Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

“You can sway 1000 men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one-man by logic.”

– Robert A. Heinlein

"Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy."

– Franz Kafka

"In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia."

– George Orwell

1. The Thoughts of Chairman Xi Jinping

2. White House official pushes to axe Canada from Five Eyes intelligence group

3. Peace in Ukraine must look like Korea, not Vichy

4. Socom Works to Deter Conflict, Win if Deterrence Fails

5. Contempt and Consequence: The Case for Court-Martialing Insubordinate Flag Officers

6. Taiwan Detains Ship and Chinese Crew After Undersea Cable Severed

7. Army vet Driscoll confirmed as service secretary

8. How Western Judges Became Chinese State Puppets

9. China could take peacekeeping role in post-war Ukraine – but at what cost?

10. Cuts will help to counter China ‘threat’, US deputy defence pick tells Senate

11. To counter China, US must maintain soft power and alliances, Congress hears

12. Ukraine Agrees to Mineral-Rights Deal With U.S.

13. Trump says Zelenskyy set to visit White House on Friday to sign minerals deal

14. Iron Dome for America gets a golden makeover

15. The Trump Staffers Who Get Paid by Private Clients

16. Exclusive: Russian Defector Leaks Files Revealing Shocking Scale of War Casualties

17. Using Special Operations Forces to Counter Mexican Cartels: An Irregular Analysis

18. Meet the Polaris MRZR Alpha, SOCOM's Downrange Dune Buggy

19. The Renegade Order: How Trump Wields American Power

20. No Substitute for Victory: How to Negotiate from a Position of Strength to End the Russo-Ukraine War

21. China's largesse was always a better deal than USAID's

22. Trump's vision of a new US-China-Russia world order

23. The Bolduc Brief: Trump’s First 30 Days - Promises, Partisan Rhetoric, and the Real Challenges Ahead

24. Map reveals where world's rare earth minerals are located

25. The Deep Strike Dodge: Firepower and Manpower in Ukraine’s War

26. What War is (A Poem)

1. The Thoughts of Chairman Xi Jinping

Xi's conclusion:

Of such foolishness there are many similar examples. The Americans were once a sober and courageous people. Now they embarrass even me. But I’m happy to let them believe that economies are the final arbiters in the struggle between nations and systems. One needs a strong economy to produce a strong military. We have always known this. But we know as well that once military production and resolve have achieved escape velocity, the economy recedes into the distance and the complexion of history is reddened by war.

The foolish Americans don’t realize we will soon pass them in military, and especially naval, power.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-thoughts-of-chairman-xi-jinping-c5d45d3f?mod=hp_opin_pos_4#cxrecs_s

By Mark Helprin

Feb. 25, 2025 5:14 pm ET

Xi Jinping delivers remarks in Changchun, China, Feb. 8. Photo: Xie Huanchi/Zuma Press

I was really delighted when, serendipitously, my adviser Gao Shanwen caused a stir in Washington by stating that although China’s official growth figure is “close to 5%,” in the past two or three years the “average might be around 2%.” I feigned distress and threatened to punish him. We call that “please don’t throw me in the rice paddy.”

As the American president’s circle of advisers concluded that China is, or shortly will be, on the ropes, I hit the chess clock. Now I’ll sit back as the president—who wants his ships to be “beautiful,” thinks nuclear weapons appropriate to counterinsurgency, and has declared that he has “the best brain”—finds confirmation in his belief that Guânshuì (“tariff”) is the most beautiful word in the dictionary.

For then he is likely to hold back on military spending, believing that—given our debt and housing crisis—if he can choke our exports, he can checkmate our military buildup and my ambitions for it. He thinks like a real-estate developer, and there is less chance that he has read Sun Tzu Bing Fa (“Sun Tzu’s The Art of War”) than that every night he travels to and from the moon.

In the Americans’ rush to spend assumed advantages before collecting them, they forget that dictatorships often resort to war specifically to overcome domestic crises. And they overlook the ability of the party to allocate resources despite great suffering. Not only is this what we can do, it is what we have always done. The China hands in America insist that a brake on our actions even greater than that of a poor economy is our dread of economy-driven political instability. Quite so, but they do not sufficiently credit the decade and a half of computer-abetted social control, now accelerated by artificial intelligence, that they themselves spend so much ink in detailing.

I’ll have free rein while, in pursuit of its entertainments, America fails to repair a military severely diminished in recent wars. China will drive for parity where it is not yet attained—and then superiority—in nuclear forces, naval fleets, space, cyber, quantum computing and directed-energy weapons.

There are people in Congress and in shallow think tanks and on their retirement farms in the provinces who try to draw attention to what is happening, but they don’t stand a chance against the weight of dominant opinion and the voices that both the president and the public want to hear. I’m grateful for this Elon Musk character, who, perhaps because he has more than ordinary income and sits on the president’s shoulder like a parrot, is said to be charismatic. I don’t find him so. I myself am not charismatic: Charisma is the portion of fools, those who serve it and those who eat it.

He says, “Some idiots are still building fighter jets like the F-35.” He would rely instead on the autonomous aircraft just beginning to mature, and, rather than feathering them into manned fleets, abandon America’s only production of fifth-generation aircraft. We didn’t steal F-35 technology for nothing. Remember how easily Israel made Iran’s air defense disappear? The fourth-generation plane in U.S. production, the F-15EX, has the radar cross-section of a box truck. The F-35 has that of a mosquito. To be effective, the semiautonomous Collaborative Combat Aircraft now in development require the F-35, and will for a long time. Imagine, the United States of America not producing any first-line fighter planes. Sort of like Vatican City. I like that.

Our navy will soon surpass the U.S. Navy. We have more ships now and a capacity to surge-produce, like the U.S. in World War II, 20 times greater than America’s. Not only will we have as many full-size aircraft carriers, but our type 076 amphibious ships, unlike the American equivalents, have the ability to launch standard fixed-wing aircraft. That means we’ll have—again, like the U.S. in World War II—fleets of “jeep carriers,” which just in themselves can resolve the question of carrier vulnerability and are our answer to the “high-low” debate of the 1970s.

The Americans never came to grips with that debate: i.e., many less capable but less vulnerable ships versus more capable but more vulnerable ones. The heart of the question, as they should have known, lay not in which approach was better but in whether they had the will to boost the budget and pursue the only effective solution—to adopt both. Now many voices recommend submarines and long-range aircraft to protect Australia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Japan—islands that, with our balanced navy, we will dominate. Submarines have small ordnance loads and cannot even begin to match the offensive capacities of carriers. Long-range aircraft are even more limited, and with their distance-dictated low sortie rate, we will knock them out of the air.

Yes, carriers are vulnerable to our DF-21 missiles, but rather than finding ways to protect and, as we have, multiply them, the Americans seem to want to give up, as if ships were never meant to go in harm’s way. Because in the nuclear age homeland bases will be off limits, a war in the Pacific will be a naval war, which is why I am delighted that they want to limit their navy. They’ve come to think that carriers are outmoded, but you can’t adequately project power throughout the world from under the sea or with parsimonious bomber sorties from North Dakota. And they’re not worried about our carriers, because they think we don’t want to project power. May they continue to think that.

Of such foolishness there are many similar examples. The Americans were once a sober and courageous people. Now they embarrass even me. But I’m happy to let them believe that economies are the final arbiters in the struggle between nations and systems. One needs a strong economy to produce a strong military. We have always known this. But we know as well that once military production and resolve have achieved escape velocity, the economy recedes into the distance and the complexion of history is reddened by war.

Mr. Helprin, a senior fellow of the Claremont Institute, is author most recently of “The Oceans and the Stars.” This article is adapted from the Winter issue of the Claremont Review of Books.

White House official pushes to axe Canada from Five Eyes intelligence group

Financial Times · by Demetri Sevastopulo · February 25, 2025

A top White House official has proposed expelling Canada from the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network as Donald Trump increases pressure on the country he talks about turning into the 51st US state.

Peter Navarro, one of the US president’s closest advisers, is pushing for the US to remove Canada from the Five Eyes — which also includes the UK, Australia and New Zealand — according to people familiar with his efforts inside the administration.

Trump has said he wants to annex Canada and has vowed to press ahead with 25 per cent tariffs on imports from the country when a one-month reprieve elapses on March 4.

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who will step down from office on March 9, was recently caught on an open mic warning that Trump’s ambition to absorb the US’s northern neighbour was a “real thing”.

Navarro did not respond to requests for comment. After the FT’s article was first published, Navarro denied pushing the idea, which he said was “crazy stuff”. “We would never ever jeopardise our national security . . . with allies like Canada,” Navarro said.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment. Trudeau’s office declined to comment.

Trump stunned US allies when he made Canada his first big target for tariffs, alongside Mexico, claiming Ottawa was not doing enough to stop migrants and drugs from entering the US.

The people familiar with the situation said Navarro, who has easy access to the Oval Office due to his close relationship with Trump, is arguing that the US should increase pressure on Canada by evicting the country from the Five Eyes.

It is unclear whether the idea has gained traction with Trump but it is being discussed among his officials.

Peter Navarro has easy access to the Oval Office due to his close relationship with Trump © Joe Raedle/Getty Images

The Five Eyes has for decades been the most important intelligence-sharing network in the world. The US and its allies share extremely sensitive signals and human intelligence in addition to co-ordinating on operations. The CIA-led Pine Gap satellite station in central Australia, which is the most important site for collecting intelligence about China, is just one example of the intimate intelligence relationship.

Dennis Wilder, a former CIA official who was the top editor of the US president’s daily intelligence briefing, said the Five Eyes was “by far the most successful intelligence-sharing arrangement in world history”.

He noted that the partnership emerged when American and British code breakers worked together to break German secret communications during the second world war, and was expanded to include the other allies in 1956.

“Any disruption in these decade-old understandings would be met with cheers from our adversaries in Moscow, Beijing, Tehran and Pyongyang,” said Wilder.

While Canada and New Zealand provide the least amount of intelligence in the group, expelling any member would spark criticism from the other allies and also from intelligence officials in Washington and beyond.

One Five Eyes intelligence official said evicting Canada from the decades-old network would be very dangerous.

“Sitting where I’m sitting and looking at the array of threats that are coming at us we need all the partners we can get,” the intelligence official said.

Phil Gurski, a former Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) analyst from 2001-2015, said: “What’s driving this? Yes, Canada is the smaller partner but the alliance is effectively sharing very sensitive information, the alliance is working. So why would we be punished?

“This seems one more White House tactic to put pressure on Canada for god knows what?” he added.

Intelligence chiefs of the Five Eyes group, pictured in 2023 © FBI

Steve Bannon, the former White House strategist who helped Trump win in 2016, said Canada needed to realise that Trump was not trolling Trudeau but was serious about wanting to annex the country.

He said Canada lacked the resources to defend itself particularly as China attempts to become an Arctic power. But he said any move to evict Canada from the Five Eyes would be a counter-productive move that would just end up hurting America.

“Canada punches way above their weight. If you look at military history, they’ve been the best ally we’ve had,” Bannon said.

Navarro served as a White House trade adviser in the first Trump administration. Last year, he served several months in prison for refusing to testify before the congressional commission investigating the January 6 2021 attack on the US Capitol. His views on trade have long been in sync with Trump, who sometimes calls him “my Peter” and named him in December as a senior counsellor for trade and manufacturing.

The CSIS declined to comment.

Financial Times · by Demetri Sevastopulo · February 25, 2025

3. Peace in Ukraine must look like Korea, not Vichy

What a world we live in. Who would have thought that after seven decades of the Korean Armistice that some would be looking at that arrangement that has left the peninsula divided with 25 million Koreans in the north suffering human rights abuses and crimes against humanity on a scale not seen since WWII. Is that the legacy the peace advocates want to leave?

Peace in Ukraine must look like Korea, not Vichy

The only real peace for Ukraine is a fortified one — think Korea, not Vichy.

kyivindependent.com · by Nicu Popescu · February 25, 2025

Peace is an attractive, yet elusive, concept. It can mean different things to different people at different times. Ukraine is a case in point. The quest for peace could yield either of two fundamentally different outcomes: a Vichy-style capitulation, perhaps with an interim ceasefire that buys Russia more time to rearm and prepare its next attack, or a robust defense of a frozen front line, as one finds on the Korean Peninsula today.

The Kremlin’s vision for peace in Ukraine is clear. Russian forces would directly occupy swaths of illegally seized Ukrainian territory, and a compliant, helpless Ukrainian government (lacking any meaningful military capacity) would take orders from Moscow. Something quite similar happened in France during World War II, when the part of the country not under direct German occupation was run by General Philippe Pétain’s collaborationist government and took orders from Berlin.

Thus, for most of World War II — roughly between 1940 and 1944 — the situation on the ground in France was “peaceful.” The Vichy regime under Pétain regularly boasted that it had protected France, while blaming the Resistance — French guerrillas ("maquis") — and periodic Allied bombing raids for any disturbances to the “peace.” This option has been on offer for Ukraine since the first hours of Russia’s large-scale invasion. Yet having witnessed the executions, rapes, and other atrocities committed by Russian forces against civilians in Bucha and elsewhere, the Ukrainians have understandably refused to capitulate.

The alternative is the type of peace that kept Germany peaceful for decades after World War II, and kept the Korean Peninsula peaceful since the 1953 armistice. In each case, the peace was secured by accepting de facto borders, which were fortified with massive defensive military buildups, boots on the ground, and credible security guarantees. While West Germany enjoyed NATO membership after 1955, South Korea relied on a bilateral alliance with the United States. Even today, the U.S. keeps around 28,000 active-duty troops in South Korea and 50,000 in Germany.

Such backstops made the former wartime front line almost impregnable, allowing each rump state to consolidate, develop, and remain at peace. The equivalent of a West German or South Korean model for Ukraine today would require a freezing of the front line and either NATO accession or a deployment of tens of thousands of Western troops to its Ukrainian territory.

"Such backstops made the former wartime front line almost impregnable, allowing each rump state to consolidate, develop, and remain at peace."

The French government has pushed for this kind of solution since February 2024, and it now features prominently in discussions among European leaders. With the new U.S. administration demanding that Europe do more to ensure its own peace and security, at least a half-dozen European governments are said to be seriously considering it.

Of course, if Europeans dislike the first model (a Vichy-style peace) but prove unable to deliver a sufficient security guarantee, that will create the conditions for a third possible scenario: a bogus peace leading to another war. A temporary ceasefire — like the one that prevailed under the Minsk agreements after 2014 — would allow Russia to regroup, rearm, and attack again sooner rather than later. Not only might this cycle be repeated more than once; it also could implicate countries beyond Ukraine — such as the Baltics or Poland.

Thus, if Ukraine does not get enough support in the coming months and years, Europe will find itself confronting a dangerous new strategic reality, one that would challenge NATO solidarity and leave EU territory perpetually vulnerable. With enough prodding and hybrid warfare, Russia could test the limits of NATO’s mutual defense guarantee and either expose it as a dead letter or precipitate a direct military confrontation between nuclear powers. Such would be the consequences of a bogus peace.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio (C), U.S. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz (R) and U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff attend an interview after meeting with Russian officials in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Feb. 18, 2025. (Evelyn Hockstein / AFP via Getty Images)

The immediate task for Europe, then, is not only to navigate U.S. President Donald Trump’s unilateral pursuit of a settlement with Russia that could offer Ukraine on a platter to Russia, but also to ensure that any deal does not increase the likelihood of an even wider war in the near future.

Many Europeans think that if Russia could not conquer Ukraine in 2022, Russia would not dare challenge NATO and the European Union. That is dangerously wishful thinking. Occupying most of Ukraine would not only allow Russia to expand its territory, but also allow it to unite Europe’s biggest and second-biggest armies, under Kremlin command.

Occupied territories bring in new people, defense production capacities, and resources — from rare-earth minerals to gas and nuclear power plants. Ukraine’s defense industrial capacity — which has been impressive in multiple areas, from sea drones to the shear capacity to produce equipment en masse — would be a welcome bonus for Russia as well, and it could be used against Europe. French President Emmanuel Macron already publicly warned that the combined armed forces of Russia and Ukraine would be unstoppable.

The bottom line is that avoiding a Ukrainian capitulation or a fake peace will require a European commitment to, at the very least, freezing the current frontline. Otherwise, vulnerable EU and NATO members could be the next targets. European public opinion must wake up to the reality that the only alternative is something that no one wants: a perpetual threat of war for much of Central and Northern Europe, with all the security and economic uncertainty that comes with it.

Editor’s Note: Copyright, Project Syndicate. This article was published by Project Syndicate on Feb. 21, 2025, and has been republished by the Kyiv Independent with permission.The opinions expressed in the op-ed section are those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of the Kyiv Independent.

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Trump’s Ukraine rare earths deal: ‘The art of the steal’

Among the bombshells coming out of the Trump administration in its first month in office is the president’s demand that Ukraine pledge $500 billion worth of mineral resources to the United States in return for American support. U.S. President Donald Trump appears to see this as payback for

The Kyiv IndependentEdward C. Chow

kyivindependent.com · by Nicu Popescu · February 25, 2025

4. Socom Works to Deter Conflict, Win if Deterrence Fails

CSM Shane Shorter. A great American.

Socom Works to Deter Conflict, Win if Deterrence Fails

defense.gov · by David Vergun

In terms of warfighting, there needs to be an equilibrium between readiness, modernization and operations, said Army Command Sgt. Maj. Shane Shorter, senior enlisted leader of Special Operations Command, during a panel discussion at the National Defense Industrial Association's 35th annual Special Operations Symposium in Washington, Feb. 20, 2025.

Special Ops Discussion

Army Command Sgt. Maj. Shane Shorter, senior enlisted leader of Special Operations Command, speaks during a panel discussion at the National Defense Industrial Association's 35th annual Special Operations Symposium in Washington, Feb. 20, 2025.

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Credit: David Vergun, DOD

VIRIN: 250220-D-UB488-0033V

During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, special operations forces spent a lot of time deployed to meet the nation's needs, he said.

Today, the readiness of those service members has improved because they're at home station longer, doing professional military education and training. Navy SEALs are getting back in the water, Green Berets are partnering and doing irregular warfare, and Marines are figuring out how to plug gaps in the littoral environment, Shorter said.

Special operations forces are usually at their best when they are coming home from a deployment, he said. "Their language is better. Their cultural understanding is better. They've [established a] relationship with their foreign partners," he said.

"The No. 1 macro test for the [Defense Department] over the next decade is to prevent great power war. I think our commander in chief is talking about it. I heard our new secretary of defense talking about it, and I think that fits right into the SOF wheelhouse," Shorter said.

There are roughly 6,000 SOF service members in 80 countries, building familiarity, relationships and influence. "That's deterrence," he said.

If a high-end conflict arises, SOF is prepared to help the joint force, allies and partners to win.

Navy Rear Adm. Jeromy Williams, commander, Special Operations Command Pacific, agreed with Shorter that personal relationships are strengthened by persistent presence which contributes to deterrence.

Panel Discussion

Navy Rear Adm. Jeromy Williams, commander, Special Operations Command Pacific, speaks virtually during a panel discussion at the National Defense Industrial Association's 35th annual Special Operations Symposium in Washington, Feb. 20, 2025.

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Credit: David Vergun, DOD

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His command is located in the Indo-Pacific region, which comprises 52% of the globe. Special operations forces are in 17 of the 36 nations there, he noted.

Williams also touched on modernization, pointing out valuable lessons learned over the last three years in the Ukraine-Russia fight.

There's value in thousands of cheap drones as opposed to more expensive systems, he said, adding there's room to transform modernization.

Navy Rear Adm. Mark Schafer, commander, Special Operations Command South, said there is a lot going on in Latin America, some good, and some not.

Special Ops Symposium

Navy Rear Adm. Mark Schafer, right, commander, Special Operations Command South, speaks during a panel discussion at the National Defense Industrial Association's 35th annual Special Operations Symposium in Washington, Feb. 20, 2025. Army Command Sgt. Maj. Shane Shorter, senior enlisted leader of Special Operations Command, also participated.

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Credit: David Vergun, DOD

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There's a growing convergence of Russian and Chinese presence in the region, he said.

The SOF approach to that and other threats is to plan for the long game and partner with like-minded nations to preserve security for the Western Hemisphere, he said.

SOF works in small teams and packs a big punch, he said. Helping to pack that punch are interagency partners: CIA, Customs and Border Protection, Commerce and State Departments and others.

Spotlight: Focus on Indo-Pacific

defense.gov · by David Vergun

5. Contempt and Consequence: The Case for Court-Martialing Insubordinate Flag Officers

Another controversial essay.

The author is not identified save for this bio.

@amuse

@amuse on 𝕏 is a newsletter dedicated to the political issues facing America from a conservative viewpoint.

Contempt and Consequence: The Case for Court-Martialing Insubordinate Flag Officers

https://amuseonx.substack.com/p/contempt-and-consequence-the-case?utm

@amuse

Feb 25, 2025

The Uniform Code of Military Justice is not an antiquated relic; it is the bedrock of military discipline and the safeguard of democratic governance. It now stands as the last barrier between order and chaos as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth faces a defining test. The issue at hand is not a minor breach of protocol—it is a blatant insubordination that strikes at the heart of civilian control over the military. Certain retired flag officers have violated Articles 88 and 133 with reckless impunity, and the only question that remains is whether this administration will have the resolve to restore discipline. If these officers are not held accountable, the implications are dire: the erosion of civilian authority, the unchecked defiance of military elites, and a crisis of governance that imperils the Republic itself. The UCMJ is unambiguous: retirees remain subject to its jurisdiction, and their calculated insubordination is a threat that must be met with decisive action.

To understand the necessity of these court-martials, one must first examine the governing statutes. Article 88 explicitly prohibits commissioned officers from using "contemptuous words" against the President. The intent of this article is clear: military officers, entrusted with the nation's defense, must remain apolitical in their conduct, their fealty bound to the Constitution and the chain of command rather than personal grievances. Article 133, which addresses conduct unbecoming an officer, extends beyond overt insubordination, encompassing actions and statements that erode the dignity and discipline expected of senior military leaders. The retired officers who have engaged in public, venomous attacks against President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have violated both.

These officers are not mere commentators or private citizens exercising their First Amendment rights unencumbered. They are retired generals and admirals who continue to receive government pensions, a reminder that they remain, in legal terms, part of the armed forces. They enjoy privileges from their service, from security clearances to advisory roles, yet they have weaponized their prominence to undermine the legitimacy of a duly elected president. This is not about policy disagreements; this is about a cadre of military elites who believe they are above the democratic system they swore to defend. Their public statements, laden with disdain and outright contempt, have emboldened insubordination among the ranks, threatening good order and discipline.

One of the most egregious examples is that of retired General James Mattis. His public letter in 2020, in which he excoriated President Trump as a divisive leader who "does not even pretend to try" to unite the country, was a blatant violation of Article 88. While cloaked in the language of statesmanship, Mattis’s words were intended to delegitimize the Commander-in-Chief in the eyes of the armed forces. He was not alone. Admiral Mike Mullen, another former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, claimed he was "sickened" by Trump's use of military force to quell violent riots, a remark that cast doubt on the administration's lawful exercise of authority. Admiral William McRaven went so far as to declare that Trump was "destroying" the country, an inflammatory statement unbecoming of an officer and clearly contemptuous under the UCMJ.

Other notable examples include General John Allen called Trump's leadership "the beginning of the end of American democracy." General Martin Dempsey publicly warned against the use of troops domestically, a direct rebuke of the Commander-in-Chief’s authority. General Colin Powell declared that "Trump lies" and had "drifted away from the Constitution." General Stanley McChrystal labeled Trump "immoral" and untruthful. General John Kelly openly questioned Trump's character and honesty. These statements were not policy critiques; they were outright attacks on the legitimacy of civilian leadership.

The contempt did not cease with Trump’s presidency. These same figures, along with General Mark Milley, continued their insubordination by directing their ire toward Secretary Hegseth, undermining his authority before he had even begun his tenure. Milley, who served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs under Trump, has reportedly called the new Secretary of Defense "unfit for command," a direct attack that carries the weight of his former office. General Barry McCaffrey questioned Hegseth’s judgment and ethics, while General Lloyd Austin rebuked Hegseth’s stance on women in combat, declaring "enough already." Major General William Enyart dismissed Hegseth as "spectacularly unqualified." These are not mere critiques of policy but attempts to delegitimize the administration’s authority.

The result? A Pentagon where senior officers feel emboldened to openly question the legitimacy of their civilian overseers. The military is not a debating society. It is an institution predicated on hierarchy, order, and unwavering discipline. If those at the highest echelons of command believe they can openly defy civilian leadership without consequence, what message does that send to the lower ranks?

This is not a slippery slope argument; it is a reality already unfolding. Recent reports indicate an increase in officers speaking out against administration policies, citing the precedent set by these retired flag officers. The failure to act decisively now will only exacerbate this problem. A military that allows its senior leaders—active or retired—to publicly attack the legitimacy of its Commander-in-Chief is a military on the path to lawlessness. Today, it is public letters and interviews. Tomorrow, it is coordinated disobedience.

Some will argue that court-martialing retired officers for their words is excessive, even authoritarian. This is nonsense. The precedent for disciplining retired officers is well-established. For example, in 1921, retired Major General Peter C. Harris was reprimanded for public criticisms of the War Department. More recently, in 2010, retired Army Brigadier General Janis Karpinski was demoted for conduct unbecoming an officer. The UCMJ applies to them for this very reason: to ensure that their conduct does not degrade the integrity of the military. To suggest that Mattis, Mullen, McRaven, Milley, and their ilk should be exempt is to assert that senior officers deserve privileges that the rank-and-file do not. A private in the Army who publicly called the President a "threat to the Constitution" would face swift disciplinary action. That generals have been able to say as much, and worse, without consequence is an injustice that must be rectified.

The enforcement of Articles 88 and 133 against these individuals is not a matter of retribution; it is a matter of maintaining discipline, ensuring respect for the chain of command, and upholding the principle that military leaders serve under civilian authority. The Biden administration turned a blind eye to the contemptuous rhetoric from these figures because it was politically expedient. The Trump administration must not repeat that mistake. If Secretary Hegseth allows these violations to go unpunished, he will not only undermine his own authority but embolden future insubordination. These men must be made an example of. The future of civilian-military relations depends on it.

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6. Taiwan Detains Ship and Chinese Crew After Undersea Cable Severed

Could this escalate?

Taiwan Detains Ship and Chinese Crew After Undersea Cable Severed

Coast guard declares incident national-security matter and possible case of Chinese sabotage

https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/taiwan-detains-ship-and-chinese-crew-after-undersea-cable-severed-287c8fd4?mod=latest_headlines

By Joyu Wang

Updated Feb. 25, 2025 10:52 pm ET

Taiwanese coast guard vessels on Tuesday prepared to board a cargo ship suspected of severing an undersea cable. Photo: Taiwan Coast Guard/AP

TAIPEI—Taiwan detained a cargo ship and its eight Chinese crew members after an undersea fiber-optic cable was severed, in a stepped-up effort to police such incidents, which are often seen as part of China’s pressure campaign targeting the self-ruled island.

Taiwan’s coast guard said the incident was being handled as a national security matter and that deliberate sabotage hadn’t been ruled out. A string of such episodes has called attention to Taiwan’s vulnerability as it works to ensure that it has secure internet services to keep the island online in the event of an invasion or blockade by China.

Similar incidents elsewhere, including the cutting of data cables beneath the Baltic Sea, have brought global attention to security concerns surrounding the critical infrastructure.

Taiwan’s coast guard said it spotted the Togo-flagged cargo vessel in the area on Saturday evening. When it dropped anchor around 2:30 a.m. on Tuesday, the coast guard directed the ship to move away.

Within less than an hour, telecommunications provider Chunghwa Telecom reported that one of the undersea communications cables connecting Taiwan to its outlying islands and to nearby countries appeared to have been damaged by external forces. Internet services were largely unaffected, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said.

The coast guard escorted the vessel, identified as the Hong Tai, to a Taiwanese port for investigation.

China is engaged in a long-running campaign to pressure the people and leadership of Taiwan to give up their commitment to self-rule of the island, which is claimed by Beijing as its territory.

Taiwan’s coast guard said that the ship was provisionally registered, crewed by Chinese nationals and backed by Chinese capital. “The possibility of China conducting gray zone harassment can’t be ruled out,” the coast guard said. In the past China has used tactics ranging from military drills that simulate a blockade of the island to cyberattacks and social-media campaigns, Taiwan authorities say.

A spokeswoman for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said Wednesday that severed cables are a common marine accident and accused Taipei of “attempting political manipulation” before the case had been fully investigated.

Army vet Driscoll confirmed as service secretary

Financier comes on board as military reels from firings of top officers, lawyers.

defenseone.com · by Meghann Myers

During his January confirmation hearing, Dan Driscoll dismissed the idea that President Donald Trump would issue an unlawful order, but said he wouldn’t follow one anyway.

If such a situation does arise, the Army veteran who won Senate confirmation on Tuesday will be sorting through his options with a lawyer hand-picked by the Trump administration, which fired the service's top Judge Advocate General on Friday.

The Trump administration is searching for a replacement who won’t be a “roadblock,” as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth put it on Sunday.

“Under President Trump, we are putting in place new leadership that will focus our military on its core mission of deterring, fighting and winning wars,” Hegseth said two days earlier in a statement announcing his intent to replace not only the services’ judge advocates general, but the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the chief of naval operations, and the vice chief of staff of the Air Force.

Legal and military experts expressed concerns that the unprecedented purge would chill not only current military leaders, but their possible successors.

Mike Smith, a retired rear admiral who leads the bipartisan National Security Leaders for America, noted in a Friday statement that military leaders are constitutionally bound to follow legal orders as policies change from one administration to the next. The flag and general officers appear to have been fired because they followed Biden-administration orders to promote diversity in the military, efforts that Trump and Hegseth are working to root out.

“This purge of senior leadership, however, will force current and future military leaders to consider whether following a lawful order today will get them fired by a future president, creating immense tension in the chain of command,” Smith added.

Hegseth was asked about this chilling effect in an appearance Sunday on Fox News.

“Is there room in military leadership for those who have loyalty to President Trump, but to those who feel like that could be in conflict at some point to the Constitution?” asked host Shannon Bream.

Hegseth dismissed the question as a mischaracterization of the administration’s intent, adding that it’s his understanding that top JAGs have been perpetuating “the status quo,” and that he plans to “open up those positions to a broader set, in a merit-based process, to find the best lawyers possible.”

The Senate confirmed Driscoll with a comfortable 66-28 majority, with a number of Democrats crossing party lines to support the former Army lieutenant.

One of those was Sen. Richard Blumental, D-Conn., who had read a statement in support of Driscoll at his Jan. 30 hearing.

“As a lawyer, we follow the facts and the law, and that's what Dan Driscoll will do as secretary of the Army,” Blumenthal said.

Trump’s Navy secretary pick, financier John Phelan, will sit for Senate questioning on Thursday. The Senate Armed Services Committee hasn’t yet scheduled a hearing for Air Force secretary nominee Troy Meink, a former National Reconnaissance Office deputy director.

defenseone.com · by Meghann Myers

8. How Western Judges Became Chinese State Puppets

I had no idea this was happening.

Excerpts:

He also defended his service in Hong Kong, telling me he doesn’t “regret” staying on the court even after Beijing’s crackdown—and he doesn’t judge his colleagues who remain there today.

“I certainly felt, and I believe that probably most of my colleagues felt, one should hang on as long as possible as a civilizing influence—an element of restraint in a society which seemed to be heading in an undesirable direction,” he told me.

But Bickett isn’t buying that argument. “These people are infuriating to me,” he said of the judges. “You've got them going on and repeatedly saying: ‘We think that the rule of law still exists. We think the courts are trying as hard as they can.’ And they’re just completely dismissing the fact you’ve got political prisoners getting convicted of crimes where there is little or no evidence that they committed any crimes. And you’ve got people accused of crimes that aren’t crimes in any modern democracy.”

Sumption, on the other hand, said the judges who remain in Hong Kong are people “of massive personal integrity, and I wouldn’t dream of criticizing them simply because I have taken a different view.”

“It's a bit like the slowly boiled frog,” he added. “We jump out of the water at different stages.”

He also opposes the Hong Kong Sanctions Act, currently being debated in the U.S. Congress, which would impose further sanctions on any Hong Kong official—including judges—who persecute pro-democracy activists. He called the proposed legislation “grotesquely unfair.”

“It’s fashionable to criticize the judges in Hong Kong,” he told me, “but the judges are in an impossible position, and their difficult situation has been created by the People's Republic of China.”

“The real target,” he added, “is the Chinese government and to some extent the Hong Kong government, who have created this situation.”

But Fong is less forgiving. “If I had seen any shred of evidence that they were there to help, then I would absolutely say, ‘Yes, we need those voices who know about freedom of assembly and freedom of speech to stay in Hong Kong and to advocate for what we’ve always had,’ ” she told me. “But they’re not doing that. They’re actively destroying it alongside the Hong Kong judges.”

“They had the perfect opportunity, and they threw it away,” she added of the foreign judges. “So they should leave.”

How Western Judges Became Chinese State Puppets

Judges from the UK and Australia sit on Hong Kong’s highest court to supposedly help it uphold the law. But, in fact, they’re ‘giving legitimacy’ to a totalitarian state.

By Frannie Block

02.25.25 — Free Speech

https://www.thefp.com/p/how-western-judges-became-chinese-state-puppets

(Illustration by The Free Press; images via Getty)

“Grotesque.”

That’s what Lord Jonathan Sumption thinks about Hong Kong’s abuse of the law—and how it’s silencing anyone opposed to the Chinese Communist Party.

A former member of the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court, Sumption became a “nonpermanent judge” on Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal in December 2019.

But Sumption isn’t just any judge. He’s a famed medieval historian, and he is widely agreed to be among the best lawyers of his generation. An article in The Guardian almost a decade ago referred to him as “the brain of Britain.” He has also built a career as an independent-minded, free thinker—one who railed against Covid lockdowns and affirmative action-type quotas, but who has also fiercely criticized Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Sumption, to put it simply, is nearly impossible to define into neat partisan labels.

His role in Hong Kong was to sit on a few cases on the territory’s highest court each month to ensure they complied with the country’s Basic Law and other statutes. He told me he thought he would have a positive impact on the legal system in the territory, which used to be a British colony until it was handed back to China in 1997.

But last year, he witnessed a situation “so unattractive” he didn’t “want to be part of it anymore.”

The “turning point” for him was the prosecution of 47 people on political grounds. Known as the “Hong Kong 47,” the group of activists was first charged in 2021 for conspiracy to commit “subversion” after holding a primary election that would boost pro-democracy candidates—an act Sumption calls their “constitutional right.”

And yet, last May, 31 pleaded guilty, and 14 of the 16 who stood trial were convicted. Those 45 were sentenced to prison, with terms ranging from four to 10 years. It’s “a legally indefensible position,” said Sumption, driven by “fear of the pressure of China.”

That’s when Sumption had a realization: He had become part of China’s mission to squash dissent. Even though he did not take part in the rulings against the 47, in June 2024 he resigned from his post on Hong Kong’s highest court, along with another British judge, Lord Lawrence Collins.

In an op-ed published shortly after his departure, Sumption wrote that Hong Kong was “slowly becoming a totalitarian state.”

Lord Jonathan Sumption in his chambers at the Supreme Court in London. (Bobbo’s Pix via Alamy Stock Photo)

“All that we were doing was giving a spurious impression of legitimacy to a system that was becoming increasingly unattractive,” he told me.

This month, Sumption published a book, The Challenges of Democracy: And The Rule of Law, which, in part, explores Hong Kong’s spiral toward authoritarianism. He told me he’s “not optimistic” that the rule of law will ever prevail under China’s grip.

“I think that Hong Kong will gradually become more and more like China. The best is no change, and the worst is a growing totalitarian model.”

Today, there are six foreign judges—two Brits and four Australians—still serving on the Court of Final Appeal. They are all men over the age of 70 who held prestigious judicial posts in their home countries before they were invited to serve on the court by Hong Kong’s chief executive.

Their work as “nonpermanent judges” may seem unusual, given that none of them are from the city. But their role is actually written into Hong Kong’s Basic Law, which says the court can “invite judges from other common law jurisdictions to sit on the Court of Final Appeal." The court has “the power of final adjudication.”

“It was kind of a vestige of the colonial system,” said Alyssa Fong, the advocacy manager for The Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, of the foreign judges serving on the region’s court. The belief was that “it could only be good” to have “internationally recognized and highly reputable judges sitting on those courts and helping out Hong Kong judges,” especially with complex cases.

The Basic Law, written in 1989 and agreed to by the Chinese government in 1990 to prepare for the 1997 handover, was meant to ensure Hong Kong residents would continue to enjoy the same rights they did under British rule—rights like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to privacy, and equal protection under the law. In China, this unique arrangement was referred to as “One Country, Two Systems,” or yīguó liǎngzhì (一国两制).

But, Sumption told me, “The Basic Law confers on the Chinese legislature in Beijing the right to ‘interpret.’ ” Or, in other words, “to remake the law in any way they like.”

In the wake of pro-democracy protests in 2019, Beijing imposed a National Security Law to crack down on dissent, which included arresting people for attending protests or even standing on the sidelines to film them. Last March, the law got an even harsher update—expanding the rights of police to restrict citizens’ access to bail and legal representation after arrest.

Today, there are over 1,900 political prisoners in the territory, according to the Hong Kong Democracy Council. The most famous is Jimmy Lai, the 77-year-old billionaire founder of pro-democracy news outlet Apple Daily. Since December 2020, he has been held in solitary confinement for conspiring to publish “seditious publications,” participating in pro-democracy protests, committing “fraud,” and hosting a vigil honoring victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre.

Jimmy Lai, the founder of pro-democracy news outlet Apple Daily, is Hong Kong’s most famous political prisoner. (Anthony Wallace via Getty Images)

Lai’s trial for “conspiracy to collude with foreign forces” is currently ongoing, and has so far lasted more than 100 days. Lai’s son Sebastien told Reuters last week that his father is “breaking down” in prison and that his “time is running out.”

Meanwhile, Lord David Neuberger, the former president of the UK’s Supreme Court, was part of a panel that denied Lai and six other activists an appeal last summer. Ironically, Neuberger is a press-freedom advocate, who formerly served as chair of the Media Freedom Coalition’s High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom. Neuberger had not responded to a Free Press request for comment.

Fong said Hong Kong is guilty of “weaponizing” its international judges, enabling the government to say it’s “still normal, still operating in the ways that it always has been.”

“Obviously, we know that’s not the case,” continued Fong, who took part in pro-democracy protests in 2019 when she was a college student studying psychology. Today, she believes Hong Kong is “the puppet of China.”

A handful of Americans have also been targets of Hong Kong’s National Security Law, including Joey Siu, who fled to the United States in 2020 out of fear of persecution. In December 2023, Hong Kong police put a $1 million bounty on her head for her activism, which includes working with the pro-democracy nonprofit Hong Kong Watch and giving testimony before the U.S. Congress in 2020 about human rights abuses in the city.

In December 2019, Samuel Bickett, a U.S. lawyer who worked for Bank of America in Hong Kong, also became a target. That was after he saw a man beating a woman with a baton after she jumped a subway turnstile, and he stepped in to help. Bickett ended up in a physical fight with the man, who turned out to be an off-duty police officer.

He told me his trial “was rigged from the beginning”—and that Hong Kong used the full force of the law against him because of his U.S. citizenship. (Just a few weeks before his arrest, Congress approved sanctions against Hong Kong officials for imposing the National Security Law.) While imprisoned alongside dozens of pro-democracy protesters in one of Hong Kong’s oldest jails, Bickett leaned on his legal knowledge to help them in their own cases, making him a prominent activist in his own right.

U.S. lawyer Samuel Bickett was convicted for assaulting a plainclothes policeman during a mass protest in Hong Kong in 2019. (Tyrone Siu via Reuters)

Ultimately, Bickett was convicted and sentenced to four months in a maximum security prison. He was released in March 2022, and deported back to the U.S.; he now lives in D.C.

Last May, Fong and Bickett co-authored a report arguing that “foreign judges are undermining Hong Kong’s freedoms.” They point to at least five cases in which foreign judges “have directly ruled against political defendants.”

One of those cases cites Sumption—who ruled in favor of a unanimous 2021 court decision allowing people to be charged with rioting even if they’re not physically present at a riot. “Lord Sumption’s name on the judgment helped give the government the credibility it needed to defend the crackdown,” the report states.

But Sumption told me he is “puzzled” by the criticism this decision received. He said it’s always been the law, both in Hong Kong and the UK, that people who “share the violent intentions” of a mob are “equally liable criminally for the offense of disorder.”

He also defended his service in Hong Kong, telling me he doesn’t “regret” staying on the court even after Beijing’s crackdown—and he doesn’t judge his colleagues who remain there today.

“I certainly felt, and I believe that probably most of my colleagues felt, one should hang on as long as possible as a civilizing influence—an element of restraint in a society which seemed to be heading in an undesirable direction,” he told me.

But Bickett isn’t buying that argument. “These people are infuriating to me,” he said of the judges. “You've got them going on and repeatedly saying: ‘We think that the rule of law still exists. We think the courts are trying as hard as they can.’ And they’re just completely dismissing the fact you’ve got political prisoners getting convicted of crimes where there is little or no evidence that they committed any crimes. And you’ve got people accused of crimes that aren’t crimes in any modern democracy.”

Sumption, on the other hand, said the judges who remain in Hong Kong are people “of massive personal integrity, and I wouldn’t dream of criticizing them simply because I have taken a different view.”

“It's a bit like the slowly boiled frog,” he added. “We jump out of the water at different stages.”

He also opposes the Hong Kong Sanctions Act, currently being debated in the U.S. Congress, which would impose further sanctions on any Hong Kong official—including judges—who persecute pro-democracy activists. He called the proposed legislation “grotesquely unfair.”

“It’s fashionable to criticize the judges in Hong Kong,” he told me, “but the judges are in an impossible position, and their difficult situation has been created by the People's Republic of China.”

“The real target,” he added, “is the Chinese government and to some extent the Hong Kong government, who have created this situation.”

But Fong is less forgiving. “If I had seen any shred of evidence that they were there to help, then I would absolutely say, ‘Yes, we need those voices who know about freedom of assembly and freedom of speech to stay in Hong Kong and to advocate for what we’ve always had,’ ” she told me. “But they’re not doing that. They’re actively destroying it alongside the Hong Kong judges.”

“They had the perfect opportunity, and they threw it away,” she added of the foreign judges. “So they should leave.”

The Free Press earns a commission from all qualifying purchases made through book links in this article, including as an Amazon Associate.

Frannie Block

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

9. China could take peacekeeping role in post-war Ukraine – but at what cost?

What are the odds? Would China really commit a peacekeeping force to Ukraine?

But this is only a retired (senior) colonel in China speculating and you know how those retired colonels are always talking out of school.

I will believe it when I see it.

China could take peacekeeping role in post-war Ukraine – but at what cost?

Retired senior colonel Zhou Bo says it may ‘showcase China’s peaceful rise’ but critics of move fear it shines a light on China-Russia ties

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3300214/china-could-take-peacekeeping-role-post-war-ukraine-what-cost?utm

Amber Wangin Beijing

Published: 6:00pm, 26 Feb 2025

China’s potential peacekeeping role in post-war Ukraine may provide Beijing with an opportunity to expand its influence and military training – but could also backfire – experts say.

Until recently it might have seemed unthinkable for Chinese military forces to be present in Europe, but a potential plan is being discussed in which Beijing could send peacekeeping forces to Ukraine after a ceasefire in its war with Russia.

Chinese Senior Colonel and retired military officer Zhou Bo, who has been involved in China’s UN peacekeeping operations, was one of the Chinese analysts who raised the possibility with the South China Morning Post.

It was also suggested by American officials, according to a report by The Economist this month.

Ukraine leader Zelensky ready to step down for peace under Nato security

The plan was neither acknowledged nor refuted by Chinese authorities when they were asked about it.

If such a deployment were to occur, it would mark an unprecedented presence of Chinese peacekeeping forces – primarily military personnel – on the European continent.

Some Chinese analysts have argued it would be a significant display of China’s growing global influence, as well as an opportunity to solidify its international image and further train its troops, while others said the risks might outweigh the benefits.

Zhou suggested that China might be able to deploy peacekeeping troops, with the consent of both Ukraine and Russia, to help uphold any negotiated ceasefire.

China could collaborate with non-Nato countries, such as India, without invoking Russia’s concerns over European involvement. Any deployment would need to be carried out under the framework of the United Nations, said Zhou, who is now a senior fellow at the Centre for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University.

China is currently the second-largest financial contributor to UN peacekeeping and the eighth-largest contributor of troops.

According to the UN peacekeeping website, by the end of September 2024 China had 1,792 personnel deployed, including 1,711 troops and a smaller number of police and staff officers. Nepal ranks first with 6,125 personnel, while the US has only 22 individual peacekeepers despite being the largest financial contributor to UN peacekeeping operations.

In 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping made a notable pledge at the UN General Assembly, offering 8,000 troops to reinforce UN peacekeeping missions.

China maintains active deployments in places such as Lebanon and South Sudan.

“The character of UN peacekeeping is that it has a clear mandate. If both sides consent, and the UN consents, there will be no adverse effects,” Zhou said, emphasising the importance of the UN’s peacekeeping principles, including the consent of all parties involved and impartiality.

Zhou argued that it would be “beneficial to China’s image, demonstrate international responsibility and showcase China’s peaceful rise”.

One analyst in Shanghai suggested that China’s first presence in Europe would represent a significant opportunity for multilateral engagement.

“China and other countries conducting peacekeeping operations under the UN framework could foster interaction and integration among all parties,” the analyst said.

However, some Chinese analysts have cautioned against such a move. One source who requested anonymity described it as “wading into troubled waters”, stating it would spark new concerns about Beijing’s close ties with Moscow.

“China hasn’t even clarified the nature of this war over the past three years. Ukraine also wouldn’t agree to China participating in peacekeeping – they would question whether China is a neutral party,” said the analyst who specialises in China-Russia relations in Beijing.

In the past two weeks, the prospect of an end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has evolved dramatically, starting with a phone call between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. This was followed by high-level talks between the two sides in Saudi Arabia that notably excluded Ukraine and European countries from the discussions.

Trump’s team has already stated that a return to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is “an unrealistic objective”.

Britain and France are reportedly developing a plan to deploy up to 30,000 European peacekeepers in Ukraine with US backing, if Moscow and Kyiv reach a ceasefire deal, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Trump stops US engagement with UN Human Rights Council and Palestinian relief agency

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has called the presence of European peacekeepers in Ukraine “unacceptable” following talks with the US in Riyadh.

Since the war’s outbreak in February 2022, China has refrained from condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Beijing has been accused of supplying dual-use goods to support Putin’s war effort, drawing criticism from the West and further straining European-China relations.

“There’s no benefit to participating in peacekeeping,” said Yang Shu, former director of the Institute for Central Asian Studies at Lanzhou University in China.

“[China’s] reputation is already tarnished due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. If you go there now, people might question why you didn’t act to prevent the war, but now you’re only coming in after a ceasefire,” he said.

“And if that ceasefire favours Russia, will people think you’re just there to shield Russia?”

Yang said he believed it was premature to discuss Chinese peacekeeping efforts while the war was ongoing, with China not a party to the conflict and unable to make decisions unilaterally about the peacekeeping mission.

Amber Wang

Amber Wang is a reporter for the China desk, and focuses on Chinese politics and diplomacy. She joined the Post in 2021, and previously worked for The New York Times and Southern Metropolis Daily.

10. Cuts will help to counter China ‘threat’, US deputy defence pick tells Senate

Sounds counterintuitive. Cuts will make us stronger? I hope this does not fall in the "less is more" or we can "do more with less" category.

Cuts will help to counter China ‘threat’, US deputy defence pick tells Senate

Billionaire investor Stephen Feinberg aims to foster private sector competition to fix ‘shortages’ in cutting-edge technologies

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3300167/cuts-will-help-counter-china-threat-us-deputy-defence-pick-tells-senate?utm

Seong Hyeon Choi

Published: 1:11pm, 26 Feb 2025Updated: 3:26pm, 26 Feb 2025

US President Donald Trump’s nominee for the second highest role in the Pentagon has vowed to increase efficiencies in the defence budget by getting the private sector involved in ramping up advanced technology development to counter China.

Billionaire investor Stephen Feinberg, who was nominated as deputy defence secretary in December, told a confirmation hearing that he would align more closely with the private sector to defeat China’s growing military capabilities.

Appearing before the Senate armed services committee on Tuesday, Feinberg said that, if confirmed, he would bring his private equity experience to make cuts at the Pentagon to achieve greater efficiency and financial accountability.

This would encourage competition, making for a better defence acquisition process and ensuring the US military will be able to secure cutting-edge technology.

According to Feinberg, Washington has “shortages” in the cutting-edge technologies it needs to “beat China”, which he called the biggest and most challenging threat to the United States.

Feinberg went on to list shipbuilding, aircraft development, nuclear modernisation, cyber defence, hypersonics, counterspace capabilities, and counter-drone platforms as the key advanced technologies that the US needs to focus on.

“China is the first nation we’ve ever competed with that has both a great economy and a great military. China’s entire private sector is fully committed in supporting that military development and as such, they effectively have unlimited funding,” he said.

“Not meaning to be too negative, but we really need to plug these shortages, focus on our priorities, get rid of legacy programmes, be very disciplined … while at the same time focusing on the economics,” Feinberg said in his opening statement.

“If we do that, given America’s great innovative capability and entrepreneurship, we will defeat China.”

Chinese plane designed to travel twice as fast as Concorde completes test flight

Feinberg said he would work with “urgency” to strengthen the United States’ force posture in the Indo-Pacific region to deter Beijing’s “aggression”, describing a sudden attempt to seize Taiwan as the “most threatening” scenario facing the Pentagon.

A successful attack on the self-ruled island “could severely damage US trade, alliances, and global influence”, he told the committee.

“[President] Xi Jinping’s stated goal of annexing Taiwan, his directive to the Chinese military to be ready for such an operation by 2027, and China’s significant and ongoing build-up of capabilities designed to hold the Joint Force at risk suggest that China poses a significant and growing threat across the near, medium, and long term.”

Beijing views Taiwan as part of its territory that must be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary. Most countries, including the US, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington opposes any attempt to take the island by force and is legally bound to arm the island to help it defend itself.

Feinberg is co-founder and chief executive of Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity firm whose holdings have included defence companies such as hypersonic testing firm Stratolaunch.

While Feinberg has not previously held a position at the Pentagon, he was head of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board during Trump’s first term. Soon after his re-election, Trump nominated him as deputy defence secretary, describing him as “an extremely successful businessman”.

The deputy defence secretary typically oversees the Pentagon’s budget, workforce and overall bureaucracy, keeping the position free from the decision-making processes of strategy, policy and political matters.

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth last week called on the department to find cuts of 8 per cent – roughly US$50 billion – to be reinvested in priorities aligned with a “more lethal fighting force”.

Trump’s defence secretary nominee Pete Hegseth fails Asean test

Senators raised concerns about the cuts at the hearing, with the committee’s top Democrat Senator Jack Reed warning that “slashing the defence budget will not create efficiency in our military. It will cripple it”.

Republican Senator Dan Sullivan called for shipbuilding to be prioritised to counter threats from China.

The US is experiencing “the worst crisis in shipbuilding in over 40 years” while the Chinese are building a giant navy that is “already bigger” than its American counterpart, he said.

Feinberg acknowledged that the shipbuilding shortage was “a tough problem” for the military.

“Our supply chain is definitely weak. Our workforce needs to be improved. But a big piece of improving our supply chain is working more closely with our private sector,” he said.

“We have companies that can get at where our needs are, where our shortages are, and we need to work more closely with them. We need people inside of government that understand their issues.”

Seong Hyeon Choi

Seong Hyeon joined the SCMP in 2022. He is from South Korea and graduated with a bachelor of journalism and master of international and public affairs from the University of Hong Kong. He worked as a research intern for Korea Chair at US foreign policy think tank Center for

11. To counter China, US must maintain soft power and alliances, Congress hears

The key question that needs to be asked in so many different contexts: "Do we understand this?"

People chuckled when Dr. Frank Hoffman (half in jest) said we need a new principle of war called "Understanding."

(Note: I am a supporter of Dr. Frank Hoffman’s idea that we need a new principle of war called understanding. Although that seems like a no-brainer – as far back as Sun Tzu we have been told that we must know our enemies and know ourselves to be victorious. We all know we need to understand war and warfare, the conditions that give rise to conflict, and the politics that lead to and end conflict. Yet even though the need for understanding is so obvious that we think we do not need to even mention it, it is surprising how so many of our failures can be traced to our lack of understanding. SOF, through its various assessment capabilities and engagement with indigenous populations can make a key contribution to understanding.)

Excerpts:

“Soft power is not charity. It is a weapon, one that when wielded correctly can shape the battlefield before a single shot is fired,” said Meaghan Mobbs, director of the Centre for American Safety and Security, a foreign policy group.

Citing China’s Belt and Road Initiative, she added, “Beijing understands this. Moscow understands this.

“The question is, do we understand this?”

Mobbs, a former paratrooper and combat veteran, said there was little doubt the traditional US foreign policy approach must be overhauled and streamlined.

But it should not be eviscerated, she stressed, citing the need for “smart power”, a combination of military might, effective aid and influence building to adapt to the growing clout of authoritarian states.

To counter China, US must maintain soft power and alliances, Congress hears

Witnesses tell House panel President Donald Trump’s recent foreign policy moves undercut effective mix of military, aid and influence

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3300126/counter-china-us-must-maintain-soft-power-and-alliances-congress-hears?utm

Mark Magnierin New York

Published: 6:24am, 26 Feb 2025Updated: 6:31am, 26 Feb 2025

Any effective counter to China’s growing military and political muscle must include alliances and the use of soft power, although US foreign policy needs to become more focused and effective in light of increasingly constrained US resources, witnesses told a Congressional hearing on Tuesday.

Testifying before the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on “emerging global threats”, analysts called out early moves by President Donald Trump, who in his first weeks back in the White House has threatened trade wars with Mexico and Canada; decimated the US Agency for International Development (USAID) that operated in 130 countries; and sided with Russia over Europe in a UN resolution on Ukraine.

“Soft power is not charity. It is a weapon, one that when wielded correctly can shape the battlefield before a single shot is fired,” said Meaghan Mobbs, director of the Centre for American Safety and Security, a foreign policy group.

Citing China’s Belt and Road Initiative, she added, “Beijing understands this. Moscow understands this.

“The question is, do we understand this?”

‘We all will die’: What would the end of USAID mean for Asia's most vulnerable?

Mobbs, a former paratrooper and combat veteran, said there was little doubt the traditional US foreign policy approach must be overhauled and streamlined.

But it should not be eviscerated, she stressed, citing the need for “smart power”, a combination of military might, effective aid and influence building to adapt to the growing clout of authoritarian states.

“Power is not only measured in tanks, ships and missiles, but also in influence and perception,” she said. “If we are to prevail in this competition, the United States must effectively deploy both hard power and soft power.”

On Tuesday, a US federal judge ordered the Trump administration to release within two days billions of dollars in foreign aid distributed by USAID and the State Department, a key element of US soft power.

This followed a similar court order two weeks ago that the administration declined to act on after Trump, on January 20, issued an executive order targeting what he said were wasteful programmes not consistent with his foreign policy priorities.

Several Republicans on the committee spent much of their allotted time criticising the administration of former president Joe Biden, citing the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan and inveighing against diversity in the military.

But they agreed with the Biden administration that China remained a pre-eminent focus of US concern.

Even as Beijing forges ahead, Washington has seen its focus diminish, its industrial capacity erode and its arms cache depleted by conflicts in Ukraine and the Mideast, witnesses said.

Beijing has quadrupled its intercontinental ballistic force to 400 missiles, greatly expanded its navy and made aggressive moves in the South China Sea, said Brent Sadler, senior research fellow with the conservative Heritage Foundation.

“This has fuelled the confidence and increased aggressiveness by its military,” said the maritime expert at Heritage, which wrote the Project 2025 playbook that has influenced many Trump administration policies.

“The [Houthi] attacks on the Red Sea against our warships have further depleted American munitions critical in the war against China … America first does not mean America alone.”

Soft power is not charity. It is a weapon, one that when wielded correctly can shape the battlefield before a single shot is fired

Meaghan Mobbs, Centre for American Safety and Security

Even witnesses critical of Trump conceded that he had brought a new perspective that may help Washington counter global and domestic threats.

Charles Kupchan, a National Security Council official during the Bill Clinton and Barack Obama administrations, said those include spotlighting migration and government efficiency reforms.

Moreover, he added, Trump’s more transactional approach that has opened the door for discussions with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But the way Trump approaches these problems is highly disruptive, Kupchan, now an international affairs professor at Georgetown University, said.

“Does this transactionalism turn into a unilateralism that leaves the United States isolated on the world stage, imposing tariffs on all of our partners in ways that not just disturb our geopolitical relationships but fragment the global economy?” he asked.

After decades of dominant American power, the US budget deficit has soared, the world is more multipolar and the Global South is ascending, witnesses and lawmakers noted.

“Is President Trump going to be only a demolition man who brings down the old order and leaves us standing in the rubble?” Kupchan asked. “Or is he actually going to be someone who brings us from the old to the new and builds an American grand strategy in the international system that is better, that is more stable, and that works better for average Americans, as well as for global peace.

“President Trump is taking a wrecking ball to the US government and the world,” he added. “And it’s time to speak up.”

Mark Magnier

Before joining the Post in Washington, Mark worked in China, India and Japan for the Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times and was a Knight-Wallace journalism fellow. He’s covered economic, social and political issues throughout Asia and conflicts in Pakistan, Afghanistan a

12. Ukraine Agrees to Mineral-Rights Deal With U.S.

Ukraine Agrees to Mineral-Rights Deal With U.S.

Trump says he will meet Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky

https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/ukraine-agrees-to-mineral-rights-deal-with-u-s-3bbd871f?mod=hp_lead_pos1

By Jane Lytvynenko, Alexander Ward

Follow and Ian Lovett

Updated Feb. 25, 2025 5:40 pm ET

Trump says Zelenskyy set to visit White House on Friday to sign minerals deal

President says ‘I hear he’s coming on Friday’ amid reports that terms of US-Ukraine aid exchange have been reached

The Guardian · by Andrew Roth · February 26, 2025

Donald Trump has said that Volodymyr Zelenskyy is likely to visit the White House on Friday to sign a rare earth minerals deal to pay for US military aid to defend against Russia’s full-scale invasion.

The announcement followed days of tense negotiations between the US and Ukraine in which Zelenskyy alleged the US was pressuring him to sign a deal worth more than $500bn that would force “10 generations” of Ukrainians to pay it back.

Media outlets reported late on Tuesday that the terms of an agreement had been reached.

“I hear that he’s coming on Friday,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “Certainly it’s OK with me if he’d like to. And he would like to sign it together with me. And I understand that’s a big deal, very big deal.”

What are Ukraine’s critical minerals – and why does Trump want them?

According to the Financial Times, which first reported the deal, the new terms of the deal did not include the onerous demands for a right to $500bn in potential revenue from exploiting the resources, which include rare earth metals and Ukrainian oil and gas resources.

A framework for the deal included joint ownership of a fund to develop Ukraine’s mineral resources with certain caveats for those resources already contributing to the state budget.

It was more favourable to Ukraine than the original deal proposed by Washington, but did not include references to long-term security guarantees that Kyiv wanted to receive in the deal.

Certain details of the deal remained unclear, including the US’s ownership stake in the new fund.

Asked what Ukraine would receive in the deal, Trump said: “$350bn, military equipment and the right to fight on.”

“We’ve pretty much negotiated our deal on earth and various other things,” Trump added. “We’ll be looking … general security for Ukraine later on. I don’t think that’s going to be a problem. There are a lot of people that want to do it, and I spoke with Russia about it. They didn’t seem to have a problem with it. So I think they understand they’re not going back. And once we do this, they’re not going back.”

Neither the US nor Ukrainian governments immediately responded to requests for comment from the Guardian on the terms of the deal.

The initial US proposal, which included a 100% financial interest in the fund to which revenues from the natural resource extraction would flow, had provoked outrage in Ukraine and other allies in Europe. “I am not signing something that 10 generations of Ukrainians will have to repay,” Zelenskyy said of the initial proposal. The negotiations were accompanied by a public war of words in which Trump called Zelenskyy a “dictator without elections”, a common Kremlin talking point.

The resources the US is seeking in Ukraine include key components for batteries, titanium production, and rare earth metals that are used in electronics, wind turbines, weapons and other modern products.

Ukrainian officials had said earlier this week that the deal was nearing completion.

“Ukrainian and US teams are in the final stages of negotiations regarding the minerals agreement,” Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration, said on Monday. “The negotiations have been very constructive, with nearly all key details finalised. We are committed to completing this swiftly to proceed with its signature. We hope both US and UA [Ukrainian] leaders might sign and endorse it in Washington the soonest to showcase our commitment for decades to come.”

As the US and Ukraine neared an agreement, Russian President Vladimir Putin had also proposed a deal to develop Russia’s mineral resources, including in the Ukrainian territories under Russian occupation. Putin said Russia “undoubtedly [has], I want to emphasise, significantly more resources of this kind than Ukraine”.

A newly appointed Russian presidential envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, on Wednesday said the two countries were interested in finding joint economic projects, according to the state-run news agency Tass.

Dmitriev was named by Putin on Sunday as his special envoy on international economic and investment cooperation. He is seen as a key figure in Moscow’s efforts to improve relations with the new Trump administration.

The Guardian · by Andrew Roth · February 26, 2025

14. Iron Dome for America gets a golden makeover

Will a US golden dome be added to the 10 great domes around the world?

https://www.thoughtco.com/great-domes-from-around-the-world-177717

On a slightly more serious note.....Excerpts:

And, in fact, Iron Dome is a trade-marked name owned by Israeli defense firm, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

“Please note the Department of Defense has renamed this program from “Iron Dome for America” to “Golden Dome for America,” a Feb. 24 amendment to a request for information from industry, posted to the federal business opportunities website, Sam.gov, reads.

The Missile Defense Agency’s RFI posting notes that since the deadline to receive information from industry on developing a new missile defense shield is Feb. 28, the agency will continue to use Iron Dome in reference to the program as answers are submitted to avoid confusion.

Iron Dome for America gets a golden makeover

Defense News · by Jen Judson · February 25, 2025

In a bit of verbal alchemy, the Pentagon is turning iron into gold.

The Midas touch of Pentagon bureaucracy has just hit President Trump’s “Iron Dome” missile defense shield, which shall be henceforth known as “Golden Dome.”

The billionaire president – known for his love of incorporating gold details into his own residential aesthetic – in his opening line of his inaugural address, promised a “golden age in America.”

Naturally, such an endeavor is best protected by a dome in matching colors.

Trump signed an executive order in January to develop a next-generation homeland missile defense shield.

The order – titled “The Iron Dome For America” shared a name with the successful, lowest tier of Israel’s multilayered air defense system of the same name.

Yet the name sparked confusion that the order actually called for the use of the specific Israeli system to defend the homeland, which was never the case. Missile defense experts agree Iron Dome would be ill-suited for such a mission to provide air and missile defense to a vast territory like the continental U.S.

And, in fact, Iron Dome is a trade-marked name owned by Israeli defense firm, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

“Please note the Department of Defense has renamed this program from “Iron Dome for America” to “Golden Dome for America,” a Feb. 24 amendment to a request for information from industry, posted to the federal business opportunities website, Sam.gov, reads.

The Missile Defense Agency’s RFI posting notes that since the deadline to receive information from industry on developing a new missile defense shield is Feb. 28, the agency will continue to use Iron Dome in reference to the program as answers are submitted to avoid confusion.

In other words, the bureaucracy has yet to catch up on the metallurgical magic.

The Missile Defense Agency and the Pentagon referred queries on the reasoning behind the name change to the White House. The White House did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

About Jen Judson

Jen Judson is an award-winning journalist covering land warfare for Defense News. She has also worked for Politico and Inside Defense. She holds a Master of Science degree in journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kenyon College.

15. The Trump Staffers Who Get Paid by Private Clients

I had no idea the extent of the use of "special government employees." I was not even aware of this category of government employment. I recall some special envoys of the past who worked part time as an envoy while still keeping their day job but I thought they were pretty few and far between. I had no idea there could be so many special government employees working in such sensitive positions and still retain their full civilian positions and salaries.

I guess it is good work if you can get it. Where do I sign up? (note sarcasm).

The Trump Staffers Who Get Paid by Private Clients

‘Special government employees,’ including many who drive policy, aren’t required to publicly disclose potential conflicts or give up outside work or investments

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-administration-special-government-employees-75b2b6e5?st=KB7jes&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

By Josh Dawsey

Follow, C. Ryan Barber

Follow and Katherine Long

Feb. 25, 2025 9:01 pm ET

Katie Miller, a top aide to Elon Musk at the Department of Government Efficiency, spends much of her time on White House grounds, helping Musk plan and communicate his efforts to slash the federal government.

But she also spends time working for P2 Public Affairs, a major Republican consulting firm in Washington, which pays her full salary. She has continued to work for Fortune 100 clients, including Apple, offering public relations advice, according to people familiar with the matter. Since starting at the White House, Miller has also helped P2’s leaders pitch the firm to new clients for lucrative contracts, offering her guidance about Washington in this moment. Her husband is White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, among the most powerful advisers in the administration, controlling all domestic policy.

She’s one of a set of influential Trump employees who are working for the administration while simultaneously doing private-sector work.

They carry a three-letter designation that allows them to wear both hats: “SGE,” or special government employee. It’s a status under federal ethics laws that permits private-sector employees to work inside the government without having to relinquish their outside salaries or investments. Only a sliver of cases must publicly disclose clients or potential conflicts of interest. While the rules limit work to up to 130 days in any given year, it can be extended if the administration desires.

Others with the status include Steve Witkoff, who is handling peace talks between Ukraine and Russia and in the Middle East, Corey Lewandowski, now a top aide at the Department of Homeland Security, and Musk himself. Top officials such as Musk, Miller and Witkoff aren’t receiving government pay, and it wasn’t known if any SGEs are.

SGEs have been around since the early 1960s, when Congress first enabled administrations to bring in outside experts without requiring them to leave their positions in academia or the private sector. The designation has typically been used to allow subject matter experts to sit on advisory boards or serve in narrow, specialized roles without giving up their jobs, as regular government employees are required to do.

But the Trump administration has used the status in a way never before seen, installing multiple people at top levels who are setting U.S. policy.

Katie Miller, standing next to her husband, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, who spoke to Sen. Eric Schmitt at the White House in January. Photo: Kent Nishimura/Getty Images

Some ethics experts have accused the administration of using the loophole to permit enormously powerful government workers to shield their finances from public scrutiny. They say that presents opportunities for corruption, and threatens to blur the line between private enrichment and public service.

“This is just taking this loophole to an extreme,” said Richard Painter, a University of Minnesota law professor who served as a top ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush. “Special government employees hide their finances from the public, so people can’t find out about the extent of their potential conflicts of interest.”

The special government status is more appropriately used for part-time service on government boards and commissions, he said, or for expertise on a narrow subject area. “This is a false use of the SGE status,” he said.

The clients of P2, Miller’s firm, include some of the world’s most powerful technology companies and other businesses, along with LIV Golf, the Saudi Arabia-backed golf league that plays tournaments at Trump courses. Apple CEO Tim Cook recently met with President Trump in the Oval Office, and LIV Golf chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan called in for a meeting with Trump and the head of the PGA Tour.

Miller is also working for Jeff Miller, who isn’t related, another prominent Washington lobbyist who represents a swath of corporate America and was a major fundraiser for Trump’s 2024 campaign. He has paid Katie Miller through P2 to handle his publicity, the people said.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said it was “standard practice” to hire special government employees “based on their outside experience, for a limited period of time.”

“President Trump’s SGE’s are highly-talented and well-respected businessmen and women, policy experts and communications professionals who are bringing a depth of experience and knowledge to help the president implement his agenda,” Leavitt said, adding that they are “abiding by all applicable federal laws.”

Miller declined to comment on her specific clients and work in the Trump administration. P2 declined to comment. Apple and LIV didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Key policymakers

A White House official said there are 13 SGE employees working within the White House, along with others across the federal government.

Other SGEs include David Sacks, who advises Trump on cryptocurrency and AI policy and is co-founder and partner of Craft Ventures, a venture-capital firm. Trump’s faith adviser, Paula White, has the status while running her ministry and giving speeches. Senior digital adviser Ory Rinat, who helped create the Trump White House’s website and still works for the administration, has had a wide-ranging career as a digital communications consultant for corporate and political clients.

U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff after meetings in Riyadh earlier this month. Photo: evelyn hockstein/PRESS POOL

The government doesn’t release regular data on how many employees are SGEs, but a 2016 Government Accountability Office report found that from 2005 and 2014, the federal government employed an average of around 2,000 SGEs a year, excluding those serving on federal boards.

Previous administrations have also been criticized for relying on SGEs. Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s deputy chief of staff at the State Department, was an SGE for a time while she worked for Teneo, a consulting firm. That arrangement drew the ire of Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, who said at the time that the designation is for “technical outside expertise rather than for a current government employee’s convenience or desire for outside employment.” Abedin didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Anita Dunn, a top aide to President Joe Biden, held the title while keeping her ties to SKDK, a Democratic consulting and lobbying firm, drawing some criticism from ethics experts.

“I entered the Administration on a temporary basis to help with the transition and the beginning of the government. When I returned to the government in May 2022, I did so as a full time employee and not as an SGE,” Dunn wrote in an email.

Anita Dunn, left, a top aide to President Joe Biden, in 2021. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

In the Trump administration, SGEs have extensive ties in the corporate sector and are driving some of the country’s most important policies.

Musk embodies the overlap between the administration and the private sector. The world’s richest person continues to helm Tesla and SpaceX while simultaneously serving as a special government employee advising the president, a role the White House confirmed in a legal filing.

As the driving force behind DOGE, he wields unprecedented power to overhaul the executive branch with few restrictions. At the same time, his space company has extensive government contracts, and Trump’s policies on electric vehicles could have a significant impact on Tesla’s profits.

Musk gave a tour of a SpaceX facility in Texas to Trump last year. Photo: Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Amid questions about Musk’s official role, the White House on Tuesday identified Amy Gleason as acting administrator of DOGE. Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office saying his administration would name a DOGE administrator who would report to the White House chief of staff.

Witkoff is negotiating with Russia over the Ukraine war—which could include mineral rights for the U.S. valued at billions of dollars—and is also working on a Middle East peace plan.

He has kept his vast real-estate portfolio while planning a major summit of real-estate developers at the White House to rebuild Gaza.

Leavitt, the White House spokeswoman, said Witkoff will soon divest from his entire real-estate portfolio to avoid any conflicts in his new role.

Lewandowski, who has consulted for an array of private-sector clients, joined Homeland Security last month as an SGE. Lewandowski is personally close to Kristi Noem, the secretary, and has sat in on her hiring interviews and in policy meetings. Lewandowski didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The SGE designation is ultimately approved by the White House chief of staff’s office, according to people familiar with the matter. The office has been generous in granting approvals in the Trump administration, particularly with many Trump advisers not wanting to divest from companies, divulge their private-sector ties or take a large pay cut, the people said.

Corey Lewandowski, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Natalie Harp during the presidential campaign last year. Photo: Evan Vucci/AP

While SGEs aren’t generally required to file public financial disclosures, federal law still compels them to privately disclose potential conflicts of interest to the Office of Government Ethics. That office earlier this month issued a legal advisory reminding non-SGE presidential appointees they aren’t legally allowed to receive outside compensation.

Five days later, Trump fired the ethics director, David Huitema, who had been confirmed last year under the Biden administration for a five-year term.

A White House official said the White House Counsel’s Office vetted the SGE hires for potential conflicts and said the counsel’s office has instructed the employees that they can’t participate in White House discussions that affect their private business.

Clustered in DOGE

Many SGEs are clustered around Musk and his cost-cutters in DOGE, which isn’t an actual department but is rather a White House initiative to cut spending and increase efficiency. Musk recruited business associates and employees of his own firms for the effort, some of whom continue to work for Musk in the private sector as they work for him as government employees.

Steve Davis, a longtime Musk deputy at SpaceX who now serves as the president of Musk’s underground tunneling and transportation firm The Boring Company, is leading DOGE’s cost-cutting initiatives. Earlier this month—while in the midst of DOGE initiatives—The Boring Company signed an agreement with Dubai’s transit authority to begin work on an underground shuttle system in that city. Davis and The Boring Company didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Another longtime Musk associate at The Boring Company, Riccardo Biasini, who works as a senior adviser in the Office of Personnel Management, has been copied on emails from his Boring Company colleagues as recently as Feb. 14, according to documents received in response to a Nevada public records request. Biasini didn’t respond to a request for comment.

James Burnham, who founded King Street Legal, is a top lawyer at DOGE and an SGE. He has been in charge of vetting DOGE’s moves into government agencies and occasionally has told DOGE employees what they can’t legally do, according to people familiar with the matter.

Burnham, who served as a top Justice Department official in Trump’s first term, has withdrawn from cases while on leave from his law firm, court filings showed.

Tom Krause, the CEO of Cloud Software Group, is working with DOGE as a fiscal assistant secretary in the Treasury Department, overseeing a system that processes trillions of dollars in payments annually.

Krause has flown across the country, meeting with Treasury officials and overseeing cuts, according to people familiar with the meetings.

“I want to share with you that in addition to my duties as CEO of Cloud Software Group, I am advising the US Department of Treasury as a ‘special government employee,’” Krause wrote in an email to employees in early February. “I am honored to serve our country. Let me be clear—as CEO of Cloud Software Group, I am committed to our company and you, our employees.”

Krause didn’t respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for Cloud said Krause and the company are “committed to upholding the highest ethical standards and are operating consistent with the strict provisions in place for special government employees to ensure there are no conflicts of interest.”

Deep ties

Miller has floated in and out of Trump’s orbit since 2017, when her husband became Trump’s top immigration guru and speechwriter in the White House. She worked previously as a spokeswoman for Vice President Mike Pence and worked at Homeland Security in the first administration. During the transition, she helped Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in his confirmation process. Trump advisers said she has become a powerful figure in the administration.

A recently fired U.S. Agency for International Development staff member outside the agency’s Washington office earlier this month. Photo: brian snyder/Reuters

When she and Stephen Miller were married at the Trump International Hotel in Washington in March 2020, the president attended the wedding, along with cabinet secretaries and top Trump administration officials.

P2, the firm that Katie Miller works for, is headed by two prominent Republicans, Phil Cox and Generra Peck. The firm touts itself to potential clients as a Republican powerhouse with deep ties in the White House, Congress and elite Washington circles. The firm has offices across the country.

The firm’s top operatives began working with Musk last year to boost Trump’s bid for the presidency, orchestrating the moves of Musk’s political group, America PAC. Miller became the main interlocutor between Musk and his team and Trump’s campaign, developing a relationship with Musk in the process.

After Trump’s win, Miller became a hot commodity as an employee in Washington. She had ties to the White House through her husband; to Musk, the world’s wealthiest man; and also to Kennedy, who would become the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

She decided to stay at P2, after discussing jobs with other lobbying firms. The firm’s leaders have often touted Miller’s work for the firm to clients and potential clients. Miller is listed as a principal on the firm’s website.

When Musk came into the administration, Miller followed. She was with him on Inauguration Day and has frequently been with him since, sitting in the Oval Office and smiling as Musk talked on a recent afternoon about his work, his young son accompanying him.

The firm, people close to its leaders said, is busier than ever.

Write to Josh Dawsey at Joshua.Dawsey@WSJ.com, C. Ryan Barber at ryan.barber@wsj.com and Katherine Long at katherine.long@wsj.com

16. Exclusive: Russian Defector Leaks Files Revealing Shocking Scale of War Casualties

Exclusive: Russian Defector Leaks Files Revealing Shocking Scale of War Casualties

https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/ukraine/2025/02/ukraine-250224-rferl02.htm?_m=3n.002a.4124.of0ao00ca1.3u6h&utm

globalsecurity.org · by John Pike

In-Depth Coverage

By Mark Krutov, Lukas Zalalis, Mike Eckel, Wojtek Grojec, Ivan Gutterman and Sergei Dobrynin February 24, 2025

Less than a year before his bloodied corpse was found sprawled on a snowy Moscow sidewalk, assassinated by an exploding electric scooter, the Russian general overseeing the country's nuclear defense forces was shot.

Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov's killing in December grabbed global headlines. But his hospitalization with a gunshot wound nine months earlier has never been disclosed to the public.

Kirillov's shooting surfaced in a trove of leaked medical records -- obtained exclusively by RFE/RL -- that provide an unprecedented window into the scope of Russia's casualties during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine it launched in February 2022 -- now the largest and bloodiest war in Europe since World War II.

His hospitalization for more than a month at the most prestigious facility in Russia's sprawling military medical complex is among the records in a massive nationwide Defense Ministry database of nearly 166,000 soldiers that RFE/RL obtained from a Russian defector.

The database includes hospitalization records for senior generals down to rank-and-file privates -- along with private mercenaries from at least 10 countries -- beginning in February 2022 until mid-June 2024, meaning it does not reflect that last eight months of fighting, some of the war's bloodiest.

How Many Have Been Killed or Wounded in Ukraine?

For both sides, the toll is staggering: in excess of 1 million killed or wounded, according to Western estimates. For Ukraine, at least 46,000 soldiers have been killed, and around 380,000 wounded, according to figures cited by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier this month. That figure is considered by experts to be an undercount.

By contrast, Russian casualties -- killed or wounded -- exceed 700,000, according to Western estimates as of December. An analysis by the International Institute for Strategic Studies estimated that at least 172,000 Russian soldiers have been killed and 611,000 wounded, more than half of whom were severely wounded, unable to fight again.

Of those casualties, a significant number cycled through military hospitals and ended up in the files of the Defense Ministry's Main Military Medical Directorate -- the official entity that oversees dozens of brick-and-mortar hospitals and thousands of staff and personnel across the country.

The database was provided to RFE/RL by Sergeant Aleksei Zhilyayev, who commanded a military evacuation unit attached to 144th Guards Motor Rifle Division and has since fled to France, where he is seeking political asylum.

An RFE/RL analysis of the records identified 165,584 unique entries: names, ranks, dates of admission, dates of discharge, location of treatment, type of wounds or injuries, and units in which soldiers served -- not only regular units, but also the now-defunct mercenary group Wagner and the military intelligence agency, known as the GRU.

RFE/RL filtered and organized the database to eliminate duplicate entries and account for clerical errors. To verify or corroborate its accuracy, RFE/RL also matched a subset of the entries with publicly available information -- social media posts, news reports -- to identify specific individuals found in the records.

For example, President Vladimir Putin visited a Moscow military hospital in May 2022, greeting wounded soldiers. Photographs distributed by the state news agency TASS showed Putin with two soldiers, one of whom appears in the database.

RFE/RL messaged the social-media accounts of several of the personnel whose names appear in the database, seeking further information. Only one, a Chinese national, responded, confirming that he fought for Russia against Ukraine but declining to give further details.

How Does Russia Treat Its Wounded Soldiers?

The database represents only a subset of the total Russian wounded in the war; it likely omits troops treated in the field and returned quickly to battle, and those treated in civilian hospitals. It also includes military personnel who were treated for injuries unrelated to combat, such as Kirillov, who was admitted to the Main Military Clinical Hospital in Moscow on March 3, 2024, and discharged five weeks later after being treated for a gunshot wound to the "upper right thigh."

The date, location, and circumstances of Kirillov's shooting remain unclear, and the Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. Sources with Ukraine's main security agency, known as the SBU, claimed responsibility for the exploding scooter that killed Kirillov.

The database also includes records from military hospitals and clinics across the country, as well as in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula Moscow forcibly seized in 2014, and a small number from Belarus, a close ally of Moscow.

Dara Masicott, a Washington-based analyst who recently published a major report on the Kremlin's coming efforts to rebuild and "reconstitute" its military, said the database reflects how Russia's armed forces have transformed over the past three years as the invasion -- which the Kremlin expected to be swift, short, and decisive -- turned into a massive war of attrition.

As Ukrainian forces first mounted an agile defense -- and later, large-scale offensives -- they inflicted substantial casualties, forcing Russian authorities to widen recruitment efforts to replenish decimated units.

Wagner mercenaries became a visible part of the force makeup. So did the tens of thousands of prison inmates who were enticed -- first by Wagner, and later by the Defense Ministry itself -- to fight in exchange for freedom.

But the biggest transformation came when Putin in September 2022 ordered a partial mobilization of the country's reserves, drawing up to 300,000 more men into the fight. Recruiters also tapped a wider pool of recruits using extraordinarily lucrative financial incentives.

The result, Masicott said in an interview, is a significant transformation of the military, with wide variations in training, experience, and age. For example, soldiers' average age has increased significantly over time, with a rise in the number of those 50 and older after 2022, a shift that is reflected in the leaked database.

She said that likely stems from economic incentives that have enticed older men, but younger recruits less so.

The database also shows how the types of wounds registered by military medics remained mostly unchanged during the more than two years covered by the records.

That suggests that combat medicine protocols -- both how wounded soldiers are treated in the field, and how they are evacuated -- have not improved since the start of the invasion, Masicott said -- even as the overall size of the force that invaded Ukraine has expanded, from around 180,000 in February 2022 to more than 500,000, according to the Royal United Service Institute, a London think tank.

"For this number to remain so static, regardless of offensives, regardless of being on the defense, there's basically no change," said Masicott, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "This tells me that they've not improved casualty evacuation. And guys who are getting hit by shrapnel or losing a limb, either from mines or artillery or drones, they just don't make it. They don't make it at all."

"The Russian Army has failed to seriously improve the system of evacuation of the wounded during the war. Military personnel who receive severe shrapnel wounds or, for example, lose limbs to mines, artillery or drones simply do not survive," she said.

In an interview with RFE/RL, Zhilyayev agreed that Russian evacuation protocols had not improved markedly over the course of the war. At the same time, both sides accuse each other of targeting medical teams trying to evacuate the wounded.

Zhilyayev said that sometime in 2024, Russia forward units began encountering Ukrainian forward-deployed units utilizing drones -- a technology that has played a critical role for both sides -- to target medevac units. That further reduced the likelihood that a severely wounded soldier would make it to treatment alive, he said.

"That's why it turned out that the lighter [wounded] ended up in hospitals; they were able to get out [of the field] themselves," Zhilayev said.

How Often Are Russian Officers Hospitalized?

Roughly five months after the launch of the invasion, after Russia's initial plans stalled in the face of Ukrainian defenses, and ingenuity, Kyiv began receiving Western supplies of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, known widely by their acronym, HIMARS.

The U.S.-supplied, mobile multiple-rocket launcher fires precision missiles with various ranges, depending on the type. Ukraine also received a similar missile system called M270s. The weapons made a clear impact on the battlefield, Western and Ukrainian experts said. At the time, Zelenskyy claimed they were changing the course of the war.

Ukrainian forces also used HIMARS systems to target forward command posts, temporary field posts frequently visited by senior Russian officers.

After June 2022, the Russians "took about a month to figure this out, that their command posts were getting schwacked everywhere, and then they moved them back," Masicott said. "And so by the August time period, you see that number decline, and then it has more or less stayed the same."

That is reflected in the leaked database, which shows the percentage of wounded senior ranking officers declining toward the end of 2022.

The percentage of wounded lower-ranking officers, like lieutenants, meanwhile, remained relatively unchanged, which Masicott attributes to those ranks deploying to frontline positions, something that in the U.S. Army would be done by lower-ranked sergeants. As a result, she said, lieutenants are likely being killed off in the field rather than being evacuated and hospitalized.

"I think they're just being killed. They're so far forward with the guys that they're just dying and they're not making it [to hospitals]," she said. "That's my interpretation, because there's no other way to really explain this flatlining, because the lieutenants are fighting at the front."

Are Wounded Soldiers Sent Back to Battle?

Another notable data point: the severity of the wounds and injuries recorded by medical administrators. Just over 2,200 "severe" or "critical" cases appear in the tally; more than 58,600 involving "moderate" wounds; and more than 80,200 with "light" wounds.

As part of efforts to maintain adequate unit strength in the field, Russian commanders have prioritized getting wounded soldiers redeployed quickly. This has helped reinforce Russia's ability to grind down Ukrainian troops across the roughly 1,100-square kilometer front line, despite eye-watering casualty rates.

In December 2022, 10 months after the launch of the invasion, the head of the military medical directorate, Dmitry Trishkin, said that 97 percent of all wounded soldiers end up being sent back to the battlefield.

That figure is likely overstated, Zhilyayev said, though not by much: "If a person can be brought alive to a medical unit, he is very likely to survive."

Amputations, meanwhile, which number more than 3,200 cases in the database, are the only category of injury that preclude a soldier returning to the fight, Zhilyayev told RFE/RL. The database includes minor amputations -- such as a finger or toe -- and major amputations, such as feet, legs, arms, hands.

Vladimir Golsky, a 19-year-old private who served in the 433rd Regiment of the 27th Guards Motorized Rifle Division, was hospitalized in April 2024 and had his left foot amputated, according to the database. Seven months later, he appeared alongside his mother in a photograph she posted to her account on Odnoklassniki, a Russian social media platform: "I waited for my son!"she wrote.

She did not respond to a message from RFE/RL.

While combat medics in the field record severity of wounds accurately, medical personnel in larger hospitals and similar facilities were pressured to downgrade the condition of wounds in their paperwork, Zhilyayev said. That ensures more soldiers are returned to battle more quickly, and it also helps minimize the insurance payouts made to the wounded, which depend on the severity of the casualty, he said.

Overall, he said, the database is routinely circulated directly to military commands, via unclassified e-mail: mainly as a way to track personnel.

"Why is it sent...back to the army?" Zhilyayev said. "To look for people. Because people get lost: a man left the unit with a wound, and it will be unknown where he ended up."

RFE/RL's Carl Schreck and Riin Aljas contributed to this report.

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17. Using Special Operations Forces to Counter Mexican Cartels: An Irregular Analysis

Excerpts:

In conclusion, while the prospect of deploying US special operations forces (SOF) against Mexican drug cartels presents serious challenges, the urgency of the threat demands decisive action. The cartels’ military-grade weaponry, entrenched influence, and adaptability to irregular warfare make a purely military solution both risky and unsustainable. Legal and diplomatic barriers, particularly the necessity for Mexican consent, further complicate unilateral intervention. Moreover, retaliation through escalated violence would undoubtedly increase instability, weakening US security interests.

To effectively combat this pervasive threat, a more comprehensive and coordinated approach is essential. This strategy must integrate military precision with efforts to disrupt the cartels’ financial networks, enhance intelligence sharing, and strengthen partnerships with Mexican forces. Strategic planning must account for the duration of the war, the toll on American lives, the financial burden, and, most critically, the resolve to see it through to completion—especially when the cartels retaliate on U.S. soil. US intervention should focus on empowering Mexico to lead the fight against the cartels while providing critical support. This collaborative, long-term strategy must address not only the immediate threats but also the root causes of cartel power, including socioeconomic vulnerabilities and political corruption. Only through such a unified, sustained effort can we dismantle the cartels, enhance regional stability, and safeguard US national security.

Using Special Operations Forces to Counter Mexican Cartels: An Irregular Analysis

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/02/26/using-special-operations-forces-to-counter-mexican-cartels-an-irregular-analysis/

by Brandon Schingh

02.26.2025 at 06:00am

Sound bites and clickbait surrounding the 2024 US presidential election often emphasized the national security threat posed by Mexican drug cartels to the United States. These narratives frequently advocated for aggressive countermeasures, including the potential deployment of special operations forces (SOF) to combat cartel activities and their impact on national security. This threat gained renewed attention when President Trump signed an Executive Order on the eve of his second inauguration, officially labeling these cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.

Central to this discussion is whether the president has the authority to deploy SOF for irregular warfare against these powerful criminal organizations. While this approach demands military precision, its success depends on a broader strategy that integrates counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, foreign internal defense, and counter-threat finance. Operational and political challenges abound, from navigating international cooperation with Mexico to combating cartels deeply embedded in local communities. A comprehensive strategy must dismantle cartel infrastructure, disrupt financial networks, and address the root socioeconomic drivers of the drug trade, all while ensuring clear objectives and a viable exit plan to avoid prolonged conflict and foster lasting regional stability. A key aspect of this strategy must also account for the political ramifications of such military deployments, including the potential loss or capture of U.S. service members, insider attacks from Mexican forces, and mounting pressure from constituents during surges of cartel counterattacks on American soil.

Well-Armed Adversary

One critical challenge to consider when debating whether SOF should be employed in an irregular capacity against Mexican drug cartels is the sheer firepower these groups possess. Cartels have amassed arsenals that rival those of military forces, including Gatling guns, armored vehicles, and landmines. Alarming examples of their capabilities include the Mexican authorities’ seizure of a heat-seeking FIM-92 Stinger missile, as well as reports of two Javelin anti-tank missile systems being recovered from the New Generation Jalisco Cartel. This level of militarization underscores the complexity and risks associated with engaging these groups using SOF tactics.

Complicating matters even more is the reality that irregular warfare against these cartels will not be a one-way street. Cartel membership is uniquely linked to the population where key cartel members will have a grip over the civilian base as well as local politicians and government officials. The population, which would still be under the cartel’s open control and probably still is under its hidden control through the existing political cells, cannot cooperate spontaneously even if there is every reason to believe that a majority is sympathetic to the counterinsurgent – aka US SOF.

Other irregular tactics and techniques that can be exploited by the cartels include utilizing information and examples from distant war zones, such as using improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and drones. Drones have exponentially changed the face of warfare in the recent Russo-Ukrainian conflict; however, experimentation by the Mexican drug cartels with drone narco-trafficking is believed to have started as early as 2010. More recently, cartels are using drones to drop explosive devices and drugs, as well as surveil human smuggling routes and guide the flow of migrants in real-time. In 2023, Tucson-based Border Patrol agents exchanged gunfire with cartel members and later discovered ten IEDs along the border. If the cartels are not able to purchase high explosive artillery or mortar shells for the base of the IED, they can just as easily concoct an ammonium nitrate fertilizer and fuel oil bomb, like the creation of Tim McVeigh, infamously known for the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.

Spillover Violence

If US SOF were deployed to attack Mexican drug cartels, the cartels could retaliate by escalating their criminal activities, starting in US border towns and cities but swiftly metastasizing to major cities and soft-target venues across the country. With deeply rooted networks of informants, traffickers, and local affiliates, these organizations might orchestrate cross-border kidnappings, murders, and other violent acts targeting US citizens, law enforcement, Border Patrol, or even military personnel. An alert of similar messaging was issued to law enforcement in the El Paso area in 2010 when cartels and associated gangs began to direct more violence against Mexican authorities and use new forms of weaponry such as car bombs and grenades. Cartels could exploit their familiarity with the region’s geography and infrastructure to strike in areas where they have influence, using sophisticated surveillance, bribery, developed tunnel networks, and intimidation to evade detection. Their tactics might include high-profile acts of violence designed to sow fear and demonstrate their reach, such as public executions or attacks on symbolic targets. Such retaliatory measures would not only escalate the conflict but also pose significant challenges for security and stability in the border region.

Mexican drug cartels, with their embedded networks in major US cities, pose a serious threat of retaliatory violence if targeted by US special operations. These networks are composed of distributors, money and weapons launderers, and couriers, as well as a sophisticated social media presence to digitally advertise, sell products, collect payments, recruit, and train. Their highly sophisticated operations—ranging from smuggling networks and gang alliances to embedded urban cells—grant them the ability to orchestrate targeted attacks and acts of retribution on American soil. This transnational reach and capacity for extreme violence underscore their transformation into entities capable of asymmetric warfare, making any military action against them a likely catalyst for heightened violence and domestic instability.

Recognizing this escalating threat, President Trump issued a series of Executive Orders aimed at preemptive countermeasures. His administration reinforced physical border barriers, deployed additional personnel to establish operational control, and initiated the mass deportation of illegal aliens with criminal records, some of whom were suspected of cartel ties.

Financial Attacks

Another critical approach to effectively combating drug cartels is to focus on dismantling their financial networks. By targeting the illicit flow of money that sustains their operations, the United States can disrupt the cartels’ ability to bribe officials, acquire weapons, and expand their influence. Cutting off these financial lifelines is essential to weakening their power and long-term viability. To weaken drug cartels, the United States and Mexico must intensify efforts to dismantle their financial networks. The 2007 Mérida Initiative laid the groundwork by leveraging technology, specialized training, and advanced equipment to target drug trade revenues and combat money laundering. Building on the success of Operation Firewall—a 2005 program by ICE and CBP that addressed bulk cash smuggling, wire transfers, and other laundering methods—authorities can further disrupt the financial pipelines that sustain cartel operations.

Sharing of Intelligence/Training

Drawing parallels to Colombia’s campaign against Pablo Escobar in the 1990s and US operations during the Global War on Terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, the fight against Mexican drug cartels would require a similar approach. Mexican special operations forces must take the lead, while US involvement focuses on training, advising, and intelligence sharing to ensure the operation is perceived as a national effort. In past successes, US military support extended beyond intelligence sharing to include joint training and operational accompaniment, reinforcing the image that local forces were at the forefront while the US played a strictly supportive role. This model fosters both operational effectiveness and public trust.

At the close of 2023, Mexico’s former president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, formally requested the approval of the Mexican Senate to allow members of the US 7th Special Forces Group (SFG) to conduct training exercises within the country. These personnel would operate under the authority of Mexico’s Ministry of Defense. Foreign Internal Defense (FID) plays a crucial role in the US Special Forces’ broader irregular warfare mission. Collaborative training between US SOF and Mexico’s SOF units, such as the Cuerpo de Fuerza Especiales and their special mission unit, Fuerza Especial de Reacción, is essential in the fight against cartels. This partnership is not without its dark moments. Some elite members of Mexico’s special operations forces, trained by the US Army’s 7th Special Forces Group (7th SFG), later defected to form the notorious Los Zetas cartel. Despite this troubling history, it hasn’t derailed the broader relationship between the United States and Mexico.

While the incident highlights the challenges of fighting organized crime in a region plagued by corruption and cartel influence, it also underscores the importance of continued collaboration. The United States and Mexico have strengthened their partnership through initiatives like the Mérida Initiative and by working closely in areas such as intelligence sharing, law enforcement, and military support. These efforts show a mutual commitment to overcoming shared threats and maintaining a resilient alliance despite the setbacks of the past.

In 2010, the Mexico Fusion Center, located within the US Embassy in Mexico City, aimed to target high-value individuals to disrupt drug cartels and address global threats. While primarily focused on US interests, the center also provided valuable opportunities for collaboration with Mexican intelligence agencies like the Centro Nacional de Inteligencia (CNI). By integrating US surveillance technology with Mexico’s local networks, both nations could enhance situational awareness and strengthen coordinated operations against cartel leadership.

However, incorporating Mexican nationals into the Fusion Center presented additional challenges. A separate US-only intelligence facility at the embassy underscored the delicate balance between trust, sovereignty, and the need for effective bilateral cooperation. These challenges made it difficult at times to fully integrate Mexican intelligence personnel into the Fusion Center, highlighting the complexities of fostering collaboration while respecting national boundaries and security concerns.

Cultural Dependency

Although Mexican drug cartels do not meet the traditional definition of insurgencies—lacking widespread popular support or loyalty—they still manage to build significant influence through their provision of resources in underserved areas. This influence fosters social ties with local populations, which cartels exploit to further their reach and power. To effectively combat these organizations, operations must adopt counterinsurgency strategies that not only target the cartels directly but also disrupt the social networks they have cultivated. By weakening these connections, we can undermine the cartels’ grip on vulnerable communities and limit their ability to operate with impunity.

Mexican cartels wield immense financial power and resources, enabling them to corrupt politicians, government officials, police, and military personnel while simultaneously offering humanitarian aid to local communities to secure loyalty and expand their influence. Without the support of these government entities amongst the local population, these cartels simply cannot operate. Some examples include Colombia’s Pablo Escobar handing out food and throwing fiestas; Sinaloa Cartel’s El Chapo giving money for churches and soccer stadiums; and Gulf Cartel’s Osiel Cárdenas Guillén distributing food to the people of southern Tamaulipas in the wake of Hurricane Ingrid in 2013. Many of these criminal groups deployed COVID-19 assistance in addition to personal hygiene supplies to help their political agenda or simply demonstrate their governance capability.

Direct Action

If the US were to deploy special operations forces (SOF) to combat drug cartels in Mexico, direct action (DA) missions would likely be pivotal but fraught with exceptional risks due to the cartels’ firepower, territorial control, and intelligence capabilities. These high-intensity operations would focus on neutralizing cartel leadership, dismantling narcotics production, and disrupting supply chains through precision raids, interdictions, and surgical strikes. Collaboration with Mexican special operations units would be crucial to navigating political sensitivities, leveraging local expertise, and minimizing civilian harm. Missions would require robust intelligence, operational security, and advanced tactics such as close-quarters battles, sniper engagements, and rapid exfiltration to ensure effectiveness while maintaining operational integrity and mitigating the risk of retaliation.

Ultimately, these efforts would require a delicate balance of immediate, kinetic action and long-term strategic planning. By partnering with Mexican counterparts, US SOF could amplify their impact, working not only to dismantle cartel operations but also to undermine their influence within the region—all while maintaining a strong focus on minimizing civilian casualties and respecting Mexico’s sovereignty. Focusing efforts on specific cartels could make the use of kinetic military action more acceptable to the Mexican government and enhance its immediate deterrent effect. However, in the long term, this approach risks being counterproductive. Smaller, less dominant cartels may seize the opportunity to expand their operations and escalate violence as they compete to fill the power vacuum left behind, perpetuating the cycle of instability rather than resolving it.

Conclusion

In conclusion, while the prospect of deploying US special operations forces (SOF) against Mexican drug cartels presents serious challenges, the urgency of the threat demands decisive action. The cartels’ military-grade weaponry, entrenched influence, and adaptability to irregular warfare make a purely military solution both risky and unsustainable. Legal and diplomatic barriers, particularly the necessity for Mexican consent, further complicate unilateral intervention. Moreover, retaliation through escalated violence would undoubtedly increase instability, weakening US security interests.

To effectively combat this pervasive threat, a more comprehensive and coordinated approach is essential. This strategy must integrate military precision with efforts to disrupt the cartels’ financial networks, enhance intelligence sharing, and strengthen partnerships with Mexican forces. Strategic planning must account for the duration of the war, the toll on American lives, the financial burden, and, most critically, the resolve to see it through to completion—especially when the cartels retaliate on U.S. soil. US intervention should focus on empowering Mexico to lead the fight against the cartels while providing critical support. This collaborative, long-term strategy must address not only the immediate threats but also the root causes of cartel power, including socioeconomic vulnerabilities and political corruption. Only through such a unified, sustained effort can we dismantle the cartels, enhance regional stability, and safeguard US national security.

Tags: cartels, drones, IED, irregular warfare, Mexican Cartels, Special Forces, Special Operations Forces

About The Author

Brandon Schingh
Brandon Schingh holds master’s degrees from Boston University and Arizona State University, where he focused on unconventional warfare in the Global Security program. His career spans military, law enforcement, intelligence, and private sectors. Mr. Schingh served as a noncommissioned officer in the US Army Airborne Infantry. He later worked as a Federal Air Marshal and as a CIA security contractor and has previously published articles on unconventional warfare and national security.

18. Meet the Polaris MRZR Alpha, SOCOM's Downrange Dune Buggy

I would like to have one of these for commuting around DC. One of the things I always wanted as a kid was a dune buggy. I had a lot of fun tooling around the beaches of Cape Cod in the summer with some cool kids who had some (note attempt at humor).

Seriously, I hope every SFODA gets six of these.

Excerpts:

But they're not the only ones. A few lucky U.S. service members are doing the same thing with the Polaris MRZR Alpha at military installations and areas of operations around the world, only with way cooler technology -- and they're getting paid for the pleasure.

Instead of neon graphics and LED light bars, the MRZR Alpha comes with matte-finish earth tones and infrared illuminators. They're packing military-grade weaponry instead of GoPros, and wearing night vision and plate carriers instead of Pit Vipers and tank tops. At least the energy drinks are consistent.

Intrigued? So were we, so we got in touch with John LaFata, from Polaris Defense Engineering, to get the inside scoop.

Meet the Polaris MRZR Alpha, SOCOM's Downrange Dune Buggy

military.com · by Scott Murdock · February 25, 2025

Every weekend, trails and dunes across the United States come alive with thrill-seekers. You can spot them filling up at gas stations on the edge of town by the whip antennas, flat-brimmed hats and energy drink stickers (seriously, so many energy drink stickers). They pour their paychecks into dirt bikes, ATVs and UTVs like the hyperactive Polaris RZR.

But they're not the only ones. A few lucky U.S. service members are doing the same thing with the Polaris MRZR Alpha at military installations and areas of operations around the world, only with way cooler technology -- and they're getting paid for the pleasure.

Instead of neon graphics and LED light bars, the MRZR Alpha comes with matte-finish earth tones and infrared illuminators. They're packing military-grade weaponry instead of GoPros, and wearing night vision and plate carriers instead of Pit Vipers and tank tops. At least the energy drinks are consistent.

Intrigued? So were we, so we got in touch with John LaFata, from Polaris Defense Engineering, to get the inside scoop.

Like a RZR, but Rolling Coal and Packing Machine Guns

When America's elite operators need a fast, go-anywhere delivery service, they call Polaris. Their current vehicle of choice is the MRZR Alpha -- the latest in a series of combat utility task vehicles (UTVs) fit for the most extreme adrenaline junkies.

The aptly named Alpha boasts a 1.5-liter diesel engine good for 118 horsepower and 199 foot-pounds of torque and a four-wheel-drive system that's just as happy drifting through mud as it is crawling over boulders. It can haul 2,000 pounds and cover 300 miles on a tank of fuel. A roll cage protects up to four occupants, as do mounting points for machine guns -- lots of them.

Service members can add medium machine guns such as the M240 on side-mounted swing arms and stack a .50 BMG M2 heavy machine gun on the turret. If that's not spicy enough, they can opt for vehicle-mounted mortar or rocket systems. The Marine Corps L-MADIS integrated air defense system even fits on top of the Alpha to intercept drone attacks.

Polaris will spec out the MRZR Alpha to meet the U.S. military’s mission requirements. (Polaris Government & Defense)

In some ways, building a combat vehicle for the U.S. military is no different than building a high-speed toy for the civilian market -- just give the customer what they want.

"Our design philosophy is very customer-centric and fueled by passionate engineers and product managers on both sides of the business," LaFata told Military.com. "Both vehicle platforms begin by defining high-level vehicle requirements that dictate system- and subsystem-level specifications. These requirements differ in several areas between military and civilian models, but we still bring the same Polaris Off Road DNA, expertise and pedigree to the table."

Some components, such as body panels, instruments, seats, drivability and ease of maintenance, come straight from the civilian-spec RZR. Other aspects of the military's UTVs are increasingly dictated by mission requirements.

Civilian customers don’t have to worry about fitting their UTV in an Osprey; military customers do. (Lance Cpl. Joseph E. DeMarcus/U.S. Marine Corps photo)

"Previous models were more heavily based on an existing RZR platform and then militarized [RZR SW, MRZR gas, MRZR diesel]," LaFata said. "Still, modifications were made to elements like the rollover protection structure [ROPS], body plastics and cargo bed.

"MRZR gas and previous models used Polaris engines, but the MRZR D uses a third-party diesel engine. A collapsible ROPS on the MRZR D and MRZR Alpha allow it to be internally transported in smaller helicopters and other military aircraft; another requirement consumer models do not need to meet. Fuel requirements are also unique. Consumer models use a traditional gas engine while military customers prefer engines capable of accepting a variety of heavy fuels, including diesel/JP-8 fuel. Military models also have additional electrical functionality, including IR lighting and blackout mode."

The Polaris MRZR takes SOCOM operators to places that larger tactical vehicles can’t access. (Staff Sgt. Aaron Irvin/U.S. Air Force photo)

Are the customers happy? You bet. Polaris Defense Engineering doesn't just serve the U.S. military; it's earned the business of more than 50 foreign militaries and many federal and local law enforcement agencies in the United States.

Where Did the MRZR Alpha Come from?

The MRZR platform has come a long way since 2001. (Sgt. Manuel A. Serrano/U.S. Marine Corps photo)

The U.S. military has been working with Polaris for nearly a quarter-century. The partnership formed out of necessity in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, when leaders at the Pentagon suddenly had a burning desire to land a punch deep in the mountains of Afghanistan. Humvees were too big, and boots were too slow. Warfighters needed something that was closer to a rally car than a pickup truck.

Back then, Polaris didn't even have a defense division. It did have the expertise, though, and that was enough.

"We began working with the U.S. military after 9/11 before our defense division was stood up," LaFata said. "That communication and collaboration has been critical to helping us understand their requirements so we can engineer each vehicle to meet their mission demands. ... As Polaris has evolved, so has our government and defense division, which now serves military allies in more than 50 countries worldwide, as well as state, local and federal agencies nationwide."

I can see why so many military and law enforcement entities want the MRZR on their side. (Polaris Government & Defense)

Slapping a few guns and IR illuminators on an already awesome vehicle sounds simple enough, but it still took some development and refinement to get it right.

"There is a uniqueness in some of the challenges in developing a military-specific UTV," LaFata said. "These vehicles are not only engineered for off-road performance and capability but also durability, aircraft transportability with standardized tie-down requirements and other military requirements. As a whole, however, the development process doesn't differ much from developing a commercial UTV."

Conquer Any Clime and Place in the MRZR Alpha

When SOCOM needs to hit the ground running, Polaris provides the necessary hardware. (Airman 1st Class Stephen Pulter/U.S. Air Force photo)

As with any military equipment, the MRZR Alpha doesn't operate in a vacuum. It has to function within the larger team, and that's one of its party tricks.

In addition to a foot of ground clearance, 32-inch tires and an eight-speed transmission, the MRZR Alpha can hitch a ride in military aircraft such as the MV-22 Osprey. It has suspension points so it can be sling-loaded underneath a helicopter, too.

As with the civilian-spec RZR, military customers can replace all four wheels with individual tracks for unstoppable mobility in the snow. They can even have an enclosed cab to shelter occupants from arctic conditions.

As John LaFata of Polaris Defense Engineering said, the MRZR Alpha can handle any mission environment. (Polaris Government & Defense)

"The modularity of Alpha provides a wide variety of mission configurable uses," LaFata said. "From the Arctic to the desert, Alpha can be adapted to any mission environment and configured in the field with zero or very basic tools. Modular options include a fully enclosed cab, tracks and a wide variety of accessories to allow operators to kit out the vehicles for medevac, command and control, surveillance and reconnaissance, logistics, troop transport and numerous weapons systems."

One for You, One for the Department of Defense

Oh, to have this job for a day. (Sgt. Manuel A. Serrano/U.S. Marine Corps photo)

When it comes to the MRZR, some service members get to have all the fun. The rest of us can dream, though.

Want to spec out an MRZR for your dream mission? Check out the Polaris Government & Defense online configurator. If you get lucky, you might even score a deal on something similar at a military surplus vehicle auction, which would be a totally reasonable and in no way reckless financial decision.

You don’t have to be SOCOM to buy a RZR Pro R. (Polaris)

Want something with a little less wear and tear than a military cast-off? Don't forget that the MRZR can trace its roots back to the civilian RZR lineup. Polaris has everything from the kid-sized RZR 200 EFI to the no-holds-barred RZR Pro R Race Replica.

Regardless of trim level, the RZR is pretty awesome. If you haven't gotten to drive a sport UTV, I highly recommend it. Bring your own Monster stickers and night observation devices.

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military.com · by Scott Murdock · February 25, 2025

19. The Renegade Order: How Trump Wields American Power

I think this is a very balanced and important essay by one of our nation's best strategic thinkers.

Professor Brands gives us the yin/yang of today: optimism and pessimism.

Excepts:

The potential upside of Trump’s presidency is substantial. The potential downside is an abyss. The existence of such extreme possibilities is a source of international instability in its own right. It is also a testament to the double-edged nature of the hard-line nationalism Trump represents. If applied with discipline and a constructive spirit, such an approach could plausibly help the United States hold the Eurasian aggressors at bay. In a more extreme, unmoderated form, it could prove fatal to a system that requires a broad view of U.S. interests, a commitment to liberal values, and an ability to wield unmatched power with the right blend of assertiveness and restraint.

Here, unfortunately, lies the real problem with the optimistic framing: it requires assuming that Trump, a man who assiduously nurses his personal and geopolitical grievances, will discover—at the very moment he feels most empowered—the best, most globally minded and most diplomatically savvy version of himself. All those in the United States and elsewhere with a stake in the survival of the liberal order should hope that Trump rises to this challenge. But they should probably brace for the prospect that Trump’s world could become a very dark place.

The Renegade Order

Foreign Affairs · by More by Hal Brands · February 25, 2025

How Trump Wields American Power

Hal Brands

March/April 2025 Published on February 25, 2025

Ricardo Tomás

HAL BRANDS is Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of The Eurasian Century: Hot Wars, Cold Wars, and the Making of the Modern World.

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Donald Trump has already transformed the American political order. Not since Ronald Reagan has a president so dominated the national landscape or shifted its ideological terrain. In his second term, Trump could reshape global order in ways no less profound.

Today’s reigning, U.S.-led international system—call it Pax Americana, the liberal order, or the rules-based international order—arose from a brutal Eurasian century. The great global struggles of the modern era were contests to rule the Eurasian supercontinent. They inflicted horrific damage on humanity. They also created the most successful international order the world has ever known. That system has provided generations of great-power peace, prosperity, and democratic supremacy. It has bestowed pervasive, world-changing benefits that are now taken for granted. After the West’s victory in the Cold War, Washington sought to make that order global and permanent. Now, however, a fourth battle for Eurasia is raging, and the system is being menaced on every front.

All around Eurasia’s vibrant, vital periphery, revisionist states are on the move. China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia are attacking the regional foundations of Eurasian stability. They are forging alliances based on hostility to a liberal system that threatens illiberal rulers and inhibits their neoimperial dreams. War or the threat of war has become pervasive. The norms of a peaceful, prosperous world are under assault. The recurring terror of the last century was that Eurasian aggressors might make the world unfit for freedom by making it safe for predation and tyranny. That danger has flared anew today.

Trump isn’t the ideal defender of an imperiled American order. Indeed, one suspects he hardly thinks about international order at all. Trump is a hard-line nationalist who pursues power, profit, and unilateral advantage. He thinks in zero-sum terms and believes the United States has long been made a sucker by the entire world. Yet Trump intuitively understands something that many liberal internationalists forget: order flows from power and can hardly be preserved without it.

In Trump’s first term, that insight helped the United States begin a messy adjustment to the realities of a rivalrous age. In his second term, it could inform a foreign policy that—by squeezing adversaries as well as allies—bolsters the free world’s defenses for the fateful fights ahead. The world has long passed the point at which American leaders can aspire to globalize the liberal order. But Trump could succeed at today’s more limited and more vital undertaking: upholding a balance of power that preserves that order’s essential achievements against Eurasian aggressors determined to tear them down.

The problem is that this will require Trump to consistently channel his best geopolitical instincts when he will be sorely tempted to follow his most destructive ones instead. If he follows this destructive path, the United States will become less globally engaged but more aggressive, unilateral, and illiberal. It won’t be an absent superpower but a renegade one—a country that stokes global chaos and helps its enemies break the U.S.-led system. Trump’s presidency offers an opportunity to steer Washington toward a stronger, if less sweeping, defense of its global interests. Yet it also presents a grave danger: that Trump will take the United States not into isolationism but into something far more lethal to the world his forebears built.

CYCLES OF CONFLICT

Eurasia has long been the crucial theater of global politics. The sprawling landmass holds most of the earth’s people, economic resources, and military potential. It touches all four oceans, which carry goods and armies around the world. An empire that ruled Eurasia would have unmatched power; it could batter or intimidate the most distant foes. Three times in the modern era, the world has been convulsed by fights over the supercontinent and the waters around it.

In World War I, Germany sought a European empire stretching from the English Channel to the Caucasus. In World War II, a fascist alliance ran roughshod over Europe and maritime Asia and invaded the Eurasian interiors of China and the Soviet Union. In the Cold War, the Soviet Union assembled an empire of influence that stretched from Potsdam to Pyongyang and waged a decades-long struggle to overthrow the capitalist world.

Eurasian conflicts shattered continents and confronted humanity with the risk of atomic annihilation. Yet they also created opportunities for order. In the world wars, transoceanic coalitions turned back Eurasian aggressors, forging patterns of cooperation that brought the United States into the Old World’s strategic affairs. In the Cold War, Washington—twice burned by Eurasian conflagrations—opted to keep the supercontinent from combusting again.

The enemies of the liberal order have reclaimed the initiative.

American alliances deterred aggression against Eurasia’s industrially dynamic margins—Western Europe and East Asia—while also smothering old tensions within them. A U.S.-led international economy muted the autarkic, radicalizing impulses of the pre–World War II era. Washington cultivated a Western community in which democracy survived, thrived, and later spread to other regions. Only unprecedented investments by the overseas superpower could break the cycle of Eurasian conflict. The payoffs were historic advances—the avoidance, since 1945, of global war and global depression; the ascendancy of democratic values; seas made safe for trade and states made safe from death by conquest—that would have seemed impossible just decades before.

During the Cold War, the achievements of this order—then confined to the West—helped defeat the Soviet Union. In the unipolar era that followed, Washington tried to take its system global. The United States preserved and even expanded its Eurasian alliances as sources of influence and stability. It promoted democracy and markets in eastern Europe and other regions, trying to co-opt potential challenges by showing that people there could flourish in Washington’s world. Over time, the thinking went, this three-part package of U.S. hegemony, political convergence, and economic integration would foster a deep, enduring peace across Eurasia and beyond.

This post–Cold War project probably prevented an earlier, faster reversion to global rivalry. It made the world freer, richer, and more humane. But lasting Eurasian peace remained elusive. To illiberal states that sought to build or rebuild their own empires, the liberal order looked not enticing but oppressive. China and Russia used the prosperity that the U.S.-led system fostered to bankroll renewed geopolitical challenges. And American overreach in Afghanistan and Iraq left the United States poorly situated to resist the resulting threats during a critical decade. Today, a new geopolitical era is unfolding. The enemies of the liberal order have reclaimed the initiative, and Eurasia is once again the site of vicious struggles.

REVISIONISTS’ BALL

Every crucial corner of Eurasia is alight with coercion and conflict. In Europe, Russia’s war against Ukraine is also a war to rebuild a post-Soviet empire and fracture the existing security order. The covert counterpart of that war is a campaign of subversion spanning the continent, as the Kremlin conducts sabotage and political destabilization operations meant to punish its European foes. In the Middle East, Iran and its proxies have been battling Israel, the United States, and their Arab allies while Tehran has crept closer to the nuclear weapons it believes will indemnify its regime and ensure its regional primacy. In Northeast Asia, North Korea is improving its nuclear arsenal and long-range missiles, and it means to use the resulting leverage to sever the U.S.–South Korean alliance and bring the peninsula under its control. China, for its part, is bent on global power. For now, it is bullying its neighbors as part of a bid for a hulking sphere of influence—“Asia for Asians,” Chinese leader Xi Jinping calls it—and readying for war in the western Pacific by conducting one of the biggest military buildups in modern history.

From eastern Europe to East Asia, revisionist powers are seeking dramatic changes in the global balance of power. They are also trying to wreck the liberal order by smashing its most crucial norms. Russian President Vladimir Putin is reasserting the principle that strong states can swallow weaker neighbors. China’s revanchist claims and maritime coercion in the South China Sea are meant to show that big countries can simply grab the global commons. Putin’s quasi-genocidal barbarities in Ukraine and Xi’s industrial-scale repression in Xinjiang threaten to restore a world of autocratic impunity and rampant atrocity. The Houthis, a Yemeni militia backed by Iran, have created their own fundamental challenge to freedom of navigation, using drones and missiles to attack shipping in the Red Sea.

Each revisionist power seeks an environment conducive to repression and predation. Each understands it can best achieve its aims if the American order is laid low. The world is undergoing changes “the likes of which we haven’t seen for 100 years,” Xi told Putin in 2023—and the revisionists are pursuing those changes together.

At the Yangshan Port outside Shanghai, February 2025 Go Nakamura / Reuters

China and Russia are linked in a “no limits” partnership that features ever-deeper economic, technological, and military cooperation. Iran and Russia have an expanding relationship that includes the exchange of weapons, technology, and expertise in how to evade Western sanctions. North Korea and Russia have sealed a full-blown military alliance and are fighting together against Ukraine. These ties don’t yet add up to a single, multilateral alliance. U.S. officials sometimes dismiss them as proof of Russia’s isolation and desperation amid its war in Ukraine. But the relationships are part of a thickening web of ties among the world’s most dangerous states, and they are already inflicting serious strategic harm.

Autocratic alliances intensify challenges to the existing order. Putin’s war in Ukraine, for example, has been sustained by the arms, troops, and trade he gets from his illiberal friends. A dictators’ peace within Eurasia also raises the risk of conflict around its margins. Putin can focus on Ukraine and Xi can more aggressively probe American power in maritime Asia because the two leaders know that their long, shared border is secure. These alliances are also changing regional military balances by giving Putin the arms he needs in Ukraine and by giving Putin’s partners the Russian weapons, technology, and know-how to accelerate their own buildups. Perhaps most alarming, these relationships fuse Eurasian crises.

Ukraine’s war has become a global proxy war, pitting the advanced democracies that support Kyiv against the Eurasian autocracies that back Moscow. And as autocratic alignments cohere, Washington must face the prospect that a war that starts in one region could spill over into others—and that the next country the United States fights could receive aid from its autocratic friends. In the meantime, the multiplicity of Eurasian problems overtaxes American resources and creates an atmosphere of pervasive, proliferating disarray. The strategic nightmare of the twentieth century—that Eurasian aggressors might combine forces to upend the global order—has been revived in the twenty-first.

HOLLOW VICTORIES

Trump is not the obvious man for this moment—in some ways, it’s hard to imagine anyone worse suited to it. He originally rode to power on a blistering critique of American globalism. He spent his first term tormenting allies and threatening to withdraw from trade deals and defense pacts that serve as pillars of the U.S.-led world order. His illiberal, even insurrectionary tendencies made him a model for would-be strongmen from Brazil to Hungary. If analysts have obsessed over the state of the liberal order during the Trump era, it is because he often seems set on throwing it all away.

Trump certainly lacks admiration for the liberal order’s achievements and sympathy for its basic ethos. His “America first” agenda holds that the world’s mightiest power has been systematically exploited by the system it created and that a country that has long shouldered unique global burdens has no obligation to pursue anything but its own self-interest, narrowly construed. He has little interest in the flourishing of liberal values overseas. Moreover, Trump has no respect for the orthodoxies of his predecessors, including their belief in the geopolitically soothing effects of globalization or their tendency to treat alliances as sacred obligations. Throughout Trump’s first term, his disdain for these traditions drove committed internationalists to despair and produced corrosive uncertainty within the democratic world. But Trump’s instincts also helped him spot accumulating problems in the post–Cold War project and initiate some needed adjustments.

First, Trump recognized that globalization had gone too far. Welcoming autocratic states—China, in particular—into the world economy had not made them members of a global community or primed them for political evolution. Instead, it had entrenched dictators and empowered them to challenge the United States. Whatever its economic merits, globalization created strategic vulnerabilities, such as Europe’s dependence on Russian energy and the democratic world’s entanglement with Chinese telecommunications firms. Trump recognized that defending American interests would require limiting and even reversing global integration—especially with countries on the other side of the widening geopolitical divide.

A sharp-elbowed superpower might not be the worst thing right now.

Trump also saw that the post–Cold War defense paradigm—in which U.S. allies disarmed and relied ever more heavily on a unipolar superpower—was out of date. That approach worked in the 1990s, when tensions were low and many analysts feared that U.S. allies, such as Germany and Japan, might rise again as threats. Instead, autocratic rivals reemerged and rearmed. Trump’s first term thus saw sustained, sometimes humiliating pressure on allies to raise defense spending, along with efforts to pivot the Pentagon away from counterterrorism and counterinsurgency and toward great-power threats.

Most fundamentally, Trump concluded that the ascendancy of the liberal order was over and the world of cutthroat power politics was back. Washington would henceforth demand more from its friends because it faced growing dangers from its enemies. The United States would have to wield its influence more aggressively against countries trying to reshape the system to their advantage—including through a “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran and strategic competition with China. It might have to downgrade democratic values to cultivate motley balancing coalitions, such as anti-Chinese alliances in the Indo-Pacific and stronger Arab-Israeli cooperation against Iran. In sum, Washington should focus less on the positive-sum project of globalizing the liberal order and more on the zero-sum imperative of stopping determined adversaries from imposing their own, antithetical visions of how the world should work.

Unfortunately, Trump never got as much as he could have out of these insights, because his good ideas were always at war with his bad ideas and because his administration was always at war with itself. His policies were often incomplete, inconsistent, or contradictory. His record during his first term was highly ambiguous: Trump damaged and derided the American order but also protected it from its excesses and its enemies. In the higher-stakes environment of his second term, he has a chance to be the ambivalent savior of that system—if he can resist the temptation to be its gravedigger.

REBALANCING ACT

One thing is certain: Trump will not become a lover of the liberal order. His geopolitical inclinations have not changed, and his antidemocratic tendencies have only gotten worse. His “America first” platform still features a stark, omnidirectional nationalism aimed at friends, enemies, and everyone in between. Yet given the state of the world, a sharp-elbowed superpower might not be the worst thing right now. If Trump can harness his more constructive impulses, he has a chance to pressure adversaries, coax more out of allies, and reinforce resistance to the Eurasian assault. More fundamentally, he has an opportunity to rightsize the U.S. approach to international order—to complete the shift to an era in which the United States isn’t expanding the liberal project but simply preventing its achievements from being destroyed.

Step one would be a major military buildup. The international order is sagging because the military balance of power is sagging. The Pentagon doesn’t have the resources to thrash Iran’s proxies while also countering China; it struggles to both arm Ukraine and support Taiwan. The United States probably could not buy enough military power to face all its rivals simultaneously. But if Trump’s “peace through strength” program took U.S. spending from just over three percent to around four percent of GDP, it could ease crippling munitions shortfalls and narrow the gap between Washington’s commitments and its capabilities. This would also require significantly more military spending by U.S. allies, which Trump—who might really kick free riders to the curb—could probably get.

Thus, a second initiative: tougher bargains with allies. Trump is wrong if he thinks that Washington doesn’t need alliances. But he is right that imperiled allies need them even more. There is an opportunity here to renegotiate existing security pacts. If frontline Asian democracies expect the United States to potentially fight World War III against China, they should make outlays commensurate with the existential threat they perceive. Likewise, the price for Trump’s commitment to NATO might be a European pledge to spend dramatically more—say, 3.5 percent of GDP—on defense, buy U.S. weapons to support Ukraine, and align with American tech and trade controls vis-à-vis Beijing. The process of renegotiating the transatlantic compact could be ugly. But the payoff would strengthen the alliance against two Eurasian threats.

Of course, Europe will not be stable without a decent peace in Ukraine. Trump’s promise to end that war quickly and cleanly is unrealistic. He might fail to end it at all. But his desire to do so does coincide with the imperative of preventing Ukraine from losing and the autocratic axis from winning a war that is gradually, but unmistakably, going in the wrong direction. In the near term, this will require accelerating the crisis facing Putin’s war effort by ramping up sanctions on Russia’s energy sector and its trade with China while delaying an equivalent crisis in Kyiv by conditioning continued support on fuller mobilization of Ukraine’s military-age population. In the longer term, Washington will need to fashion security guarantees for Ukraine that foreground European initiative but feature a credible American backstop.

Trump in the Oval Office, Washington, D.C., January 2025 Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Meanwhile, Trump could challenge the Eurasian axis by squeezing its weakest link. In recent months, Israel has brightened a grim geopolitical landscape by battering Iran and its proxies. Trump could increase the strain through aggressive sanctions and threats of fresh military action, whether U.S. or Israeli, against Tehran and what remains of its “axis of resistance.” The goal would be to bolster Middle Eastern stability by imposing new curbs on Iran’s nuclear program and limiting its capacity for sowing regional chaos. If Trump simultaneously compelled a vulnerable Iran to stop sending Putin drones and missiles—or simply revealed the limits of Moscow’s support for Tehran in a crisis—he might start the long, difficult process of straining the revisionist entente.

Trump could also craft a sharper China strategy by building on Biden-era policies that, in turn, built on Trump’s own first-term initiatives. Beijing’s belligerence should help the Pentagon keep stitching together tighter security relationships—and perhaps establish more military basing opportunities—in the Indo-Pacific. Higher U.S. and allied defense spending and larger weapons sales to Taiwan could slow the erosion of Washington’s military advantage. Harsher technology controls and tariffs could compound China’s economic crisis—if Trump doesn’t trade them away for a deal to sell Beijing more soybeans. Trump won’t win the struggle between Washington and Beijing, but he might strengthen the U.S. position for the long contest ahead.

Finally, Trump should seek to exploit escalation rather than avoid it. From Ukraine to the Middle East, the Biden administration painstakingly calibrated and telegraphed its moves to avoid escalatory spirals. Minimizing that risk sometimes allowed U.S. adversaries to predict and even dictate the tempo of these interactions. Trump, for his part, prizes unpredictability. If he showed, however, that he would cross new thresholds with little warning—by sanctioning Chinese banks that are facilitating Putin’s war or striking Iran in response to Houthi attacks in the Red Sea—he could force U.S. adversaries to contemplate uncontrolled escalation with the world’s strongest power.

All this would amount to an ambivalent defense of the liberal order. Trump might still engage in gratuitous protectionism and pick pointless diplomatic squabbles. But he could nevertheless achieve something essential: shoring up the strategic bargains and geopolitical barriers that keep the enemies of the U.S.-led order from breaking through.

REFORM OR REVOLUTION?

This agenda could stumble on its own contradictions: Trump will struggle to boost military spending, cut taxes, and slash the deficit all at once. Likewise, it will be hard to rally U.S. allies against China while pummeling them with protectionist measures. Trump could also falter because a world of ambitious, colluding autocracies is difficult even for the most skillful superpower to handle. Most fundamentally, Trump might fail because he is more of a wrecking ball than an architect—and he may take American policy down a darker course.

The most crucial question about Trump has always been whether he means to reform or revolutionize U.S. foreign policy. In his first term, the answer was usually closer to reform than revolution, thanks to the moderating influence of advisers and Republican allies and also because Trump—who delights in extorting diplomatic ransoms—hesitated to shoot the hostage by tearing up the North American Free Trade Agreement or leaving NATO. Yet Trump did, by all accounts, seriously consider pulling the trigger. His “America first” slogan is straight out of the 1930s. So if the optimistic scenario is that a president focused on posterity keeps reforming U.S. strategy for a viciously competitive era, the pessimistic scenario is that a president who now rules his party and administration will unleash the revolution with a purer, more radical version of “America first.”

This latter scenario would not mean a return to isolationism, since there is no such American tradition. Before World War I, the United States wasn’t a Eurasian stabilizer, but it was a hemispheric hegemon with a long, sometimes bloody record of territorial expansion. Today, a nastier version of “America first” would be lethal to the liberal order not just because the United States would say goodbye to Eurasian security commitments but because it would become more predatory and illiberal to boot.

The outlines of this agenda are not a mystery; Trump talks about them all the time. He has long mused about quitting NATO and other alliances, which bother him precisely because they tie the fate of the United States—history’s most physically secure country—to obscure disputes in distant regions. If U.S. allies cannot or will not hit higher spending targets, perhaps because Trump makes his demands too extreme, he might finally obtain his pretext to bring the legions home.

Trump is more of a wrecking ball than an architect.

Likewise, if Trump tires of the travails of peacemaking in Ukraine, he might just walk away from that conflict and leave the Europeans to deal with the mess. If he sees Taiwan primarily as a high-tech rival, not a crucial security partner, he might slash U.S. support in exchange for economic benefits from Beijing. The United States would still maintain a mighty military, no doubt, but it would be one that is focused on fighting cartels in the New World rather than containing expansionists in the Old World. In the near term, this approach would insulate the United States from Eurasian quarrels and produce “wins” in trade concessions and dollars saved. Over time, however, it would dramatically raise the odds of key regions plunging into chaos or falling under the sway of aggressive states.

Rival powers might still suffer under this agenda. If Trump imposes the extreme 60 percent tariffs that he has threatened, he will hammer China’s export-dependent economy. If he wields tariffs mercilessly as tools of leverage, he will surely squeeze some concessions out of allies and adversaries alike. Yet harm to economic competitors might be outweighed by self-harm to the American system. Aggressive protectionism would reduce the collective prosperity that has long held the democratic world together and kill the cohesion needed to check a mercantilist China. Similarly, if Trump uses tariffs and sanctions, rather than global leadership and security commitments, to bolster the dollar’s primacy, he might make Washington look just as exploitative as the countries whose ambitions it means to thwart.

Meanwhile, the United States wouldn’t simply be de-emphasizing liberal norms and values; it would be casting a long, illiberal shadow. If Trump shutters hostile media outlets or turns the military or law enforcement agencies against his enemies, he will weaken American democracy while offering political cover, and a playbook, to every aspiring autocrat who wishes to attack a free society from within. Trump might also set back democratic values by coercing Ukraine into a lousy peace or supporting Hungarian President Viktor Orban and other rulers who seek to dismantle European liberalism. The balance of ideas reflects the balance of power. The democratic recession of recent years could become a rout if Washington quits the fight for the world’s ideological future—or, worse still, joins the other side.

Indeed, this version of “America first” wouldn’t just clear the way for Eurasia’s revisionists; it could well aid their cause. The revisionists aim to create an environment primed for expansion and plunder. Perhaps Trump gets along so well with Putin and Xi because he wants the same thing. Trump has said that the United States must annex Greenland, make Canada the 51st state, and reclaim the Panama Canal. He seems to envision a world in which strong states and strong rulers can do more or less as they like. Maybe this is all clever diplomacy—or mere trolling. But the further Trump takes this expansionist agenda, the more he risks alienating Washington’s closest allies and abetting the autocrats’ spheres-of-influence game.

These possibilities constitute a nightmare scenario for those who rely on the American order, but nightmares don’t always come true. Such a radical reengineering of U.S. strategy would face resistance from Democrats and some Republicans in Congress, and from the bureaucratic and international inertia that generations of American engagement have fostered. Stock markets would not react well to a protectionist onslaught. Yet the disquieting fact remains that a country with an extremely powerful executive branch has twice elected a president who seems deeply attracted to a slash-and-burn approach. Imagining an illiberal, renegade United States is only a matter of taking seriously what Trump says. The greatest risk of his second term, then, is not that he will abandon the liberal order. It is that he will make the United States actively complicit in its demise.

WHICH WAY IS UP?

The potential upside of Trump’s presidency is substantial. The potential downside is an abyss. The existence of such extreme possibilities is a source of international instability in its own right. It is also a testament to the double-edged nature of the hard-line nationalism Trump represents. If applied with discipline and a constructive spirit, such an approach could plausibly help the United States hold the Eurasian aggressors at bay. In a more extreme, unmoderated form, it could prove fatal to a system that requires a broad view of U.S. interests, a commitment to liberal values, and an ability to wield unmatched power with the right blend of assertiveness and restraint.

Here, unfortunately, lies the real problem with the optimistic framing: it requires assuming that Trump, a man who assiduously nurses his personal and geopolitical grievances, will discover—at the very moment he feels most empowered—the best, most globally minded and most diplomatically savvy version of himself. All those in the United States and elsewhere with a stake in the survival of the liberal order should hope that Trump rises to this challenge. But they should probably brace for the prospect that Trump’s world could become a very dark place.

Foreign Affairs · by More by Hal Brands · February 25, 2025

20. No Substitute for Victory: How to Negotiate from a Position of Strength to End the Russo-Ukraine War

Again, it is amazing how after 7 decades Korea looms large in strategic thinking. There are so many lessons from Korea that remain applicable today.

As an aside it might be wise for members of the Trump administration to re-read C. Turner Joy's book (I am sure they all have). It is an important companion to the Art of the Deal (yin/yang)

Excerpts:

Time is the ultimate currency in war. Now is the time to quietly and quickly build the capabilities that Ukraine needs for a decisive counterattack to end this war.

During the Korean War, in May 1951, General James Van Fleet led the US 8th Army to a crushing victory over the Chinese in Korea. The Chinese had launched a massive offensive to capture Seoul. Van Fleet’s 8th Army broke the Chinese at the outskirts of Seoul. Before the Chinese could withdraw to defensive positions, Van Fleet launched a counterattack, which left the Chinese in chaos, with over one hundred thousand casualties, a third of their forces. He saw an opportunity to continue his counterattack deep into North Korea and annihilate Chinese forces in Korea. However, Washington, worrying about escalation and placing hope in negotiations, which China agreed to that June, denied Van Fleet’s request. The United States lost an opportunity to negotiate from a position of strength.

When negotiations did not produce a ceasefire, Washington allowed a limited attack, but Van Fleet recognized that China had exploited this delay to reorganize its forces and establish a defense in depth. He protested that during the thirty days of dithering, the situation on the ground had completely changed. In hoping for negotiations, the United States let victory slip from its grasp. The war dragged on for two more bloody years, with tens of thousands more American casualties, and resulted in a peninsula that is still divided.

The leader of the armistice negotiations, Admiral Turner Joy, wrote, “I feel certain the casualties the United Nations Command endured during the two long years of negotiations far exceed any that might have been expected from an offensive in the summer of 1951. The lesson is: Do not stop fighting until hostilities have ended, not if you want an armistice with the Communists on acceptable terms within a reasonable period of time.”

Korea demonstrated that even if we are talking, we should not stop fighting. Like Roosevelt with the Portsmouth Peace Conference, we have an opportunity to end Russian imperialism, but only if we remember that there is no substitute for victory.

No Substitute for Victory: How to Negotiate from a Position of Strength to End the Russo-Ukraine War - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Robert G. Rose · February 25, 2025

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When I was in NATO’s headquarters in Kabul, a belief emerged that negotiations with the Taliban would inevitably produce a lasting peace deal. That deal never emerged. The Taliban knew they had the momentum. They had completely undermined the state apparatus in rural Afghanistan. Negotiations just served as a tool for their final victory. We were negotiating from a position of weakness.

As we enter into negotiations to end the Russo-Ukraine War, we need to negotiate from a position of strength. With the appropriate support, Ukraine still has the opportunity to achieve a decisive victory. For too long, Ukraine’s supporters have provided enough for Ukraine to survive but not enough for it to win. As General Douglas MacArthur declared, “War’s very object is victory, not prolonged indecision. In war there is no substitute for victory.”

Unless Vladimir Putin faces defeat, he will not be pressed into a reasonable peace. Any deal he would accept would serve only as a means for the eventual subjugation of Ukraine. He already violated the Minsk I and II agreements. Just as the Taliban used negotiations to secure their final victory, when Putin decides Russia’s grinding offensive has culminated, he can seek a ceasefire to solidify his lines, obtain sanctions relief, rebuild his forces, and then fabricate an excuse to launch a sequel to his special military operation. To achieve a lasting peace that puts to an end Russia’s attempts at imperial conquest, Putin needs to see that continuing the conflict with Ukraine will exhaust Russia and risk the collapse of his regime.

How Theodore Roosevelt Negotiated an End to Russian Expansion

Over a century ago, an American president successfully negotiated the end of centuries of Russian expansion in Asia. In 1905, Theodore Roosevelt orchestrated the Portsmouth Peace Conference to conclude the Russo-Japanese War.

Russia’s empire building in Asia concerned Roosevelt. In 1900, Russia had seized control of Manchuria. In 1904, at the outbreak of the war, he worried that “Russia’s course over the past three years has made it evident that if she wins she will organize northern China against us.” After Japan’s initial success at the Battle of Mukden in March 1904, Roosevelt wrote that he was “thoroughly . . . pleased with the Japanese victory, for Japan is playing our game.”

At the onset of the war, Roosevelt had sought to mediate a deal. However, Japan declined his efforts and stated that they would regard “any attempt at mediation as unfriendly because . . . Russia is simply striving for delay and intends to take advantage of every delay to perfect her preparations.” Even after repeated setbacks and facing economic collapse, Russian military leaders wanted an opportunity to press on for victory and did not desire a lasting peace. The American ambassador to Russia reported that the tsar would not consider any peace discussions until Russia’s Baltic Fleet engaged the Japanese. He informed Roosevelt that the Russians were bluffing about their strength and were concerned with their domestic crises.

But then in May 1905, at the Battle of Tsushima, Japan annihilated the Russian Baltic Fleet. A few days later, the Japanese ambassador to the United States sent Roosevelt an overture to mediate peace. While Russia still had much more manpower and industrial capacity than Japan, it now recognized that acquiescing to Japan’s terms was preferable to exasperating its internal issues with greater mobilization. Meeting in Portsmouth, the negotiators only required the month of August to agree to a peace deal. Even though Japan did not obtain all its demands, it put a halt to Russia’s conquest of Asia.

Ukraine is Not Yet Lost

It may seem that the prospects of Ukraine achieving a decisive victory like Tsushima are remote. During the last year, Russia has made slow, relentless advances, but the terrain it has seized is strategically useless. Its progress has come at enormous costs that outstrip its capability to sustain its forces. Russian casualties have climbed to over 1,500 a day, which Russia’s strained military recruitment cannot sustain. Russia is starting to exhaust its stockpile of Soviet equipment. Putin continues this unsustainable push to present a picture of inevitable victory to scare the West into forcing Ukraine to accept a ceasefire before his economy collapses. He has created a mirage of military and economic strength to increase his negotiating position.

Much like the tsar’s bluff a century ago, Putin has crafted an elaborate facade of economic resiliency. Obscuring military spending by means such as state-mandated loans from private banks to defense contractors, which may represent a majority of Russian defense spending, he has distorted the Russian economy and risks a cascading credit crisis. Putin’s precarious facade could collapse at any moment.

As his offensive races against economic collapse to produce a parallel phantasm of military success, Russia’s army will eventually outstrip its sustainment capabilities and culminate. At that moment, Ukraine will have a fleeting opportunity for a decisive counterattack. Ukraine needs to be ready to seize that opportunity. To see how Ukraine could capitalize on Russia’s culmination, we can look to the Hundred Days Offensive during World War I.

The 1918 Spring Offensive: How to Exploit Culmination

In 1918, Germany and its allies faced economic exhaustion, while the battered British and French armies would eventually be reinforced by millions of fresh Americans. But, after Russia’s surrender, Germany had a window of advantage as it moved fifty divisions from the Eastern to the Western Front. On March 21, 1918, Germany opened fire with 4,000 artillery pieces on Britain’s southern front. Using infiltration tactics, it penetrated twelve miles on the first day and inflicted forty thousand casualties. Within a week, it had pushed forty miles, an incomprehensible distance on the Western Front, where advances were normally measured in yards.

“We were beaten,” British Field Marshall Douglas Haig reportedly said at the time, “and it would be better to make peace on any terms we could.” The Germans continued to advance, and by July, the French feared Germany would seize Paris and the British planned contingencies to retreat to the channel ports.

However, Germany had bled through its temporary numerical superiority, the Allies had gathered forces for a counterattack, and French General Ferdinand Foch had learned how to defeat the German tactics. On July 15, at Reims, the Germans culminated as they failed to break French lines. With their logistics overextended and far from the prepared defenses of the Hindenburg line, the Germans were vulnerable. With the forces he had harbored for just such an opportunity, Foch immediately launched a counterattack before the Germans could solidify their position. For the next one hundred days, the Allies relentlessly pushed the Germans until their army collapsed, and they sued for peace.

Foch identified an opportunity for victory and seized it. The Allies had planned an offensive in 1919, but he did not wait. Waiting would have allowed Germany to reestablish its defenses and mobilize a fresh class of conscripts.

The Opportunity for Victory will be Fleeting

Just as the Allies did in 1918, when Russia culminates and before it can reestablish the defensive lines it built in 2023, Ukraine needs to be ready to counterattack, break through weakly held Russian lines, and achieve a decisive victory by exploiting their penetration deep into Russia’s rear areas.

Ukraine was unable to break through Russia’s prepared defense in the 2023 counteroffensive. It is hard to find examples of armies penetrating enemy defenses when the enemy has sufficient density of troops and time to emplace minefields and dig multiple lines of entrenchments. However, in the Kharkiv and Kursk Offensives, when Russia had not established a defense in depth, Ukraine demonstrated how it could conduct campaigns using maneuver warfare. Russia will present Ukraine with a fleeting opportunity for such a counterattack when its offensive culminates. Like the Germans in 1918, far from the Hindenburg Line, the Russians will be vulnerably strung out in hasty defenses and not ensconced in the multiple layers of the Surovikin Line.

Ukraine needs to be ready to conduct a counterattack at a much larger scale than in Kharkiv or Kursk to decisively defeat Russia and force a peace deal on its terms. Fortunately, Ukrainian forces have the right mindset for such an attack. I have seen Ukrainian staffs studying modernized Soviet doctrine descended from Deep Battle, which revolved around achieving deep, rapid penetrations of enemy lines to prevent them from reestablishing an effective defense. The concepts are there. Ukraine just needs help realizing its full potential.

How to Support Victory

First, Ukraine needs equipment for such a counterattack. Recently, the West became too distracted by debates about high-end capabilities for Ukraine such as the F-16 or whether to allow strikes on Russian territory with ATACMS. There is no silver bullet technology to win this war. Ukraine needs mass. It has done phenomenal work to increase drone production. It has been addressing its manpower deficiencies. But to sustain a breakthrough, it needs artillery, infantry fighting vehicles, and tanks.

As the Germans spectacularly demonstrated against France in 1940, after infantry achieve an initial breakthrough, tanks maintain the momentum of an advance to exploit a breakthrough and achieve a decisive victory. In its unwillingness to provide tanks to Ukraine, the United States reveals its lack of commitment to Ukraine ending the war. Even though the United States has 3,700 Abrams tanks in storage, it has only provided thirty-one to Ukraine. In fact, Russia has been the lead contributor of tanks to Ukraine. The United States only announced it would provide Abrams to Ukraine on January 25, 2023, eleven months into the war. Of course, it would be months until Ukrainian forces received and trained on the Abrams, which provided ample time for Russia to prepare to defeat those few tanks. The United States has provided a more significant three hundred Bradley Fighting Vehicles from its stockpile of six thousand, but those three hundred would not even fully outfit three brigades. While many of those vehicles need maintenance, that should not be an obstacle. After all, Russia has been sending museum pieces into battle.

On a promising note, the United States increased artillery round production so that Ukraine is approaching parity with Russia, which will be essential for achieving a breakthrough. To prevent Russian operational reserves from counterattacking to seal a breakthrough, the United States should increase donations of Remote Anti-Armor Mine System rounds to allow Ukraine to create minefields deep behind Russian lines to fix reserves in place. Ukraine is already using drones to remotely emplace minefields in Russian rear areas, which have restricted Russian forces’ movement.

Advising for Victory

In addition to providing capabilities to allow Ukraine to win, the United States also needs to assist Ukraine with appropriate advising. The United States has already trained almost twenty thousand Ukrainians under the umbrella of the Security Assistance Group–Ukraine (SAG-U), while the European Union Military Assistance Mission has trained sixty thousand. While these efforts have assisted Ukraine in mobilizing additional recruits, training soldiers on new equipment, and teaching staff the NATO planning process, they have largely been uncoordinated. NATO is in the process of taking over SAG-U, which should standardize advising efforts.

I observed a Ukrainian brigade that had members whose members had separately learned Ukrainian, German, Canadian, and American planning processes. They admitted that they would revert to Ukrainian methods when they returned to the front, because that is what the rest of the army used, and it was more suited for rapid decisions for their smaller staffs.

Compared to other armies that I have advised, the Ukrainian staffs I observed proved committed and quick learners. After a couple of weeks of instruction, they understood the US Army’s Military Decision-Making Process as well as American staff officers. The Ukrainians just needed to understand the logic of a planning technique.

Unfortunately, these advising efforts have not prepared Ukraine to win. The US Army trains Ukrainian brigades on scenarios that do not replicate the problem set they will face. NATO’s new advising mission needs to align its training with a theory of victory. It should prepare Ukrainian forces to conduct a decisive counterattack.

Future advising efforts need to better understand Ukraine’s existing processes and techniques. Ukraine has a robust system for collecting battlefield lessons and publishing them, but few of the American soldiers training the Ukrainians were familiar with these products. This problem mostly stems from the United States using an ad hoc approach to its advising efforts.

One of the consistent critiques of our recent campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan was the constant turnover of troops, which precluded the development of deep expertise. The problem is exasperated with our efforts with Ukraine. SAG-U is largely filled with borrowed military manpower, which only serves SAG-U for a few months. Meanwhile, most units that conduct training for the Ukrainians conduct it as an additional duty. With no time to fully assess Ukrainian units and optimize training for the context that Ukrainian units will face, the training mostly regresses to teaching American techniques.

In reaction to its shortfalls in advising during its recent wars, the US Army established six brigades of specially trained advisors. Inexplicably, these advisors have done little work with Ukrainian forces, either inside or outside the country. If the United States desires to end this war, it needs to get serious about its advising effort and prioritize its advising experts to assist Ukraine by better assessing its requirements, understanding its theory of victory, and tailoring US security force assistance to help Ukraine achieve that victory. With Ukraine mobilizing additional brigades, now is the ideal time to prepare those brigades to conduct a counterattack just as Russia culminates.

Unfortunately, those brigades have so far performed poorly. The French-trained 155th Mechanized Brigade experienced “systemic shortcomings” according to Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi, the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces. Even though it was supposed to be a model brigade equipped with the latest weaponry, it reportedly had 1,700 soldiers desert before reaching the front. When it engaged Russian forces, it suffered heavy casualties. The brigade has been broken apart and Ukraine has launched investigations. Effectively placed advisors could have mitigated such a debacle. Advisors assess partners, provide an understanding of their shortcomings, and ensure problems are solved before a disaster. They provide the connective tissue so that security force assistance programs do not fail.

Establishing Divisions and Corps

In addition to assisting in training brigades, advisors should help Ukraine in establishing division and corps headquarters. In February 2025, the Ukrainian Army announced the formation of up to twenty corps headquarters to provide a more effective command structure for its brigades. As soon as Russia invaded, Ukraine was in survival mode, and it has remained so for the three years since, raising a multitude of expedient units without a unified command structure. The transition to a corps system is an important step forward.

Currently, Ukrainian brigades are the primary tactical echelon. They are subordinate to operational-tactical groups and operational-strategic groups, which are regional commands with makeshift structures and no organic units. They can have over a dozen brigades assigned to them—far too many units to effectively control. The shortfalls of the operational groups mean that the Ukrainian General Staff often micromanages fights instead of focusing on strategic planning to win the war.

Division headquarters will be essential to setting conditions for a breakthrough, coordinating between brigades to maintain an attack’s momentum and managing the deep fight to disrupt Russian attempts to organize counterattacks or new defensive lines. Ukraine must prioritize building cohesion within its divisions with dedicated brigades. Divisions need to build shared mental models of how they fight to act with the tempo necessary to conduct maneuver warfare. Ukraine has been too quick to break apart brigades to meet emergencies, which shatters cohesion and shared understanding between staffs and commanders. This is yet another consequence of the survival mode that has characterized key aspects of Ukraine’s war effort. Divisions should be flexibly organized under regionally aligned corps to react to battlefield circumstances. As the German Army organized its corps in World War I, Ukrainian corps should focus on sustaining the fight and consolidating logistics elements far from the vulnerable front.

To assist Ukraine in establishing divisions and corps, the US Army will need advisors who can tailor their approach to Ukraine’s needs and not force on them the US Army’s onerous battle rhythm and targeting process, which is optimized to win Warfighter simulations, not wars. The advisors will need to support Ukraine in establishing adaptable systems to facilitate the transition from the defense, to breakthrough, and finally to exploitation.

For example, Ukraine has decentralized its artillery architecture to provide responsiveness in the defense. To achieve a breakthrough, it will need to briefly concentrate its artillery under division control to suppress Russian troops along the depth of its defenses, and then it will have to return artillery to decentralized control to provide responsive fires to its battalions as they rapidly exploit gaps in the Russian defense and overrun enemy positions before Russian forces can reestablish a defense. This transition between centralization and decentralization of artillery was a major innovation of Germany during World War I and enabled its forces to maintain momentum during the Spring Offensive. For Ukraine, maintaining the tempo of its counterattack will be paramount.

Timing is Everything for Victory

Time is the ultimate currency in war. Now is the time to quietly and quickly build the capabilities that Ukraine needs for a decisive counterattack to end this war.

During the Korean War, in May 1951, General James Van Fleet led the US 8th Army to a crushing victory over the Chinese in Korea. The Chinese had launched a massive offensive to capture Seoul. Van Fleet’s 8th Army broke the Chinese at the outskirts of Seoul. Before the Chinese could withdraw to defensive positions, Van Fleet launched a counterattack, which left the Chinese in chaos, with over one hundred thousand casualties, a third of their forces. He saw an opportunity to continue his counterattack deep into North Korea and annihilate Chinese forces in Korea. However, Washington, worrying about escalation and placing hope in negotiations, which China agreed to that June, denied Van Fleet’s request. The United States lost an opportunity to negotiate from a position of strength.

When negotiations did not produce a ceasefire, Washington allowed a limited attack, but Van Fleet recognized that China had exploited this delay to reorganize its forces and establish a defense in depth. He protested that during the thirty days of dithering, the situation on the ground had completely changed. In hoping for negotiations, the United States let victory slip from its grasp. The war dragged on for two more bloody years, with tens of thousands more American casualties, and resulted in a peninsula that is still divided.

The leader of the armistice negotiations, Admiral Turner Joy, wrote, “I feel certain the casualties the United Nations Command endured during the two long years of negotiations far exceed any that might have been expected from an offensive in the summer of 1951. The lesson is: Do not stop fighting until hostilities have ended, not if you want an armistice with the Communists on acceptable terms within a reasonable period of time.”

Korea demonstrated that even if we are talking, we should not stop fighting. Like Roosevelt with the Portsmouth Peace Conference, we have an opportunity to end Russian imperialism, but only if we remember that there is no substitute for victory.

Major Robert G. Rose, US Army, is a LTG (Ret) James M. Dubik Writing Fellow. He commands Alpine Troop, 3rd Squadron, 4th Security Forces Assistance Brigade. He holds an undergraduate degree from the United States Military Academy and graduate degrees from Harvard University and, as a Gates Scholar, from Cambridge University.

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: armyinform.com.ua

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mwi.westpoint.edu · by Robert G. Rose · February 25, 2025

21. China's largesse was always a better deal than USAID's

Except perhaps for debt trap diplomacy.

The one concept that was drilled into me by my Special Force's mentors that would serve development specificialists is that your planning must include how to "work yourself out of a job." It is hard for us to grasp that concept when we are so committed to a mission and doing good work. But there will always be work to be done somewhere. Every mission should include working yourself out of a job rather than the bureaucratic "prime directive" of sustaining the work of the organization in perpetuity.

China's largesse was always a better deal than USAID's - Asia Times

USAID’s closure means less dependency and social engineering and more empowering win-win initiatives for the Global South

asiatimes.com · by Bhim Bhurtel · February 25, 2025

US President Donald Trump has shut down USAID, the United States’ leading foreign aid agency, as part of a broader plan spearheaded by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

The Trump administration has sharply criticized USAID, accusing it of perpetuating distortions and anomalies through its aid administered to developing countries. Musk called USAID “the most corrupt institution” and declared that “it deserves to die.”

While USAID has long claimed to focus on humanitarian support, health services and development, Trump has said that it has instead facilitated political meddling, corruption, opaque governance and undue interference in the internal affairs of recipient countries.

Trump and Musk’s claims would seem to corroborate accusations that recent unrest in Bangladesh and Ukraine’s 2014 “orange revolution”—an event that ultimately led to the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022—are evidence of USAID’s role in orchestrating “color revolutions,” a modern form of regime change akin to a military coup around the world.

The US foreign policy framework has three pillars: defense, diplomacy, and development. USAID ostensibly serves the US national interests by promoting foreign policy and expanding influence rather than necessarily addressing the genuine needs of the recipient countries.

A significant portion of USAID funding is absorbed by administrative costs, high salaries, payments for intermediaries and highly expensive consultants (many former USAID senior officers), leaving only a fraction of allocated budgets to reach intended beneficiaries.

Studies reveal that for every 100 US dollars USAID spends, a mere 12.10 dollars reaches recipient countries. Moreover, USAID funding has been accused of exacerbating corruption and opaque governance in host countries by undermining local laws and regulations. Critics argue that the agency primarily benefits the ruling political elite and their US university-educated offspring rather than people in need.

Trump’s “America First” policy, which is reputedly trying to stop the misappropriation of US taxpayer money domestically and internationally, includes the decision to close USAID. The Trump-Musk disclosures have also forced Global South countries to review the effects of Western aid and take necessary actions to achieve greater economic independence, sovereignty and paths of economic progress.

Western foreign aid acts as a double-edged sword for many developing countries. While it purports to deliver development to recipients’ countries in words, it entrenches dependency and undermines their economic sovereignty and self-reliance.

Western donors initially dispense large grants but then replace grants with loans after recipient countries become more dependent on external aid.

The severe economic policy conditions of Western loans (bilateral and multilateral, such as from the World Bank and IMF) restrict the economic independence of the recipient nations by keeping them in a never-ending vicious cycle of borrowing to repay outstanding debt.

It undermines the basis of people’s livelihood and sustainable development by diverting a larger scarce government budget to repay debt and suppressing domestic agriculture and infant industries.

Western aid is usually tied to the geopolitical goals of donor countries, forcing recipient countries to align their policies with those of their donors. As a result, the receiving countries cannot implement independent economic and trade strategies.

Additionally, Western aid has been linked to promoting corruption and inefficiencies in recipient countries, which Musk has highlighted in shutting down USAID. Many funds are lost somewhere or mismanaged by aid management, failing to achieve their original objectives.

While often well-intentioned, including programs for distributing free food, seeds and other essential services, USAID’s aid often weakens local agriculture and businesses by displacing domestic producers and eroding local knowledge and skills.

Instead of fostering long-term economic self-sufficiency, such investment breeds dependence syndrome, making nations dependent on outside aid. Many academics contend that Western aid maintains dependency and hopelessness rather than promoting actual development.

It is high time for developing nations to transition to economic independence and self-sufficiency. Trump’s revelation on USAID calls for a concerted effort to build local industry, cut down on imports and increase local production.

Investment in education, technology and infrastructure is crucial to developing the ability to grow sustainably. These actions, however, require resources, which means that developing countries have to partner with lenders that provide development funds without political and policy conditions attached.

Regional trade and cooperation offer a promising path forward for the Global South. As the US embraces protectionist policies—more stringent than even the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930—the Global South must abandon the illusion of getting rich through exporting cheap goods to Western markets or relying on foreign aid for national development.

Instead, it should focus on fostering regional partnerships and trade agreements. African nations can leverage pan-African cooperation and collective bargaining to shield themselves from raw material and labor exploitation.

ASEAN countries should seize the opportunity to launch similarly bold regional initiatives, while South America must advance frameworks for regional collaboration. Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union is key to integrating Eurasian economies to deliver tangible results.

South Asia should revive the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to implement its stalled free trade agreement (FTA). These regional efforts can be interconnected through a strengthened BRICS+ framework, fostering greater cooperation among Global South nations.

More importantly, these countries need to reclaim ownership of their natural resources. Developing countries must end the exploitation of their resources by wealthy nations by taking control of their extraction, mining, utilization and trade. This will enable countries to sell their resources reasonably, increasing the value added from these assets.

There may be a good chance to accomplish this goal by holding joint and regional talks with China. Compared to the zero-sum game traditionally promoted by the West, China’s “win-win” trade and development strategy emphasizes mutual benefit. Developing nations that collaborate with China may advance Beijing’s objectives, but while avoiding the many drawbacks of Western aid.

The political and economic interests of donor nations are given priority under the Western assistance paradigm, which is defined by the conditionality of grants and loans. Western aid often comes with demands for democratization, political reforms, human rights improvements and pressure to join alliances against rival nations.

It is a form of interference in the internal affairs of recipient countries, compelling them to adopt Western economic, political and social norms—often at odds with their cultural values and traditions.

China, in contrast, prioritizes trade and investment over social engineering. Through policies like the Belt and Road Initiative, China invests in large-scale infrastructure projects, including ports, railroads and highways, in recipient countries. For many emerging nations, these initiatives are the mainstay of long-term economic expansion.

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For instance, Chinese investment has accelerated Africa’s green energy transition and digital and transportation infrastructure. Importantly, because China’s model does not impose economic policy, political systems or social requirements, it permits nations to preserve economic policy-making and political autonomy. As such, it has become a desirable substitute for countries looking to map out their development routes.

The Global South could gain a lot from China’s growing economic might. As the world’s largest retail and luxury market since 2020, China has a high demand for resources and goods from developing countries.

Developing countries can access big new markets for their goods, including for food, raw materials and manufactured goods, by engaging more deeply with China’s supply chains. Additionally, China’s industrial overcapacity offers opportunities for relocating its “sunset industries” and low-technology-based manufacturing sector to the Global South, fostering local industrialization and job creation.

China’s critics often warn of the dangers of resource exploitation and “debt trap diplomacy.” However, many people in the Global South see China’s strategy as a solid substitute for the Western assistance paradigm, which has traditionally put donors’ interests above those of their recipients.

China provides an often welcome alternative to Western aid where there was no alternative in the Global South just a decade ago. (Though Japan has long provided foreign aid without the strings attached by Western donors).

These countries can lay the foundation for self-reliance, economic sovereignty and sustainable development by embracing China’s positive-sum game model over the West’s often zero-sum approach.

To be sure, the debate over foreign aid and development models is far from settled. However, as the Global South grapples with the legacy of Western aid and explores new partnerships, it must prioritize its economic sovereignty, national interests and independence.

By utilizing regional collaboration, claiming control over natural resources and interacting with alternative partners like China, the Global South may escape the cycle of dependency and create a more just and prosperous future.

Bhim Bhurtel is on X at @BhimBhurtel

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asiatimes.com · by Bhim Bhurtel · February 25, 2025

22. Trump's vision of a new US-China-Russia world order

Is this not what we elected him to do? Or did we not understand this? Disruption both domestically and internationally to return to times past?

Excerpts:

For all the justified criticism of the mostly aspirational responses from Europe so far, the continent is built on politically and economically far stronger foundations than Russia and the overwhelming majority of its people have no desire to emulate the living conditions in Putin’s want-to-be empire.

Nor will Trump and Putin be able to rule the world without China. A deal between them may be Trump’s idea of driving a wedge between Moscow and Beijing, but this is unlikely to work given Russia’s dependence on China and China’s rivalry with the US.

If Trump makes a deal with Xi as well, for example over Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea, let alone over Taiwan, all he would achieve is further retrenchment of the US to the Western hemisphere. This would leave Putin and Xi to pursue their own, existing deal of a no-limits partnership unimpeded by an American-led counterweight.

From the perspective of what remains of the liberal international order and its proponents, a Putin-Xi deal, too, has an eerie parallel in history – the short-lived Hitler-Stalin pact of 1939. Only this time, there is little to suggest that the Putin-Xi alliance will break down as quickly.

Trump's vision of a new US-China-Russia world order - Asia Times

Trump isn’t appeasing Putin on Ukraine but rather re-ordering the international system into 19th century-style spheres of influence

asiatimes.com · by Stefan Wolff · February 25, 2025

There has been much and justified focus on the implications of a likely deal between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and the overwhelmingly negative consequences this will have for Ukraine and Europe.

But if Trump and Putin make a deal, there is much more at stake than Ukraine’s future borders and Europe’s relationship with the US.

As we are nearing the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s future is more in doubt than it has ever been since February 2022. For once, analogies to Munich in 1938 are sadly appropriate.

This is not because of a mistaken belief that Putin can be appeased but rather because great powers, once again, make decisions on the fate of weaker states and without them in the room.

Similar to the pressure that Czechoslovakia experienced from both Germany and its supposed allies France and Britain in 1938, Ukraine is now under pressure from Russia on the battlefield and the US both diplomatically and economically.

Trump and his team are pushing hard for Ukraine to make territorial concessions to Russia and accept that some 20% of Ukrainian lands under Russia’s illegal occupation are lost. In addition, Trump demands that Ukraine compensate the United States for past military support by handing over half of its mineral and rare earth resources.

The American refusal to provide tangible security guarantees not only for Ukraine but also for allied NATO troops if they were deployed to Ukraine as part of a ceasefire or peace agreement smacks of the Munich analogy. Not only did France and Britain at the time push Czechoslovakia to cede the ethnic German-majority Sudetenland to Nazi Germany.

They also did nothing when Poland and Hungary also seized parts of the country. And they failed to respond when Hitler – a mere six months after the Munich agreement – broke up what was left of Czechoslovakia by creating a Slovak puppet state and occupying the remaining Czech lands.

There is every indication that Putin is unlikely to stop in or with Ukraine. And it is worth remembering that the second world war started 11 months after Neville Chamberlain thought he had secured “peace in our time.”

The Munich analogy may not carry that far, however. Trump is not trying to appease Putin because he thinks, as Chamberlain and Daladier did in 1938, that he has weaker cards than Putin.

What seems to drive Trump is a more simplistic view of the world in which great powers carve out spheres of influence in which they do not interfere.

The state of the conflict in Ukraine, February 20, 2025. Institute for the Study of War

The problem for Ukraine and Europe in such a world order is that Ukraine is certainly not considered by anyone in Trump’s team as part of an American zone of influence, and Europe is at best a peripheral part of it.

Trump-eye lens on the world

For Trump, this isn’t really about Ukraine or Europe but about re-ordering the international system in a way that fits his 19th-century view of the world in which the US lives in splendid isolation and virtually unchallenged in the Western hemisphere.

In this worldview, Ukraine is the symbol of what was wrong with the old order. Echoing the isolationism of Henry Cabot, Trump’s view is that the US has involved itself into too many different foreign adventures where none of its vital interests were at stake.

Echoing Putin’s talking points, the war against Ukraine no longer is an unjustified aggression but was, as Trump has now declared, Kyiv’s fault. Ukraine has become the ultimate test that the liberal international order failed to pass.

The war against Ukraine clearly is a symbol of the failure of the liberal international order, but hardly its sole cause. In the hands of Trump and Putin, it has become the tool to deal it a final blow. But while the US and Russia, in their current political configurations, may have found it easy to bury the existing order, they will find it much harder to create a new one.

The pushback from Ukraine and key European countries may seem inconsequential for now, but even without the US, the EU and NATO have strong institutional roots and deep pockets.

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For all the justified criticism of the mostly aspirational responses from Europe so far, the continent is built on politically and economically far stronger foundations than Russia and the overwhelming majority of its people have no desire to emulate the living conditions in Putin’s want-to-be empire.

Nor will Trump and Putin be able to rule the world without China. A deal between them may be Trump’s idea of driving a wedge between Moscow and Beijing, but this is unlikely to work given Russia’s dependence on China and China’s rivalry with the US.

If Trump makes a deal with Xi as well, for example over Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea, let alone over Taiwan, all he would achieve is further retrenchment of the US to the Western hemisphere. This would leave Putin and Xi to pursue their own, existing deal of a no-limits partnership unimpeded by an American-led counterweight.

From the perspective of what remains of the liberal international order and its proponents, a Putin-Xi deal, too, has an eerie parallel in history – the short-lived Hitler-Stalin pact of 1939. Only this time, there is little to suggest that the Putin-Xi alliance will break down as quickly.

Stefan Wolff is professor of international security, University of Birmingham

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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asiatimes.com · by Stefan Wolff · February 25, 2025

23. The Bolduc Brief: Trump’s First 30 Days - Promises, Partisan Rhetoric, and the Real Challenges Ahead

Includes an assessment of CPAC.

Excerpts:

Having taken three oaths in my life—allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, the New Hampshire Constitution, and to my marriage vows—I can affirm with unwavering certainty that I have never betrayed any of them. Each of these commitments carries profound meaning and weight, transcending political affiliations or pressures. They reflect a dedication to integrity, loyalty, and service that must guide our actions and decisions.

I refuse to yield to the ideologies of any political party, extremist organizations, or the whims of individuals, regardless of their position. My loyalty lies with the oaths I have taken, as these foundational principles deserve unwavering respect and devotion. I will never compromise my integrity for the sake of political expediency, nor will I allow partisan rhetoric to dictate my beliefs.

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) has long been a hallmark of right-wing politics in the United States, serving as a rallying point for conservatives, activists, and political leaders. However, the conference garners attention in political discourse. It is crucial to keep CPAC in perspective. It is essential to recognize that the organization represents a specific faction of the political spectrum—not the diverse views and experiences of the broader American populace.

At its core, CPAC is a gathering designed to amplify conservative ideologies, championing policies that often reflect the interests of a particular demographic. This concentration on right-wing perspectives can create an echo chamber, reinforcing beliefs and strategies that are not representative of the entire national narrative. As President Trump delivered his speech touting accomplishments and attacking political opponents, attendees responded with enthusiasm, yet this enthusiasm often lacks the nuance that comes from engaging with a mosaic of viewpoints across the political landscape.

The Bolduc Brief: Trump’s First 30 Days - Promises, Partisan Rhetoric, and the Real Challenges Ahead

sofrep.com · by Donald Bolduc · February 25, 2025

23 hours ago

Map reveals where world's rare earth minerals are located

Newsweek · by Hugh Cameron · February 25, 2025

Hugh Cameron is Newsweek Live News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on international politics, conflict, and crime. Hugh joined Newsweek in 2024, having worked at Alliance News Ltd where he specialised in covering global and regional business developments, economic news, and market trends. He graduated from the University of Warwick with a bachelor's degree in politics in 2022, and from the University of Cambridge with a master's degree in international relations in 2023. Languages: English. You can get in touch with Hugh by emailing h.cameron@newsweek.com

Writers Page

andJohn Feng is Newsweek's contributing editor for Asia based in Taichung, Taiwan. His focus is on East Asian politics. He has covered foreign policy and defense matters, especially in relation to U.S.-China ties and cross-strait relations between China and Taiwan. John joined Newsweek in 2020 after reporting in Central Europe and the United Kingdom. He is a graduate of National Chengchi University in Taipei and SOAS, University of London. Languages: English and Chinese. You can get in touch with John by emailing j.feng@newsweek.com

Rare earth minerals have become crucial to almost every sector and the global economy at large, drawing significant attention to the countries that possess these vital resources.

Access to "rare earths" are now also central to many geopolitical disputes, due in part to President Donald Trump, who has said he will make the continuation of U.S. aid to Ukraine contingent on access to the country's resources.

Why Are Rare Earth Minerals So Important?

Rare earth minerals, a blanket term for 17 metallic elements found in the earth's crust, possess unique properties such as magnetic capabilities, electrical conductivity and resistance to corrosion. This makes them integral for everything from cigarette lighters to smartphones and missile-guiding systems.

Their importance to technology has imbued them with a particular—and increasing—value to the global economy, sparking a modern variant of "resource wars." Desire for control over these is currently fueling unrest in Central Africa, and also thought to be behind Trump's interest in gaining control of Greenland, a substantial hub of rare earth deposits.

Where Are the World's Mineral Deposits?

Despite their name, rare earth minerals are relatively abundant the world over, but not often found in concentrated deposits. This makes extraction and refinement a complex and costly process.

The map above, based on the most recent data from the U.S. Geological Survey, displays the world's major deposits, classified by the type of mineral as as well the deposit type—the rock formation in which the material is found.

Due to tectonic plate movements that create favorable conditions for mining, certain areas such as north and southern Africa, as well as the western coast of South America, have concentrated deposits of rare earth minerals.

Morocco's zinc deposits, primarily in easy-to-mine sedimentary and hydrothermal formations, has seen it become an outsized player in the export of this versatile metal, widely used in batteries as well as pharmaceutical products.

The presence of valuable minerals in South Africa has contributed to the country having a stronger and more diversified economy than much of the African continent, though governance issues and economic mismanagement has prevented neighboring Zimbabwe from capitalizing in a similar way.

Ukraine is also home to a number of critical mineral reserves, including lithium and titanium, a lightweight and corrosion-resistant metal employed in the construction of aircraft, surgical instruments and chemical processing equipment.

The value of Ukraine's largely untapped deposits has been in the sights of Trump, who has requested that the U.S. be granted access to these in exchange for continued military aid. This proposal was presented to Ukrainian officials last week and would allow American companies to hold a 50 percent stake in Ukraine's rare earth mineral deposits as compensation for both past and future U.S. military support.

Trucks haul away ore from a pit in Tenke Fungurume Mine, one of the largest copper and cobalt mines in the world, owned by Chinese company CMOC, in southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, on June... Trucks haul away ore from a pit in Tenke Fungurume Mine, one of the largest copper and cobalt mines in the world, owned by Chinese company CMOC, in southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, on June 17, 2023. Emmet Livingstone/AFP via Getty Images

Access to valuable minerals may have also contributed to Trump's desire to buy—and potentially annex—Greenland. As well as oil and natural gas, the self-governing Danish territory contains large deposits of elements essential for various advanced technologies, particularly those used in electronics, renewable energy, and defense applications.

China remains the global powerhouse in rare earth elements, holding 44 million metric tons and remaining the world's leading rare earths producer. Its dominance could potentially intensify America's push to expand its mineral reserves, given Beijing has in the past boasted about its reserves, considering these a source over leverage given the potential impact of export limitations on global prices.

What People Are Saying

Sophia Kalantzakos, professor of Environmental Studies and Public Policy at NYU Abu Dhabi, told the BBC: "[Rare earths] are very valuable because of their various tech applications, military applications, renewable [energy] applications; You name it, they contain rare earths."

"At the moment we have enough rare earths," she added. "But as there's this huge economic competition happening, the West has woken up to the fact that China controls the entire supply chains from mine to market."

Robert Muggah, a fellow at Princeton University, and Rafal Rohozinski, senior fellow at Canada's Center for Governance Innovation, recently wrote that Ukraine's mineral resources "are not only pivotal to Ukraine's sovereignty but also to Europe's energy independence and the competition between the United States and China for technological dominance.

"Control over these resources is a decisive if underrated factor in shaping the conflict's trajectory and will almost certainly influence the contours of its resolution."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gives an interview to Turkish media after his visit to Turkey on 19, 2024 in Ankara, Türkiye. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gives an interview to Turkish media after his visit to Turkey on 19, 2024 in Ankara, Türkiye. Mert Gokhankoc/dia images via Getty Images

Speaking to Fox News earlier this month, President Trump said that Ukraine has "tremendously valuable land in terms of rare earth, oil and gas, and other things."

Trump added that he wants "the equivalent of $500 billion of rare earth" from the country in return for continued assistance, and that Ukraine had "essentially agreed to do that."

What Happens Next?

Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country was not ready to sign any agreement on this, as the proposal "is not ready to protect us, our interest." On Friday, however, Trump said that the U.S. and Ukraine were "pretty close to a deal" granting access to its rare earth minerals.

25. The Deep Strike Dodge: Firepower and Manpower in Ukraine’s War

Excerpts:

All of this is not to say that longer-ranged Western missiles do not have real utility for Ukraine, nor that they should necessarily be withheld. ATACMS and systems like British and French Storm Shadow/SCALP cruise missiles enable disruption of Russian command centers and logistics nodes. But the impact of deep strike weapons on Ukraine’s war is limited, while insufficient military manpower is likely to be the most important factor in the war’s outcome.

Fully mobilizing Ukraine’s population will demand substantial sacrifices across the society. That this request has yet to be made during an existential war speaks to how politically challenging it is. Forcing change in a military, let alone in the political system and society that sustains it, is very hard. It is far harder than green-lighting weapons transfers, no matter how expensive or impressive those may look on paper.

Those American weapons may not even be coming for much longer. In the wake of Vice President J.D. Vance’s broadside against Europe in Munich and with Washington negotiating directly with Moscow, future American support to Ukraine is more uncertain than it has ever been. Trump may well negotiate directly with Putin, cutting Ukraine out of any say in its own future. If Ukraine is to salvage its deteriorating military situation and end the war on reasonably favorable terms, it is running out of time to get more and better men into uniform. The deep strike distraction has allowed Ukraine to avoid grappling with its manpower deficit and dysfunction for far too long.

The Deep Strike Dodge: Firepower and Manpower in Ukraine’s War - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Gil Barndollar · February 26, 2025

Time and again since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, there has been extended political wrangling among Western governments and Ukraine over purported wonder weapons that will turn the tide of the war. After the provision of main battle tanks, HIMARS rockets, and fighter jets, the most recent controversy has been over the use of deep strike (in actuality, short-range ballistic missile) ATACMS systems to hit targets in Russia. While ATACMS have had only a modest effect on the fierce fighting for the Kursk salient, the year-long back and forth over this weapons system has had a real impact on the larger war. The deep strike debate has enabled President Volodymyr Zelensky to avoid confronting the real crux of his country’s war: manpower.

As recently as September, Zelensky told U.S. senators that with enough U.S. missiles, he could bring Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table. The Ukrainian president’s Western amplifiers have long made even more grandiose claims about the impact of Western firepower, despite the clear constraint of limited American and Ukrainian ATACMS stocks.

The six-month U.S. congressional stalemate that held up munitions shipments to Ukraine from late 2023 to mid-2024 led to Ukrainian losses of men and territory by inducing an enormous deficit of artillery ammunition. This was only partially mitigated by Ukraine’s burgeoning domestic drone production. But the situation in Ukraine has changed since last spring. Ukrainian forces now have parity and sometimes even a small firepower edge at important points on the 600-mile frontline. Ukraine’s shell hunger has been largely sated for the time being. Firepower and materiel are no longer the Russo-Ukrainian war’s center of gravity.

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Hard Decisions Deferred

Since the invasion, Zelensky has repeatedly avoided a serious Ukrainian mobilization for a long war. When Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi called for drafting 500,000 more soldiers in late 2023, Zelensky quickly replaced him with Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi. After the Ukrainian parliament passed a bill to lower the minimum draft age from 27 to 25, Zelensky sat on it for 10 months before finally signing it in April 2024. Enormous gaps in the mobilization system remain. Even doctors and other medical clinicians, critical to saving soldiers’ lives and preserving the morale of the entire army, are mobilized only incidentally.

After Ukraine repulsed Russia’s opening thrust at Kyiv in March 2022, it seemed that manpower might be a Ukrainian advantage. Russia’s invasion force, at just 190,000 men, was far too small to conquer Ukraine after the initial gamble on a coup de main failed. Fearing protests and political instability at home, Putin was loath to put young conscripts into combat or compel ex-servicemen to re-enlist. When finally forced to do so as a response to the successful September 2022 Ukrainian counteroffensive, the messy mobilization drove hundreds of thousands of young men to flee Russia — though it also stabilized the lines at a moment of maximum Russian vulnerability and Ukrainian momentum.

The Limits of Volunteerism

Ukraine’s failure to mobilize early, quickly, and aggressively, has now come back to bite it. With American support uncertain, it may now cost Kyiv the war. An initial flood of volunteers in 2022 eventually petered out as the war ground on, fatigue mounted, and the brutal conditions at the shell- and drone-scoured zero line became clear. Just 12 percent of new Ukrainian recruits are volunteers, according to Defense Minister Rustem Umerov in an October 2024 Fox News interview. That figure may be optimistic.

Inadequate manpower also induces an unknowable but potentially decisive threat of mass exhaustion and morale collapse. Many Ukrainian soldiers have been at war with minimal interruption since 2014. Going absent without official leave (AWOL) from brigades has become endemic, to the point that Ukraine recently decriminalized the first such offense for soldiers. This second chance has allowed soldiers to recommit and return to their units, or, increasingly, to be poached by other brigades and restart their service in new units. Either way, Ukraine gets some of these men back to the front.

Raw numbers are not the only manpower problem Ukraine faces. After the draft age was lowered to 25, the age of frontline soldiers, according to Ukrainian commanders and Western analysts like Rob Lee and Michael Kofman, has somehow gone up. The average Ukrainian infantryman is now at least 43 years old. Many soldiers older than this average are unfit for frontline duty and so are ultimately spared service in the zero line. A Ukrainian brigade may often only have a company or even a platoon of younger, healthier soldiers that can conduct offensive operations. A medical officer on the Kursk front in December told me that while the average age in his battalion was 40, the average age of wounded men in the unit was only 28.

Inadequate frontline manpower has led to a vicious cycle: Insufficient troop strength means training quality has gone down because there is such intense pressure to get more men. These inadequately trained, inexperienced men then take heavy casualties, resulting in an immediate need for more men in the trenches. This news reaches Ukrainian civilians, who become even more reluctant to serve. And so it repeats.

Force Management Failures

This dysfunctional dynamic has been exacerbated by Ukrainian force management decisions. Instead of using new recruits to fill losses in existing brigades, the Ukrainian military stands up new brigades full of inexperienced recruits, even as experienced units that have seldom left the frontline are bled white and not adequately replenished. This leads to understrength brigades being haphazardly supplemented with battalions cannibalized from other formations. The loaned battalions are regularly denuded of arms, officers, and even manpower by their parent formations. These organizational orphans are thrust into the fight by their new commands and pay dearly.

Ukraine has just belatedly announced plans to institute a corps system, to mitigate the paradoxical combination of inattention and micro-management that has plagued the current command and control by over-tasked operational-tactical groups. Whether corps can be stood up and effectively command as Ukraine’s lines deteriorate is an open question.

The manpower situation has gotten so bad that Ukraine is starting to make significant force management changes. These are a mixed bag, however. Recent battlefield struggles by the heralded, French-trained 155th Mechanized Brigade appear to have led Zelensky to finally decree that newly trained soldiers will be sent to existing units, not new formations. On the other hand, the infantry deficit is so dire that highly trained specialists, like MiG-29 aviation technicians, are being rushed into the breach as infantry replacements. Despite condemnation of the practice by Zelensky, the Kyiv Independent recently reported that the practice continues unabated.

Weapons and materiel have mitigated Ukraine’s manpower deficit, but missiles and drones cannot replace the man in the mud. Ukraine’s vaunted “army of drones” has provided some relief as an economy of force instrument, enabling Ukrainians to kill large numbers of Russians from relative safety. Drones are not a solution to the infantry deficit, however. First-person view suicide drones may be terrifying, but they are essentially just one more munition, albeit one that can loiter, hunt, and be easily recorded for grisly propaganda after the fact. Infantrymen are still required to take and hold ground, as frontline commanders regularly attest.

Ukraine’s partners are belatedly acknowledging this enduring reality of land warfare. In September, Zelensky brought a victory plan to Washington that was little more than a shopping list and a request for more long-range missiles: Senior U.S. officials were “unimpressed.” After years of supplying Ukraine with weapons and minimizing any public discussion of manpower, in its lame-duck period the Biden administration finally called on Ukraine to lower its draft age to 18 in order to get more soldiers to the front.

The new Trump administration quickly echoed the outgoing Biden team in this belated manpower pressure. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz also called on Kyiv to lower its draft age and mobilize more men in order to stabilize the front line as a prelude to negotiations with Russia.

Some Ukrainian leaders are also calling for more comprehensive mobilization and lowering the draft age. Maj. Gen. Viktor Nazarov, a former advisor to Zaluzhnyi, has said a minimum draft age of 21 is necessary. Gen. Viktor Muzhenko, who commanded the Ukrainian military between 2014 to 2019, has expressed skepticism about the long-term impact of a lower draft age but has advocated for more thorough basic training and psychological preparedness for recruits.

Ukrainian Resistance

Zelensky is adamantly against lowering the draft age further, posting on X in December that “The priority should be saving lives, not drafting younger soldiers.” This is a sentiment broadly shared by his countrymen. In a pair of trips to Ukraine this past fall, I was told by many soldiers, even those on recruiting duty whose daily mission is to enlist more men, that Ukraine ought to spare its youngest citizens from fighting. Widespread awareness of the dangers of the front and the inadequacy of Ukrainian military training have further entrenched resistance to drafting teenagers and those in their early twenties.

This resistance has intermittently turned into violent pushback against the Ukrainian soldiers who round up draft-eligible young men. Earlier this month, four attacks in five days, two of them fatal bombings, targeted recruiters around the country. Ukraine’s security services have described these incidents as Russian-organized terrorism. But previous skirmishes, some escalating to murder, appear to be organic Ukrainian reactions to forcible conscription.

In place of a lowered draft age, on Feb. 10 Ukraine announced new “special contracts” for volunteers aged 18 to 24. Those signing up will receive annual salaries of 1 million hryvnia ($24,000), 0 percent interest mortgage rates, free higher education, and the ability to travel abroad after service. Most significantly, these soldiers will only be required to serve for one year. But young Ukrainians appear to be skeptical the state will abide by the terms of these new contracts. It remains to be seen whether this new package of inducements will significantly alter the size and composition of Ukrainian infantry units.

Demographic realities drive much of the resistance to forcing Ukraine’s best potential soldiers to serve. An enormous post-Soviet birth dearth has left 20–24 year-olds the smallest age cohort in Ukraine: 2001 saw the lowest birth rate in Ukrainian history. Ukraine currently has the lowest birth rate in Europe, with three times as many deaths as births in 2024. There were about 50 million Ukrainian citizens upon independence in 1991. Today, there may be as few as 26 or 27 million people within Ukrainian-controlled territory. Many Ukrainians fear that if the young are not spared from the war, their country has no future.

These demographic constraints, however, only tell part of the story. There are about 1.5 million 18-to-25 year-old men in Ukraine. Thirty or so battalions, about 30,000 young men, could be enough to stabilize the front line, according to military analyst Michael Kofman. And of that 30,000, only a small percentage will be killed in action. A few thousand young men are not going to be the difference between demographic survival and extinction. And if this war is truly for the survival of an independent Ukraine, then demographic concerns should ultimately be secondary. The priority should be stopping Russia, then worrying about families and fertility.

Conclusion

All of this is not to say that longer-ranged Western missiles do not have real utility for Ukraine, nor that they should necessarily be withheld. ATACMS and systems like British and French Storm Shadow/SCALP cruise missiles enable disruption of Russian command centers and logistics nodes. But the impact of deep strike weapons on Ukraine’s war is limited, while insufficient military manpower is likely to be the most important factor in the war’s outcome.

Fully mobilizing Ukraine’s population will demand substantial sacrifices across the society. That this request has yet to be made during an existential war speaks to how politically challenging it is. Forcing change in a military, let alone in the political system and society that sustains it, is very hard. It is far harder than green-lighting weapons transfers, no matter how expensive or impressive those may look on paper.

Those American weapons may not even be coming for much longer. In the wake of Vice President J.D. Vance’s broadside against Europe in Munich and with Washington negotiating directly with Moscow, future American support to Ukraine is more uncertain than it has ever been. Trump may well negotiate directly with Putin, cutting Ukraine out of any say in its own future. If Ukraine is to salvage its deteriorating military situation and end the war on reasonably favorable terms, it is running out of time to get more and better men into uniform. The deep strike distraction has allowed Ukraine to avoid grappling with its manpower deficit and dysfunction for far too long.

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Gil Barndollar is a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities and a senior research fellow at the Catholic University of America’s Center for the Study of Statesmanship, where he studies military manpower and mobilization.

Image: Ukrainian Ministry of Defense via ArmyInform.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Gil Barndollar · February 26, 2025

26. What War is (A Poem)

Something to reflect on.

Perhaps someone should read this out loud as an invocation when POTUS and Zelensky meet this Friday.

WHAT WAR IS

By Ostap Slyvynsky snyder.substack.com

February 24, 2025

(Ukrainian poet and essayist)

View Original

https://snyder.substack.com/p/what-war-is?utm

Maybe someday they’ll decide to write a textbook

only we won’t be invited to contribute

because others always know better what war is

because others always know better

okay

but just one chapter

give us one chapter

you won’t find any supplemental material anyway

this will be a chapter on silence

whoever hasn’t been in war doesn’t know what silence is

but to the contrary, they know

that we don’t know

the way fish don’t know about the water that sustains them and the oil that kills them

the way a field mouse doesn’t know about the dark that hides it from the hawk but

it hides the hawk too

let us write this chapter

i know you’re afraid of blood so we’ll write it with water

the water the wounded man asked for when he could no longer swallow and just

looked at it

water that seeps through a shelled-out roof

water that can replace tears

yes – we’ll come to you with water

we’ll leave no permanent marks

on your slogans and values that we’ve so flagrantly misused

that you can’t even show them to your children anymore

these will be our few pages

and only a few will know they aren’t empty

(published by permission of the author, Ostap Slyvynsky, in an original translation from the Ukrainian by Amelia Glaser)

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

If you do not read anything else in the 2017 National Security Strategy read this on page 14:

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

Access NSS HERE

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