Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

“There is nothing so delightful as the hearing, or the speaking of truth. For this reason, there is no conversation so agreeable as that of the man of integrity, who hears without any intention to betray, and speaks without any intention to deceive.”

– Plato

“Thinking is difficult. That is why most people judge.”

– Carl Jung

"Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancements, you should include all things in your gratitude."

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

1. Trump Tariffs: China Hits Back With U.S. Penalties

2. Trump Blinks on North American Tariffs

3. Pray for Surrender in Trump’s Dumb Trade War

4. El Salvador Offers to Take U.S. Deportees of Any Nationality Including Imprisoned Americans

5. What to Know About USAID, the Agency Elon Musk Wants Dead

6. Army Set to Dramatically Grow Basic Training, Riding Recruiting High

7. Ukraine war briefing: Trump demands rare earths from Kyiv in exchange for aid

8. Ukrainian troops losing ground to Russia as Trump talks of ending war

9. Ukraine to Restructure Ground Forces? by Mick Ryan

10. Niger: Kidnapping of two Chinese nationals near an oil site

11. Priorities for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth

12. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 3, 2025

13. Iran Update, February 3, 2025

14. Why Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces Must Regroup

15. National Security, Veterans at Risk in Trump Effort to Reshape Federal Workforce, Experts Warn

16. Trump says sovereign wealth fund could buy TikTok

17. Pentagon rescinds social media pause

18. Elon Musk tightens grip on gov’t, sparking ‘coup’ accusations

19. Trump to withdraw US from UN Rights Council, extend UNRWA funds ban: Report

20. Alleged Chinese Spies Arrested in the Philippines on Espionage Charges

21. Trump’s tariffs fit a growing global trend of hardball migration diplomacy

22. Five Key Principles for U.S. Irregular Warfare Strategy in the Gray Zone

23. Trump Has a Rare and Short Window to Solve the Iran Problem

24. American Leadership Is Good for the Global South

25. How Hezbollah Ends: The Path to a Better Lebanon

26. Biden Started a Process to Protect US National Security from China. Trump Should Finish It.

1. Trump Tariffs: China Hits Back With U.S. Penalties

Retaliatory Tariffs Are Symbolic, Analyst Says

What to Know About Canada and Mexico's Pause on Trump Tariffs

US friends, partners, and allies are ready to cooperate with the US more than ever. They understand POTUS so it is not necessary to be coercive. He laid the foundation of coercion in the first term. He might benefit from more positive leadership rather than using friends, partners, and allies, as part of political theater for his political base (but by all means coerce and fight with our adversaries and conduct aggressive (and real) political warfare against them). He could now "win without fighting" (especially with friends, partners, and allies) but that is probably antithetical to his nature.

Trump Tariffs: China Hits Back With U.S. Penalties

President Trump agreed to delay tariffs on Mexico and Canada, but went ahead with 10% levies on China

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/trump-tariffs-us-trade-stock-market-02-04-2025?mod=WSJ_home_mediumtopper_pos_1

Last Updated:

Feb. 4, 2025 at 6:17 AM EST

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China struck back against U.S. tariffs with levies on certain American goods, an antitrust probe into Google and restrictions on Chinese exports of key minerals. The moves escalated a new trade war between the world's two largest economies.

Just after American tariffs of 10% on China went into effect early Tuesday morning, Beijing said it would retaliate. Its measures will go into effect on Feb. 10. The Trump administration struck deals Monday to delay imposing new tariffs on Mexico and Canada.

President Trump said the tariffs on China were just "an opening salvo." He added: "If we can't make a deal with China, then the tariffs would be very, very substantial."

Oil prices fell on China's announcement and the WSJ Dollar Index rose.

Asian stock markets gave up some of their earlier gains on news of China’s actions. U.S. stock futures were slightly lower.

Both Canada and Mexico agreed to bolster their border security and take other steps to prevent drug trafficking following conversations with Trump Monday.

China's tariffs affect U.S. energy exports, including oil, coal and liquefied natural gas, and other areas such as pickup trucks and farm machinery.

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4 hours ago

Retaliatory Tariffs Are Symbolic, Analyst Says

Hannah Miao

Reporter

China’s early response to new tariffs from the U.S. is “a more symbolic move for now,” Louise Loo, China lead economist at Oxford Economics, said in a report.

The move to impose retaliatory tariffs of up to 15% on select American goods would raise the weighted effective tariff rate on U.S. imports by around 2 percentage points, the advisory firm estimates. More rounds of tariffs are likely, given the U.S. said it would increase penalties if China responded with retaliatory levies, according to the firm. China could also weaken its currency and offer support to Chinese exporters to address tariffs, the report said.

Latest Updates

3 min ago

What to Know About Canada and Mexico's Pause on Trump Tariffs

Gareth Vipers

News Editor

Hours before sweeping tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada were due to start, agreements were reached to put them on hold for 30 days. Here's what to know:

President Trump held separate telephone conversations with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Monday in which the leaders committed to joint measures to fight fentanyl trafficking across the northern and southern U.S. borders.

Mexico and Canada each agreed to deploy 10,000 personnel to their respective borders.

Trudeau said Canada would appoint a fentanyl czar, list cartels as terrorists and launch a joint strike force with the U.S. to combat organized crime, fentanyl trafficking and money laundering.

The tariffs, announced by Trump over the weekend, were due to come into force Tuesday. The U.S. was due to levy 25% charges on many imports from Mexico and Canada, with a 10% tariff on Canadian oil, natural gas and electricity.

2. Trump Blinks on North American Tariffs

I do not think this is about blinking. But he might have been able to achieve these minor concessions just by asking.

Trump Blinks on North American Tariffs

The President pauses after minor concessions from Canada and Mexico.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/donald-trump-tariffs-canada-mexico-claudia-sheinbaum-justin-trudeau-concessions-trade-border-d5bbed97?mod=hp_opin_pos_0

By The Editorial Board

Feb. 3, 2025 6:17 pm ET

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum in November. Photo: ricardo moraes/Reuters

President Trump never admits a mistake, but he often changes his mind. That’s the best way to read his decision Monday to pause his 25% tariffs against Mexico and Canada after minor concessions from each country.

Mr. Trump claimed victory, as he always does. He pointed to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s decision to deploy 10,000 National Guard troops to the U.S. border to fight drug trafficking, especially in fentanyl.

Ms. Sheinbaum in her morning statement said “we had a good conversation with President Trump with great respect for our relationship and sovereignty.” She added that Mr. Trump “committed to working to prevent the trafficking of high-powered weapons to Mexico.” The two sides will continue negotiating on “security and trade,” and Mr. Trump agreed to pause the tariffs for a month.

Equity markets responded with relief, recovering from steep opening losses and declines in Asia and Europe, though the Nasdaq still fell 1.2% on the day. We’re glad to see the two sides step back from an immediate and mutually harmful trade war.

But there’s much less to this tariff truce than meets the eye. Mr. Trump won an announcement of help at the border, though what the Mexican troops will actually do to fight the cartels trafficking drugs isn’t clear. Drug enforcement is a hardy perennial in U.S.-Mexican relations, and Mexico has promised help before, notably during the presidencies of Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto.

As for immigration, Ms. Sheinbaum has already essentially agreed to cooperate on restoring the Remain in Mexico policy for migrants who reach the Mexico-U.S. border. Illegal border crossings have also been falling fast as Mr. Trump has sent a signal that illegal migrants won’t be allowed to stay in the U.S.

Later Monday, Mr. Trump paused his tariffs against Canada as well after a phone call with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Canada is also deploying more law enforcement to the U.S. border and will appoint a “Fentanyl Czar,” among other enforcement promises.

If the North American leaders need to cheer about a minor deal so they all claim victory, that’s better for everyone. The need is especially important for Mr. Trump given how much he has boasted that his tariffs are a fool-proof diplomatic weapon against friend or foe. Mr. Trump can’t afford to look like the guy who lost. Ms. Sheinbaum in particular seems to recognize this, and so far she’s playing her Trump cards with skill.

None of this means the tariffs are some genius power play, as the Trump media chorus is boasting. The 25% border tax could return in a month if Mr. Trump is in the wrong mood, or if he doesn’t like something the foreign leaders have said or done. It also isn’t clear what Mr. Trump really wants his tariffs to achieve. Are they about reducing the flow of fentanyl, or is his real goal to rewrite the North American trade deal he signed in his first term? If it’s the latter, there’s more political volatility ahead.

Mr. Trump’s weekend tariff broadside against a pair of neighbors has opened a new era of economic policy uncertainty that won’t calm down until the President does. As we warned many times before Election Day, this is the biggest economic risk of Donald Trump’s second term.

Pray for Surrender in Trump’s Dumb Trade War

After the tariff threat, Canada follows Mexico’s lead and gives him a deal to trumpet and a story to tell.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/pray-for-surrender-in-trumps-dumb-trade-war-tariffs-canada-mexico-df16a91f?mod=hp_opin_pos_4#cxrecs_s

By Gerard Baker

Feb. 3, 2025 2:49 pm ET

El Salvador Offers to Take U.S. Deportees of Any Nationality Including Imprisoned Americans

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he discussed the offer with Trump

https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/el-salvador-offers-to-take-u-s-deportees-of-any-nationality-including-imprisoned-americans-37e8f643?mod=latest_headlines

By Vera Bergengruen

Feb. 4, 2025 12:44 am ET

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio at Bukele’s lakeside house on Monday. Photo: mark schiefelbein/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador—U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Monday that El Salvador has offered to accept deportees of any nationality from the U.S., including incarcerated American citizens who would be held in the country’s maximum-security prison.

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele offered to “house in his jails dangerous American criminals in custody in our country,” Rubio said in San Salvador, the second stop on his first foreign trip, after meeting with Bukele. “No country has ever made an offer of friendship such as this,” he said, calling it the “most unprecedented and extraordinary, extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world.”

Rubio said Bukele had also offered to take in any “illegal immigrant in the United States who’s a dangerous criminal,” including members of the MS-13 and Tren de Aragua gangs. Rubio said he was grateful for the offer, and added that he had spoken to President Trump about it earlier in the day.

It was unclear whether the U.S. planned to accept the offer, or the legality of sending American citizens to a foreign prison. A State Department spokesperson declined to comment on what such a plan could entail.

For his part, Bukele said that he had offered the U.S. “the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system” to its Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT), the largest prison in the world built to house 40,000 inmates. His statement on X included photos of the gleaming prison, with rows of shirtless tattooed gang members with their hands above their heads.

The Salvadoran president promised the fees the country would charge “would be relatively low for the U.S. but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable,” he said in a post on X. “Great idea,” said Trump ally and X owner Elon Musk.

Earlier on Monday, Rubio traveled to Bukele’s lakeside house on the shores of Lago de Coatepeque to discuss measures to stem illegal immigration and expand security cooperation. He also later signed a civil nuclear cooperation memorandum of understanding to expand strategic relations between the two countries. There had been previous discussions about El Salvador accepting undocumented migrants in the U.S. whose own countries won’t take them, known as a “safe third country” agreement.

But as he stood on a deck with Rubio overlooking the water, wearing his trademark aviator sunglasses, Bukele hinted to reporters that he and Rubio were working on “a much bigger agreement.” The deal that would be announced “doesn’t have precedent,” he said, noting that he “doesn’t hide his sympathies” when it comes to his admiration of Trump.

Bukele has ruled under emergency powers since 2022, suspending key civil liberties, including due process, to crack down on gangs. In a country of 6.3 million people, one in every 57 Salvadorans is now incarcerated—the highest prison rate in the world. Human-rights groups and Salvadoran organizations have accused his government of abuses, including forced disappearances, torture and deaths in custody.

But these measures, which have made a country that once was the world’s murder capital safer than Canada, have also made Bukele massively popular both at home and abroad.

Rubio was in El Salvador on a rare inaugural tour of Central America and the Caribbean. His first stop was in Panama, and he will continue on to Costa Rica, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic.

Write to Vera Bergengruen at vera.bergengruen@wsj.com

5. What to Know About USAID, the Agency Elon Musk Wants Dead

My experiences with USAID have been very positive. (but your mileage may vary). I support JFK's vision and intent for USAID to support national security and foreign policy. Yes, there are some problems with some of the efforts and I think this is a function of the shift to contracting and grants and simply being a conduit for money rather than leadership by a strong professional USAID cadre and staff. USAID should focus on strategy development and campaigning to support the US National Security Strategy and to do so it needs a strong corps of professionals rather than contract managers. Challenge the mistakes and errors of USAID and correct them. But consider correcting them by providing a stronger USAID with aggressive and thorough oversight.

It appears that USAID may be another character in Mr Musk's political theater in his quest to entertain POTUS and his political base.

What to Know About USAID, the Agency Elon Musk Wants Dead

The Trump administration moves to act on promises to cut aid to foreign countries

By Joseph Pisani

and Betsy McKay

Updated Feb. 3, 2025 10:53 pm ET

USAID headquarters was closed to employees on Monday. Photo: Kent Nishimura/Reuters

Elon Musk, the billionaire adviser to President Trump, has targeted the U.S. Agency for International Development as part of the Trump administration’s push to slash federal spending.

This weekend, Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency moved to exert control over the foreign-aid organization, clashing with security officials and ultimately accessing the agency’s classified systems. The administration closed USAID’s headquarters at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C., to workers on Monday, instructing them to work remotely.

Trump said he planned to fold USAID into the State Department by executive order, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters Monday that he was the acting director of USAID. The administration removed the agency’s website, USAID.gov, and placed it into a subsection of the State Department’s website.

Musk suggested on his social-media platform X that he wanted to close down the agency entirely—and USAID’s X profile was taken down.

Here’s what to know about USAID:

What is USAID?

USAID provides financial aid to countries around the world—combating human trafficking, battling diseases, feeding people in places with famine and supporting American-allied countries affected by war, such as Ukraine. It also funds equipment, medicine and staffing in countries battling pandemics and disease outbreaks.

The organization gave assistance to about 130 countries in fiscal year 2023. The top 10 recipients were Ukraine, Ethiopia, Jordan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Nigeria, South Sudan and Syria. In Ukraine, for instance, USAID funds farmers and pays to keep heat and electricity running when Russia attacks the country’s infrastructure.

USAID buys corn, beans and rice from U.S. farmers to distribute to other countries. USAID said it bought 1.1 million metric tons of food from U.S. farmers and ranchers in 2023.

Can Musk shut down USAID?

Democrats, and some Republicans have said Musk doesn’t have the authority to overturn programs and spending priorities decided by Congress.

President John F. Kennedy created the agency in 1961, based on a foreign-assistance law Congress passed that year. For decades, it was part of the State Department. Congress made it an independent agency in 1998.

Dissolving USAID as an independent agency would take another act of Congress, said Matthew Kavanagh, director of the Center for Global Health Policy & Politics at Georgetown University. Article I of the Constitution gives Congress the prerogative to create or abolish agencies, he said.

Rubio said Monday that he would work with Congress to overhaul USAID, and promised to review the agency’s activities and operations. He told lawmakers the review may eliminate certain aid programs.

Two Democratic senators, Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, vowed to place holds on the Trump administration’s nominees to serve at the State Department unless USAID was back up and running.

Why are Trump and Musk targeting USAID?

Gutting USAID fits into Trump’s campaign promise to cut aid to foreign countries.

Republican critics say USAID is wasting taxpayer money on programs that promote liberal causes, such as abortion. USAID has said it is barred from funding abortions by law. It does fund post-abortion care for women to prevent maternal deaths, the agency has said. Rubio said Monday USAID’s work has to be aligned with American foreign policy.

Musk called USAID corrupt without providing evidence. “USAID is a criminal organization,” he wrote in one post on X. “Time for it to die.”

Democrats say USAID saves lives and provides foreign aid quickly in times of crisis. USAID supporters also say the agency is an important tool of diplomacy, separate from foreign policy.

Ukraine is among the top recipients of assistance from USAID. Photo: Alina Smutko/Reuters

How big is USAID?

The agency had a budget of roughly $44.2 billion in fiscal 2024, or 0.4% of the federal budget, according to USAspending.gov, which tracks government spending data. It has more than 10,000 workers. About two-thirds of them serve overseas, according to the Congressional Research Service.

What would happen if USAID were shut down or significantly diminished?

Large cuts in humanitarian aid could mean people outside the U.S. lose access to vaccines, food and maternal care, said Maryam Deloffre, associate professor of international affairs at George Washington University.

“I think the potential could be really catastrophic,” said Deloffre. “I’m hoping we don’t get to that point.”

Moving the agency under the State Department could threaten its ability to execute its foreign aid mission. “Suggesting the State Department, which deals in policy, can morph into an effective operational humanitarian and aid agency is absurd,” Kavanagh from Georgetown said.

This explanatory article may be updated periodically.

Write to Joseph Pisani at joseph.pisani@wsj.com and Betsy McKay at betsy.mckay@wsj.com

Appeared in the February 4, 2025, print edition as 'Musk-Targeted Agency Provides Aid Around the World'.

6. Army Set to Dramatically Grow Basic Training, Riding Recruiting High

Army Set to Dramatically Grow Basic Training, Riding Recruiting High

military.com · by Steve Beynon · February 3, 2025

The Army is set to dramatically expand how many new recruits it can send to basic training this spring, riding the momentum of recent gains toward reversing a recruiting slump it has struggled with in recent years.

By April, the service expects to have 10 additional basic training units established across Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, and Fort Sill, Oklahoma -- some of which are already established. In total, that would allow the Army to train up to 9,600 new recruits per year, according to Lt. Col. Randy Ready, a service spokesperson.

The move comes as the Army hit a major recruiting milestone. In January, Military.com was first to report the service reached the halfway mark toward its ambitious goal of bringing in 61,000 active-duty soldiers this fiscal year, which began in October. With recruiting numbers trending upward, officials are banking on a surge to sustain momentum and close the gap left by past shortfalls.

But the Army is also dealing with a logistical challenge: a growing backlog of recruits waiting to ship out. Nearly 11,000 recruits were placed in the Army's delayed-entry program last year -- a program both of applicants who have not yet finished high school or cannot ship to basic training. That figure is double the usual in previous years -- partly due to the service running out of space in its existing basic training classes.

A chunk of that training real estate was reallocated to the Future Soldier Preparatory Course, a program launched in 2022 that has been touted as a game-changer in solving the Army's recruiting crisis.

The course helps applicants who initially fail to meet body weight or academic standards get up to par for enlistment -- effectively widening the Army's recruiting pool at a time when the service is striving to find qualified applicants.

In short, the Army was recruiting faster than it had the ability to get new enlistees into training.

"Expanding basic training capacity is a result of successful recruiting efforts and the Future Soldier Preparatory Course," Lt. Gen. David Francis, commander for the U.S. Army Center for Initial Military Training, said in a statement to Military.com. "This is a great problem to have as we continue to train the most capable and lethal soldiers for our Army."

The Army hit its recruiting goal last year, bringing in 55,300 new active-duty recruits, succeeding in its goal of 55,000 after failing to hit the target since the COVID-19 pandemic and generally struggling for much of the past decade. The 11,000 brought in for the delayed entry pool will count toward this year's recruiting numbers.

A growing number of young Americans fail to meet the Army's baseline enlistment standards largely due to rising obesity rates and declining academic performance. Defense experts have long warned that the country's obesity epidemic poses a national security risk, shrinking the pool of eligible recruits.

Another major hurdle: declining scores on the military's SAT-style entrance exam, which determines what jobs recruits qualify for. Public-school test scores have been slipping for years, a trend exacerbated by the pandemic. The education gap has disproportionately impacted young men, who are now less likely than women to qualify for service.

While the Army has had an ongoing recruiting challenge, recruitment of women has remained relatively flat, with about 10,000 new enlistees every year for the past decade on average.

The Army dug itself out of its recruiting hole largely with the help of the prep courses. A quarter of new recruits who would have otherwise not been permitted to enlist came through the program, as the service has been slow to evolve its marketing practices and hasn't changed its recruiting practices in any meaningful way.

The program was so successful, the Navy created its own -- also seeing promising early results.

That effort has seen high praise from key figures, including President Donald Trump's pick for Army secretary. Dan Driscoll, an Iraq veteran and financier, said he wants to look into possibly expanding the program.

"[It] seems to be working," Driscoll said during his Senate confirmation hearing Thursday. "If confirmed, I want to look and see if that can be scaled further."

military.com · by Steve Beynon · February 3, 2025

7. Ukraine war briefing: Trump demands rare earths from Kyiv in exchange for aid

Ukraine war briefing: Trump demands rare earths from Kyiv in exchange for aid

US reportedly briefly paused weapon shipments into Ukraine; Russian forces continue to gain ground as Ukraine struggles with manpower. What we know on day 1,077

The Guardian · by / · February 4, 2025

President Donald Trump says he wants to negotiate an agreement with Ukraine in which Kyiv guarantees supplies of rare earth metals, key elements used in electronics, in exchange for aid. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had floated such an idea last October as part of his “victory plan” for ending the war with Russia. “We’re telling Ukraine they have very valuable rare earths,” Trump said on Monday. “We’re looking to do a deal with Ukraine where they’re going to secure what we’re giving them with their rare earths and other things.” Trump, speaking to reporters at the White House, said Ukraine was willing, adding that he wants “equalisation” from Ukraine for Washington’s “close to $300bn” in support.
German chancellor Olaf Scholz criticised Trump’s demand for quid pro quo, saying “it would be very selfish, very self-centred”. Such resources would be better used for the country’s reconstruction after the war, Scholz said after meeting with fellow EU leaders in Brussels.
US shipments of weapons into Ukraine were briefly paused in recent days before resuming over the weekend as the Trump administration debated its policy towards Kyiv, Reuters reports, citing four people briefed on the matter. Shipments restarted after the White House pulled back on its initial assessment to stop all aid to Ukraine, two of the sources said. Halting the flow of US weapons would hinder Kyiv’s ability to fight, and put it in a less advantaged negotiation position in peace talks. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A dire shortage of infantry troops and supply routes coming under Russian drone attacks are conspiring against Ukrainian forces in Pokrovsk, where decisive battles in the nearly three-year war are playing out – and time is running short. Ukrainian troops are losing ground around the crucial supply hub, which lies at the confluence of multiple highways leading to key cities in the eastern Donetsk region as well as an important railway station. Moscow is set on capturing as much territory as possible as the Trump administration is pushing for negotiations to end the war.
Ukrainian soldiers in Pokrovsk said that Russian forces switched tactics in recent weeks, attacking their flanks instead of going head-on to form a pincer movement around the city. With Russians in control of dominant heights, Ukrainian supply routes are now within their range. Heavy fog in recent days prevented Ukrainian soldiers from effectively using surveillance drones, allowing Russians to consolidate and take more territory. Meanwhile, Ukrainian commanders say they do not have enough reserves to sustain defence lines and that new infantry units are failing to execute operations.
Russian forces advanced 430 square kilometres (166 square miles) into Ukrainian territory in January and are headed towards the logistics hub of Pokrovsk, according to an AFP analysis of data from the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW). This marks a slight slowdown compared to previous months, after a record advance of 725 square kilometres in November and 476 square kilometres in December.

Undated handout photo of the funeral of James Wilton, 18, from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, who travelled to join international fighters in Ukraine. The British volunteer was killed by a Russian drone while on his first mission fighting in Ukraine. Photograph: PA

Ukraine’s army chief condemned on Monday a spate of violent attacks on draft officers, rallying in defence of a national call-up effort that has fuelled anger among some Ukrainians and struggled to generate sufficient frontline manpower. The incidents, including the fatal shooting of a draft officer and explosions at two draft offices in three days, pile pressure on an already-troubled national campaign to draft civilians despite faltering enthusiasm for service. Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, who has complained of manpower shortages at the front, denounced what he said were “shameful acts of violence”.
The UN on Monday said that Russian forces have been killing more captured Ukrainian soldiers over recent months, echoing growing allegations from officials in Kyiv. The UN monitoring mission in Ukraine said that since the end of August last year it had “recorded 79 such executions in 24 separate incidents” by Russian forces.
A bomb exploded in the lobby of a luxury apartment block in Moscow, killing a pro-Russia paramilitary leader from eastern Ukraine alongside his bodyguard. The bomb detonated just as a man with bodyguards entered the lobby of the Scarlet Sails residential complex on the banks of the Moscow River on Monday, Russian media reported.
An 18-year-old British man was killed in a Russian drone strike, just minutes into his first mission after volunteering to fight in Ukraine. James Wilton, from Huddersfield, in West Yorkshire, was 17 when he left the UK to fight against Russia, flying from Manchester to Poland before crossing the border into Ukraine.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi said late on Monday that he was on his way to visit Kyiv and inspect a key substation that is critical for the safety of Ukraine’s nuclear power. More than half of the electricity consumed in Ukraine is generated by three nuclear power plants, but Russian missile and drone attacks on substations threaten the stable operation of nuclear power plants, according to Ukraine’s nuclear inspector’s office.
Pro-European Moldova, buffeted by Russia’s invasion of its neighbour Ukraine, on Monday denounced what it said was a violation of its airspace by a drone and said it was discussing with its allies how to boost air defences. Moldova’s defence ministry said the drone entered the country’s airspace from Ukraine, remained for a brief time, and then went back over Ukrainian territory.

The Guardian · by / · February 4, 2025

8. Ukrainian troops losing ground to Russia as Trump talks of ending war

Ukrainian troops losing ground to Russia as Trump talks of ending war

By SAMYA KULLAB, VASILISA STEPANENKO and EVGENIY MALOLETKA

Updated 2:10 PM EST, February 3, 2025

AP · by SAMYA KULLAB · February 3, 2025

POKROVSK REGION, Ukraine (AP) — A dire shortage of infantry troops and supply routes coming under Russian drone attacks are conspiring against Ukrainian forces in Pokrovsk, where decisive battles in the nearly three-year war are playing out — and time is running short.

Ukrainian troops are losing ground around the crucial supply hub, which lies at the confluence of multiple highways leading to key cities in the eastern Donetsk region as well as an important railway station.

Moscow is set on capturing as much territory as possible as the Trump administration is pushing for negotiations to end the war and recently froze foreign aid to Ukraine, a move that has shocked Ukrainian officials already apprehensive about the intentions of the new U.S. president, their most important ally. Military aid has not stopped, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.

Ukrainian soldiers in Pokrovsk said that Russian forces switched tactics in recent weeks, attacking their flanks instead of going head-on to form a pincer movement around the city. With Russians in control of dominant heights, Ukrainian supply routes are now within their range. Heavy fog in recent days prevented Ukrainian soldiers from effectively using surveillance drones, allowing Russians to consolidate and take more territory.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian commanders say they do not have enough reserves to sustain defense lines and that new infantry units are failing to execute operations. Many pin hopes on Mykhailo Drapatyi, a respected commander recently appointed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as ground forces chief, to shift the dynamic and counterattack.

“The war is won by logistics. If there is no logistics, there is no infantry, because there is no way to supply it,” said the deputy commander of the Da Vinci Wolves battalion, known by the call sign Afer.

“(Russians) have learned this and are doing it quite well.”

Poor weather at the worst time

A combination of factors led Kyiv to effectively lose the settlement of Velyka Novosilka this past week, their most significant gain since seizing the city of Kurakhove in the Donetsk region in January.

Scattered groups of Ukrainian soldiers are still present in Velyka Novosilka’s southern sector, Ukrainian commanders said, prompting criticism from some military experts who questioned why the higher command did not order a full withdrawal.

The road-junction village is 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region, where authorities have begun digging fortifications for the first time since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, anticipating further Russian advances.

Russia amassed a large number of infantry around Velyka Novosilka, soldiers there said. As heavy fog set in in recent days, Ukrainian drones “barely worked” to conduct surveillance, one commander near Pokrovsk told The Associated Press. Long-range and medium-range surveillance was impossible, he said. He spoke on condition of anonymity in order to speak freely about sensitive military matters.

“Because of this, the enemy was amassing forces … taking up positions, digging in. They were very good at it,” he said.

It was at that fateful moment that Russian forces launched a massive attack: Up to 10 columns of armoured vehicles, each with up to 10 units, moved out from various directions.

Ukrainian logistics in peril

Key logistics routes along asphalted roads and highways are under direct threat from Russian drones as a result of Moscow’s recent gains, further straining Ukrainian troops.

Russian forces now occupy key dominant heights around the Pokrovsk region, which allows them to use drones up to 30 kilometers (18 miles) deep into Ukrainian front lines.

The Pokrovsk-Pavlohrad-Dnipro highway is “already under the control of Russian drones,” said the commander at Pokrovsk’s flanks. Russian forces are less than 4 kilometers ( 2 1/2 miles) away and are affecting Ukrainian traffic, he said. “Now the road is only 10% of its former capacity,” he said.

Another paved highway, the Myrnohrad-Kostyantynivka road, is also under Russian fire, he said.

This also means that in poor weather, military vehicles, including armored personnel carriers, tanks and pickup trucks, have to trudge through the open fields to deliver fuel, food and ammunition, as well as evacuate the wounded.

In a first-aid station near Pokrovsk, a paramedic with the call sign Marik said evacuating wounded soldiers once took hours, now it takes days.

“Everything is visible (by enemy drones) and it is very difficult,” he said.

New recruits are unprepared

Ukrainian soldiers in Pokrovsk said shortages of fighting troops are “catastrophic” and challenges are compounded by newly created infantry units that are poorly trained and inexperienced, putting more pressure on battle-hardened brigades having to step in to stabilize the front line.

Afer, the deputy commander, complained that new recruits are “constantly extending the front line because they leave their positions, they do not hold them, they do not control them, they do not monitor them. We do almost all the work for them.”

“Because of this, having initially a 2-kilometer area of responsibility, you end up with 8-9 kilometers per battalion, which is a lot and we don’t have enough resources,” Afer said. Drones are especially hard to come by for his battalion, he said, adding they only have half of what they need.

“It’s not because they have lower quality infantry, but because they are completely unprepared for modern warfare,” he said of the new recruits.

His battalion has almost no reserves, forcing infantry units to hold front-line positions for weeks at a time. For every one of his soldiers, Russians have 20, he said, emphasizing how outnumbered they are.

Back at the first-aid station, a wounded soldier with the call sign Fish was recovering from a leg wound sustained after he tried to evacuate a fallen comrade. He had moved him from a dugout to load him into a vehicle when the Russian mortar shell exploded nearby.

“We are fighting back as much as we can, as best as we can,” he said.

——

Kullab reported from Kyiv, Ukraine. Associated Press journalist Volodymyr Yurchuk contributed to this report.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

AP · by SAMYA KULLAB · February 3, 2025

9. Ukraine to Restructure Ground Forces? by Mick Ryan

Excertps:

It will be interesting to watch this reorganisation take place. Changing military organisations is always difficult in peace time. In war, while there are imperatives for survival, change can still be very difficult depending on the leaders involved and culture of the formations that are part of the change. Not withstanding the good intentions of the Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief, this will be a tough program of reform to execute while Ukrainian ground forces are involved in a very difficult set of campaign in Kursk, eastern and southern Ukraine.

It is clear that recent challenges on the battlefield, particularly in eastern Ukraine, the problems with the cohesion of newly formed brigades, and challenges with mobilisation and training is forcing change on the command and control of Ukraine’s ground forces. The formation of corps is a welcome development. There certainly are opportunities, but the challenges I have mentioned here will need to be addressed for them to be really effective on the modern battlefield.

I wish them every success in this endeavour.

Ukraine to Restructure Ground Forces?

https://mickryan.substack.com/p/ukraine-to-restructure-ground-forces?utm

A quick assessment of the challenges and opportunities of Ukraine's new reorganisation of corps level organisations in the ground forces and national guard.

Mick Ryan

Feb 04, 2025

Soldiers of the 92nd Assault Brigade, a formation expected to become a corps. Source: MilitaryLand

There is a report today that the Ukrainian ground forces and the Ukrainian national guard may be about to form corps and corps level headquarters. This has been reported in MilitaryLand, a source that I have found very useful and informed throughout the war in Ukraine. But the Ukrainian president has also apparently confirmed the plan in a 4 February post on Telegram. Zelenskyy confirmed the reorganisation in a Telegram post today, where he notes that:

The Commander-in-Chief also reported on the modernization of our army - a corresponding plan has already been approved for the transition to a new organizational structure of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the creation of corps.

Up to 20 new corps could be formed under the new initiative, which is part of the Commander-in-Chief’s plan to modernise the organisation and manning of the ground forces, a directive he was given by President Zelenskyy when he was appointed in February last year.

Ukraine already has six corps, and they formed new corps in the lead up to the failed 2023 counteroffensive in southern Ukraine. Currently, according to MilitaryLand, the corps of the Ukrainian military are: the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th Army Corps, the 7th Rapid Response Corps of the Air Assault Forces and the 30th Marine Corps of the Navy. To give a sense of how Ukraine currently undertakes corps organisation, a selection of the existing corps are show below with their subordinate formations (based on open source information):

10th Army Corps: 5 x mechanised brigades; 1 x artillery brigade; 1 x engineer battalion; 1 x logistics battalion; 1 x tank battalion; 1 x recon-strike battalion.
11th Army Corps: 3 x mechanised brigades; 1 x tank brigade; 1 x artillery brigade; 1 x recon battalion.
30th Marine Corps: 4 x Marine brigades; 2 x coastal defence brigades; 1 x territorial defence brigade; 1 x artillery brigade.
7th Rapid Response Corps (Air Assault): 9 x assault brigades; 1 x artillery brigade; 1 x UAV battalion; 1 x recon battalion.

Crests of the 10th, 11th, and 7th Rapid Response Corps.

While we await more information about this reorganisation of ground forces and the national guard, it is a step that may address some current command and control challenges on the battlefield. But it also poses some challenges which will need to be addressed if Ukraine is to make these fully effective combat corps.

Before I begin my examination of the key issues related to the formation of more corps, I want to include a caveat: these corps appear to be aggregations of multiple brigades. They are not likely to be the standard NATO construct of around three brigades per division and 2-4 divisions per corps. And while some NATO countries had corps during the Cold War (such as I British Corps, as well as V and VII US Corps, in Germany), this is rarely the case now.

It is an important point to make up front. As such, the Ukrainian Army Corps will be more like big divisions rather than the kind of corps that NATO may have once possessed. That is not a big deal - not everyone has to look like a U.S. Army corps.

Challenges

So, what are the key challenges to be addressed in a widespread program to form corps throughout the Ukrainian ground forces? I think there are five key ones, and I discuss these below.

The first issue is that good Corps - even if they are not doctrinal NATO corps - should have Corps level units to shape the battlespace and future operations, weight main efforts, reinforce success, and enable the various elements of the current fight. In the current environment, this includes EW, engineers, fires, info ops, logistics, ISR and drones. Indeed, the doctrinal role of a corps headquarters is to principally focus on battlespace shaping efforts in order to provide a basis for mission success by its subordinate formations. Will the new Corps have the assets to undertake this role?

A second issue is that at the corps echelon, there is a requirement for highly-trained staff to plan future operations, integrate and run current operations, sustain formations and to conduct the essential coordination up and down the chain of command. Corps planning is not ‘big brigade’ planning, it is a discreet and highly sought after skill. The second year programs at Quantico and Leavenworth, such as the USMC School of Advanced Warfighting (I am a 2003 graduate) and the U.S. Army School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) have focused on preparing the kind of staff necessary for corps level operations. While Ukrainian training might not look like this, will the Corps HQ have these staffs and who will be training the constant supply of staff officers needed to fill the twenty or more new corps headquarters?

The next challenge is that corps are still ‘high tactical’ organisations. What will be the link between them and the general staff, or will the current HQ structures above brigades remain unchanged? According to MilitaryLand, many existing higher echelon headquarters will be disbanded:

All existing corps will be restructured into combat corps, no longer serving solely as administrative units in the rear. The Operational Strategic Groups (OSUV), Operational Tactical Groups (OTU), and Tactical Groups (TG) will be disbanded, with the corps eventually assuming control of the frontlines.

If the formation of corps becomes just a renaming of this existing ‘above brigade echelon’, and there is no change in resourcing or operational approach, it is difficult to see how this initiative will change Ukraine’s battlefield prospects. I am not suggesting this will be the case, but having spent over three decades in an army, armies can make ‘interesting’ decisions about existing organisations some times.

Whether having 25 (plus) Army Corps working direct to the Ukrainian military’s General Staff is a good idea remains to be seen. The Ukrainians may still find that an intermediate echelon is required between General Staff and Corps.

Another issue for the new corps will be reinforcements and personnel. This has been a significant challenge for the Ukrainian ground forces for at least a year. This has been reported in multiple publications, and I have written about here on many occasions. A recent article by Tatariagami covered some of the principal challenges being faced by the Ukrainian ground forces, which includes: shortfalls in infantry; under achievements in mobilisation; structural failures and C2 shortfalls; false reporting by some commanders; and, a lack of accountability. With this as context, will the new corps HQ should have a level of agency about access to, and allocation of, reinforcements and the use of dedicated or situational reserve forces?

Fifth and finally, corps leadership is key. Unfortunately, wars tend to churn through leaders just as they do frontline soldiers. Getting the right people to command these new corps will be crucial to their successful formation, conduct of operations and sustainment over time. As president Zelenskyy notes in his most recent Telegram post:

Today, we discussed approaches to the appointment of corps commanders: these should be the most trained, most promising officers with combat experience and modern thinking.

I have no doubt that the Ukrainians have the talent to fill these appointments, but selection and development of successive generations of corps commanders is an important institutional undertaking. And we should not assume that good brigade commanders will automatically make good corps commanders. It is a good foundation, but not every officer will be capable of making that big step up. This command selection process will be a first order challenge for the commander of ground forces and the commander-in-chief.

Opportunities

We know from history that well-led corps can really, really hurt an enemy at the tactical and even operational levels. The most recent example of the destructive power of modern combat corps - especially when it has air power as well - was the 1991 Gulf War with the advanced conducted by three corps (XVIII Airborne Corps, VII Corps and a USMC Marine Air-Ground Task Force of 2 x Marine Divisions and an army brigade). The scheme of maneuver is shown below.

A multi-corps operation in 1991. Source: Airman magazine

In his book that was co-written with Tom Clancy about the Gulf War, called Into the Storm, commander of VII Corps General Fred Franks Jr wrote towards the end that “Land war changes. It will always be changing.”*

A lot has changed since 1991 and since General Franks wrote those words.

The size of armies has significantly declined since then, and the new technologies available have vastly improved land and joint networking, the ISR battle, precision engagements, training and sustainment. More recently, the profound impact of drones and growing influence of AI-assisted decision making is forcing the adaptation of tactics, training and organisations on the battlefield and beyond. While Ukraine may not be forming or welding multiple divisions inside its new corps, and does not have the air supremacy we have seen with modern U.S. operations, they will need to adopt some of the mindsets and operational approaches of corps operations.

In doing so, the Ukrainians have an opportunity to potentially help define what a 21st century fighting land corps might look like. For most Western armies, this echelon (be it small corps or big divisions) will be what they are generating at the start of the next war.

Another opportunity of the Ukrainian Army Corps level headquarters may be to better shape the battlefield for the conduct of brigade level operations. At least in theory, the role of corps headquarters and the corps echelon is to anticipate future operations and conduct the necessary shaping, prioritisation and support for its subordinate formations. Whether this will be the case for the new corps in the Ukrainian ground forces and national guard remains to be seen.

Finally, the formation of corps may offer a level of standardisation and efficiency of the ‘above brigade’ echelon that the current approach with Operational Strategic Groups, Operational Tactical Groups and Tactical Groups has not. Having standard operating procedures for these new army and national guard corps, standard corps units, standardised staff training and selection process for the leaders may offer efficiencies and operational improvements for the Ukrainian ground forces that the previous command and control arrangements did not.

A Step Forward But Not a Silver Bullet

It will be interesting to watch this reorganisation take place. Changing military organisations is always difficult in peace time. In war, while there are imperatives for survival, change can still be very difficult depending on the leaders involved and culture of the formations that are part of the change. Not withstanding the good intentions of the Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief, this will be a tough program of reform to execute while Ukrainian ground forces are involved in a very difficult set of campaign in Kursk, eastern and southern Ukraine.

It is clear that recent challenges on the battlefield, particularly in eastern Ukraine, the problems with the cohesion of newly formed brigades, and challenges with mobilisation and training is forcing change on the command and control of Ukraine’s ground forces. The formation of corps is a welcome development. There certainly are opportunities, but the challenges I have mentioned here will need to be addressed for them to be really effective on the modern battlefield.

I wish them every success in this endeavour.

___________

*Into the Storm is a superb book that not only explores the role of VII Corps during the Gulf War, but it also focuses on its commander, Fred Franks as well as his previous experience in Vietnam, the post-Vietnam reforms of the U.S. Army and Frank’s reflections on the future of land combat. I had the privilege to meet General Franks while at Quantico, and he very kindly signed my copy of Into the Storm.

10. Niger: Kidnapping of two Chinese nationals near an oil site

This is a Google translation of a French report.

Resistance along One Belt and one Road?

I have not seen any reporting in mainstream media and the only English language report is at this link: https://saharareporters.com/2025/02/03/isis-sahel-militants-reportedly-kidnap-chinese-nationals-kill-guards-niger-republic

Niger: Kidnapping of two Chinese nationals near an oil site

In Niger, two Chinese nationals were kidnapped on Saturday, February 1, in the east of the country, a region where kidnappings are increasing. Security forces have launched a search for them, so far without success.

https://www.rfi.fr/fr/afrique/20250203-niger-rapt-de-deux-ressortissants-chinois-non-loin-d-un-site-p%C3%A9trolier

Published on:03/02/2025 - 08:04

1 min

Nigerien and Chinese workers on the construction site of an oil pipeline in Niger. (Illustration image) AFP - BOUREIMA HAMA

By :

RFI

The two Chinese nationals were trying to reach the Faringa area, not far from the major oil site of Agadem, in the east of the country, when their vehicle was attacked by a group of unidentified armed men.

After killing the two national guards, who were ensuring the security of the Chinese technicians, the attackers left with the two hostages. As soon as the alert was given, a military detachment set off on the trail of the attackers.

A possible act of revenge

The Chinese company CNPC, which exploits Niger's oil, has not yet commented on the subject. However, the hierarchy of the national guard confirmed, in a radio message broadcast on Sunday morning, the death of its two elements from the Mayahi squadron.

According to several sources, this attack would be an act of revenge. On January 30, four gold miners were reportedly assassinated by the Nigerien army, causing a resurgence of tension in the region.

This is not the first time that Chinese nationals have been targeted for kidnapping in the region. In July 2024, CNPC had also announced the suspension of its activities at the Agadem site, due to the terrorist attacks perpetrated against the oil site.

11. Priorities for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth

A succinct list of key recommendations.

Priorities for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth

Reinvigorating our Army's structure, acquisition, training, and manning

washingtontimes.com · by The Washington Times https://www.washingtontimes.com

By L. Scott Lingamfelter - Sunday, February 2, 2025

OPINION:

Following his confirmation, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is poised to be one of modern history’s most transformative national security leaders. In past decades, the Pentagon — steered by industrialists, politicians, lobbyists and retired generals — did little to focus the military on producing combat warriors, not social justice ones.

Without a doubt, the Pentagon and its military branches need much reform. Mr. Hegseth is the person who inspires the badly needed changes to attain his stated goal, which is to “Restore the warrior ethos in everything that we do, rebuild our military and reestablish deterrence.” These goals go beyond ending the politically correct nonsense of DEI and woke policies, distractions that failed to do a single thing to make our forces more lethal or combat-ready. Mr. Hegseth, having experienced war personally, is superbly prepared to restore America’s combat power.

Nowhere is reform more needed than in the Army, a service near and dear to Mr. Hegseth. He knows the U.S. Army is the foundational service in waging conventional war, currently termed large-scale combat operations in Pentagon parlance. Mr. Hegseth also understands that nearly two decades of counterinsurgency wars gutted the Army’s structure and capability to fight in conventional conflicts.

Combat divisions — long the primary agent to synchronize combat power — were sliced up to form brigade combat teams, a structure designed to support the frequent rotations of units into and out of Afghanistan and Iraq. Essential capabilities, like the artillery, air defense and engineers, were diminished to man brigade combat teams. While brigade combat teams were effective in door-to-door and area security operations, they proved insufficient in synchronizing combat power for large-scale combat operations in subsequent war games.

Fortunately, the Army has returned to the proven division structure while embracing efforts to rebuild the artillery, air defense and other combat capabilities shelved during population-centric counterinsurgency to man and deploy brigade combat teams. But much more must be done, and Mr. Hegseth has that opportunity.

First, the Army is too small to meet the potential for land wars in the Indo-Pacific against our primary competitor, China, and to contend with conflicts in Europe and the Middle East that could erupt simultaneously or sequentially. Of the dozen active-duty Army divisions today, half have just two brigades as opposed to a typical three-brigade configuration. In other words, on paper, the Army may claim 12 divisions. In reality, it has nine.

Moreover, division artillery formations — vital in warfare — are threadbare, with just enough artillery to barely support the two or three brigades of a division. Indeed, the division artillery lacks the necessary cannon and rocket artillery to deal with deadly enemy counterfire unless higher headquarters at the corps level provide such capabilities from their own scarce artillery brigades.

Air defense, which must contend with swarms of drones, is woefully lacking. And the support structure for all supporting units — logistics, ammunition, maintenance and repair — is likewise insufficient. Mr. Hegseth will understand how this must be immediately addressed, not only in recruiting manpower but also in rebuilding a robust divisional structure to prepare for conventional wars that may come our way.

Second, the Army’s byzantine acquisition structure is cumbersome, slow and unreliable in delivering the necessary combat systems and equipment to our soldiers. The fix is not simply reform, the most overused and ineffective word in Washington. What is required is a renaissance in acquisition, testing and fielding.

Step one is to abolish redundant four-star headquarters that have proliferated in the Army and done nothing to speed up the acquisition of systems that are needed now, five years from now and well into the future. The acquisition approach must be streamlined and focused by the Army’s warfighter community, not industry captains. Moreover, we must consider the very capable systems our allies have produced that can accelerate the acquisition process.

Third, the Army must increase funding for realistic combat training, especially live-fire exercises. The good news is the Army has superb training centers, including the world-class National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, which provides vital lessons for units preparing for warfare. We must increase the capacity for the Army to rotate increased numbers of units through this realistic training. To win in battle, you must realistically train to fight. We can’t do that in classrooms pondering social justice jabberwocky.

Finally, Mr. Hegseth wants to improve recruitment across the services. We need combat-capable warriors to defend America. The damage done by wokeism to the warrior ethos is disgraceful. As the saying goes: If you want to hunt ducks, go where the ducks are. It’s true of recruiting. Go where there are patriots who embrace American values, and you will find warriors in waiting.

Mr. Hegseth can take a significant step toward deterrence by reinvigorating our Army’s structure, acquisition, training and manning.

• L. Scott Lingamfelter is a retired U.S. Army colonel and combat veteran (1973-2001) and former member of the Virginia House of Delegates (2002-2018). He is the author of “Desert Redleg: Artillery Warfare in the First Gulf War” (University Press of Kentucky, 2020) and “Yanks in Blue Berets: American U.N. Peacekeepers in the Middle East” (UPK, 2023).

washingtontimes.com · by The Washington Times https://www.washingtontimes.com

12. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 3, 2025

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, February 3, 2025

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-february-3-2025

Russian forces continued to suffer high losses in January 2025 despite a slower rate of advance as compared with previous months in late 2024. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense (MoD) reported on February 3 that Russian forces suffered 48,240 casualties – over three Russian motorized rifle divisions worth of personnel – in January 2025, making January the second highest month of losses since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.[1] ISW has observed geolocated evidence to assess that Russian forces gained roughly 498 square kilometers in January in Ukraine and Kursk Oblast, or roughly 16.1 square kilometers per day. The available figures suggest Russian forces suffered roughly 96 casualties per square kilometer of territory seized. The Ukrainian MoD reported that Russian forces suffered 48,670 casualties in December 2024 – their highest monthly casualty rate since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion – and ISW assessed that Russian forces gained a total of 593 square kilometers in December 2024. The roughly 100-square-kilometer decrease in seized territory between December 2024 and January 2025, coupled with a similar monthly casualty rate, indicates that Russian forces are taking the same high level of losses despite achieving fewer territorial advances in the near term. ISW previously observed that Russian advances slowed from November 2024 to December 2024. ISW previously assessed that the Russian military command likely tolerated record levels of personnel casualties from September 2024 through November 2024 to facilitate larger territorial gains, but it remains unclear whether the Russian military command will be willing to sustain such casualties if Russian forces' rate of advance continues to decline as Russian forces are advancing on more heavily defended settlements such as Pokrovsk.

Key Takeaways:

Russian forces continued to suffer high losses in January 2025 despite a slower rate of advance as compared with previous months in late 2024.

Ukrainian forces reportedly conducted drone strikes against Russian oil and gas infrastructure in Volgograd and Astrakhan oblasts on the night of February 2 to 3.

Ukrainian forces continue to innovate with drone operations to maintain their technological advantage over Russia and bring about battlefield effects.

The United Nations (UN) Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) expressed concern about the "sharp rise" in reports of Russian forces executing Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs).

Ukraine's Commander-in-Chief General Oleksandr Syrskyi stated on February 3 that Ukraine has started implementing organizational reforms to transition the Ukrainian Armed Forces into a "corps structure."

Unspecified actors assassinated Armen Sargsyan, the founder of the "Arbat" Special Purpose Battalion, who has been involved in Russia's hybrid activities and invasions of Ukraine since 2014.

Ukrainian forces recently advanced near Borova, and Russian forces recently advanced near Kupyansk, Borova, Lyman, Chasiv Yar, Toretsk, Pokrovsk, Kurakhove, and in the Dnipro direction.

The Russian government is expanding the federal "Time of Heroes" program, which aims to install Kremlin-selected veterans into government positions, to occupied Ukraine as part of long-term efforts to integrate occupied Ukraine into Russia.

13. Iran Update, February 3, 2025

Iran Update, February 3, 2025

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-february-3-2025

Unknown actors detonated a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) along the M4 highway outside of Manbij and killed at least 19 people on February 3. Syrian media reported that unknown actors parked the VBIED near the Hassin station, outside of Manbij City, on February 2 and then detonated it the next day. At least 15 of the casualties were agricultural workers in the vehicle next to the VBIED. Unknown actors have recently detonated at least seven VBIEDS in the Manbij area since December 2024, including an attack on February 1. This most recent attack is the highest casualty incident yet in the series of attacks. The perpetrators and intended target(s) of the attack are unknown at this time. Syrian President Ahmed al Shara’s Office said in a statement that the Syrian state would pursue and impose “severe punishments” on the perpetrators of the attack.

Turkish and anti-SDF Syrian media accused the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the People’s Protection Units (YPG), and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) of conducting the February 3 VBIED attack. Previous VBIED attacks have similarly inspired accusations against the SDF. SDF officials condemned the attack and blamed Turkish-backed factions for conducting the attack and inspiring fear among the population. The SDF volunteered the help the Syrian interim government find the perpetrators.

Key Takeaways:

Iraq: An Iraqi Sunni parliamentarian criticized Nour al Maliki for stoking sectarian tensions. This comes after Maliki gave an inflammatory speech accusing Sunnis of trying to overthrow the Iraqi federal government.

Syria: Interim President Ahmed al Shara will pay an official visit to Ankara to discuss bilateral cooperation and events in Syria.

Syria: An unknown actor detonated a VBIED near Manbij in northern Syria, marking the seventh VBIED detonation in the area in recent months.

14. Why Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces Must Regroup

Conclusion:

Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces are a critical force multiplier in the Russo-Ukraine War. Ukraine’s misuse of these forces significantly undermines the strategic effect they can achieve against Russia within the Ukrainian theatre of operations, and it is imperative Ukrainian SOF work to refine the command relationships and mission parameters under which they are deployed. In Ukraine, greater emphasis must be placed on joint exercises and the education of commanders to ensure that the various parties invested in SOF operations understand how to best utilize and support them, and UKRSOCOM must maintain command of SOF units. Ukrainian SOF operations in the Middle East and Africa must be reduced, if not eliminated entirely, unless the operational effects can be empirically shown to degrade Russian combat capabilities in Ukraine. Russia’s brazen and relentless attempt to overwhelm and annex Ukraine is the primary national security threat facing Kyiv. Accordingly, SOF assets, limited in size yet disproportionately destructive when applied strategically, must be refocused where they are most effective against the encroaching Russian military in order to achieve the greatest battlefield effect.

Why Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces Must Regroup

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/02/03/why-ukraines-special-operations-forces-must-regroup/

by Robert Kremzner

02.03.2025 at 06:00am

Since the 2022 Russian invasion, Ukrainian Special Operations Forces (SOF) have been used in a variety of ways, including direct action, information warfare, and unconventional warfare capacities. SOF has enjoyed various high-profile successes, however there are systemic shortcomings that reduce their effectiveness. In practice, Ukrainian SOF forces are often placed under conventional commanders, who in turn tend to use SOF as expendable front-line shock troops, which creates an issue of efficiency and economy of force for Ukraine’s key force multiplier. This approach should be reformed to properly utilize SOF within its independent command structure (UKRSOCOM), and any continuing use of SOF in this capacity should draw on the historic successful use of shock troops to reduce casualties and increase effectiveness. Ukrainian SOF are also deployed to distant theaters where they achieve minimal gains, and potentially harm the nation’s international reputation. In the face of severe manpower shortages within conventional forces, Ukraine must take every measure to preserve this highly trained force in order to retain its capability as a force-multiplier and avoid any disruption in operational capacity due to the prolonged nature of the SOF selection, training, and replacement process.

Background

Since Russia’s invasion in 2022, Ukraine has been fighting an uphill battle to preserve its sovereignty. Ukraine is a much smaller country than Russia, with less than a third of its population, and as such, manpower disparities have been a significant issue. Ukraine has managed to build up a significant fleet of Western fighting vehicles more advanced and survivable than their Russian counterparts, but reductions in Western aid, especially with recent German promises to reduce their military contributions and the victory of U.S. President Donald Trump, may hamstring further Ukrainian efforts. Given these circumstances, Special Operations Forces are of the utmost importance for Ukrainian military capabilities. While lengthy and expensive to train, these forces are powerful force multipliers, translating their skills into an outsized impact on the battlefield while requiring less material support.

Current Use

Ukrainian Special Operation Forces, on paper, have been organized more in line with Western models since 2015. Ukrainian Special Operations Forces Command (UKRSOCOM) is its own command within the Ukrainian military. Previously, Special Operations were divided between the pre-existing military commands, much like the Russian system that exists today. Additionally, Ukraine has various similar groups within the Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR). These groups participate in direct action as well as other SOF activities. At present, Ukrainian SOF engage in at least three of the core activities that Western Special Operations Forces execute.

Direct Action – The most visible role of UKRSOCOM, Special Operations Forces have partaken in a wide variety of direct action operations against Russia. The most effective of these attacks appears to be infiltration shaping operations, in which operators will penetrate deep behind enemy lines and destroy key enemy infrastructure. A notable example of this includes a naval infiltration to destroy Russian air defense radar units in Crimea, facilitating missile strikes against the Sevastopol port in August of 2023. More recently, Special Operations Forces infiltrated Russia’s Kursk region, destroying key infrastructure and capturing larger Russian units ahead of the conventional Ukraine invasion in August 2024.

According to a Dr. Jeff Gardner article for the Irregular Warfare Center, UKRSOCOM forces have frequently participated in more conventional attacks against Russia, fighting on the frontlines rather than beyond the front lines. Special Operations Forces are used as frontline shock troops, reducing their contributions to close-range marksmanship and grenade-throwing rather than their wider skill sets. Unlike the aforementioned examples, these front-line actions tend to have less firepower support and are conducted during the day. Direct action operations have also been taken by Ukrainian HUR forces in Syria and Sudan. Notably, in September of 2024, a large magazine on a Russian military installation near Aleppo was destroyed.

Unconventional Warfare – UKRSOCOM has the ability to train, embed, and materially support the wide array of civilian resistance cells remaining in Russian-occupied territory. SOF units exploit the intelligence potential of Ukrainians living behind Russian lines to more effectively target critical Russian infrastructure, including military personnel, political figures, and materiel depots. In addition, Ukrainian SOF assets embedded with civilian resistance carry out assassinations of Russian troops and officials, as well as information warfare operations to intimidate occupying forces and their collaborators.

A wide array of resistance cells exist in Ukrainian land occupied by Russia. Russian occupation is often harsh and degrading to civilians, making the environment ripe for recruitment. Many resistance cells were created in the lead-up to the invasion, which have since remained in occupied territory to conduct surveillance and assassinations. SOF’s ability to rapidly exploit actionable intelligence through DA is directly linked to the continued existence and well-being of the resistance, underscoring the strategic nature of such combat enablers. UKRSOCOM’s ability to conduct these operations was significantly improved by a 2021 bill that allowed for the training, arming, and paying of Ukrainians for resistance actions against occupiers during wartime.

Outside the Ukraine-Russian theatre, Ukrainian SOF continue to work alongside Malian and Syrian rebel forces to disrupt Russian efforts in the region. In Syria, for example, Ukrainian HUR forces have worked alongside rebel groups to target Russian installations and personnel. Ukraine has also contributed to medical efforts with Syrian rebel groups. In Mali, for example, an ambush that led to the deaths of 84 Wagner soldiers was enabled by Ukrainian intelligence and drone training, drawing backlash from the Malian government. These actions have not been without their drawbacks, most notably in the case of Mali, where the nation severed diplomatic ties with Ukraine in response to their cooperation with rebel groups.

Military Information Support Operations – While the full extent of UKRSOCOM efforts in this domain are unknown, a key contribution along this axis is the release of successful frontline footage. Helmet-cam footage provides visceral and visual examples of Ukrainian successes against Russian forces, and this, in turn, boosts the morale and perception of success among Ukraine and its allies. The publication of Ukrainian action in Syria and Africa also creates an impression that threats to Russian forces are everywhere and that Ukraine has the means to deploy valuable forces across the world.

Shortcomings

While there are many successes in the deployment of Ukrainian Special Operations Forces, there are key shortcomings as well. In practice, UKRSOCOM is deployed in a similar manner to how it was before Westernization efforts in 2015. Special Operations Forces are often subservient to conventional commanders, and these commanders are often ignorant of how to best deploy these forces due largely to a lack of cross-command training and exercises. Ukrainian military training is quite siloed, and joint exercises, including those with UKRSOCOM, are rarely conducted.

Consequently, these forces are often deployed as frontline shock troops, using aggressive, high-tempo tactics coupled with close-quarters combat training, much like German Stormtroopers in World War I. While these historical forces were very effective, especially in conventional war against entrenched enemies similar to modern Russian positions, Stormtroopers also suffered extremely high casualties. Casualty rates for Ukrainian SOF in these capacities are hard to come by; they are likely quite high and have been reported as such by publications such as War on the Rocks. Estimates of Ukrainian front-line unit strengths are often around thirty five percent for conventional units, and many have even higher attrition rates. This offers an explanation as to why conventional commanders may be desperate to use SOF in these capacities due to manpower shortage, as well as illustrating that SOF are likely also experiencing high casualties in these roles. Since SOF are already a much smaller force that require much more time and resources to train than the average infantryman, their use in this role is a deeply inefficient use of manpower. Given the serious manpower shortage that Ukraine is experiencing, the use of Special Operations Forces in this manner is hampering its economy of force at a serious cost. In addition to this general guidance, increased cross-training between the siloed military commands, not only for students of the training centers but for the trainers themselves, could help develop a more effective deployment of UKRSOCOM.

Another misuse of Ukrainian Special Operations Forces may be their use in Syria and Africa. While a significant informational warfare win, SOF would more effectively disrupt Russia combat capabilities if redeployed to the Ukrainian theatre. The goal of SOF deployment outside of the Russia-Ukraine theater is to draw more Russian forces into these theaters and away from Ukraine, reducing Russian material and manpower resources for their Ukrainian operations. The effectiveness of these forces can be difficult to quantify, but Russian troop deployments in the region appear to be unaffected by Ukrainian efforts. Notably, in May of 2024, part of Russia’s Africa Corps was redeployed away from Africa and back to Ukraine in preparation for their Kharkiv Offensive. Recent reports have indicated that Russia may deploy more forces to Syria, but this is due to the recent victory of rebel groups rather than to Ukrainian actions. The highlight of Ukrainian success in the region is in Mali, where Ukrainian intelligence and training contributed to a deadly rebel ambush of a Wagner and Mali government force convoy, the most destructive blow to Russian forces in Africa to date.

Further, this highly visible and direct collaboration with regional forces can negatively affect Ukraine’s reputation. While Wagner’s allies are rarely sympathetic, usually oppressive military juntas, the same issue applies to their adversaries, who often resort to terror tactics. Ukraine’s support for the Mali attack has already drawn serious diplomatic backlash in Africa, causing Mali and Niger to break off diplomatic relations in protest. Given a resurgence of anti-colonial governments in Africa, Ukraine’s actions were poorly timed diplomatically, as extra-African score-settling in the continent is often viewed as European disregard for African sovereignty. Malian rebels are problematic bedfellows, especially when the most Ukraine has to show for it is perhaps a couple of hundred Russian casualties, a fraction of what happens daily on the Ukrainian front lines. Given the modest payoffs of operations in the region and the sharp political backlash, operations of this style should be curtailed and conducted far more subtly, if not eliminated entirely.

Recommendations

UKRSOCOM and the HUR have already had many successes, and the foundations already exist to facilitate more effective utilization of Special Operations Forces. Unlike Russia, which has not updated its special operations forces doctrine significantly, Ukraine is in a position to rapidly and effectively optimize its forces and operational methodology against Russia.

Improve Conventional Commanders’ Competence of SOF Deployment – Trench-clearing operations are dangerous and have a high attrition rate. SOF are too valuable assets to be thrown into this form of combat, but conventional commanders continue to do so. Further cross-command training and education should be done at the higher command levels to help educate conventional commanders on the best uses of SOF, as recommended by Dr. Gardner and his co-contributors in their Irregular Warfare Center piece. It is likely that even with these measures, SOF will continue to be used on the front lines, even if to a lesser extent, due to manpower shortages, but every effort should be made to address these shortages within the conventional force structures. Potential exceptions could be made in extremely vital circumstances, but even then, SOF should be heavily supported with firepower and play to their strengths, such as night raids or infiltration attacks.

Ensure UKRSOCOM Retains Command of SOF – Having SOF under independent command from conventional forces would improve their effectiveness. Special Operations Task Force commanders should be deployed in theater and work alongside conventional commanders rather than relinquish command of SOF to them. Task Force commanders should liaison with conventional commanders to deconflict, as well as develop a better sense of the battlefield on the tactical and operational levels. Doing this would more fully implement the military reforms set in motion almost a decade ago and improve the interoperability of UKRSOCOM with Western Forces.

Reduce or Entirely Eliminate SOF presence in Syria and Africa – The effectiveness of Ukrainian efforts in these regions is questionable and HUR resources would be better spent behind enemy lines or Russia proper, as evidenced by at least one assassination of a high-ranking official. The political and diplomatic effects of some of these problematic alliances in these regions are not insignificant. If this line of effort is to continue at all, it should be done discreetly and be relegated to intelligence sharing. Further arrangements with regional partners could be enacted that demand discretion, a consequential yet avoidable failure of the Mali ambush. Diplomatic credibility is more important than a photo op.

Take credit for Syria – While a small informational win, efforts could be made to better articulate the degree to which Ukrainian SOF helped contribute to the fall of the Assad regime. A few videos of Ukrainians alongside rebels in key cities and at former Russian installations could be effective information operations. This effort would be quick and would allow for the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces in short order in line with the above recommendation. Given the U.S. president’s recent remarks, this recommendation would be received well among allies. This recommendation also has some risk and could backfire if the rebels begin to act inhumanely after their victories.

Conclusion

Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces are a critical force multiplier in the Russo-Ukraine War. Ukraine’s misuse of these forces significantly undermines the strategic effect they can achieve against Russia within the Ukrainian theatre of operations, and it is imperative Ukrainian SOF work to refine the command relationships and mission parameters under which they are deployed. In Ukraine, greater emphasis must be placed on joint exercises and the education of commanders to ensure that the various parties invested in SOF operations understand how to best utilize and support them, and UKRSOCOM must maintain command of SOF units. Ukrainian SOF operations in the Middle East and Africa must be reduced, if not eliminated entirely, unless the operational effects can be empirically shown to degrade Russian combat capabilities in Ukraine. Russia’s brazen and relentless attempt to overwhelm and annex Ukraine is the primary national security threat facing Kyiv. Accordingly, SOF assets, limited in size yet disproportionately destructive when applied strategically, must be refocused where they are most effective against the encroaching Russian military in order to achieve the greatest battlefield effect.

Tags: Russia, Ukraine, Ukrainian Special Operation Forces, UKRSOCOM

About The Author

Robert Kremzner
Robert Kremzner is an intern at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy. He is currently a graduate student at The George Washington University, pursuing a degree in Security Policy. As an undergraduate at Montana State University, he earned a degree in history, where he primarily focused on Eastern Europe. His interests include Soviet history and legacies, Russian aggression in the region, and the interplay between historical memory and modern attitudes in those countries.

15. National Security, Veterans at Risk in Trump Effort to Reshape Federal Workforce, Experts Warn

National Security, Veterans at Risk in Trump Effort to Reshape Federal Workforce, Experts Warn

military.com · by Rebecca Kheel · February 3, 2025

National security, veterans care and veterans employment could all be harmed by the Trump administration's move to gut the civil service by reclassifying career government employees as policymakers working to advance the president's political agenda, both experts and employee unions are warning.

One of the executive orders President Donald Trump signed on his first day in office would strip employment protections afforded to civil servants by putting anyone who works in a "policy-influencing" role into a new class of government employees called "Schedule Policy/Career" who could be fired at will for any reason, including if they are deemed insufficiently loyal to the administration's agenda.

The executive order leaves it to individual government agencies to determine exactly which employees would fall under that category, and agencies have until April to submit their lists to the White House's personnel office -- meaning it could take some time to know the exact scope of the order and its effects.

But experts said the language of the order and subsequent implementation guidance from the personnel office is broad enough that nearly any government worker may be considered a policymaker -- from a lawyer at the Pentagon helping determine whether an order is lawful to a benefits claims processor at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

"It could really sweep up just about anyone, it seems," said Joe Spielberger, senior policy counsel at the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight’s Effective and Accountable Government team. "Especially when we're talking about agencies like the Pentagon that obviously has both such a critical role to play and also where we might see some of the greatest threats, like deploying the military domestically, it's hard to overstate the potential consequences of this."

The order Trump signed last month was similar to one he signed in the waning days of his first term in office after battles with career officials -- whom Trump derided as the "deep state" -- stymied some of his political agenda. Called "Schedule F" back then, the earlier order similarly tried to make it easier to fire bureaucrats and replace them with political appointees.

When former President Joe Biden took office in 2021, he quickly rescinded Trump's Schedule F order. Before leaving, the Biden administration also enacted regulations that sought to strengthen employment protections for civil servants in an effort to prevent a future GOP administration from reviving Trump's Schedule F plan.

But the new Trump administration is contending that Biden's regulations have no bearing on its Schedule Policy/Career order. A memo issued last week by the Office of Personnel Management, or OPM, acting director Charles Ezell argued that Trump used his authority to "directly nullify these regulations" and that Trump's executive order "immediately superseded OPM regulations issued using delegated presidential authority."

The OPM memo also gives federal agencies until April 20 to identify which jobs will be reclassified as Schedule Policy/Career.

While the full scope of the order won't be known until then, clues about how expansive it could be can be gleaned from the first Trump administration's efforts to implement Schedule F, Spielberger said.

Prior to Trump leaving office the last time, the Office of Management and Budget identified dozens of jobs within its office that could be affected, according to documents obtained by the National Treasury Employees Union, or NTEU, through a public records request. In addition to policy and legislative analysts, the jobs included office managers, human resource specialists, administrative assistants, cybersecurity specialists and more.

NTEU, which represents employees in 37 agencies and offices, sued over the new executive order the same day it was signed.

Estimates for how many federal workers could get swept up in the new order range from 50,000 to 100,000. With an estimated 30% of the more than 2 million people who work for the federal government being veterans, any effort to gut the civil service could also have an outsized effect on veterans, said Jenny Mattingley, vice president of government affairs at the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit that advocates for civil servants.

Further, replacing career officials at the Pentagon and the VA with political appointees could mean a loss of expertise in areas such as complex global relationships or veterans' unique health-care needs, Mattingley said.

"Government serves the public, and particularly when you think about Veterans Affairs or national security, those have some real significant implications for the public," Mattingley said. "Thinking about national security staff ... it's not always just the analysts. It's, do we have the HR staff? Do we have the data folks? Do we have all the adjacent pieces that make an organization work? There's a lot of impact to just doing good business if you start arbitrarily cutting folks."

With the implementation of the Schedule Policy/Career order pending, the Trump administration has already made other immediate moves to reshape the federal workforce, including instituting a hiring freeze, placing employees alleged to be involved in diversity efforts on leave and sending federal workers a "deferred resignation" offer that purports to allow them to agree to resign while continuing to get paid through September.

National security workers were exempt from the deferred resignation offer, and dozens of jobs at the Pentagon and VA were exempt from the hiring freeze.

But employees broadly see the early moves as a way to intimidate the federal workforce and soften the ground for the eventual Schedule Policy/Career implementation, said MJ Burke, first executive vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees' National Veterans Affairs Council. American Federation of Government Employees, or AFGE, is the largest federal employees union.

"If you're a dietitian technician who's cleaning trays for the veterans that go up on the ward, he just knows to put the mashed potatoes on there, to put the green beans, whatever. He is not entrenched in federal rulemaking," Burke said. "It is, I think, very confusing for people, and it creates chaos."

The union is bracing for what the Schedule Policy/Career implementation could look like for the VA, Burke added. Burke said she has heard anecdotally that there is already work going on at the Veterans Benefits Administration to figure out which jobs would be considered policymaking and so get converted into jobs that are easier to replace with political operatives.

"I think it's going to be a little chaotic for a while," Burke said.

military.com · by Rebecca Kheel · February 3, 2025

16. Trump says sovereign wealth fund could buy TikTok

Would that "nationalize" TikTok? Would it be under US government control?

That would certainly be ironic. it would probably be the quickest path to its destruction.

Trump says sovereign wealth fund could buy TikTok

BBC

12 hours ago

Lucy Hooker

BBC Business reporter

Getty Images

US President Donald Trump has taken the first step towards setting up a sovereign wealth fund for the United States, and suggested that it could end up buying TikTok.

The president signed an executive order on Monday, to kickstart the process, saying the fund would soon be "one of the biggest".

More than 90 countries have sovereign wealth funds, investing surplus income for the benefit of future generations. However, the US currently runs a budget deficit.

"We're going to create a lot of wealth for the fund," Trump told reporters, without clarifying where the money would come from.

When Trump first floated the idea of a sovereign wealth fund during his election campaign, he suggested it could be funded by "tariffs and other intelligent things".

He has already announced plans to impose tariffs on imports from America's three biggest trading partners - China, Mexico and Canada.

But on Tuesday the levies on Mexico and Canada were paused for 30 days.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the fund would be set up within the next 12 months and that the plan was to monetise assets currently owned by the US government "for the American people".

Saudi Arabia and Norway have two of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds, supported by the proceeds of fossil fuel sales. They invest in companies and projects around the world.

President Trump has previously said that a US sovereign wealth fund would finance "great national endeavours" including infrastructure projects such as airports, roads as well as medical research.

After signing the executive order for the fund's creation, he also floated the idea that it could buy up the social media platform TikTok.

The Chinese-owned social media company was briefly taken offline in the US last month, over national security concerns, after the previous administration ordered its owner to sell its US operations or face a ban.

Trump has delayed the ban, promising to find a solution, after TikTok's US users protested at its shutdown.

"We're going to be doing something, perhaps with TikTok, and perhaps not," Trump said. "If we make the right deal, we'll do it. Otherwise, we won't... we might put that in the sovereign wealth fund."

However, the president has also recently said that technology giant Microsoft was in discussions to acquire TikTok and that he would like to see a "bidding war" over the sale of the social media app.

Other big names in tech, including Larry Ellison and Elon Musk, have also been floated as possible buyers.

17. Pentagon rescinds social media pause

I notice that the SECDEF's use of social media was uninterrupted. He continued to post to twitter/X during this period.

Pentagon rescinds social media pause

Stars and Stripes · by Matthew Adams · February 3, 2025

The Pentagon. (Robert H. Reid/Stars and Stripes)

WASHINGTON — The pause on social media accounts within the Defense Department was rescinded Monday, according to a Pentagon spokesman.

“The Department of Defense rescinds the social media utilization pause and directs all organizations, agencies, commands, and the military departments to employ social media platforms primarily to communicate their primary organization/unit mission, showcase lethality, promote meritocracy, demonstrate high standards and readiness, and support our recruiting goals,” Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot wrote in a statement. “In the months ahead expect more formal departmental communication priorities from the secretary that will serve to guide our collective public affairs and outreach activities going forward.”

On Jan. 25, posts from official social media accounts at the Defense Department were suspended for 10 days, excluding communications about operations along the U.S.-Mexico border or military base activities.

News of a pause of social media use throughout the Defense Department began to swirl Jan. 23. A senior defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity said at that time that the moratorium was meant to ensure department social media posts align with President Donald Trump’s “priorities on readiness, lethality, and warfighting.”

On Jan. 20, Trump signed a slew of executive orders, including three related to the U.S.-Mexico border. By Wednesday, acting Defense Secretary Robert Salesses announced the deployment of 1,500 troops to help with border security.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth met Monday with troops at Fort Bliss, Texas, deployed along the border, while Marines deployed at Naval Base Guantanamo Bay in Cuba begin work on migrant detention facilities.

The active-duty troops assigned to the border have since increased to 1,600.

Up to 1,000 additional troops will soon join the effort, according to the Associated Press. That will include 500 soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum in New York and another 500 Marines slated to work in Guantanamo Bay, where Trump said he will detain migrants, according to the report.

Matthew Adams

Matthew Adams covers the Defense Department at the Pentagon. His past reporting experience includes covering politics for The Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle and The News and Observer. He is based in Washington, D.C.

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Stars and Stripes · by Matthew Adams · February 3, 2025

18. Elon Musk tightens grip on gov’t, sparking ‘coup’ accusations

Al Jazeera is saying the quiet part out loud. I am hearing and seeing increasing talk of a bloodless coup.

There should be only one standard to assess actions taken, especially by Musk and his "special government employees:" Are the actions supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States? Do they support the three major functions of our constitution: Provide for the common defense, regulate commerce, and protect the individual rights and liberty of the individual and the entire people of America from tyranny. That can be the only standard.

Excerpts:

Musk, who was named as a “special government employee” by the White House on Monday, does not hold elected office and is not part of Trump’s Cabinet, whose members require confirmation by the US Senate.

...

As the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, Musk, the world’s richest man, has billions of dollars worth of government contracts, a fact that has raised concerns about conflicts of interest that could arise in his cost-cutting drive.

“Special government employees”, who are typically appointed on a temporary basis, are subject to “most” ethics rules that apply to ordinary government employees, “although sometimes in a less restrictive way”, according to a US Department of Justice summary.

Under the law, they are restricted from “participating in matters” that affect their financial interests and “may” be required to submit a financial disclosure report within 30 days of assuming a position, according to the summary.

Enforcing ethics rules against Musk is at the discretion of the Justice Department, which Trump has sought to purge of perceived enemies.

Elon Musk tightens grip on gov’t, sparking ‘coup’ accusations

Tech billionaire has upended the federal bureaucracy in the two weeks since US President Donald Trump took office.

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2025/2/4/elon-musk-accused-of-coup-running-shadow-govt-as-doge-tightens-grip?utm

Elon Musk arrives on stage to speak at an indoor presidential inauguration parade event in Washington, DC, on January 20, 2025 [Susan Walsh/AP]

By John Power and Erin Hale

Published On 4 Feb 2025

4 Feb 2025

Billionaire Elon Musk is tightening his control over broad swaths of the United States government at extraordinary speed, prompting growing alarm from Democrats and constitutional scholars.

In the two weeks since US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, Musk, the head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has upended the federal bureaucracy, prompting questions about the scope of his authority and warnings of a constitutional crisis, or even a coup.

Acting without oversight of the US Congress, Musk’s lieutenants have brought the work of the US’s main foreign aid agency to a halt, flagged millions of government employees for redundancy, gained access to classified material and sensitive details about millions of Americans, and taken control of the payment system that manages the flow of trillions of dollars of government spending.

Musk, who was named as a “special government employee” by the White House on Monday, does not hold elected office and is not part of Trump’s Cabinet, whose members require confirmation by the US Senate.

“I’ve never ever seen anything like this, never in the history of the country. We always have the president, Cabinet members and the Treasury secretary confirmed by the Senate,” Richard Painter, who served as the chief White House ethics lawyer in the administration of former President George W Bush, told Al Jazeera.

“Cabinet members are installed by the president, they coordinate with the White House to implement policy. You can’t just not spend money appropriated by Congress.”

As the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, Musk, the world’s richest man, has billions of dollars worth of government contracts, a fact that has raised concerns about conflicts of interest that could arise in his cost-cutting drive.

“Special government employees”, who are typically appointed on a temporary basis, are subject to “most” ethics rules that apply to ordinary government employees, “although sometimes in a less restrictive way”, according to a US Department of Justice summary.

Under the law, they are restricted from “participating in matters” that affect their financial interests and “may” be required to submit a financial disclosure report within 30 days of assuming a position, according to the summary.

Enforcing ethics rules against Musk is at the discretion of the Justice Department, which Trump has sought to purge of perceived enemies.

“Only the justice department can enforce this statute,” Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University who specialises in government ethics, told Al Jazeera.

“And it is reasonable to question whether Trump’s Justice Department will enforce the law against a Trump ally like Musk.”

On Monday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he had taken over as acting director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which Musk had labelled a “criminal organisation”.

Hours later, Musk appeared to confirm reports that his task force had taken control of the US Treasury payments system, which manages the transfer of funds on behalf of the entire federal government.

“The only way to stop fraud and waste of taxpayer money is to follow the payment flows and pause suspicious transactions for review. Obviously,” Musk said in a post on social media platform X.

“Naturally, this causes those who have been aiding, abetting and receiving fraudulent payments very upset. Too bad.”

On Monday, a group of unions representing government workers filed a lawsuit against the Treasury Department and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, alleging that DOGE’s access to the payments system had unlawfully compromised the privacy of millions of Americans.

“Secretary Bessent’s action granting DOGE-affiliated individuals full, continuous, and ongoing access to that information for an unspecified period of time means that retirees, taxpayers, federal employees, companies, and other individuals from all walks of life have no assurance that their information will receive the protection that federal law affords,” said the complaint, filed by The Alliance for Retired Americans, the American Federation of Government Employees and the Service Employees International Union.

“And because Defendants’ actions and decisions are shrouded in secrecy, individuals will not have even basic information about what personal or financial information that Defendants are sharing with outside parties or how their information is being used.”

US President Donald Trump speaks as he prepares to sign an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC on February 3, 2025 [Evan Vucci/AP]

In a news conference, Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate, said that the US was witnessing the “hostile takeover of the federal government” by an “unelected shadow government”.

New York House Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accused Musk of orchestrating a “plutocratic coup”.

“If you want the power, run for office and be chosen by the people,” Ocasio-Cortez said on X.

Michael J Gerhardt, a professor who specialises in constitutional law at the University of North Carolina School of Law, said that Musk’s influence over the government was undemocratic and possibly unconstitutional.

“This is perhaps the first time ever someone from outside the government has been so openly given free rein within,” Gerhardt told Al Jazeera.

“There is no mechanism for keeping Elon Musk in check.”

“He has whatever power Trump lets him have,” Gerhardt added. “Given his position, the only bounds on his authority is Trump himself.”

Speaking to reporters at the Oval Office of the White House, Trump said that Musk “can’t” and “won’t” do anything without the approval of his administration.

“We will give him the approval where appropriate. Where not appropriate, we won’t. He reports in,” Trump said.

“Where we think there’s a conflict or a problem, we won’t let him go near it,” Trump added.

Gerhardt, the law professor, said that while the presence of “powers behind the throne” was not new in US politics, Musk’s influence over the government showed an unprecedented disregard for the law.

“There has been corruption associated with nearly every presidency in American history, but Musk is brazenly defying and disregarding the laws that govern how government functions,” Gerhardt said.

Source: Al Jazeera

19. Trump to withdraw US from UN Rights Council, extend UNRWA funds ban: Report

Trump to withdraw US from UN Rights Council, extend UNRWA funds ban: Report

Al Jazeera English

United States President Donald Trump is planning to cut off US engagement with the United Nations Human Rights Council and extend a funding ban on the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, an unnamed White House official told US media outlets.

US news media, including Politico and NPR, reported on Monday that Trump was expected to sign an executive order withdrawing from the two UN bodies on Tuesday, the same day the White House is expected to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a longtime critic of the UN, and UNRWA in particular.

UNRWA order comes as Netanyahu visits White House

Trump’s plan to sign another executive order specifically targeting the embattled UNRWA coincides with Netanyahu’s visit to the White House.

According to a UNRWA situation report, Israeli forces killed 272 UNRWA staff members during Israel’s 15-month onslaught on the Gaza Strip and repeatedly attacked UNRWA buildings, including schools where thousands of Palestinians were seeking shelter.

In October, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed two bills banning UNRWA operations within Israel’s borders, including occupied East Jerusalem, which came into effect last week. Founded by the UN General Assembly in 1949, UNRWA provides aid, health and education services to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, occupied East Jerusalem, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

The US was UNRWA’s biggest donor, providing $300m to $400m a year, but Biden paused funding in January 2024 after Israel made unfounded accusations about a dozen UNRWA staff taking part in the deadly October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas.

Although an independent report found that Israeli authorities did not provide evidence for their claims to the UN, the US Congress decided to formally suspend contributions to UNRWA until at least March 2025. The UN later found that nine employees may have been involved in the attack and were fired.

UNRWA is playing a vital role in Gaza’s recovery as a fragile ceasefire continues to hold between Israel and Hamas.

Trump and Netanyahu are expected to discuss the next phase of the ceasefire deal when they meet.

Speaking after Netanyahu arrived in the US on Monday, Trump said there were “no guarantees” that the ceasefire deal would hold.

Al Jazeera English

20. Alleged Chinese Spies Arrested in the Philippines on Espionage Charges

Alleged Chinese Spies Arrested in the Philippines on Espionage Charges - USNI News

news.usni.org · by Aaron-Matthew Lariosa · February 4, 2025

The Philippines island of Luzon and the Cagayan River running in the plains between the Sierra Madre mountain range on the northeast coast. NASA Photo

Five Chinese nationals were arrested by Philippine law enforcement on espionage charges last month after conducting “illegal intelligence gathering” on Philippine Navy and Coast Guard facilities, ports and ships stationed near the South China Sea, according to local authorities

Following the arrest of a Chinese national on similar charges in Manila, who was found to have detailed maps of government facilities and military bases, the National Bureau of Investigation and the Armed Forces of the Philippines discovered another group of Chinese nationals conducting similar activities in the province of Palawan.

Agents arrested Cai Shaohuang, Cheng Hai Tao, Wi Cheng Ting, Wang Yong Yi and Wu Chin Ren after a series of operations from Jan. 24 to 25. According to the agency, Cai led the operation while Cheng, Wi and Wang were identified members of the ring. All members were affiliated with the Qiaoxing Volunteer Group of the Philippines and the Philippine China Association of Promotion of Peace and Friendship, authorities said.

The National Bureau of Investigation followed the group in Puerto Princesa and Ulugan Bay in Palawan, home to ports from which Manila sorites its patrol ships and aircraft into its western exclusive economic zone. Locals told authorities after they reportedly saw the alleged spies, who were posing as tourists, setting up a camera facing a Philippine Coast Guard base.

“This group is believed to have engaged in aerial reconnaissance via drone operations, collecting data from the Philippines’ naval assets, among others,” stated an agency press release.

Among the items found on the Chinese nationals were images of Philippine Navy small boats and the patrol ship BRP Ramon Alcaraz (PS-16), a former U.S. Coast Guard Hamilton-class cutter transferred to the service in 2012. Philippine Coast Guard flagship BRP Teresa Magbanua (MRRV-9701) and the large offshore patrol vessel BRP Gabriela Silang (OPV-8301) were also photographed at their piers in the agency’s headquarters in the Port of Manila.

Authorities said the group scouted Naval Operating Base Subic, Naval Detachment Oyster Bay and Subic Bay International Airport, which have all been utilized for operations into the South China Sea or for military exercises with allies like the U.S. and Australia.

The group has been charged with violating Commonwealth Act No. 616 Sections 1(a) and 2(b), as well as the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012. While Cai and his group have been charged with espionage, Gen. Romeo Brawner, Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, told the Philippine News Agency that it is unclear if their activities are state-sponsored. “We cannot conclude that. What we are focusing on is on the act itself, the spying, or what we call ISR, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations so that is our focus,” he said.

Philippine President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. voiced his concern about the alleged spy activities, telling reporters that he was disturbed by the reports.

Earlier last month, the Philippine military found an underwater unmanned vehicle of Chinese origin in the South China Sea. While the Philippine Navy further revealed that they recovered five drones across the country within 2024 alone, they did not specify the user to the media.

Washington and Manila pledged to deepen their intelligence-sharing efforts last summer after inking the General Security of Military Information Agreement, which permits the two long-standing allies to transfer sensitive data.

news.usni.org · by Aaron-Matthew Lariosa · February 4, 2025

21. Trump’s tariffs fit a growing global trend of hardball migration diplomacy

Trump’s tariffs fit a growing global trend of hardball migration diplomacy

Such diplomacy works both ways, but richer countries by and large have the upper hand.

By Nicholas R. Micinski

Professor, University of Maine

February 3, 2025 02:55 PM ET

defenseone.com · by Nicholas R. Micinski

As diplomatic spats go, it was short-lived.

On Jan 26, 2025, Colombian President Gustavo Petro turned away American military planes carrying people being deported from the United States. In response, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened 25% tariffs and travel banson Colombian government officials. Despite insisting that “the U.S. cannot treat Colombian migrants as criminals” and needed to “establish a protocol for the dignified treatment of migrants before we receive them,” Petro’s government backed down and resumed cooperation with U.S. immigration officials.

All this took place in the span of just a few hours. [Editor's note: On Saturday, Trump announced a 25% tariff on most imports from Canada and Mexico and a 10% tariff on imports from China to hold Mexico, Canada, and China accountable to their promises of halting illegal immigration and stopping poisonous fentanyl and other drugs from flowing into the United States.]

But “migration diplomacy” – the use of diplomatic tools and threats to control the number and flow of migrants – isn’t new. Indeed, it was a feature of Trump’s first administration. And it is not unique to Trump; it has been in the foreign policy playbook of previous U.S. presidents as well as the European Union and governments around the world.

As an expert on migration policy and international affairs, I have observed the evolution of this global trend, in which nations leverage migration policies for geopolitical ends.

Richer countries with increasingly populist, nationalist bases are putting in place anti-migrant policies. But these same nations depend on poorer countries to accept deportations and host the majority of the world’s refugees – governments can’t unilaterally “dump” deported immigrants back into the home country, or in a third country.

And while migration diplomacy can be cooperative, there’s always the possibility a disagreement will spiral into diplomatic spats or outright conflict.

Migration diplomacy is a relatively recent academic term. But the practice of using foreign policy tools to control migration is centuries old. Common tools of migrant diplomacy fall between the “carrots” of bilateral treaties, development aid and infrastructure investment, and the “sticks” of tariffs, travel bans and sanctions.

Trump, during his first term, focused more on the sticks, frequently threatening tariffs or cuts in aid to push through deals on migration. For example, in 2018, Trump posted on Twitter that if Honduras and other Central American governments did not stop migrant caravans to the U.S., he would cut all aid: “no more money or aid will be given … effective immediately!”

A few months later, Trump followed through with the threat, suspending US$400 million in aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

Trump then upped the ante, posting: “Now we are looking at the ‘BAN,’ … Tariffs, Remittance Fees, or all of the above. Guatemala has not been good.”

Within three days, Guatemala signed a deal with the U.S. to cooperate on asylum and deportations. Honduras and El Salvador followed suit two months later.

Similarly, in 2019, Trump threatened Mexico that the U.S. would impose a 5% tariff on goods “until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP.”

Within 11 days, Mexico signed the Migrant Protection Protocols, known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy, institutionalizing what human rights groups called “illegal pushbacks” that put people at risk of torture, sexual violence and death.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, the U.S. government can stop granting visas to any country that “denies or unreasonably delays accepting an alien who is a citizen.”

And during his first term, Trump imposed visa restrictions on people from Cambodia, Eritrea, Ghana, Guinea, Laos, Myanmar, Pakistan and Sierra Leone because those countries were deemed to be not cooperating with deportations.

Such visa restrictions worked with Guinea and Ghana, which both began accepting deportations of their citizens from the U.S.

Nations also use migration policy as tools to push other foreign policy goals not necessarily related to migration. As political scientist Kelly Greenhill explored in her book “Weapons of Mass Migration,” governments are using coercive engineered migration to create pressure against other rival nations. This was seen in 2021 when Belarus bused asylum seekers to the Polish border in an apparent effort to overwhelm the EU’s asylum system.

Similarly, Trump used migration policies to bully other nations into cooperating with the United States. The “Muslim ban” of his first administration – rebranded in later iterations as travel bans – banned entry of citizens from Chad, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. While the first executive order pertaining to the ban was immediately criticized as Islamophobic, the administration changed legal reasoning in front of the Supreme Court, arguing that the ban stemmed from nations not sharing information about potential terrorists and due to their passports being vulnerable to fraud.

The travel bans were an attempt to coerce nations into sharing information with the U.S. and enforcing U.S. standards of identity documents. Indeed, Chad was later removed from the ban when it adopted these standards.

The use of migration diplomacy by the U.S. government predates Trump. Tit-for-tat restrictions on travel were common throughout the Cold War. In 2001, President George W. Bush applied visa sanctions to Guyana when its government refused to cooperate on deportations. In 2016, President Barack Obama also applied retaliatory visa restrictions on Gambia for failing to accept U.S. deportation flights.

The European Union tends to use carrots rather than sticks to encourage cooperation on deportations. For example, a 2016 EU-Turkey deal provided 6 billion euros (US$6.25 million) in aid for refugees in Turkey in exchange for accepting the deportation of what the EU describes as “irregular migrants.” In 2023, the EU also struck a 105 million euro ($109 million) deal with Tunisia in return for the North African country’s cooperation on preventing irregular migration.

But like Trump, the EU is not opposed to punishing states for refusing to cooperate on deportations. In April 2024, the EU tightened rules on visas for Ethiopians because their government refused to accept the return of citizens who had asylum claims denied. Earlier, the EU suspended 15 million euros ($15.6 million) in development aid to Ethiopia on similar grounds.

Trump’s threats and EU migration deals reveal a type of migration interdependence: Rich states in the Global North don’t want to host large numbers of migrants and refugees and need willing partners in the Global Southto accept deportations, enforce emigration restrictions and continue hosting the majority of the world’s refugees.

This interdependence is typically balanced by rich countries footing the bill and poor countries accepting deportations. But migration diplomacy is also used by less powerful nations aware of the opportunity of exacting concessions out of countries, blocs or international bodies. For example, the Kenyan government repeatedly threatened to close the Dadaab refugee camp and expel all Somali refugees unless it received more international aid. Similarly, Pakistan threatened to deport Afghan refugees unless the international community did more, but backed down after significant increases in aid.

Rwanda extracted around $310 million from the British government without resettling a single person after a 2022 plan aimed at deterring asylum seekers to the U.K. by deporting them to Rwanda – where their cases would be reviewed and eventually settled – was blocked by the European Court of Human Rightsand the U.K.’s Supreme Court.

Similarly, the small South Pacific island nation of Nauru was paid more than $118 million with the aim of hosting all asylum seekers to Australia. The policy broke down after reports of abysmal conditions in Nauru’s detention facilities.

While migration diplomacy does work both ways, richer countries by and large have the upper hand. And Trump’s threats against Colombia – and others – are just one example of this hardball migration diplomacy.

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

defenseone.com · by Nicholas R. Micinski

22. Five Key Principles for U.S. Irregular Warfare Strategy in the Gray Zone

"Don't' overthink it." Sure, but let's make sure we put sufficient thought into it.

Excerpts:

When applied together, the above irregular warfare principles can enable a robust and assertive global deterrence posture without large deployments of troops to ground combat zones like those seen during the Global War on Terror. Enabling proxies, protecting trade and fostering economic development, and the countering of disinformation narratives with finesse and discretion creates a series of overlapping and sustainable effects that protect US interests while also preventing the escalation of localized conflict. These combined strategies would work toward keeping wars small—and ideally short.

The challenge policymakers will face is managing a volatile geopolitical environment that requires US engagement while simultaneously placating a population that is increasingly isolationist and indifferent to geopolitical events. Americans generally understand conventional actions like strategic bombing and amphibious landings, but can struggle to appreciate the practical impact of more indirect concepts like economic warfare or the benefit of supporting a proxy force. In the long run, the residual impact of these strategies answer that challenge by addressing the major bi-partisan concerns expressed by voters during the 2024 election: improving the economy, reducing the cost of goods, and avoiding heavy entanglement in foreign wars.

Some constituencies may not care that 21st century gray zone dynamics necessitate US engagement or understand that such engagement requires an approach more closely resembling Sun Tzu than Clausewitz. However, by employing these irregular warfare principles, elected and appointed policymakers can justify foreign involvement with results that answer the demand signals of recent polls and elections. By doing so, the US can balance national interests and public expectations, thus securing strategic dominance, influence, and legitimacy both abroad and at home.

Five Key Principles for U.S. Irregular Warfare Strategy in the Gray Zone

irregularwarfare.org · by Brandon Kirch · February 4, 2025

A new US president took office on January 20th, and will confront a dangerous national security environment shaped by Irregular Warfare (IW) challenges. From cyber warfare and gray zone conflicts to terrorism and insurgency, these challenges demand immediate, actionable solutions. As 2024 came to a close, the Irregular Warfare Initiative invited readers to contribute fresh, pragmatic, and non-partisan policy recommendations to help shape the next administration’s approach to these threats. In our third article, Brandon Kirch presents the five key pillars to a new irregular warfare strategy.

Over the course of one week in late October, North Korean troops appeared in Ukraine, Israel launched retaliatory air strikes against Iran, and news broke that Russia provided targeting data to the Houthis in support of their effort to disrupt global shipping. These events occurred less than a month after Israel invaded Lebanon, and only two weeks before a US presidential election. More recently, Syria’s Assad Regime collapsed entirely and was replaced by a new government rife with terrorist affiliations. As a tepid ceasefire in Lebanon approaches its expiration date, the time and space between international escalation cycles is decreasing. The Trump administration has taken office amidst a volatile geopolitical environment that will likely demand a majority of their bandwidth for the term’s first 100 days, if not longer. A layered irregular warfare strategy will be essential if the US wishes to avoid further destabilization and reverse the ever-increasing risk of direct involvement in a broader war. Though specifics will depend on the events which unfold during the term, here are five principles that should be applied to develop an irregular warfare (IW) strategy to manage the gray zone’s current challenges.

1. Accept Risk

The cult of de-escalation has demonstrated itself to be unfounded, particularly since the outbreak of conflict in Ukraine and Israel. Likewise, it is not escalatory to match activity an adversary is already conducting. If effective deterrence requires capability and credibility, then concerns about escalation or “triggering World War III,” even when dealing with proxy forces, have so far only served to undermine the “credibility” half of that formula. Ongoing Houthi harassment of global shipping lanes and attacks against Israel, for example, warrant an offensive response targeting leadership and command and control, as opposed to reactive strikes against replaceable weapon systems. As nefarious geopolitical actors move with increasing boldness in the gray zone, the US must be able to counter with even stouter strategic momentum.

The escalation concerns echoing from isolationist wings of both parties are short-sighted and overly cautious excuses to ignore geopolitical reality. The new administration must argue to its populist constituencies that the domestic issues many voters prefer to focus on will be moot if a robust global deterrence posture is not maintained.

2. Proxy Deterrence

The new administration should increase efforts to arm, train, and equip partners and allies under threat from state and non-state adversaries. A “bloodletting” strategy involves staying on the sidelines while two adversaries exhaust each other in a long, drawn-out conflict. This doesn’t require both nations to deplete all their resources. Instead, by equipping our allies with the tools to dominate their current fight, we can make these make small wars shorter and more costly for the aggressor, while also strengthening U.S. deterrence by showing the futility of attacking a U.S. ally. Special attention should be given to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. However, sufficiently arming allies like Kenya, Jordan, India, the Philippines, South Korea, and Japan, amongst others, in the near term would pay dividends later by making future small wars less appealing to aggressors.

Additionally, partner forces need not be limited to state actors. Although its landlocked geography complicates targeting efforts, serious consideration should be given to providing lethal aid to Afghanistan’s anti-Taliban resistance groups, and/or conducting kinetic strikes on counterterrorism targets, be it ISIS-K or the al Qaeda presence that continues to expand since the re-establishment of the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate. It is unlikely that the Trump administration has any desire to touch Afghanistan—both campaigns’ rhetoric self-imposed a prohibition on re-engaging in that conflict—but doing so could simultaneously deny terrorists safe haven, undermine credibility of the Taliban Regime, and discourage PRC engagement in the country.

3. Information Exposure

Both state and non-state actors are successfully using information operations as an irregular warfare strategy to counter US influence and credibility, and to cause chaos in the information space. Over the last decade, disinformation has created a bizarre public sentiment where default rejection of government credibility and patriotic western exceptionalism co-exist without contradiction. The collective effort has been so successful that direct illumination and corrections of adversary disinformation by US authorities is not considered credible by large sections of the US general population. In many cases, the direct revelation of an adversary disinformation effort by government entities can easily discredit the activity as merely another “deep state” lie.

Alternatively, the exposure of an adversary’s lie or secret activity which is plausibly inadvertent, rather than exposed through an official press release, can still be accepted by the public writ large by playing into patriotic sentiments without its credibility having been “tainted” by domestic political bias. US federal departments and the intelligence community’s agencies should seek avenues of information exposure through commercial and media sectors while declining to take credit, and when possible, avoiding noticeable involvement in the revelation at all.

4. Aggressive Economic Posture

Efforts by the PRC to replace the dollar as the world currency are under-appreciated threats to US national security, and constitute an IW effort, but the economic sphere also offers irregular avenues of countering gray zone competition.

Proactive engagement with international development partners presents an opportunity to highlight how China’s lack of rigor in development projects in other countries has led to the proliferation of unnecessary and unproductive projects, with critical infrastructure built in the wrong locations, using sub-standard materials and based on faulty assumptions about expected returns. This approach also allows for framing economic alignment with China as a poor investment, while offering western alternatives (US or otherwise). Disrupting the Belt and Road Initiative makes a Chinese global presence more difficult to maintain and impedes China’s ability to conduct irregular warfare against the US and its partners.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of building resiliency into supply chains. Decoupling from adversaries, with special focus given to Chinese-based manufacturing, combined with economic measures to incentivize the transfer of the manufacturing base to friendlier emerging economies like India, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brazil, and Mexico, would better protect the defense industrial base against material shortages during conflict. Industries with essential national security implications, such as microprocessors or aerospace research and development, which are currently based in vulnerable partner regions like Taiwan and South Korea, could be relocated to the continental US for enhanced supply chain security. While corporate ownership could remain under foreign partners, leveraging geography to secure these industries serves the mutual interests of both the US and its allies.

Additionally, in an effort to compliment the recent Executive Orders declaring an energy emergency which focus mostly on fossil fuel dominance, the current administration needs to not forget the full range of energy options available, including nuclear and green energy options. The US has been a net-energy exporter since 2019, but continued to draw from Russia and other nations for some level of direct imports. This is how Russia’s Vladimir Putin was previously able to maintain leverage over Europe, specifically Germany, since 2014. The US cut off Russian crude oil in 2022, but it remains dangerously dependent on imported petroleum. Of the 6 million barrels of oil imported each day, over a third originates from outside of North America. Even as a net-exporter, this arrangement exposes the US to a risk of disrupting day-to-day resupply in the event that a global emergency forces a rearrangement of domestic supply routes.

5. Don’t Overthink It

Irregular warfare is a holistic methodology like counterinsurgency or Joint Operations, not an isolated warfighting domain. The tools and talent required to execute irregular warfare skillfully already exist within the Department of Defense and the federal inter-agency—if and when culture and bureaucracy allow for them to be used. Creating a dedicated service branch or new “Department of Irregular Warfare” would miss the point that an effective irregular warfare strategy requires implementation across the force. Such an entity likely would not have the desired impact if the risk-adverse rigidity that prevented traditional entities from conducting irregular warfare continues to be pervasive in policymaking corridors.

Yet, an irregular strategy still requires support from the conventional realm. A robust irregular warfare effort likely would need to exist in parallel with freedom of navigation missions in key sea and air lanes, the Western Pacific, the Arctic, and global choke points in order to maintain an advantageous posture for irregular warfare operations. The joint force would also continue to require funding, equipment, and training to a degree that ensures the capability and credibility of conventional US deterrence efforts.

Overlapping Effects

When applied together, the above irregular warfare principles can enable a robust and assertive global deterrence posture without large deployments of troops to ground combat zones like those seen during the Global War on Terror. Enabling proxies, protecting trade and fostering economic development, and the countering of disinformation narratives with finesse and discretion creates a series of overlapping and sustainable effects that protect US interests while also preventing the escalation of localized conflict. These combined strategies would work toward keeping wars small—and ideally short.

The challenge policymakers will face is managing a volatile geopolitical environment that requires US engagement while simultaneously placating a population that is increasingly isolationist and indifferent to geopolitical events. Americans generally understand conventional actions like strategic bombing and amphibious landings, but can struggle to appreciate the practical impact of more indirect concepts like economic warfare or the benefit of supporting a proxy force. In the long run, the residual impact of these strategies answer that challenge by addressing the major bi-partisan concerns expressed by voters during the 2024 election: improving the economy, reducing the cost of goods, and avoiding heavy entanglement in foreign wars.

Some constituencies may not care that 21st century gray zone dynamics necessitate US engagement or understand that such engagement requires an approach more closely resembling Sun Tzu than Clausewitz. However, by employing these irregular warfare principles, elected and appointed policymakers can justify foreign involvement with results that answer the demand signals of recent polls and elections. By doing so, the US can balance national interests and public expectations, thus securing strategic dominance, influence, and legitimacy both abroad and at home.

Brandon Kirch is a strategist and consultant for the Department of Defense where most of his career has focused on US counterinsurgency and counterterrorism strategy. He previously served as a Naval intelligence specialist in the Arabian Gulf and a civilian counterinsurgency analyst in Afghanistan, accumulating a total of five years deployed to the CENTCOM theater. Brandon is a Citadel graduate and holds an MA in National Security Studies from Georgetown University.

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the official position of the Irregular Warfare Initiative, Princeton University’s Empirical Studies of Conflict Project, the Modern War Institute at West Point, or the United States Government.

Main image: Photo by Senior Airman Zachary Foster available via DVIDS.net

If you value reading the Irregular Warfare Initiative, please consider supporting our work. And for the best gear, check out the IWI store for mugs, coasters, apparel, and other items.

23. Trump Has a Rare and Short Window to Solve the Iran Problem

Conclusion:

The time and space that was supposed to be provided by the nuclear deal no longer exist, but options remain to prevent Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold. The Trump administration may have more scope to operate audaciously than its predecessor, afforded by unified government control in the United States and the weakened state of Iranian proxies abroad. It should take the chance now or should start preparing for the diminished policy space and heightened risk that a nuclear Iran would bring to the region and to the international community. The first Trump administration set us on this course — the second Trump administration can and should correct it.

Trump Has a Rare and Short Window to Solve the Iran Problem — Here’s How - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Richard Nephew · February 4, 2025

Donald Trump is likely the last president that will get a chance to stop Iran from building a nuclear arsenal. Will he succeed?

Tehran has been on the backfoot, having catastrophically misjudged the long-term repercussions of Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel’s subsequent response, but even a diminished Islamic Republic can harm U.S. interests and force it to commit significant resources to managing yet another crisis in the region. And while most of the recent focus on Iran has dwelt on its regional activities at the expense of the nuclear issue, historically, the opposite has been true — and it is only a matter of time before the nuclear problem dominates headlines again. The Trump administration has an opportunity and an obligation to reset the balance, managing the nuclear issue while not giving Iran space to reconstitute its regional proxy network that targeted U.S. and partner forces and limited their options for the last decade. Israel has shown that it is possible to take more risks in responding to Iranian provocations and attacks. The United States should do the same — utilizing the entirety of the toolkit at its disposal to prevent Iranian nuclear weaponization, proxy rearmament, and the descent of the region into further turmoil.

Become a Member

How We Got Here

This was always intended to be a year of significance for the Iranian nuclear program. Ten years after the Iran nuclear deal (formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) was concluded, it was to mark the graduation of the Iranian nuclear issue with the sunsetting of major nuclear restrictions and sanctions. But the nuclear deal envisioned those ten years as a decade in which Iran’s nuclear program would be heavily circumscribed, with its research and development efforts harnessed and its ability to expand its nuclear infrastructure denied. Although some debated the wisdom of this logic, the ten years of core implementation was intended to be used as a foundation for other negotiations, perhaps even some that further dealt with the nuclear program itself, extending sunset timelines and further restricting certain Iranian nuclear activities.

2025 will remain a year of significance, but for far different reasons. Unshackled by Trump’s decision to withdraw from the nuclear deal in May 2018 in hopes of a better deal, Iran restarted its centrifuge research and development programs and nuclear expansion. Upon entering office, the Biden administration — in which we served in different roles, including as members of the U.S. negotiating team with Iran on possibly returning the nuclear deal — focused its efforts on a mutual return to compliance with the deal, but Iran was ultimately uninterested in it. Iran’s nuclear progress has continued unabated since that time. The Biden administration’s refusal to consider anything other than the nuclear deal for the first two years of its time in office was followed by its failure to sustain pressure on the Iranians to restrain their nuclear work to any great degree. The result is that Iran is now one or two weeks away from having enough material for its first nuclear weapon, should it choose to do so, a 96 percent reduction in the breakout time created by the nuclear deal.

The other major concern was Iran’s proxy network. That is now in tatters. Israel’s operations have effectively degraded the capabilities of Tehran’s key proxy and conduit to the rest of its network of non-state allies, Hizballah, eviscerating its command structure and destroying much of its arsenal. The collapse of the Assad regime in Syria and Israel’s war against Hamas have also helped change the regional power balance against Tehran. Iran still has moves it can make, not least a nuclear breakout, and it may prioritize rebuilding its network of proxies to restore its strategic depth. But this will take time, and Iran’s strategic calculus is now more open to manipulation and influence than it has been since probably the end of the Iran-Iraq War in the late 1980s. The new administration has a brief window to set the tone for its relationship with Iran.

The Real Moment of Nuclear Crisis

The Trump administration has promised to intensify pressure against Iran. There is a very real chance that embarking on this course will prompt Iran to break through its remaining self-imposed nuclear constraints. The Biden administration’s approach to this threat was reportedly instead to seek mutual and informal de-escalation. But Trump cannot simply return to the same policy he put into place in 2018, just as the Biden administration couldn’t revive a 2015 deal. Hopefully, the Trump administration will embrace this new reality where Tehran is weaker regionally than any time in the past decade, but with a more advanced nuclear program than ever before. As positive as a collapse of the current Iranian government might be, it remains far less likely than one would hope, even as discontent within the Iranian population continues to exist and perhaps grow. Iran still has functional internal security services and the ability to impose its will. Fortunately, the United States can improve its position vis-à-vis Iran without pushing for regime change — a goal Trump doesn’t seem eager to pursue — by focusing on three points: preventing an Iranian nuclear breakout, containing Iran’s attempt at regional proxy restoration, and containing its proliferation of missiles and drones.

In doing so, the new administration has an opportunity to rectify the mistakes made by the previous two. This should start with clarity as to the objectives of the policy. In the first Trump administration, there appeared to be a disconnect between the president, who expressed a wish to reach a deal with Iran, and at least some in his cabinet and lower levels of his government, who sought to overthrow the regime through a maximum pressure campaign. The result of that policy was both confusion as to what would mark a satisfactory conclusion to the conflict with Iran and an overemphasis on what sanctions could achieve — at the expense of other tools. Trump’s approach to Iran further isolated the United States from its key allies in Europe (chiefly those part of the deal, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom). For its part, the Biden administration overcorrected and made a return to the nuclear deal the focal point of U.S. policy toward Iran for far too long and at the expense of addressing other challenges with that regime. The results were that efforts to curb Iran’s nuclear progress effectively remained in limbo as the diplomatic channel revealed ineffective.

Trump is the president, so let us assume that his preferences will and ought to bear out within the administration. If he is serious about wanting to get a deal with Iran, there are options for him to pursue. These will not include the return of the nuclear deal, which has been rendered mostly moot by Iranian technical progress, especially on centrifuge research and development. Still, meaningful steps by Iran to reduce the concern that it will produce nuclear weapons are possible, including, and especially, granting access and monitoring rights to the International Atomic Energy Agency back to the level provided in the nuclear deal and in perpetuity. Other steps, such as reducing the size and enrichment level of its uranium stocks to create a little more time before a breakout could be staged, permitting verification that Iranian nuclear weaponization projects remain halted, and an agreement never to develop the plutonium path to nuclear weapons, would also provide some confidence as to Iranian intentions and limit the scope of the problem.

To get there, the United States should execute a strategy that makes clear the opportunity available to Iran and risks that its leaders will face through their continued nuclear expansion. On the diplomatic front, Trump can swiftly authorize direct talks with the Iranians to convey an offer for an immediate, risk-reduction focused arrangement to provide space for further talks. He can and should underscore that this is a time-limited opportunity, given both the impending expiration of the nuclear deal’s U.N. “snapback” arrangement and Iran’s technological progress. Simultaneously, he can order tougher enforcement of United Nations Security Council nonproliferation obligations, barring the transfer of Iranian nuclear-related goods and that of weapons to Iran’s proxies. He can further order diplomatic and — if necessary — military interdiction of cargoes destined for Iran’s nuclear and missile programs. He should also work with regional partners in the Gulf to shore up mutual security commitments, including cooperation in the event that military action is needed against Iran’s nuclear program, which could and should include steps to counter Iranian proxy networks through irregular warfare activities such as information and cyber operations. None of these steps would necessarily involve or require immediate military action against Iran, but would indicate U.S. resolve to enforce the longstanding, bipartisan commitment to deny Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.

For its part, sanctions pressure will require a serious conversation with China about their purchases of Iranian oil and their cooperation in reducing those purchases or restricting Iranian access to the resulting proceeds. China will not do this for free, and other Trump initiatives, such as the pending tariffs on the import of Chinese goods, will make Beijing reluctant to cooperate. If Trump is serious about an Iran deal, however, coming to an early mutual understanding with China is central. One way to incentivize China to get back on board is to underscore the precarious nature of energy supplies from the Middle East should Iran’s nuclear program continue unabated. The United States can shape this by augmenting its military threat to Iran’s nuclear program through an explicit commitment to expand the target set to include other regime assets, chiefly its oil infrastructure. China will well understand that attacks on Iranian oil infrastructure could prompt Iranian attacks on other countries, risking its oil supplies. This risk in combination with economic pressure could encourage China to cooperate.

A Rare Regional Opportunity

At the current juncture in the region, the United States is well-positioned to seize opportunities to limit Iran’s influence in the Middle East after years of growing Iranian presence and to degrade the capabilities of Iranian proxies who have targeted U.S. forces for years. These proxies no longer have the means to inflict massive damage on our allies and partners in Israel and elsewhere, and their actions have put them squarely at risk. U.S. forces and partners in the region benefit from this setback. But the Islamic Republic will no doubt seek to reconstitute its network of proxies as they are its greatest strategic asset. In the medium-term, the United States should be prepared to use its full toolkit, including force, to deal with Iranian proxies and especially to prevent their rearmament. In the short- to medium-term, proxy attacks on shipping in the Red Sea by the Houthis are likely to continue. The United States should clearly communicate to Iran that these are unacceptable and that its proliferation of missiles and related components render it liable for this threat to peaceful transit through this vital waterway. Interdiction missions as well as targeted strikes against Houthi and other proxy positions should be explicitly put on the table.

In fact, Iran’s proliferation of missiles and uncrewed systems is no longer limited to supplying its traditional non-state allies, whose lesser capabilities have historically made them reliant on Tehran. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Iran has become a key supplier of military capabilities, particularly uncrewed aerial systems, for Russian forces. Leveraging the whole suite of sanctions, export controls, and counterproliferation and interdiction tools, the United States should work in concert with allies and partners to deny Iran the ability to export its missiles and drones. The new administration would also be well-advised to continue the smart release of unclassified information to draw attention on Iran’s malign behavior and garner international support for U.S. efforts — while balancing intelligence requirements. The administration should also prioritize an Iranian commitment to no longer proliferate these items in a deal.

Necessary Quid Pro Quo

To get a deal of significance on the nuclear and proxy proliferation side, substantial sanctions relief would be necessary. An initial offer to Tehran could include significant economic and trade sanctions concessions, while retaining both an immediate “snapback,” as well as measures that would maintain pressure on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iran will balk at such a demand, knowing that it could limit the value of such relief, but it can serve at least as a starting point for talks. Depending on the national security value of a deal to the United States (e.g., how far it constrains Iran’s nuclear program, its support for proxies, or missile and drone proliferation), sanctions relief could be improved and scalable, as could the length of term for a deal reached. Crucially, however, any deal with Iran will require compromises on sanctions. Promises to obtain uncompensated Iranian capitulation should be considered suspect, as they depend on herculean assumptions of what sanctions, military pressure, and diplomacy can achieve.

Trump Has Time, But Not Much

The time and space that was supposed to be provided by the nuclear deal no longer exist, but options remain to prevent Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold. The Trump administration may have more scope to operate audaciously than its predecessor, afforded by unified government control in the United States and the weakened state of Iranian proxies abroad. It should take the chance now or should start preparing for the diminished policy space and heightened risk that a nuclear Iran would bring to the region and to the international community. The first Trump administration set us on this course — the second Trump administration can and should correct it.

Become a Member

Richard Nephew is a senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and adjunct fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He previously served in the U.S. government, including as deputy special envoy for Iran and director for Iran at the National Security Council.

Ariane Tabatabai served in a number of positions at the Departments of State and Defense, most recently as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for force education and training. She is the author of No Conquest, No Defeat – Iran’s National Security Strategy.

Image: khamenei.ir via Wikimedia Commons

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Richard Nephew · February 4, 2025

24. American Leadership Is Good for the Global South

Excerpts:

Americans, and Republican legislators especially, tend to dislike the meddling of foreigners in their affairs. But many countries have begun taking their cases to Washington to shape bilateral relations. China, India, the Gulf states, and the larger European countries all hire expensive and highly reputed lobbying and white-shoe law firms to advance their interests in Congress. Canada has done so on a large scale, on everything from dairy products to lumber, fishing, and border regulations. Mexico lobbied U.S. legislators intensely and successfully in 1993 to win passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement. In principle, such practices could extend to persuading the United States to ratify international agreements. Countries that are not aligned with China, such as Brazil, India, Mexico, Nigeria, and South Africa, could take the lead in this effort, striving to convince U.S. lawmakers that they should help complete, rather than unwind, the rules-based order. Such ratifications would win Washington a great deal of goodwill in the global South—and undermine Beijing.

This would not be a short-term task; it would take a decade at least and require navigating the complexities of the Trump administration and subsequent dispensations. But with skill and sufficient resources and patience, such an effort could produce meaningful results. The global South should make clear to the United States that the only way it can weather the Chinese (and Russian) challenge is through alliances and partnerships that reach beyond the traditional West. One of the best ways to build and consolidate those ties is by ensuring respect for international law.

A global South with a more universalist and constructive agenda could make a real difference. Its leading countries, through their growing size, wealth, and prestige, could help build a world order that is not only more just but more codified, regulated, and respectful of international law. The law can be a tremendous instrument for reducing inequality within countries; so, too, can it achieve the same result among countries. A world of treaties and international law will be far better than one without them.

American Leadership Is Good for the Global South

Foreign Affairs · by More by Jorge G. Castañeda · February 4, 2025

Why the World Needs to Strengthen—Not Unwind—the U.S.-Led International Order

Jorge G. Castañeda

February 4, 2025

Flags fluttering in Washington, D.C., November 2024 Benoit Tessier / Reuters

JORGE G. CASTAÑEDA teaches at Sciences Po, in Paris, and is Global Distinguished Professor of Politics and Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University and the author of America Through Foreign Eyes. He served as Mexico’s Secretary of Foreign Affairs from 2000 to 2003.

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The return of Donald Trump to the White House has been cast by many observers as the end of an era. The U.S.-led order, variously described as the rules-based order or the liberal international order, which rose to its feet after World War II and strode triumphantly around the world after the end of the Cold War, is no more. Indeed, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio described that order as “obsolete” during his confirmation hearings in January. A stark vision of the world has emerged in its absence: one in which national interest alone governs international relations, transaction is the name of the game, and might makes right.

For many in the developing world, the death of the U.S.-led order seems nothing to mourn. After all, as these countries often point out, the liberal international order was frequently not liberal, international, or ordered. It also struggled to include non-Western countries in meaningful ways. The governments of so-called middle powers, such as Brazil and India, have long complained that global institutions and structures remain disproportionately aligned with the interests of wealthy countries to the detriment of all others.

The global South is an amorphous and much-debated category, encompassing a very broad range of countries. Simply put, it describes the vast majority of the world’s people, living in countries that were by and large once colonized in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. Some observers add China to the mix—in the United Nations, China is listed as a member of the G-77, the coalition of developing countries—but its inclusion is confusing. The world’s main manufacturing economy can hardly be considered a developing country, even if Beijing insists to the contrary. But what seems to unite this enormous grouping of states is a shared dissatisfaction with the international order as it exists.

One way global South countries want to change that order is by reforming multilateral institutions, such as the UN Security Council, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, to make them more representative. That effort faces serious headwinds and seems unlikely to yield meaningful results in the near future. But these countries have also signaled an interest in replacing the dollar as a reserve currency and an instrument for trade. And wittingly or not, they are carrying China’s water by supporting its positions on contentious issues related to the environment, human rights, and democratic governance. In an era of great-power competition, such advocacy from the global South risks playing into Beijing’s hands, abetting China’s rise and speeding the United States’ decline.

This is a misguided, contradictory, and unnecessary effort. Instead of seeking a new international order, the global South should try to make the current one work—even as the new occupant of the White House seems ready to jettison international norms. Indeed, Trump’s reelection makes such a focus more urgent, even if the global South can’t expect great results while he is in office. The rules-based order may have been riddled with inconsistencies, but at least it had rules, especially in the form of international treaties aimed at securing the common good. It is in the interests of the global South to uphold and strengthen these treaties. The current international order needs much greater commitment from the United States; the world does not require less American involvement, but rather a good deal more.

A world regulated and organized around clear, well-defined, and rigorous laws that are respected by all, especially by the most powerful and wealthy, is much to the advantage of the globe’s poorer countries. Whether it be on trade, human rights, women’s rights, the environment, disarmament, labor, or mining on land or in the sea, international law often favors weak, poor, and small countries. Turning away from the U.S.-led order and bolstering China would do little to protect international law. Indeed, it would invite the steady erosion of what has been the world’s most successful legal regime and leave the global South vulnerable to a more dangerous law altogether: the law of the jungle.

AN INCOMPLETE ORDER

It is abundantly clear that the United States has retreated from the order it built after World War II, a move that will likely only gain speed under Trump. The United Nations remains the paradigmatic institution of that order and a key place for the global South to advance its interests. Trump’s decision to appoint the combative Republican lawmaker Elise Stefanik as his UN ambassador suggests that the president wants to take an adversarial stance toward the organization. But even before Trump’s reelection, the United States had been systematically reducing its participation in the UN, UN agencies, and other multilateral institutions.

The United States has once again exited the World Health Organization after initially leaving the institution during Trump’s first term. In the past, U.S. governments have withdrawn from and suspended dues payments to UNESCO, the UN’s cultural body. Prior administrations have repeatedly refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice and insisted that they cannot comply with the court’s rulings. The United States withdrew from the International Labor Organization in the 1970s and has ratified only 14 of its 189 conventions. Trump has again left the Paris climate accord after initially pulling the country out during his first term.

On global trade and other economic matters, the United States has recklessly undermined the system it built. Trump’s tariff wars with both longtime partners and adversaries are only the latest example of a growing tendency to turn away from free trade. Take, for example, U.S. neglect of the World Trade Organization. Since 2017, Washington has not appointed panel members to the WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism, paralyzing a body that is supposed to iron out disagreements over global trade. This practice began during Trump’s first term but continued during the Biden administration and will likely remain an obstacle with Trump back in the White House.

The United States is not contemplating withdrawing from the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank, but it has made reforming them exceedingly difficult. It took Congress five years to approve the last reform of IMF voting rights and quotas in 2010, when the fund approved a six percent shift in quota shares to underrepresented IMF members. Since 2010, further reform has proved nearly impossible. Much as reform of the UN Security Council remains stalled, so, too, does reform of the IMF and the World Bank—institutions long dominated by the West. Both organizations seem unlikely to cede much weight to global South countries. And it’s highly doubtful that the new Trump administration will want to expend any kind of political capital further opening these institutions.

The world does not require less American involvement, but rather a good deal more.

This neglect of its role in major organizations is less significant than how the United States has failed to uphold international law. U.S. lawmakers have habitually refused to ratify the treaties advanced by presidents and other U.S. politicians. The list begins with the League of Nations, which was approved in 1919 by all the participants at the Versailles Conference, including U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. The Senate rejected it the next year and the United States never joined the League, the first in what would become a long sequence of international agreements that Washington either signed but did not ratify, signed and then withdrew from, or never signed in the first place.

More recently, the United States has failed to ratify the Arms Trade Treaty, which seeks to control the trade in conventional weapons and entered into force in 2014, as well as the multilateral trade agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which the United States signed in 2016 but never ratified and from which Trump would eventually withdraw. Domestic opposition has also proved an insurmountable barrier to ratifying climate treaties, such as the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, making implausible an overarching climate compact—that is why the 2015 Paris climate accord was simply an accord, not an “agreement.”

U.S. lawmakers have resisted ratification of major treaties for several reasons. These include concerns about compromising national sovereignty, upsetting the American system of federalism that leaves certain matters to the states, and duplicating existing domestic legislation. That reluctance to commit to treaties has no doubt undermined the construction of a credible international order. Take, for instance, the International Criminal Court. In 2000, U.S. President Bill Clinton signed the Rome Statute that created the court; it was never ratified, and his successor, President George W. Bush, removed the U.S. signature, making the emergence of a far-reaching and capable ICC practically impossible. To be sure, in some cases, Washington abides by the provisions of these treaties even if it hasn’t ratified them, including the Arms Trade Treaty. That might be better than not observing these treaties, but it always begged the question of how the United States could criticize other non-ratifiers for violating the articles of a given convention if it had not ratified the convention itself. It also made the United States into something of a free rider: Washington enjoyed the benefits of a system of international rules without assuming any responsibility for supporting or enforcing them.

Consider the American Convention on Human Rights, adopted by many countries in the Western Hemisphere in 1969 and signed but not ratified by the United States. The U.S. failure to ratify this treaty has inevitably weakened the defense of human rights in Latin America, allowing dictatorships and democratic backsliders greater impunity. Such instruments are especially needed now, when human rights are threatened in many parts of the hemisphere, including in the United States.

For countries in the global South, this American disinterest in the preservation of the postwar order U.S. leaders helped build is only bad news. It is in the interests of poorer and less powerful countries to have a firm structure of international law mediating the conduct of states. Take, for instance, the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which set up the International Seabed Authority headquartered in Jamaica. The United States never signed this convention. Poorer coastal countries lack the technology and capital to scoop up manganese nodules and other crucial minerals that lie on the sea floor. Rich countries have both the technology and the funds. Unlike the Arms Trade Treaty, the United States does not abide by many of the provisions of UNCLOS, particularly regarding seabed mining. An international ocean regime that regulates mining and the exploitation of the seabed and encourages the sharing of its resources is far better for the global South than a free-for-all in which anything goes.

FINISH THE JOB

It might be impossible to reform the Security Council, the IMF, the World Bank, and other fixtures of the current international order. But convincing the United States to sign and ratify this panoply of international instruments might be plausible. Washington has either failed to ratify or chosen to withdraw from nearly 50 major treaties. Under Trump and with the resurgence of isolationism among Republicans—and with treaty ratification requiring two-thirds support in the Senate—their formal approval seems a very distant prospect.

That should not stop global South countries from trying to pressure the United States to renovate the house it built. They can play a constructive role in encouraging the United States to better uphold the rules-based order. They are quick to condemn Washington for its hypocrisy, but they don’t do anything to persuade the United States to better adhere to the rules that define the U.S.-led order itself. Instead, they should use a commonplace method in Washington to change opinions and facilitate legislation: lobbying.

Americans, and Republican legislators especially, tend to dislike the meddling of foreigners in their affairs. But many countries have begun taking their cases to Washington to shape bilateral relations. China, India, the Gulf states, and the larger European countries all hire expensive and highly reputed lobbying and white-shoe law firms to advance their interests in Congress. Canada has done so on a large scale, on everything from dairy products to lumber, fishing, and border regulations. Mexico lobbied U.S. legislators intensely and successfully in 1993 to win passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement. In principle, such practices could extend to persuading the United States to ratify international agreements. Countries that are not aligned with China, such as Brazil, India, Mexico, Nigeria, and South Africa, could take the lead in this effort, striving to convince U.S. lawmakers that they should help complete, rather than unwind, the rules-based order. Such ratifications would win Washington a great deal of goodwill in the global South—and undermine Beijing.

This would not be a short-term task; it would take a decade at least and require navigating the complexities of the Trump administration and subsequent dispensations. But with skill and sufficient resources and patience, such an effort could produce meaningful results. The global South should make clear to the United States that the only way it can weather the Chinese (and Russian) challenge is through alliances and partnerships that reach beyond the traditional West. One of the best ways to build and consolidate those ties is by ensuring respect for international law.

A global South with a more universalist and constructive agenda could make a real difference. Its leading countries, through their growing size, wealth, and prestige, could help build a world order that is not only more just but more codified, regulated, and respectful of international law. The law can be a tremendous instrument for reducing inequality within countries; so, too, can it achieve the same result among countries. A world of treaties and international law will be far better than one without them.

Foreign Affairs · by More by Jorge G. Castañeda · February 4, 2025

25. How Hezbollah Ends: The Path to a Better Lebanon

Excerpts:

International actors must help the president and the prime minister. Foreign pressure could ensure that the ministerial statement does not declare (as it usually does) that Lebanon’s security relies, in part, on “the resistance”—code for Hezbollah. International actors, especially Saudi Arabia and the United States, should insist on monitoring the reconstruction process. And these two countries must pressure their local partners to fill government vacancies with people committed to taking on Hezbollah. If Lebanon wavers, Washington can threaten to sanction obstinate officials and withhold aid. Doing so will likely induce compliance; Lebanon cannot afford to be cut off.

Forever weakening Hezbollah will still be a fraught process, and it could take years. But for once, the goal is attainable. Hezbollah has been reduced from an army to a militia. It is cut off from international support, and it is struggling to maintain domestic backing. The Lebanese Armed Forces are capable of ensuring order in ways that Hezbollah now can’t. If Lebanon’s leaders muster the political will, they can put the group in its place. The only question is whether they have what it takes.

How Hezbollah Ends

Foreign Affairs · by More by Hanin Ghaddar · February 4, 2025

The Path to a Better Lebanon

Hanin Ghaddar

February 4, 2025

Hezbollah flags in Burj al-Muluk, Lebanon, January 2025 Karamallah Daher / Reuters

HANIN GHADDAR is the Friedmann Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and author of Hezbollahland: Mapping Dahiya and Lebanon’s Shia Community.

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For Hezbollah, these are trying times. After decades of being Lebanon’s predominant political and military organization, the group is reeling. During a yearlong war with Israel, it lost much of its military infrastructure. Its leadership ranks were decimated. Battered by conflict, in November, it signed a cease-fire agreement with Israel and pulled its forces from Lebanon’s south—Hezbollah’s traditional domain. Not long after, Bashar al-Assad’s regime fell in Syria, severing supply lines between the organization and Iran, its primary patron. Now Hezbollah is also at risk of losing the support of Lebanese Shiites, who make up its domestic base.

As is usually the case, Hezbollah’s loss is Lebanon’s gain. In fact, the group’s deterioration is giving Lebanese officials a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reassert their presence and restore their failed state. At least some of Lebanon’s leaders seem to ready to take advantage. Newly elected President Joseph Aoun, the former commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces, has said that government troops will move back into southern towns. He has promised that Hezbollah will finally disarm, becoming a normal political party rather than a shadow state with a full-blown military. The parliament’s newly elected prime minister, Nawaf Salam, has also promised to disarm Hezbollah and reestablish the Lebanese state’s authority. Together, Aoun and Salam could usher in a new era for their country and its long-suffering residents.

But although Hezbollah is down, it is not out. The group and its allies currently control 53 seats in Lebanon’s 128-member parliament, enough to sway important decisions. If they can work with the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt’s Democratic Gathering bloc and former Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s National Moderation party, they will have a majority of seats. The group can physically attack or threaten representatives who do not follow their wishes, as well as other domestic actors who stand in their way. No one should be surprised if Hezbollah resorts to such intimidation. If it has any hope of rebuilding, the group will need control of the state.

Aoun, Salam, and their allies can prevent Hezbollah from gaining the upper hand. But they will need to move quickly, while the organization is still dazed. They will have to make sure that Lebanon’s independent institutions, not Hezbollah’s, are in charge of rebuilding the country’s south. They will need a cabinet, central bank, and judiciary that are not beholden to the group. And they will need parliament to finally make clear that Hezbollah has no role in defending the country. If they succeed, Hezbollah might receive an electoral drubbing in the May 2026 parliamentary elections, sending it into a tailspin. But if they fail, the group will start to regenerate.

BAD BET

Hezbollah’s latest war with Israel began shortly after October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched its cross-border attack. To support its ally in Gaza, the Lebanese organization began firing missiles at Israel as soon as the Israeli Defense Forces moved into the strip. To Hezbollah (and its Iranian bosses), it was a rare opportunity to move further south than the group had in years, as well as to push Israel to stop striking Hamas.

Hezbollah’s leaders saw little downside to these attacks. They assumed that the IDF, occupied with Gaza, would want to avoid escalation in the north—especially given its group’s formidable supply of advanced missiles. But this assumption proved incorrect. On September 19, Israel detonated explosives that it had planted inside thousands of pagers used by Hezbollah’s operatives. The attack took at least 3,000 senior Hezbollah fighters and commanders out of commission. Next, Israeli intelligence officials successfully located and assassinated Hezbollah’s top leadership. It killed Ibrahim Qubaisi, the head of the group’s rocket and missile force. It assassinated all three of Hezbollah’s remaining living founders: Fuad Shukr, Ali Karaki, and Ibrahim Aqil. And on September 27, it killed Hassan Nasrallah—the group’s leader.

The death of Nasrallah was especially devastating for Hezbollah. Over the course of 40 years, Nasrallah had made the organization into a force to be reckoned with. He spearheaded its drive to push Israel out of Lebanon’s south in 2000, its victory over the country in 2006, and its general transformation into a regional player. No one else can match his stature. The few who came closest were all killed by Israel, as well. Ultimately, Hezbollah made deputy secretary general Naim Qassem its new leader. But Qassem is not as charismatic, popular, or shrewd as his predecessor. He has no clear plan for how to rebuild the organization. As a result, its morale has tanked. Divisions are forming within Hezbollah’s Shura Council, which is in charge of making Hezbollah’s military, security, and political decisions in coordination with Tehran.

Hezbollah may now be a liability for Tehran.

Hezbollah’s losses are not limited to its leadership. When Israel invaded southern Lebanon, the organization lost hundreds of soldiers and thousands of weapons. According to the IDF, Hezbollah has lost 80 percent of its precision and long-range missiles, going from 5,000 to fewer than 1,000. The group’s stockpile of 44,000 short-range rockets has been reduced to roughly 10,000. Hezbollah still retains much of its arsenal of light arms, more than 10,000 full-time fighters, and many more reservists. But without shrewd management and trained commanders, the organization will struggle to accomplish much on the global stage.

Hezbollah, of course, will again try to become a regional power. But doing so will prove difficult—and not just because it is starting from a weak place. With the fall of Assad, Hezbollah has lost an essential ally. Under his government, Hezbollah was able to earn billions of dollars from the Captagon trade; now, the drug’s production and smuggling is likely to be curtailed. More important, the Assad regime’s collapse has made it far more difficult for Iran to send resources to the organization. Without access to Syria, Hezbollah will need to smuggle in shipments via Lebanon’s own docks and airports. But these are now being strictly monitored by the Lebanese Armed Forces and the United States. This inspections regime has already blocked several Iranian delegations from entering the country, and it will likely stop more in the years ahead.

Iran may also be less inclined to help its reeling friend. The group’s embarrassing military setbacks render it weaker and thus far less useful. The Islamic Republic is also concerned about how thoroughly Hezbollah has been infiltrated by Israeli intelligence agents. If anything, Hezbollah may now be a liability for Tehran.

THE HOME FRONT

Hezbollah’s regional strength has been greatly diminished. But the group is still powerful within Lebanon itself. And in the forthcoming months, it is likely to do all it can to expand its domestic sway.

The group will work, in part, through its elected representatives, pushing Lebanon’s parliament to make friendly military, security, financial, and judicial appointments. Hezbollah will, in particular, want to choose the next army commander, who will oversee the implementation of the cease-fire agreement, so that he does not force the group to surrender its weapons (as the deal requires). It will want to make sure that the next head of Lebanon’s directorate of general security coordinates with Hezbollah’s own security chief, Wafiq Safa. It will want the next governor of the central bank and minister of finance to raid the state’s coffers on Hezbollah’s behalf, and it will generally seek control of the state’s economic decisions. Hezbollah will, in particular, want to maintain Lebanon’s shadow economy, which helps the group fundraise.

But Hezbollah will also resort to illegal measures. The group still has plenty of guns that it can use to menace officials who do not bow to its demands. Putting them to use would be in keeping with past precedent. When Syria withdrew its forces from Lebanon in 2005, for example, Hezbollah went on a killing spree to ensure that Assad’s departure would not weaken its hand, murdering former prime minister Rafiq Hariri. It assassinated other political figures, including former minister of economy Mohammad Shatah, journalist Samir Kassir, and minister of industry Pierre Gemayel. It also started many street clashes.

Hezbollah has been reduced from an army to a militia.

Hezbollah, however, may not have as easy a time as it once did with intimidation. The Lebanese Armed Forces and security services have gained ground on Hezbollah, challenging the group’s dominance. The Lebanese military is also less likely to roll over than it was before, if only because it is being monitored by the United States. Hezbollah, meanwhile, will have internal reasons to moderate. During the recent war, Lebanese Shiites sought refuge in the homes of Lebanon’s Christians and Sunni Muslims. If Hezbollah rewards these two communities by threatening them, attacking them, or otherwise running over their preferences, it might prompt anti-Shiite retaliation. That could, in turn, cost Hezbollah Shiite support—an essential pillar of its strength.

In fact, Shiite support for Hezbollah may already be waning. Hezbollah’s social contract with the community—the former provides the latter with security, political empowerment, and services and the latter provides the former with recruits and votes—has been on shaky ground for over a decade. The cracks first emerged in 2011, when Hezbollah began spending heavily to help Assad win the Syrian Civil War rather than to help its constituents. The tension increased in 2019, when anger over the country’s economic collapse (brought about by corruption) prompted some Lebanese Shiites to take to the streets with other Lebanese communities and chant for change. And it has reached new heights today, after Israel eviscerated Shiite towns and villages and killed thousands of people.

In the wake of this devastation, some Shiites may decide to cling even more tightly to Hezbollah, hoping that the group can provide them with much needed safety. But others will understand that the organization is actually the source of danger. Unlike in the 1980s and 1990s, when it fought off Israeli occupation, Hezbollah is now the aggressor. It attacked Israel, bringing Lebanon into a war no one else sought. It then lost, emerging weaker. That fact will become more and more apparent to Shiites as they try to rebuild and find that Hezbollah is unable to dole out compensation. Indeed, many of Hezbollah’s constituents have yet to receive any of the reconstruction money they were promised by the organization.

FINISH THE JOB

On its present course, Hezbollah is headed for an electoral reckoning. But to ensure its decline, Aoun and Salam will need to cut it off from funds over the next year and fight back against its political machinations.

This means, first and foremost, depriving Hezbollah of a role in south Lebanon’s rebuilding. In 2006, much like today, Hezbollah fought a war with Israel that left Lebanon’s south in ruins and raised serious questions about the organization. But Iran then flooded Hezbollah with cash, helping it take charge of reconstruction and thus fix its reputation. Today, Iran lacks the funds to help Hezbollah in the same way, giving the Lebanese state an opportunity to oversee the whole process. It must seize it. Every penny of aid should go from the government straight to beneficiaries—not through the Council of the South or any other Hezbollah-dominated bodies. By doing so, Aoun and Salam can show Shiites that they do not need Hezbollah for protection. It can prove that Shiites, too, are Lebanese citizens, and that Lebanese state institutions can keep them safe.

Aoun and Salam will also need to stymie Hezbollah’s efforts to select the next army commander, central bank governor, and head of general security and to fill various high-rank judicial positions. The next cabinet should, likewise, make sure its ministerial statement—where it outlines state policy and strategy—is in line with Aoun’s pledges. The cabinet must exclude Hezbollah officials and their affiliates from important positions and push the judiciary to hold the organization accountable if it uses its arms against the Lebanese people. If parliament balks at doing so, Aoun and Salam have the constitutional authority—and a moral obligation—to form a cabinet without the body’s approval.

International actors must help the president and the prime minister. Foreign pressure could ensure that the ministerial statement does not declare (as it usually does) that Lebanon’s security relies, in part, on “the resistance”—code for Hezbollah. International actors, especially Saudi Arabia and the United States, should insist on monitoring the reconstruction process. And these two countries must pressure their local partners to fill government vacancies with people committed to taking on Hezbollah. If Lebanon wavers, Washington can threaten to sanction obstinate officials and withhold aid. Doing so will likely induce compliance; Lebanon cannot afford to be cut off.

Forever weakening Hezbollah will still be a fraught process, and it could take years. But for once, the goal is attainable. Hezbollah has been reduced from an army to a militia. It is cut off from international support, and it is struggling to maintain domestic backing. The Lebanese Armed Forces are capable of ensuring order in ways that Hezbollah now can’t. If Lebanon’s leaders muster the political will, they can put the group in its place. The only question is whether they have what it takes.

HANIN GHADDAR is the Friedmann Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and author of Hezbollahland: Mapping Dahiya and Lebanon’s Shia Community.

Foreign Affairs · by More by Hanin Ghaddar · February 4, 2025

26. Biden Started a Process to Protect US National Security from China. Trump Should Finish It.

Actually I think Trump started it, Biden continued it, and now Trump can finish it.

Silk Web of Alliances: Trump’s Legacy and the Indo-Pacific’s Future (https://www.19fortyfive.com/2025/01/silk-web-of-alliances-trumps-legacy-and-the-indo-pacifics-future/)

Biden Started a Process to Protect US National Security from China. Trump Should Finish It.

https://www.thecipherbrief.com/column_article/biden-started-a-process-to-protect-us-national-security-from-china-trump-should-finish-it

Posted: February 3rd, 2025

By Rear Adm. (Ret.) Mark Montgomery

Rear Adm. (Ret.) Mark Montgomery is a senior director at the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation (CCTI) at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He directs CSC 2.0, which works to implement the recommendations of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission. Montgomery is a principal member of the Cyber Initiatives Group.

By Isaac Harris CDR USN (Ret.)

Isaac “Ike” Harris, CDR USN (Ret.), is an adjunct fellow at the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation (CCTI) at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He most recently served as an advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy on matters relating to China and technology competition.

OPINION — For years, warning lights have been flashing around the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) drive to assert global dominance and reshape international governance in the likeness of its own oppressive regime. Even as the CCP telegraphed its ambitions with its “Made in China 2025” plan—a ten-year blueprint to conquer the world’s high-tech industries—U.S. industrial and security policy have done little to curtail China’s rapid ascension towards its goals. Today, the Chinese government is quietly amassing an advantage over the United States in another critical technology —silicon carbide (SiC) wafers—which poses a serious threat to U.S. national security.

SiC wafers are the foundation of modern technologies, from cell phones to airplanes, and have become the material of choice for high-power applications like electric vehicles, military systems, and power grids. Recognizing the danger of China’s growing control of this market, the Biden administration initiated a Section 301 investigation late last year, a requisite step to impose tariffs on foreign-made wafers.

“Evidence indicates that the People’s Republic of China has adopted acts, policies, and practices related to targeting of the semiconductor industry for dominance,” the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) said in a statement announcing the investigation. The statement noted that China had nearly doubled its global share of foundational logic chip production capabilities in six years, and is on pace to make half the world’s supply by 2029.

Given President Trump’s long-standing and unrelenting effort to counter China’s unfair and corrosive industrial policy, his advisors must complete the Section 301 investigation quickly, and immediately impose tariffs on Chinese-made SiC wafers and the chips that use them.

Top personnel for both administrations understand that SiC wafers are a keystone component of advanced semiconductors, the chips that power sophisticated networks. As the base that semiconductors are built on, SiC wafers have proven indispensable for military systems and equipment that must operate in harsh conditions. Missile defenses, electronic warfare, and satellites are just a few of the applications that rely on semiconductors made with SiC wafers.

During both our naval careers, we saw first-hand how weapons systems rely on technology that must perform in severe conditions. Today, our Navy’s most critical warfighting capability, the Aegis Combat System on the Arleigh Burke-class Destroyers, is engaging missiles and drones on a daily basis in the Red Sea. Aegis utilizes the SPY-6, the world’s most advanced at-sea radar system. SPY-6 leverages SiC for its gallium nitride modules to enhance detection range and target identification to successfully intercept ballistic and cruise missiles. Without access to SiC, we can’t use gallium nitride, which leaves our sailors vulnerable to enemy missiles.

The CCP knows how fundamental SiC wafers are, and is aggressively working to gain an advantage over the U.S. Using government subsidies, Chinese quasi-government manufacturers have been able to produce wafers comparable in quality and application to U.S.-made products. These are then intentionally priced to undercut competitors, and flood the market. It’s the same “market capture” playbook the CCP employed to capture the production of LEDs, solar panels, small commercial drones, and LiDar systems, but with potentially more dire consequences.

By snuffing out free-market SiC wafer competition, the CCP can further tighten its grip on the advanced semiconductor market, effectively ensuring that U.S. defense systems become even more reliant on China for its supply chain.

President Trump has shown he has the courage to stand up to China, and President Biden’s initiation of the process to impose tariffs on SiC-wafer chips offers a head start for the incoming administration to toe a hard line. That’s exactly the policy prescription necessary to shore up our domestic chip-making base and ensure that our national defenses, and the components that run them, are proudly built in the United States.

Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief because National Security is Everyone’s Business.

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."

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