, opaque, and dominated by a state-owned enterprise, UkrOboronProm (literally, Ukraine Defense Industry). As late as 2021, experts predicted UkrOboronProm’s imminent collapse.

Once the war began, Ukraine abandoned this old system and embraced commercial technology. The Ukrainians have purchased drones on the commercial market and affixed them with explosives to target Russian forces. In one example, Ukraine used Soviet-era RKG-3 anti-tank hand grenades, which traditionally required the user to be close to the tank to employ. But by using domestically developed drones, Ukrainians could drop RKG-3 grenades modified with tail-fins onto Russian tanks and other armored vehicles.

Perhaps Ukraine’s most innovative solution to rapid fielding during conflict has been its standup of Brave1 — an organization charged with linking warfighter demand to foreign and domestic technology developers at speed. Brave1 has made over 400 grants to developers adding up to over UAH 800 million (about $19 million). Brave1 has provided support to the development of AI systems like the Swarmer drone and the Griselda intelligence system.

Of course, context matters: Ukraine’s processes, organizational models, and rules cannot be exactly replicated in the U.S. or elsewhere. But there are still at least two valuable lessons here for the Pentagon.

First, the U.S. Defense Department might benefit from leveraging commercial technology more aggressively. In many domains, commercial technology is more advanced and less expensive than military tech. In fact, Ukraine’s experience suggests that the advantage of adapting commercial technology may be particularly strong during an ongoing conflict, when capability gaps appear suddenly, and urgency precludes undergoing traditional acquisition processes.

For example, DoD might consider adopting parts of Ukrainian’s drone acquisition approach, especially the acquisition of cheaper commercial drones that can be modified quickly for specific mission needs. Such systems could provide DoD with cheaper methods of collecting intelligence or executing strikes.

Various policies have been proposed to leverage U.S. commercial innovation. These include greater enforcement of the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act, the establishment of a new agency within the Defense Department focused on rapid technology development and deployment, and increasing the reprogramming cap. Late last year Sen. Roger Wicker, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, introduced the FoRGED (Fostering Reform and Government Efficiency in Defense) Act, which proposes extensive changes intended to streamline the Pentagon’s acquisition of commercial tech. While Ukraine’s success in deploying commercial technology during the war does not suggest which of the myriad policy options would work best in the United States, it highlights that the rationale behind such proposed measures is sound.

And the second lesson: Brave1 has demonstrated how government innovation agencies can accelerate the acquisition and deployment of weapons systems during conflict. Brave1 is modeled after Defense Innovation Unit, established in 2015, so the Pentagon already recognizes the value of such an organization. But Brave1′s approach—using an online platform to connect warfighters with specific operational needs to technology developers—illustrates one method of meeting rapidly changing needs during conflict.

There are other lessons the Defense Department might take from Ukraine’s experience as well. For instance, Ukraine has expedited fielding by delegating procurement authority to the platoon level. It has also successfully established a high-tech military industry cluster in Kyiv. Of course, the U.S. and Ukraine have different industrial and geopolitical contexts, but that shouldn’t prevent the U.S. defense leaders from extracting lessons about ways to rapidly equip warfighters with new technology.

Jon Schmid is a senior political scientist at RAND. Erik E. Mueller is a defense analyst at RAND.

16. Space as a Gray Zone: The Future of Orbital Warfare

Space actually looks gray in a lot of photos. Perhaps it is the real gray zone (note attempt at humor).

Excerpts:

In 2025, artificial intelligence is no longer a distant concept in warfare; it is here now, and it is evolving as an essential tool in shaping conflict as we know it. As great powers continue to integrate AI into their orbital strategies, the stakes grow higher, and the lines between technological advantage and vulnerability blur. The ability to process vast data streams, identify hidden threats, and act with speed and precision is beyond human capabilities and underscores the importance of protecting AI systems from neutralization or destruction. They are critical in this era of orbital warfare and the United States and China are locked in a second great space race; this time, not to the Moon, but to quietly command the orbits that shape global power.

Orbital warfare operates under conditions unlike any on Earth The challenges of maneuvering satellites and the risks of escalation that may ensue create a new kind of conflict—one defined by calculated positioning, ambiguous intent, and preemptive moves that often go unnoticed until it’s too late. In this gray zone, success isn’t about force ratios or explosive ordnance; it is instead about foresight, precision, and the ability to dominate without confrontation.

Space as a Gray Zone: The Future of Orbital Warfare - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Alan T. Dugger · February 14, 2025

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For as long as humans have waged war, controlling the high ground has meant controlling the fight. From ancient hilltop fortresses to the elevated positions that dictated victory in modern battles, elevation offered a point from which to project power and subdue adversaries. But what happens when the high ground isn’t a mountain or a ridge but an orbit thousands of miles above Earth?

In this new theater, the rules of conflict aren’t just rewritten, they’re reimagined. There are no trenches to dig, no skies to dominate. Only the silent vacuum of space, where satellites drift like pieces on a multidimensional chessboard of extraordinarily vast proportions. Here, war might never be declared, but nation-states could still lose or win through actions so subtle they go unnoticed by the billions below. This is the paradox of orbital warfare: capability measured not in firepower, but in strategy, finesse, and control over the unseen.

The Evolving Nature of Space Conflict

Space has always been about vantage points. From the moment we entered the space age, we extended our reach beyond Earth’s surface and transformed the vastness of space into a new domain for military operations. At first, it was about watching, listening, and staying ready. But as our dependence on space grew, so too did the risks.

During the Cold War, space became the ultimate perch for observation. The US CORONA program, a series of early reconnaissance satellites, revealed troop movements, missile sites, and critical infrastructure from hundreds of miles above. These satellites were silent but omnipresent, changing the calculus of warfare by providing something every commander craves: information.

Meanwhile, missile-warning satellites took their place as the sentinels of mutually assured destruction. The Soviet Oko system and America’s Defense Support Program satellites scanned the globe for the telltale heat plumes of missile launches. Their purpose was simple but profound: ensure that an attack would never go unanswered. In this way, the space race wasn’t just about reaching the stars—it was about holding the line.

The Outer Space Treaty of 1967—a now antiquated multilateral treaty aimed at preserving space as a domain of peaceful research and scientific exploration—specifically prohibited the use of nuclear weapons in space and the establishment of military bases in orbit or on any nearby celestial body. This reflected the thinking at the time that if war were to come to Earth’s orbit or in cislunar space (that physical space between low-Earth orbit and the orbit of the Moon) it would likely reveal itself through a declaration of hostilities between great and powerful nations that would mobilize their conventional forces to violent and destructive action against one another.

By the 1980s, orbital conflict shifted from a theoretical concern to a practical demonstration. Both the United States and the Soviet Union tested anti-satellite weapons. The US ASM-135, a missile launched from an F-15 fighter aircraft, demonstrated the capability to destroy satellites in orbit. The Soviets had previously developed co-orbital systems—satellites designed to approach their targets and destroy them up close—as early as the late 1960s. These were examples of kinetic threats: efforts to physically destroy the capabilities of a rival asset through brute force or explosive ordnance.

These early experiments left scars, not just diplomatically but physically. Destructive kinetic impacts have the potential to create debris that can limit access to space and orbital altitudes and pose a threat to crewed stations like the International Space Station and the Tiangong. Each shattered satellite adds debris to Earth’s orbit, creating more hazards for every future mission. Destroying a single satellite might seem like a tactical win, but the aftermath—a field of uncontrollable fragments—can jeopardize entire orbital regions. The scenario of a cascading chain of collisions, called the Kessler Syndrome, is no longer a theoretical risk, but a real possibility. A cloud of uncontrollable debris crashes into other systems along its orbital path, destroying them in the process, and creating more and more debris. This cascade of exponentially increasing debris eventually grows so large and becomes so destructive that it limits the very ability to access certain orbital altitudes and threatens costly and critical assets indiscriminately.

This debris problem can shift the focus of orbital conflict toward disruption rather than destruction. Nonkinetic capabilities like cyberattacks, jamming signals, and disabling systems—methods that leave no trace but achieve the same goal—may be the means of preferred strategies. Directed energy or lasers on the ground or in orbit can degrade imagery satellites or deny their ability to perform their intended operations without destroying them or creating more debris.

Russia has honed its electronic warfare capabilities in recent years, regularly testing systems that signal its readiness to disrupt adversaries in orbit and create effects on the ground by disrupting systems overhead.

Electronic warfare can include jamming the uplink or downlink of a system to prevent an orbital satellite from communicating with its ground transceiver. Uplink jamming requires complicated technology and enormous power to disrupt the signal from a ground transmitter to the orbital asset. This is costly, but it has incredible effects that can be spread over entire regions of Earth. Downlink jamming, where the signal from the orbital system is disrupted on its way down to its intended receiver, is cheap, widely accessible, and comparatively easily combated given its limited field of influence. While the former may still be only in the purview of governments, the latter has propagated to individuals with little resources and has been a persistent, mosquito-like threat to military forces for decades.

These two categories of measures, kinetic and nonkinetic, though varying in their degree of physically measurable effects, still reflect a twentieth-century definition of conflict: easily detectable and identifiable by both target and actor. The principle characteristics of modern orbital warfare are far less discernable and even more complicated in attribution.

The Modern Era of Orbital Power

Today, space conflicts are no longer determined solely by the destructive potential of one asset over another or the effectiveness of nonkinetic capabilities employed from Earth or orbit. Instead, victory is defined by the silent choreography of positioning assets into place before an adversary has the chance to counter or react. The ability to cloak military objectives behind civilian operations adds another layer of strategic ambiguity, allowing state actors to maneuver across the orbital chessboard unnoticed and unchallenged.

No nation-state has mastered the art of blending commercial and military operations quite like China. China has an established governmental and military space infrastructure with agencies that have a proven record of space-based achievements. These agencies blur the line between civilian and military operations and objectives, which indicates that any capability its civilian space sector has could easily be militarized. Satellites designed for communication or weather monitoring can just as easily support military objectives. “We believe that a lot of [China’s] so-called civilian space program is a military program,” former NASA administrator Bill Nelson told lawmakers during congressional testimony in April 2024. “And I think, in effect, we are in a race.”

What is discernably categorized as civilian or military operations is becoming increasingly vague and attempting to sift through the sheer volume of Chinese assets may prove futile. There have been consistent and steady increases in technology and assets in space made by the Chinese. “The number of different categories of space weapons that [China has] created and… the speed with which they’re doing it is very threatening,” said the head of the US Space Force General Chance Saltzman in November 2024.

China continues to advance launch vehicle technology and now private Chinese companies are creating reusable launch vehicles, a commercial space-launch facility, and orbital internet providers similar to Starlink. Chinese commercial satellite imagery companies were recently sanctioned by the United States for providing satellite imagery and assistance to the Wagner Group to aid in Russia’s war in Ukraine.

In response, the US military is developing its own hybrid exploitation of civilian assets in space, albeit in a far less clandestine and more public manner. In December 2024, General Stephen Whiting, head of US Space Command, spoke on the growth of the Commercial Integration Cell, a platform where private sector assets in space can share information with their defense counterparts. This information may come in the form of imagery from observation satellites, but also indirectly through electromagnetic interference commercial assets may be experiencing.

Other partnerships with commercial industry are expanding the capabilities the US military can exploit in orbit as well. The Air Force Research Laboratory recently awarded a major contract to a California-based space startup that aims to develop orbital warehouses. These warehouses are designed to store in orbit and deploy cargo anywhere on Earth’s surface within thirty minutes.

While the specific nature of this cargo and its intended users remain undefined, such developments underscore the increasingly indistinguishable roles of commercial and military operations in space. This dual-use character represents the gray zone of modern orbital conflict, where civilian assets integrate with military capabilities.

Why Orbital Warfare is Different

Unlike battles on Earth, space presents challenges that are as technical as they are strategic. Satellites can’t simply dodge an attack. Their movements are dictated by physics, where even small adjustments require precision and energy. Reactive moves aren’t just difficult; they’re often impossible.

These challenges mean that today’s orbital conflicts are fought in subtler ways. A recent space wargame involving senior DoD, State Department, NASA, and intelligence officials showed that satellites can be repositioned to block access to key orbital slots. Communication signals are disrupted without a trace. Diplomatic moves on Earth shift alliances and access to resources in space. Strength is no longer about overwhelming force—it’s about playing the long game, quietly positioning assets, and leveraging international agreements on commerce, exploration, and strategic space partnerships to shape the battlespace before a conflict begins. As space becomes more critical to state’s security and economic stability, the shape of conflict in orbit is becoming clear. Tomorrow’s wars in space are not black and white like yesterday’s wars on Earth. The space domain is a gray zone, where success is determined before the first public move is made. In this arena, subtlety is power, and dominance means seeing the board before the opponent even realizes the game has begun.

In the wargame, role-players acting as China were able to present the United States and her allies with a problem for which there failed to materialize an actionable solution—by quietly positioning civilian spacecraft onto orbital trajectories that could threaten US military position, navigation, and timing or communications satellites. They were then able to reinforce their own positions by quickly launching low-cost and disposable bodyguard satellites to protect their own assets from being threatened in retaliation. All this occurred in the game under the guise of peaceful space exploitation that is as far from a declaration of war as geosynchronous orbit is from Earth’s surface (some thirty-five thousand kilometers).

Herein lies the crux of the issue: what is determined to be a hostile act by an adversarial state may not be recognized until the chessboard is fully arranged and the outcome inevitable—a fait accompli that is set into motion weeks before the first indications are ever made visible.

Leveraging Artificial Intelligence in the Gray Zone

In this gray zone of orbital warfare, where actions can go unnoticed until it’s too late, artificial intelligence offers a critical advantage. By processing massive amounts of data and detecting patterns invisible to human analysts, AI can identify potential threats and provide early warnings to decision-makers.

The US Space Force is currently experimenting with a new AI-based software dubbed R2C2 (Rapid and Resilient Command and Control), which aims to automate the detection of threats, data collection and organization, and daily operations for satellites. This automation can handle some of the workload traditionally delegated to human operators as the ratio of satellites to operators continues to grow rapidly.

“We get enough data—but we [still] get so much data that our analysts are overwhelmed anyway,” Chief of Space Operations General B. Chance Saltzman said. “The ability for a machine to collect all the data, process the data, and tell the analyst what’s most . . . high priority, and structure that data in a way that they can make the decision they need—think that’s ripe for software engineering and artificial intelligence.”

Placing AI onboard in-orbit satellites extends its impact to operations on the ground as well. By processing satellite imagery in real time, AI can quickly distinguish between routine patterns of life and signs of military activity, such as formations or deployments. Tasks that once took the CORONA program days to analyze can now be accomplished in seconds, providing decision-makers with actionable intelligence at unprecedented speeds.

But the United States is not alone in leveraging AI as a tactical force multiplier in the orbital domain. The China National Space Administration is developing its own AI-driven satellite imagery analysis alongside capabilities to track space debris. This highlights the dual-use nature of space-based systems: AI designed to monitor the orbital telemetry of debris can just as easily be used to track other objects in space, whether they are friendly or adversarial.

The most recent edition of the Pentagon’s annual report on the “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China” further highlighted China’s use of AI systems integrated with surveillance satellite data to track forces on the ground and to enhance high-precision missile strike capabilities.

As artificial intelligence continues to redefine orbital warfare, it also raises questions about how the United States and its allies can maintain an edge in this rapidly evolving domain. The integration of AI into space operations represents an opportunity, but taking advantage of it demands constant innovation and vigilance. With rivals like China making parallel advances, the race for AI superiority in space is as critical as the competition for orbital dominance itself.

Toward Orbital Supremacy

The history of space-based warfare mirrors the future in many ways. Decades ago, the United States and the Soviet Union consistently adapted their Earth-based military technology to function in the space domain. Today, the United States and China are developing new technologies specifically for orbital warfare to have effects back on Earth.

They aren’t developing these alone, however. Alongside them stands a growing contingent of private space companies advancing dual-use technologies. On the one hand they offer new and innovative technologies catering to civilian customers; on the other, a militia-like reserve of assets ready to be pressed into service to support their home nation or allied government.

In 2025, artificial intelligence is no longer a distant concept in warfare; it is here now, and it is evolving as an essential tool in shaping conflict as we know it. As great powers continue to integrate AI into their orbital strategies, the stakes grow higher, and the lines between technological advantage and vulnerability blur. The ability to process vast data streams, identify hidden threats, and act with speed and precision is beyond human capabilities and underscores the importance of protecting AI systems from neutralization or destruction. They are critical in this era of orbital warfare and the United States and China are locked in a second great space race; this time, not to the Moon, but to quietly command the orbits that shape global power.

Orbital warfare operates under conditions unlike any on Earth The challenges of maneuvering satellites and the risks of escalation that may ensue create a new kind of conflict—one defined by calculated positioning, ambiguous intent, and preemptive moves that often go unnoticed until it’s too late. In this gray zone, success isn’t about force ratios or explosive ordnance; it is instead about foresight, precision, and the ability to dominate without confrontation.

Captain Alan T. Dugger is an assistant professor of military science at the University of California, Davis. He holds the additional skill identifier of 3Y (Army space enabler) and has a master of science degree in space studies with a concentration in astronomy. His article “Space Cadence: Orchestrating Fire Support in the Space Domain” was published in the Field Artillery Journal in 2024.

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

Image credit: NASA

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mwi.westpoint.edu · by Alan T. Dugger · February 14, 2025

17. Putin’s Worst Nightmare? NATO Is Stronger Than Ever

Putin’s Worst Nightmare? NATO Is Stronger Than Ever

19fortyfive.com · by James Jay Carafano · February 14, 2025

To begin with, NATO is in better shape today than the alliance was for most of the Cold War. Europeans need to stop fretting about the ability of the transatlantic community to defend itself and start getting serious about how to retain a political-military advantage over Putin’s Russia as we progress into the 21st century.

God is on the Side of the Biggest Battalions

The value of military power is always relative to that of the enemy. Today, NATO is in better shape than during the Cold War when the alliance spent way more on defense and fielded massed armies that would have cowed Napoleon. NATO is better off because the coalition faces a Russia that is worse off.

In contrast to the Cold War, when NATO’s frontline was in the middle of Germany in the heart of Western Europe, today’s alliance has way more strategic depth, and NATO deep strike assets are much closer to ranging far deeper into Russian territory. Rather than being able to start a war on the midfield line, like the Soviets, Putin would have to invade Europe from his own endzone.

Putin faces a much broader front than during the Cold War. With the addition of Sweden and Finland, Russia has another thousand miles of flank that the Motherland cannot ignore.

During the Cold War, Russia was a threat in the Baltic Sea and pretty much owned the Black Sea. Today, the Baltic Sea is more a NATO lake and the Russian military has been chased out of much of the Black Sea.

Any Russian attack on NATO would also have to factor in Ukraine. Whether Ukraine is in NATO or not is irrelevant. No Russian army could strike NATO and be confident it could just wave at the Ukrainians while driving by. Indeed, an attack on the Baltic States today would be more like a charge into the valley of death with capable adversaries on both flanks.

Poland, a keystone frontline state, is committed to fielding a formidable military that can defend Polish territory. The Romanians are building a more capable military to anchor the Eastern Flank.

As matters stand today, NATO, in aggregate, has a favorable correlation of forces compared to Russia.

Finally, the US has bipartisan support for strengthening and maintaining the American strategic nuclear umbrella. This immeasurably improves the alliance’s strategic posture—if NATO maintains a strong conventional deterrence. A clear lesson of Russia’s war against Ukraine is that if you can’t win a conventional war, you don’t start a nuclear one. The more Putin finds he can’t beat NATO’s conventional forces, the more likely it is that Russian forces will stay in Russia.

NATO 2.0

NATO, albeit not intentionally (but as a response to the invasion of Ukraine), has moved from a tripwire strategy intended to spook Putin into not testing Article V to a warfighting strategy that makes it not only unlikely that Russia could win a quick war but a serious doubt Moscow could win any war against the alliance.

The alliance’s task now is to sustain that advantage over time, restoring and sustaining conventional deterrence at an acceptable cost. We can be confident that is going to happen. For starters, US President Donald Trump will not let the Europeans slack off. He is not going to abandon Europe as many fear, nor will he go back to providing free security as many would like. He will choose a third way: to beat the Europeans into submission until they do the right thing.

There is a second reason that Europe will do the right thing, and that is because the right thing is totally doable to keep the West ahead of the rest.

Russia’s war against Ukraine offers a lot of lessons of what is needed in NATO 2.0.

For starters, NATO needs a lot more deep attack assets. The alliance will never have the manpower to fight a war of attrition. Instead, most of an invading army needs to be killed before it crosses the NATO frontier. In partnership with the US, Europe can field a very formidable deep attack arm.

Next, another lesson of the war in Ukraine is that European nations need to be able to defend their population centers and infrastructure from air and missile attacks. Ironically, most of the haranguing of the US goading allies to spend more will be to spend more to defend their own peoples and homelands from the kind of attacks from the air inflicted on the Ukrainians and Israelis. These assets are costly, but the US-NATO should be able to field its own version of an Iron Dome in partnership.

Logistics are the lifeblood of war. Europe needs north-south infrastructure that supports the new NATO front. Europe also needs this infrastructure to drive economic growth in Europe. So there are many dual-use investment in rail, pipelines, ports, highways, and airfields that ought to be no brainers for Europeans.

Europe needs to become an arsenal of democracy. Another lesson of the war is no one was prepared to sustain the munition expenditures for a serious conflict. Having an arsenal that can produce bombs and bullets at scale is part of an effective deterrent structure.

U.S Army troopers assigned to 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division fire the M1A2 SEPV3 Main Battle Tanks as part of gunnery qualification, Sept. 22, 2022, on Mielno Tank Range, Drawsko Pomorskie Training Area, Poland. Training like this ensures the units readiness in order to provide combat-credible forces in support of NATO allies and regional security partners. (U.S. Army Photo by Staff Sgt. Charles Porter)

Every nation in NATO, including the US, needs real growth to sustain defense expenditures. That means fewer regulations, more pro-growth policies, and serious energy policies that deliver reliable, affordable, abundant energy. These policies will deliver both more guns and more butter. That should not be a hard sell.

Finally, Russia won’t stop being bad because it can’t comfortably invade Lithuania. The Russians will happily throw spaghetti at the wall with all kinds of hybrid threats and disinformation operations to undermine the solidarity and stability of NATO. The Chinese will be happy to help them. The answer for NATO is simple—deal with it.

NATO’s Next Fifty Years

So many are fixated on how the Ukraine war ends will define the future of NATO. That is unlikely. If there is a deal it will likely be ambivalent not securing Ukraine’s future nor is it likely to hand Putin at the negotiating table anything he couldn’t win on the battlefield. The future of NATO will be largely determined by what NATO does next. If it completes the to-do list, then both NATO and Ukraine will have a more peaceful and prosperous future.

About the Author: James Jay Carafano

Dr. James Jay Carafano is a leading expert in national security and foreign policy affairs. Carafano previously served as the Vice President of Heritage Foundation’s Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy and served in the US Army for 25 years. He is an accomplished historian and teacher as well as a prolific writer and researcher. Follow him on X: @JJCarafano.

19fortyfive.com · by James Jay Carafano · February 14, 2025

18. America Opens the Door to Its Adversaries

A very provocative conclusion. Is Dr. Shake correct?

Excerpt:

This administration is still in its early days. The courts or Congress could reassert their constitutional prerogatives and slow or stop some of these actions. But the upheaval that has already occurred in the departments responsible for national security, together with the deficiencies of judgment displayed by some of the president’s Cabinet appointees, has already made America more vulnerable and less equipped to understand the threats it faces.

America Opens the Door to Its Adversaries

U.S. foes will find plenty of opportunities in the chaos engulfing Washington.

By Kori Schake

The Atlantic · by Kori Schake · February 15, 2025

During Tulsi Gabbard’s confirmation hearing, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, both Democrats and Republicans, repeatedly asked the soon-to-be director of national intelligence whether Edward Snowden was a traitor for releasing thousands of classified documents that revealed clandestine U.S. sources and methods. And repeatedly Gabbard declined to condemn Snowden beyond the tepid acknowledgment that he’d broken the law. Even at that, she praised him for exposing a secret program.

All nine Republicans on the Intelligence Committee, and every Republican senator except Mitch McConnell, nonetheless voted to confirm her to lead America’s 18 intelligence agencies. Among her responsibilities, she will be delivering a daily brief to the president that curates analysis of the country’s most urgent problems.

Gabbard has hardly demonstrated the judgment necessary for the task. In 2013, overwhelming evidence, including expert U.S.-intelligence analysis, showed that the Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad had used chemical weapons on his people. Gabbard was unwilling to believe it, perhaps because the conclusion did not accord with her preconceived ideas about the Syrian civil conflict. This is the stance of someone likely to either miss or reject warnings of emergent threats. And it’s not the only sign that the Trump administration is putting American security at risk.

Gabbard’s appointment is just one factor leading American allies, including but not limited to the “Five Eyes” states (the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, in addition to the U.S.), to worry about whether they can securely share intelligence with the Trump administration. The Five Eyes extend the geographical reach of U.S. intelligence coverage and provide assessments that can increase or even usefully challenge U.S. findings. This input plays a part in calibrating the confidence that U.S. agencies have in their own conclusions. Australia’s intelligence services, for example, were the first to understand the risks that Huawei components posed for Western telecommunications networks. Their findings drove investigations in the U.S. and U.K. that led allied countries to strip Huawei hardware out of their 5G networks.

Shane Harris: Elon Musk is breaking the national-security system

Without allied cooperation, Washington will soon be operating on a fraction of the insight it once had into foreign threats. And the U.S. will need that supplemental intelligence more than ever, because the Trump administration has hobbled its own premier intelligence-gathering agency by offering career-terminating buyouts to all CIA employees. Those who leave will take with them decades of experience running agents, understanding how foreign governments operate, building trust with international counterparts, and spotting meaningful anomalies.

Turning over the entire intelligence workforce will set the United States back incalculably in terms of its ability to both understand the world and act effectively against its adversaries. Consider Iran, an opaque, authoritarian foe whose powerful supreme leader is 85 years old. When Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dies, events will unfold quickly on the ground: internal power struggles in Tehran, opportunistic maneuvers in the region. The U.S. government will not want to be on a learning curve at that moment—it will need experienced hands who can penetrate, analyze, and influence developments in real time. Instead the Trump administration is choosing to put the United States at a deficit.

The same is true in the global influence stakes. U.S. adversaries, including Russia and China, are engaged in information operations that actively seek to polarize and inflame American society. The new U.S. administration appears to be ceding that ground to them. The State Department office that combats foreign state-sponsored disinformation had already closed. Now the Department of Homeland Security has put staff members who work on foreign influence operations on administrative leave. The FBI has closed its foreign influence task force. The National Security Agency will likely be next: Gabbard has evinced both a flawed understanding of its governing legislation and a deep suspicion that the agency endangers civil liberties. But hostile governments will be the ones endangering America’s civil liberties, and manipulating its public discourse, if the U.S. allows them to participate unrestrainedly in its domestic political space.

America’s foes are surely observing the chaos in Washington and looking for espionage opportunities. They will find them. Four weeks into Donald Trump’s new administration, lax security practices have created all manner of risk. The CIA has provided employee data on unsecured systems. Staff members from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency are downloading onto private servers information that foreign governments would pay dearly for (or use other espionage techniques to obtain). DOGE is apparently cavalier about exposing American citizens to danger—and about the government’s duty of care in protecting the identities of those who protect the country. The Bureau of Fiscal Services recommends that DOGE’s access to Treasury’s payments system be monitored as an insider threat.

Charlie Warzel and Ian Bogost: The government’s computing experts say they are terrified

This administration is still in its early days. The courts or Congress could reassert their constitutional prerogatives and slow or stop some of these actions. But the upheaval that has already occurred in the departments responsible for national security, together with the deficiencies of judgment displayed by some of the president’s Cabinet appointees, has already made America more vulnerable and less equipped to understand the threats it faces.

The Onion has headlined a satirical article “FBI Uncovers Al-Qaeda Plot to Just Sit Back and Enjoy Collapse of United States.” Americans will be lucky if that’s all their adversaries do.

The Atlantic · by Kori Schake · February 15, 2025

19. Read: JD Vance’s full speech on the fall of Europe

A most provocative headline.

Will this be the most consequential speech ever given by a Vice President? Does it mark an inflection point for US leadership as some are speculating?

It is fascinating to see how this is being interpreted across the political spectrum.

You have to read the entire transcript to be able to assess the political reporting. (In addition to the Vice president's follow-on interview with the Wall Street Journal here: https://www.wsj.com/politics/transcript-of-wsj-interview-with-jd-vance-f76a6ff4)

But tell me, who can argue with this conclusion if you believe in democracy? Of course it is the wisdom of ALL citizens and not just those who are on one side of the political divide. Do you believe that in the US with such a narrow 50-50 division that half of our citizens have wisdom and half do not?

Conclusion:

To believe in democracy is to understand that each of our citizens has wisdom and has a voice. And if we refuse to listen to that voice, even our most successful fights will secure very little. As Pope John Paul II, in my view, one of the most extraordinary champions of democracy on this continent or any other, once said, ‘do not be afraid’. We shouldn’t be afraid of our people even when they express views that disagree with their leadership. Thank you all. Good luck to all of you. God bless you.

Read: JD Vance’s full speech on the fall of Europe

The Spectator · by Coffee House · February 14, 2025

Here’s a full transcript of the speech that JD Vance gave at the Munich Security Conference this afternoon.

One of the things that I wanted to talk about today is, of course, our shared values. And, you know, it’s great to be back in Germany. As you heard earlier, I was here last year as United States senator. I saw Foreign Secretary David Lammy, and joked that both of us last year had different jobs than we have now. But now it’s time for all of our countries, for all of us who have been fortunate enough to be given political power by our respective peoples, to use it wisely to improve their lives.

And I want to say that I was fortunate in my time here to spend some time outside the walls of this conference over the last 24 hours, and I’ve been so impressed by the hospitality of the people even, of course, as they’re reeling from yesterday’s horrendous attack. The first time I was ever in Munich was with my wife, actually, who’s here with me today, on a personal trip. And I’ve always loved the city of Munich, and I’ve always loved its people.

I just want to say that we’re very moved, and our thoughts and prayers are with Munich and everybody affected by the evil inflicted on this beautiful community. We’re thinking about you, we’re praying for you, and we will certainly be rooting for you in the days and weeks to come.

We gather at this conference, of course, to discuss security. And normally we mean threats to our external security. I see many, many great military leaders gathered here today. But while the Trump administration is very concerned with European security and believes that we can come to a reasonable settlement between Russia and Ukraine – and we also believe that it’s important in the coming years for Europe to step up in a big way to provide for its own defence – the threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor. What I worry about is the threat from within. The retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values: values shared with the United States of America.

I was struck that a former European commissioner went on television recently and sounded delighted that the Romanian government had just annulled an entire election. He warned that if things don’t go to plan, the very same thing could happen in Germany too.

Now, these cavalier statements are shocking to American ears. For years we’ve been told that everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values. Everything from our Ukraine policy to digital censorship is billed as a defence of democracy. But when we see European courts cancelling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we’re holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard. And I say ourselves, because I fundamentally believe that we are on the same team.

We must do more than talk about democratic values. We must live them. Now, within living memory of many of you in this room, the cold war positioned defenders of democracy against much more tyrannical forces on this continent. And consider the side in that fight that censored dissidents, that closed churches, that cancelled elections. Were they the good guys? Certainly not.

And thank God they lost the cold war. They lost because they neither valued nor respected all of the extraordinary blessings of liberty, the freedom to surprise, to make mistakes, invent, to build. As it turns out, you can’t mandate innovation or creativity, just as you can’t force people what to think, what to feel, or what to believe. And we believe those things are certainly connected. And unfortunately, when I look at Europe today, it’s sometimes not so clear what happened to some of the cold war’s winners.

If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you

I look to Brussels, where EU Commission commissars warned citizens that they intend to shut down social media during times of civil unrest: the moment they spot what they’ve judged to be ‘hateful content’. Or to this very country where police have carried out raids against citizens suspected of posting anti-feminist comments online as part of ‘combating misogyny’ on the internet.

I look to Sweden, where two weeks ago, the government convicted a Christian activist for participating in Quran burnings that resulted in his friend’s murder. And as the judge in his case chillingly noted, Sweden’s laws to supposedly protect free expression do not, in fact, grant – and I’m quoting – a ‘free pass’ to do or say anything without risking offending the group that holds that belief.

And perhaps most concerningly, I look to our very dear friends, the United Kingdom, where the backslide away from conscience rights has placed the basic liberties of religious Britons in particular in the crosshairs. A little over two years ago, the British government charged Adam Smith Conner, a 51-year-old physiotherapist and an Army veteran, with the heinous crime of standing 50 metres from an abortion clinic and silently praying for three minutes, not obstructing anyone, not interacting with anyone, just silently praying on his own. After British law enforcement spotted him and demanded to know what he was praying for, Adam replied simply, it was on behalf of his unborn son.

He and his former girlfriend had aborted years before. Now the officers were not moved. Adam was found guilty of breaking the government’s new Buffer Zones Law, which criminalises silent prayer and other actions that could influence a person’s decision within 200 metres of an abortion facility. He was sentenced to pay thousands of pounds in legal costs to the prosecution.

Now, I wish I could say that this was a fluke, a one-off, crazy example of a badly written law being enacted against a single person. But no. This last October, just a few months ago, the Scottish government began distributing letters to citizens whose houses lay within so-called safe access zones, warning them that even private prayer within their own homes may amount to breaking the law. Naturally, the government urged readers to report any fellow citizens suspected guilty of thought crime in Britain and across Europe.

Free speech, I fear, is in retreat and in the interests of comedy, my friends, but also in the interest of truth, I will admit that sometimes the loudest voices for censorship have come not from within Europe, but from within my own country, where the prior administration threatened and bullied social media companies to censor so-called misinformation. Misinformation, like, for example, the idea that coronavirus had likely leaked from a laboratory in China. Our own government encouraged private companies to silence people who dared to utter what turned out to be an obvious truth.

So I come here today not just with an observation, but with an offer. And just as the Biden administration seemed desperate to silence people for speaking their minds, so the Trump administration will do precisely the opposite, and I hope that we can work together on that.

In Washington, there is a new sheriff in town. And under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer them in the public square. Now, we’re at the point, of course, that the situation has gotten so bad that this December, Romania straight up cancelled the results of a presidential election based on the flimsy suspicions of an intelligence agency and enormous pressure from its continental neighbours. Now, as I understand it, the argument was that Russian disinformation had infected the Romanian elections. But I’d ask my European friends to have some perspective. You can believe it’s wrong for Russia to buy social media advertisements to influence your elections. We certainly do. You can condemn it on the world stage, even. But if your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with.

Now, the good news is that I happen to think your democracies are substantially less brittle than many people apparently fear.

To believe in democracy is to understand that each of our citizens has wisdom and has a voice

And I really do believe that allowing our citizens to speak their mind will make them stronger still. Which, of course, brings us back to Munich, where the organisers of this very conference have banned lawmakers representing populist parties on both the left and the right from participating in these conversations. Now, again, we don’t have to agree with everything or anything that people say. But when political leaders represent an important constituency, it is incumbent upon us to at least participate in dialogue with them.

Now, to many of us on the other side of the Atlantic, it looks more and more like old entrenched interests hiding behind ugly Soviet era words like misinformation and disinformation, who simply don’t like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion or, God forbid, vote a different way, or even worse, win an election.

Now, this is a security conference, and I’m sure you all came here prepared to talk about how exactly you intend to increase defence spending over the next few years in line with some new target. And that’s great, because as President Trump has made abundantly clear, he believes that our European friends must play a bigger role in the future of this continent. We don’t think you hear this term ‘burden sharing’, but we think it’s an important part of being in a shared alliance together that the Europeans step up while America focuses on areas of the world that are in great danger.

But let me also ask you, how will you even begin to think through the kinds of budgeting questions if we don’t know what it is that we are defending in the first place? I’ve heard a lot already in my conversations, and I’ve had many, many great conversations with many people gathered here in this room. I’ve heard a lot about what you need to defend yourselves from, and of course that’s important. But what has seemed a little bit less clear to me, and certainly I think to many of the citizens of Europe, is what exactly it is that you’re defending yourselves for. What is the positive vision that animates this shared security compact that we all believe is so important?

I believe deeply that there is no security if you are afraid of the voices, the opinions and the conscience that guide your very own people. Europe faces many challenges. But the crisis this continent faces right now, the crisis I believe we all face together, is one of our own making. If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you. Nor for that matter, is there anything that you can do for the American people who elected me and elected President Trump. You need democratic mandates to accomplish anything of value in the coming years.

Have we learned nothing that thin mandates produce unstable results? But there is so much of value that can be accomplished with the kind of democratic mandate that I think will come from being more responsive to the voices of your citizens. If you’re going to enjoy competitive economies, if you’re going to enjoy affordable energy and secure supply chains, then you need mandates to govern because you have to make difficult choices to enjoy all of these things.

And of course, we know that very well. In America, you cannot win a democratic mandate by censoring your opponents or putting them in jail. Whether that’s the leader of the opposition, a humble Christian praying in her own home, or a journalist trying to report the news. Nor can you win one by disregarding your basic electorate on questions like, who gets to be a part of our shared society.

And of all the pressing challenges that the nations represented here face, I believe there is nothing more urgent than mass migration. Today, almost one in five people living in this country moved here from abroad. That is, of course, an all time high. It’s a similar number, by the way, in the United States, also an all time high. The number of immigrants who entered the EU from non-EU countries doubled between 2021 and 2022 alone. And of course, it’s gotten much higher since.

And we know the situation. It didn’t materialise in a vacuum. It’s the result of a series of conscious decisions made by politicians all over the continent, and others across the world, over the span of a decade. We saw the horrors wrought by these decisions yesterday in this very city. And of course, I can’t bring it up again without thinking about the terrible victims who had a beautiful winter day in Munich ruined. Our thoughts and prayers are with them and will remain with them. But why did this happen in the first place?

It’s a terrible story, but it’s one we’ve heard way too many times in Europe, and unfortunately too many times in the United States as well. An asylum seeker, often a young man in his mid-20s, already known to police, rammed a car into a crowd and shatters a community. Unity. How many times must we suffer these appalling setbacks before we change course and take our shared civilisation in a new direction? No voter on this continent went to the ballot box to open the floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants. But you know what they did vote for? In England, they voted for Brexit. And agree or disagree, they voted for it. And more and more all over Europe, they are voting for political leaders who promise to put an end to out-of-control migration. Now, I happen to agree with a lot of these concerns, but you don’t have to agree with me.

I just think that people care about their homes. They care about their dreams. They care about their safety and their capacity to provide for themselves and their children.

And they’re smart. I think this is one of the most important things I’ve learned in my brief time in politics. Contrary to what you might hear, a couple of mountains over in Davos, the citizens of all of our nations don’t generally think of themselves as educated animals or as interchangeable cogs of a global economy. And it’s hardly surprising that they don’t want to be shuffled about or relentlessly ignored by their leaders. And it is the business of democracy to adjudicate these big questions at the ballot box.

Embrace what your people tell you, even when it’s surprising, even when you don’t agree

I believe that dismissing people, dismissing their concerns or worse yet, shutting down media, shutting down elections or shutting people out of the political process protects nothing. In fact, it is the most surefire way to destroy democracy. Speaking up and expressing opinions isn’t election interference. Even when people express views outside your own country, and even when those people are very influential – and trust me, I say this with all humour – if American democracy can survive ten years of Greta Thunberg’s scolding you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk.

But what no democracy, American, German or European will survive, is telling millions of voters that their thoughts and concerns, their aspirations, their pleas for relief, are invalid or unworthy of even being considered.

Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters. There is no room for firewalls. You either uphold the principle or you don’t. Europeans, the people have a voice. European leaders have a choice. And my strong belief is that we do not need to be afraid of the future.

Embrace what your people tell you, even when it’s surprising, even when you don’t agree. And if you do so, you can face the future with certainty and with confidence, knowing that the nation stands behind each of you. And that, to me, is the great magic of democracy. It’s not in these stone buildings or beautiful hotels. It’s not even in the great institutions that we built together as a shared society.

To believe in democracy is to understand that each of our citizens has wisdom and has a voice. And if we refuse to listen to that voice, even our most successful fights will secure very little. As Pope John Paul II, in my view, one of the most extraordinary champions of democracy on this continent or any other, once said, ‘do not be afraid’. We shouldn’t be afraid of our people even when they express views that disagree with their leadership. Thank you all. Good luck to all of you. God bless you.

The Spectator · by Coffee House · February 14, 2025

20. Transcript of WSJ Interview with JD Vance

Transcript of WSJ Interview with JD Vance

https://www.wsj.com/politics/transcript-of-wsj-interview-with-jd-vance-f76a6ff4

Feb. 14, 2025 1:45 pm ET

Q: So we read your speech. It’s powerful stuff. It’s going to be very interesting because the German chancellor is sitting in front of you and the next German chancellor will be from what I was told. And it’s interesting to me because the present German chancellor, Scholz, told me he was hugely influenced by your book—

Vance: Mhmm, sure.

Q: —actually shaped his thinking on political campaigning. He had a slogan, respect. I think they will be struck by the, sort of, powerful tone of your message.

Vance: Sure.

Q: Tell us a bit, like, how did that come about? Why are you saying what you’re saying? You’re essentially telling them to lift the “firewall,” specifically to Germany. I mean, you’re talking about Britain and other countries as well. And I think they’ll be astonished to hear that.

Vance: Yeah, well, it’s, first of all, I personally like Chancellor Scholz. I’ve always gotten along with him personally, though I wasn’t that excited that he was campaigning effectively for the opposition in the last election in 2024. Um, but, you know, it’s all water under the bridge, and we won, and obviously he has own election here in a couple of months.

But I think that it’s really not a speech primarily directed at Germany. I think it’s a speech primarily directed at all of Europe, because it’s reflecting on Europe. And I think most people probably expected me to come back and say something primarily about Russia, Ukraine. And that’s a subtext, of course, of some of the remarks, but it’s really about censorship and about migration, and about, really, this fear that I think President Trump and I have, that European leaders are kind of terrified of their own people.

And if you go back to 2014, 2015, you go back to the Brexit vote, you go back to any number of European elections in small countries and in big countries, the Europeans keep on asking for their leaders to be serious about border control, and they keep on getting rewarded with leaders who seem to not care at all about border control. And I think that it’s interesting that we’re so focused on threats to democracy, and yet the democratic will of Europe is crying out for a sensible immigration policy, and the voters just keep on getting, I think, nonsensical immigration policy.

And so I really just wanted to make that point to our European allies, that defense of democracy is not primarily defense of capital-D Democratic institutions. It’s not the sacred obligation of NATO. All these things, of course, matter, but defense of democracy is fundamentally defense of the idea that you respond to the will of voters. And I think, unfortunately, the will of voters has been ignored by a lot of our European friends.

Q: And you think, you know, are you effectively endorsing a coalition with the AfD, just to stick to the Germans? When you mentioned the “firewall,” in the German mind, oh, it will be like, I know the firewall.

Vance: You’re saying, are we endorsing a coalition with the AfD?

Q: Yeah, or kind of open the way for a democratic process. Because as things stand, the firewall means in Germany and Europe that you just don’t do business with these people, no matter how many–

Vance: Yeah, no, I think I understand what you mean. President Trump’s attitude is we want to work with whoever ultimately wins these elections, right? If Chancellor Scholz wins, if it’s the CDU leader Merz, or if it’s the AfD leadership, and those seem to be the three big tickets in town, we want to work with any of them.

So we’re not going to endorse in their elections, we certainly don’t want to meddle in their elections. But do we think that European leaders can sort of say, “Here is a group of opinions that are completely anathema to democratic debate?” No, you can’t do that, because the people who decide whether a particular opinion should be part of the democratic debate is the people.

And if the people keep on saying we’re pissed off about something, we’re frustrated about something, you can’t say we’re going to ban, censor, silence this group of people. You have to listen to them, even if they’re a minority.

I mean, you know, sometimes in, of course, in European elections, much different than ours, because they’re parliamentary, you have migration skeptic parties who win a plurality of the votes, but then have no presence in the government. It’s crazy that people are crying out, I think, for a particular response to what’s going on in Europe over the past 10 years, and I just think that European leaders have to be more responsive to that.

That is defense of democracy. It’s listening to the people. It’s not hanging your hat on these institutions that are very valuable, in some cases, but are often disconnected from the will of the people.

Q: Would you say migration is the top subject for leaders in our day–

Vance: –you know–

Q: –in the West?

Vance: I certainly think over the last 10 years, migration has been the sort of subtext of much of the debate that’s happened in the West and the United States. If you think of the Brexit vote, or you think of Trump’s election in 2016, or certainly in 2024, if you think of, you know, and President Macron and I talked a little bit about this in private.

You know, even in French elections, where the French far right hasn’t ultimately prevailed, of course, it’s done much better than it has historically. Why has it done much better? I think because people are frustrated about migration, about the lack of integration and assimilation.

And you could say that I believe you’re from Bulgaria, is that right?

Q: From Macedonia

Vance: Macedonia, OK.

Q: Almost the same.

Vance: You can say that. I can’t.

But, but you know, even in much smaller European countries, I think you see the subtext of people frustrated about migration. And again, it’s just not something that European elites seem to want to take seriously, and that’s, that’s a big part of what I wanted to talk about in the speech.

But then, if you think about, OK, there’s this migration issue, and of course there are other issues: there’s Russia-Ukraine, I think that, frankly, if you look at the will of Europeans, of European populaces, I wouldn’t say that they’re necessarily totally in line with the European leadership. If you look at energy policy, I certainly don’t think that the European populace has been in line with European leaders.

There is just this weird conceit that I see among these usually extrademocratic institutions of Europe, like NATO and so forth, this idea that the will of the people is somehow a threat to democracy. The will of the people is the expression of democracy. It’s not a threat to democracy. And that’s something that President Trump and I, of course, campaigned very explicitly on, is this idea that if the people are crying out for a particular type of reform, that is, definitionally, not a threat to democracy.

And I think it’s, it’s, it’s something that’s true in the American media and the European media and American elite institutions and European elite institutions. I mean, one thing I do hope is that, you know, our European friends take some of these points as, as much a criticism of American elites as European elites. This is a trans-Atlantic, a pan-Western problem, and I think that all of us just have to do a better job at listening to our people.

And, of course, when I say listening, the presumption is that the people are allowed to speak. And while you’ve seen European leadership, and again, American elite institutions very skeptical of the will of the people on things like energy policy and migration, you’ve simultaneously seen this ramp up in calls for censorship.

And it’s funny, you know, I’ve been here the last couple of days, and I’ve had a number of very fruitful private and public conversations, and some of—I’ve been struck by some of our European friends really do think that the Russians buying $200,000 worth of Facebook advertisements is going to take down their entire democratic society. If your democratic society can be taken down by $200,000 of social media ads, then you should think seriously about how strong your grip on—or how strong your understanding of the will of the people actually is.

Q: You mentioned you don’t want—the goal of this is not to meddle in the elections, which is a totally fair thing to say. But when you’ve got a line in the speech, it’s something like, “If American democracy can survive Greta Thunberg,” and I don’t have it directly, but then the Germans can survive Elon Musk.

And obviously, you know, Elon—a U.S. official—has called, has effectively endorsed AfD. So when you’re giving that line, when you’re giving the speech, it would be fair for some of the people in the audience to assume you’re effectively saying, or at least leaving space open, for, for American officials to to support that party, or to meddle in the election, I guess in general.

Q: I think you’ll see the face of Friedrich Merz go white.

Vance: Well, look, obviously, yes, you’re right, Elon has endorsed AfD, or is, at least, some of his social-media posts, has said some positive things about AFD. But of course, the president has been very clear that, you know, Elon Musk is doing a very important job, which is making the United States government more efficient.

But no one should assume that Elon Musk, and he’s a dear friend, that he speaks for the president of the United States on all matters of foreign policy. And so I really don’t think that the presumption should be that because Elon Musk says something that Donald Trump endorses it. That’s just not how any of this works.

Again, we believe in free speech, and even people who work in our government, or, you know, we, we encourage them to speak their minds. That doesn’t mean they’re speaking for the president of the United States. They’re speaking for themselves.

Q: It sounds like, and, and please correct me if I’m wrong about this, but obviously you were upset about when, you know, in general, when Scholz spoke out effectively in favor of the Harris campaign. When, when Labor seemed to be favoring the Harris campaign.

Vance: Yeah.

Q: Now in this speech, what you’re—it sounds like what you’re saying is, look, U.S. officials should be able to speak their minds about what they support, who they support, as anyone should be able to. And that, that could potentially open the floodgates to officials from multiple countries showing favoritism to certain campaigns.

I mean, is that, is that not a risk of this sort of message?

Vance: Well, I think it’s different for Elon Musk to speak about a foreign election than it is for Donald Trump to speak about a foreign election, right?

I mean, you know, Chancellor Scholz is the leader of Germany. He’s not just a political—

Q: That’s a fair point, yeah.

Vance: —and so I do think there’s a difference between the head of the government speaking out on these issues and a member of the government speaking out on these issues. I mean, if a member of the German Green Party, of course, was part of the ruling coalition in Germany said something about American politics, I wouldn’t necessarily impute that to the entire government. But when Chancellor Scholz says something positive about Kamala Harris’s campaign, he speaks for himself and for the entire German government.

So I think that what you’re going to see from the United States is certainly—and this is just the way—this is partially President Trump’s management style, It’s partially President Trump’s governing style. He does not feel like he needs to keep a tight leash on every single American official. He encourages people to speak their minds. But that also comes with an understanding that President Trump speaks for himself, and of course, I’m the vice president of the United States, I also speak for the president. We talk about what I’m going to say, and we make sure that our messages are aligned. That’s not going to be true for every single person who walks through the door of the U.S. government.

Q: Move to Ukraine. I think this trip to Munich will be all about Ukraine. You’re meeting—

Vance: Lot of news the last 24 hours.

Q: If you see the bags under our eyes, it’s because we’ve got kept up late.

Vance: I can imagine so, man, geez.

Q: Your presidency has produced more substance in two weeks than—

Vance: Well, President Trump is a man of action.

Q: What will you tell Zelensky? What is the deal shaping up? What are the contours of the kind of negotiation, let’s say?

Vance: Yeah, so, so I don’t want to speak too much to contours, because I do want to preserve the president’s negotiating leverage as we go in and try to solve the problem. I mean, if you look at the president’s ambition here, there are two very clear goals that come from his public statements, from his private statements, and just his overall foreign policy.

Number one, he wants the killing to stop, and people don’t appreciate this about the president, but he, he, he fundamentally, I think, is, is instinctively offended by wasteful loss of life. He looks at the killing, and frankly, I wish that more leaders did this, but he says to himself, “You have beautiful countries, incredible people, great talent and potential and opportunity. When you have hundreds of thousands of people who have lost their lives, it’s just an unspeakable human tragedy.”

And I think he has internalized that tragedy more than most leaders, and that’s unfortunate, frankly, because most leaders should be able to internalize hundreds of thousands of people who have lost their lives. So he wants the killing to stop.

And number two, he wants to preserve Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Now, you know, in Ukrainian sovereignty, he doesn’t want Ukraine to become a vassal state of either Russia or of NATO. He wants Ukraine to be a sovereign state. Now where the lines are ultimately drawn is going to be part of the negotiation, where the fighting—when the fighting ultimately stops is going to be part of the negotiation. What kind of economic relationships exist between Ukraine and Russia, Russia and Ukraine, each of those countries and the broader West. These are all, I think, going to be things that are on the table.

But if you look at President Trump’s approach to this historically, he very much goes into these things, not saying “Here’s an extremely narrow way that I think about this, and I want the deal to fall within these narrow parameters.” He will go into it saying “The Overton Window is wide open. I want the killing to stop. I want Ukraine to be a sovereign country, and everything else is going to be on the table.”

Q: I think President Zelensky will probably ask you tomorrow, or wherever you’re seeing him, I don’t know, but I—

Vance: I think it’s tomorrow, right? Yeah.

Q: He will ask how can you guarantee that in a year, in two years time, Putin will not attack again? What do we do to deter?

Vance: Sure.

Q: What’s the answer to that question?

Vance: Well, look, we understand Ukraine is going to have to have some security guarantees. That’s part of Ukraine being a long-term sovereign state. But what those security guarantees ultimately look like, I think it’s way too early to make predictions or to make promises. There are any number of formulations of configurations, but we do care about Ukraine having sovereign independence. They fought very bravely, and that’s going to be something that figures very prominently in the negotiations.

Q: And is there a sense as to what is the stick for Putin? I mean, obviously any kind of deal would have to entail an implicit threat that you have to stick to this, or else, or you have to even sign on the dotted line. Are there any—

Vance: Well—

Q: —are there any instruments of pressure that you’re thinking of?

Vance: I think certainly, look, there, there are instruments of pressure, absolutely. And again, if you look at President Trump’s approach to this, he—the range of options is extremely broad. And there are economic tools of leverage, there are, of course, military tools of leverage. There’s a whole host of things that we could do. But fundamentally, I think, the president wants to have a productive negotiation, both with Putin and with Zelensky.

I think his view, and certainly my view, is that it’s not in Russia’s long-term interest to be effectively the stepchild of the step—I shouldn’t say the stepchild. I should say it’s not in Putin’s interest to be the little brother in a coalition with China. There are economic relationships and economic ties, of course, that exist between the Russians and the Chinese. There are, of course, a lot of opportunities in the future for relationships between Russia and the West. So I think there are carrots and sticks, and the president is going to use all those things to try to bring this thing to a rapid close.

Q: Can I just ask, and this could be off the record, do you actually have the figure for the losses on both sides? How many people died? How many people—

Vacce: Look, yeah. I mean, it doesn’t have to be off the record. We’ve seen a number of estimates, they, you know, it’s very hard to get an accurate count. Many of the counts that you see are based on publicly available information. Some that double count casualties. Some that under count casualties.

We believe that hundreds of thousands on each side have been killed, wounded, or missing. And you know, whether the total number on both sides ends up being 1.5 million or 1 million or 2 million, it’s way too much. It’s totally unnecessary. And we just, we can’t lose people like that. It’s not good for humanity to have so many people die in such an unnecessary way.

Q: There’s been some criticism of Secretary Hegseth’s comments on Ukraine yesterday. For the main part of—the criticism, mainly, is that the administration gave up a little bit of leverage already in the negotiations by stating its positions too clearly. You know, on the, on the land territory not returning to 2014, even Zelensky said that. So, like, that, that sure thing is off the table. But the notion of, you know, maybe Ukraine won’t join NATO anytime soon, or even the use of U.S. troops in some fashion, that while the administration was unlikely to support those ideas by taking those off the table already so publicly, that lessens your leverage. Is that, is that a fair critique in your mind?

Vance: I don’t think that’s the right way to look at it. I mean, first of all, Secretary Hegseth, who’s a friend of mine, he was in Europe, fundamentally, to talk to our allied friends and their militaries, about the need to ramp up military spending—

Q: Sure.

Vance: —for what is, I think, a very new security situation, one where the Europeans have to take a little bit more ownership of their own security situation, of course, as the United States focuses on some of our challenges in East Asia, and I think that was fundamentally the context in which you have to understand a lot of these, these, these discussions. As Secretary Hegseth is really telling our European friends, “You guys, you’re very impressive, you’re very impressive economically, you’ve got to step up a little bit militarily.”

Now in terms of taking things off the table or reducing leverage, I just don’t think that’s the right way to think about President Trump’s role in any—or President Trump’s position in any negotiation because President Trump could, could say, “Look, we don’t want this thing, we might not like this thing, but we’re willing to put it back on the table if the Russians aren’t being good negotiating partners, or there are things that are very important to Ukrainians that we might want to take off the table.” He might put them back on the table if he doesn’t think the Ukrainians aren’t being good negotiating partners.

The president is very, very good, again, at opening up the field of options in order to accomplish a goal. I think that you’re going to see things that come out of this negotiation, and I really do believe—look, it is ridiculous for the United States to have a posture where we’re trying to push Russia into the hands of the Chinese. I think it’s ridiculous for the Russians to have a posture where they are fundamentally the junior partner to the Chinese. I think it’s ridiculous for the Ukrainians, for the war to continue, because it’s such an incredible strain on manpower and on resources.

And I think there is a deal that is going to come out of this that’s going to shock a lot of people, where things that we assumed were not on the table actually are on the table, and where the Ukrainians, the Russians, the Americans, and the Europeans are fundamentally happy with where it lands. And I think the reason it will land in that place is because the president is not going to go in this with blinders on. He’s going to say “Everything is on the table, let’s make a deal.”

Q: So just want to make sure I understand you correctly. You’re saying that even though—the possibility of a NATO, of a Ukraine-NATO accession at the end of this process, or even the presence of U.S. troops in Ukraine is not officially off the table.

Vance: I think the president has been very clear that he doesn’t like the idea of moving Ukraine into NATO.

Q: Sure.

Vance: OK. He’s been very clear.

Q: There’s no question about that.

Vance: I also think the president is very clear that whenever he walks into negotiation, everything is on the table.

Q: OK, everything remains on the table. Will you tell the Europeans to put boots on the ground to delineate the warring parties?

Vance: I think that goes into this negotiating leverage, where we don’t want to pre-commit to things, because there are so many different configurations of what this could look like. You know, we could run through 100 different hypotheticals, each of which is equally plausible. And I think the president’s view is, let’s let this negotiation play out. We’re certainly going to be in constant contact with our European friends about what shape this ultimately takes, and we’ll see where this thing lands.

Q: Super quickly, since we’ve been talking about burden sharing and the goals and to get NATO allies up to 5%. That, my—I’m not good at math, but if it works out, that means about a $1.5 trillion defense budget for the U.S. so we can meet that commitment. Is that something this administration is, is looking to put out?

Vance: Well, the administration knows that we have to spend more on defense. We have to spend more on our military. We have to rise to meet the challenges of the 21st century. We also have to spend smarter. And this is something that people often miss, is we—this is not just about spending more money. This is also about changing our procurement process, changing our industrial base, and actually preparing ourselves with the weapons of the future so that we can fight, God forbid, the war of the future if we have to.

And I think that’s going to be true for both the United States and also our European allies is we want everybody to spend more, but we also want everybody to spend smarter.

Q: But does this administration commit to 5% of GDP?

Vance: I think this administration commits spending a lot more on our military and on our industrial base, and partially, what we’re willing to spend is going to depend on what our European friends are spending,

Q: OK. Just very quickly. Is there any sense how the Gaza settlement might look like? Because people are trying to guess, how are you going to secure the territory if you’re not sending U.S. troops? Is there a private contractor element to this idea?

Vance: Yeah. I think you’re—when I say, “yeah,” I mean, “yeah, I understand your question.” And not, “yes, there’s a military contractor element to that.” Just to be clear.

Q: Headline: “Yes.”

Vance: Exactly. I wanted to make sure. I know you’re not the New York Times, but I wanted to make sure we’re clarifying here.

Again, this is what the president, I think, is quite effective at, is, you know, talking to the Israelis, talking to a lot of our allies in the, in the, in the Gulf states, and saying the current situation is not tenable, and it’s not sustainable.

Where you have terrible war in Gaza, a lot of innocent people get killed or displaced, and then 10 years later, there’s another terrorist attack, terrible war on Gaza, restart the process, restart the destruction, and then restart the rebuilding. I think what the president is trying to get everybody to do is, what if we opened up the realm of possibility here? What if we actually tried to ask ourselves, what is a sustainable pathway to peace for the Israelis, for the Palestinians, for the people who live in Gaza?

He’s not committing to boots on the ground or military contractors in Gaza. He’s trying to say, “OK, when this cycle of destruction is complete, when Hamas is hopefully destroyed, how can we provide a long-term solution so the Palestinians can live in peace?” And the president’s just been, I think, very clear that he wants to expand the choice of possibilities.

Part of that is that the Gulf Arab states have to look a little bit more broadly. Part of that is the Israelis have to look a little bit more broadly. But I think he’s asking everybody, let’s put everything on the table, because this narrow focus on rebuilding Gaza, turning it into a viable Palestinian state, and then, you know, there’s a terrorist attack, there’s a war, Gaza gets destroyed, that cycle has been terrible for everybody, and we have to stop it.

Q: But you’re a Marine. I mean, you have to, it would be fair to say that it’s going to be hard to get all the Palestinians out of Gaza to rebuild it without some sense of force, no?

Vance: Well, again, I think this is where the president—

Q: And to protect, people, sorry, to rebuild it?

Vance: Yeah, I think this is where the president, again, he’s asking us to expand the scope of possibility here. I mean, yeah, of course, a lot of Gazans are very committed to that particular parcel of land. But are they committed to that parcel of land, as the president has said, because there’s no alternative? And is there a universe where you could give the Gazans a better life, more peace, more prosperity, and real security, while also ensuring that Gaza doesn’t become a hotbed of terrorist activity, that again, restarts the cycle of destruction?

I think the president is looking at this very rationally and saying to himself, “OK, this doesn’t work. This leads to destruction, to war, to conflict, and then to rebuilding, and then the whole process restarts. Is there some opportunity to work with the Gazans, to work with our Arab friends and to work with the Israelis to stop this cycle?”

And would that mean having, as the president said, having Gaza as neither Palestinian nor Israeli territory, but having it as American territory, right? That’s all the president is doing, is encouraging us to expand the Overton window a little bit, because the same way of doing things has clearly failed.

Q: But it’s another Middle East commitment, though. Feels like a long-term commitment.

Vance: Well, in the president’s, in the president’s conception, you have Palestinians living peacefully side by side with the Israelis, and you have that strip of land as a prosperous destination for capital investment. I don’t think that is another American commitment, that’s actually an opportunity for everybody in the region, and that’s the way the president’s looking at it.

21. JD Vance’s Munich speech laid bare the collapse of the transatlantic alliance

The UK Guardian's perspective on and interpretation of the VP's speech (the subtitle says it all).

JD Vance’s Munich speech laid bare the collapse of the transatlantic alliance

The US vice-president was hypocritical and insensitive, but bracingly clear in his resetting of relationships

The Guardian · by Patrick Wintour · February 15, 2025

Since 1963, the Munich Security Conference has seen many consequential speeches, notably Vladimir Putin announcing in 2007 that Russia would never accept a subordinate role in the new world order. But Friday’s speech by JD Vance, the US vice-president, has the potential to be the most consequential – the moment the world order against which Putin railed fell apart.

Sometimes, even in this digital age, speeches can act as clarifiers. Yes, the 22 minutes were full of laughable hypocrisy, distorted portraits of European democracy and insensitivity to Europe’s trauma with fascism, but for what it said about the chasm in values between most in Europe and the Trump administration, it was hard to overlook.

The shock was in part because the conference traditionally tends to talk about the polarisation of populism, as opposed to invite a populist to speak. The organisers had expected a dissertation on Ukraine, but instead got the full populist pulpit, and therefore something more significant.

The speech signalled that the pre-existing dispute between Europe and the US was no longer to do with the sharing of the military burdens, or the nature of the future security threat posed by Russia, but something more fundamental about society.

It was not just a collection of cheap shots in a culture war, while a real, life-and-death military war was largely ignored. It was a call to arms for the populist right to be able to seize power in Europe, and a promise that the “new sheriff in town” would help them to do so.

Speaking to the populist right, and defending digital freedom, Vance said: “Under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will defend your right to offer it in the public square – agree or disagree.”

The greatest danger to Europe, Vance claimed, was not Russia, not China, but the “danger from within”. An entrenched elite had instrumentalised the judiciary, eroded freedom of speech to keep their cartel in power, annulled elections in Romania on flimsy intelligence and run away from voters’ valid concerns about mass migration, leaving them locked out of political debate.

His conclusion was that Germany should tear down its firewall, and so legitimise the populists. (He did not mention Alternative für Deutschland by name, but met the far-right party’s leader afterwards.) If it did not, he warned, Germany might not survive, since no democracy would survive “telling millions of voters that their thoughts and concerns, their hopes, their requests for help are invalid”.

Vance portrayed a continent that had lost its way. Why was the security conference talking about defence budgets when it was not clear what they were actually defending? he asked. It was clear “against what” they were defending, but not clear “for what reason”.

And then came the crunch, and the explicit severance. “If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you, nor, for that matter, is there anything that you can do for the American people who elected me and elected President Trump. You need democratic mandates to accomplish anything of value in the coming years.”

He continued: “For years, we’ve been told that everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values.” But he looked at Europe today and wondered why the cold war’s winners had abandoned the values that let them prevail against “tyrannical forces” on the continent.

The message was implicit, but clear. Nato had been founded in the cold war as an expression of US determination to defend shared western values, but if those values were no longer shared, then the moral purpose of Nato itself fell away.

In identifying Europe’s perceived faults – multiculturalism, “globalism”, migration, gay rights, liberal wokery – and in excluding Russia from criticism, the speech came close to arguing that US democracy was at best neutral on the relative values of Russia and of the European elite.

For years, many Maga activists, such as Steve Bannon, have claimed an affinity with Putin’s ideologue Alexander Dugin, a man Bannon has met and praised. They both believe European elites promote a “globalist” ideology that denies the existence of different cultures and traditions. But it was one thing for Bannon to see these connections, another for them to be echoed by the White House.

For the Maga movement, and for Vance, judging by his speech, the withdrawal from Europe as it exists now is not about burden-sharing, American isolationism, disputes about the trustworthiness of Putin, or even tariffs, but about an ideological fissure.

Europe’s leaders at the security conference, after reeling, started a fightback, but still seemed in denial. Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, reminded Vance that the vice-president had visited the former concentration camp Dachau this week and pledged that such unspeakable crimes against humanity would never be repeated. Germany had a historic duty to fight the return of parties with roots in nazism, Scholz said. A firewall was not about censoring AfD. It was about refusing to work with them in government.

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German chancellor hits back after Vance tirade at security conference – video

“The overwhelming majority of the people of my country stand up resolutely to those who glorify or justify the criminal National Socialism,” Scholz said. “The AfD is a party from the ranks of which National Socialism and its monstrous crimes, crimes against humanity, like the ones committed in Dachau, were trivialised as just a ‘speck of bird shit in German history’.” It was a dignified rebuttal.

Friedrich Merz, the CDU leader, was more blunt. Germany defended free speech but not fake news, he said, and hate speech and offensive speech remained subject to legal constraints and independent courts. He added: “We would never kick out a press agency from the office of our chancellor.”

But when the discussion turned to the implications for Ukraine, the enormity was too much. The leaders reverted to familiar complaints about the slow delivery of air systems, sclerotic European arms production and the absence of security guarantees for Ukraine. The full consequence for European security of Trump cutting off support was downplayed.

But it was Volodymr Zelenskyy who really drove home the collapse of the transatlantic alliance. He said “The US vice-president made it clear: decades of the old relationship between Europe and America are ending. From now on, things will be different, and Europe needs to adjust to that.”

Zelenskyy says time has come to create an 'armed forces of Europe' – video

Discussing his recent talk with Trump, he revealed: “Not once did Trump mention that America needs Europe at that table. That says a lot. The old days are over – when America supported Europe just because it always had.”

He continued: “Some in Europe may not fully understand what’s happening in Washington right now. Does America need Europe as a market? Yes, but as an ally, I don’t know. For the answer to be yes, Europe needs a single voice, not a dozen different ones.

“We need confidence in our own strength so that others have no choice but to respect Europe’s power. And without a European army, that is impossible. Once again – Europe needs its own armed forces.” But how many Europeans, divided by the issues Vance highlighted, are willing to take the course that Zelenskyy urges?

The Guardian · by Patrick Wintour · February 15, 2025

22. At Munich conference, Vance warns European allies of ‘threat from within’

Here is the Voice of America's reporting on the VP's speech, A very different reporting perspective than the UK Guardian.

At Munich conference, Vance warns European allies of ‘threat from within’

February 14, 2025 12:30 PM

update February 14, 2025 5:34 PM

U.S. Vice President JD Vance warned European allies attending the security conference in Munich, Germany, against “the threat from within,” arguing that European governments are exercising extreme censorship and have failed to adequately get a handle on “out-of-control migration.”

“The threat that I worry the most about vis a vis Europe is not Russia, it's not China, it's not any other external actor,” he said Friday. “What I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America.”

Vance denounced Romania, a NATO ally, for its recent cancellation of presidential election results over evidence of Russian disinformation.

“If your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with,” he said. “I’d ask my European friends to have some perspective.”

He also appeared to voice support for right-wing anti-immigration parties that have been banned from joining governments in Europe, including the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, party.

“Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters. There’s no room for firewalls,” he said, referring to Berlin’s “firewall” effort against extremism in a country still haunted by the role of the Nazi party in the past.

Vance met with AfD leader Alice Weidel on Friday, according to an official in the vice president’s office.

People wearing head cut-outs of U.S. President Donald Trump, center, U.S. Vice President JD Vance, right, and Alternative for Germany (AfD) party co-leader Alice Weidel protest at the Munich Security Conference, in Munich, Germany, Feb. 14, 2025.

Vance said of all the pressing challenges facing Europe and the U.S. “there is nothing more pressing than migration.”

He blamed the “series of conscious decisions made by politicians all over the continent and others across the world,” and he highlighted the Thursday attack in Munich where an Afghan national drove a car into a crowd, injuring at least 30 people.