Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

“Constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore. A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong… With such a people you can do whatever you want.”

– Hannah Arendt.

“To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, and be nothing.”

– Elbert Hubbard

"All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single world: freedom; justice; honor; duty; mercy; hope."

– Winston Churchill

1. Every President Has a Foreign Policy. Trump Has Five.

2. Elon Musk and his DOGE: Fixing government or dismantling the Constitution?

3. Trump resistance? A 1940s US sabotage manual goes viral

4. Elon Musk's Enemy, USAID, Was Investigating Starlink's Contracts in Ukraine

5. White House says it will cancel $8 million in Politico subscriptions after a false right-wing conspiracy theory spreads

6. Like it or not, the rules-based order is no more

7. A trade war could crash China Trump's timing couldn't be worse for Beijing

8. Elon Musk Reportedly Has a Huge Conflict of Interest Motivating Him to Gut USAID

9. They lived through Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover. Now, they have advice for federal government employees

10. Waging a Good Fight: Strategic Nonviolence in the Civil Rights Movement

11. Lawmakers Push to Ban DeepSeek App From U.S. Government Devices

12. Largest US intelligence agencies press employees to resign

13. White House Orders C.I.A. to Send an Unclassified Email With Names of Some Employees

14. DOGE Births a Counterintelligence Disaster

15. West Point shuts down clubs for women and students of color in response to Trump's DEI policies

16. Trump nominates Air Force veteran to oversee special operations forces

17. Pentagon Caught Flat-Footed on Trump's Bombshell Proposal to Seize Gaza, Potentially with US Troops

18. China’s Trump Strategy

19. A World Safe for Prosperity

20. What DeepSeek just pulled off — and why space tech should worry

21. Lessons from the Frontlines: Ukrainian SEAD Operations and Their Implications for Western Special Operations Forces

22. It’s Time to Ditch Huntington

23. USAID Should Be Retooled, Not Destroyed

24. Sen. Joni Ernst warns of ‘willful sabotage’ at USAID, cites millions in funding for Wuhan lab, terrorists and more

25. The Collapse of USAID Is Already Fueling Human Trafficking and Slavery at Scammer Compounds

1. Every President Has a Foreign Policy. Trump Has Five.

Fascinating analysis that puts things into some perspective. A useful scorecard. I will be referring to this essay in the future.

First, there are the global hawks.

Then there are the Asia Firsters.

Asia Firsters have some overlap with the “Come Home, America” cohort.

A fourth group, the economic nationalists, see foreign policy primarily as a matter of commerce.

Finally, we have the MAGA hard-liners.

Asia Firsters and Come Home types both want to get out of the Middle East, but they part company on how much risk the US should accept to protect a democratic Taiwan. Global hawks and economic nationalists can agree to slap more tariffs and export controls on China, but they diverge on how harshly to treat allies.

Hawks and MAGA hard-liners are keen to revive the Monroe Doctrine, but have different views of whether that means wielding coercion against Panama or Greenland — and whether Monroe 2.0 is a way of bolstering or replacing America’s larger role in the world. What unites these groups is that they all claim to represent Trump’s true agenda, because currying his favor is essential to winning the internal fights.

Make no mistake: These aren’t trivial bureaucratic disputes.

Every President Has a Foreign Policy. Trump Has Five.

By Hal Brands

Bloomberg Opinion

February 03, 2025

https://www.aei.org/op-eds/every-president-has-a-foreign-policy-trump-has-five/

President Donald Trump has come out firing, with a fusillade of policy actions and executive orders meant to reshape America’s approach to the world. In doing so, Trump has also made clear that this is his administration: No “axis of adults” will thwart his plans this time around.

But if loyalty is the watchword of Trump’s second administration, there are still profound intellectual debates within the government and political movement he leads. Trump’s foreign policy will be shaped by how he adjudicates a contest of ideas — and some brutal bureaucratic combat —among five key schools of thought.

Every presidency is an intellectual mélange, because every administration brings a range of perspectives to bear. Policy is ultimately made by the president. But internal debates matter because they shape the options that are presented, and because the often reflect the ambiguities within a leader’s own worldview.

The fights within Trump’s administration will, if anything, be more important than usual, because this president is so often influenced by the last person he sees — and because the gaps between contending factions are so profound.

First, there are the global hawks. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz have moderated on key issues, namely Ukraine, to stay in step with Trump. But they would have been equally at home working for Presidents George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, or Trump’s main opponent in the Republican primaries, Nikki Haley.

This group believes in the stabilizing qualities of US primacy. It favors aggressively containing countries — Iran, Russia, China, North Korea — that are destabilizing vital regions of Eurasia. These advisers value US alliances, even if they are now charged with renegotiating them. And they seek to consolidate the hemispheric base for US global engagement by pursuing what Waltz calls “Monroe Doctrine 2.0” — a reinvigorated effort to combat Chinese influence and other threats in the Americas.

Then there are the Asia Firsters. Elbridge Colby, who occupies a crucial position as the undersecretary of defense for policy, and his allies believe that the risk of war with China is rising, so Washington must deprioritize commitments in Europe and the Middle East. So do key Trump allies, such as Senator Josh Hawley.

This group demands more self-reliance from allies in Europe and greater contributions to the collective defense from friends in the Asia-Pacific. They tend to see China primarily as a military problem, so they focus more on shoring up the balance in the Western Pacific than on battling Beijing for economic and technological primacy around the globe.

Asia Firsters have some overlap with the “Come Home, America” cohort. This group sees US policy through the prism of the lengthy wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its main goal is to avoid new Middle Eastern quagmires by slashing US involvement there.

This faction is also skeptical of aid to Ukraine, because of the risk of escalation with Russia; some advisers think the US should slash its defense budget and get out of the business of running the world. Vice President JD Vance and Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s nominee to head the intelligence community, have often aired such views — which also resonate with midlevel officials shaping policy at the Pentagon.

A fourth group, the economic nationalists, see foreign policy primarily as a matter of commerce. Trump’s Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and his nominee for commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, have argued that making America great again requires ruthlessly wielding tariffs as tools for bringing in foreign investment and combating unfair trade practices.

The economic nationalists also support Trump’s push for “AI dominance” and “energy dominance.” They see the US-China competition as primarily an economic contest — and they are willing to get just as tough with America’s traditional friends, such as Canada and Mexico, as with its traditional enemies in Moscow and Beijing.

Finally, we have the MAGA hard-liners. This group, including deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, channels the Trumpist elements of Trump’s agenda, such as his hostility to foreign aid and advocacy of outright land grabs. They treat foreign policy as an extension of domestic policy, and put issues like illegal immigration at the forefront of relations with America’s southern neighbors. This approach is as much an attitude — “We’re America, bitch,” as one aide commented in Trump’s first term — as a strategy. Its influence comes from its proximity to the rawest instincts of Trump himself.

The range of potential outcomes in Trump’s presidency is so extreme because the range of views is so broad. Mapping this terrain is helpful because it reveals the tactical alliances that may emerge and the internal fights that may erupt.

Asia Firsters and Come Home types both want to get out of the Middle East, but they part company on how much risk the US should accept to protect a democratic Taiwan. Global hawks and economic nationalists can agree to slap more tariffs and export controls on China, but they diverge on how harshly to treat allies.

Hawks and MAGA hard-liners are keen to revive the Monroe Doctrine, but have different views of whether that means wielding coercion against Panama or Greenland — and whether Monroe 2.0 is a way of bolstering or replacing America’s larger role in the world. What unites these groups is that they all claim to represent Trump’s true agenda, because currying his favor is essential to winning the internal fights.

Make no mistake: These aren’t trivial bureaucratic disputes. A Trump administration that uses leverage and tough love to strengthen the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will be far more internationally stabilizing than one that simply walks away from it. There is a huge difference between an administration that uses tariffs and export controls to contain dangerous rivals and one that uses them more promiscuously, in ways that divide the democratic world. Across a range of issues — Iran, Ukraine, Taiwan, and many others — the divergences within Trump’s team can be severe. The next four years will see a running battle for Trump’s approval, which will also be a battle to shape the larger world.

2. Elon Musk and his DOGE: Fixing government or dismantling the Constitution?

There is a basic litmus test: You either support and defend the Constitution or you do not. And if you think you are better than the Constitution or know how to do something better than the Constitution then by definition you do not support and defend the Constitution.

I fundamentally agree with downsizing the government and improving how our bureaucracy and the civil service functions. I also agree that sometimes disruption is needed and there are many elements of the bureaucracy that need drastic reform and there are many tasks within the US government that should be thoroughly examined.

One of the things Mr. Musk and his DOGE wiz kids are being criticized for is the question about requirements and "questioning every requirement." While his philosophy may seem a little extreme I think that requirements should be questioned. it is perfectly valid to question it, especially if the reason for such a requirement is that we have been doing it for as long as anyone can remember. This seems to be the fundamental shakup of the government that is occurring and while it is disruptive and stressful to everyone who enjoys the status quo, in the long run there is the possibility that many positive changes can be made.

“Question every requirement. Each should come with the name of the person who made it. You should never accept that a requirement came from a department, such as from "the legal department" or "the safety department." You need to know the name of the real person who made that requirement. Then you should question it, no matter how smart that person is. Requirements from smart people are the most dangerous, because people are less likely to question them. Always do so, even if the requirement came from me. Then make the requirements less dumb.” https://www.claimlane.com/resources/blog/use-elon-musks-5-step-algorithm-to-radically-improve-your-returns-process

But all of this must be done in accordance with the Constitution. Be disruptive. Bring radical change. But do ont compromise our great Constitution.

As an aside I did a cursory search. The word efficiency is not found in the US Constitution nor in any of the 85 Federalist papers. Of course neither are bureaucracy and civil service. But faction (and the dangers thereof) is used 37 times in the Federalist Papers. As a reminder our Constitution was designed to ensure friction and thus inefficiency through separation of powers and checks and balances so as to protect the individual liberties of all Americans against tyranny. However there must be a balance because inefficiency in the bureaucracy can result in civil liberties being trampled by the system.

A serious question: Do special government employees (which I believe is how Mr. Musk and the DOGE team are described) have to take the oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States?

Elon Musk and his DOGE: Fixing government or dismantling the Constitution?

https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2025/0204/musk-doge-treasury-usaid-congress?j=1263122&sfmc_sub=13802924&l=1220_HTML&u=46560415&mid=10979696&jb=1&cmpid=ema:Politics:20250205&src=newsletter

| Kent Nishimura/Reuters

People hold placards, as the U.S. Agency for International Development building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, Feb. 3, 2025.

By Simon Montlake Staff writer
Caitlin Babcock Staff writer
Story Hinckley Staff writer

Feb. 04, 2025, 5:00 a.m. ET

As an investor, Elon Musk embraced the idea that business turnarounds require fast, drastic, and disruptive measures. Now he’s applying the same playbook to the country’s largest employer, the federal government, by seizing control of its payments system and its overseas aid department – and pushing aside civil servants who raise legal and ethical objections.

In doing so, Mr. Musk, the billionaire head of a newly minted Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, appears to be carrying out the mission of President Donald Trump, who has vowed to cut waste and fraud in Washington.

To President Trump’s supporters, the Silicon Valley ethos that Mr. Musk brings to overhauling taxpayer-funded institutions is why he’s needed in Washington, where a permanent political class has proved unwilling or unable to prune a bloated bureaucracy. Previous presidents, like Ronald Reagan, who vowed to pursue smaller government all failed. Mr. Reagan himself quipped in 1964, “a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth.”

Why We Wrote This

The Trump administration and Elon Musk seem to think drastic upheaval is the only way to tame bloated government bureaucracy. The question is whether they are smashing the Constitution to bits along the way.

That Mr. Musk is the world’s richest person and a huge political donor wielding a chainsaw over federal agencies that regulate his companies and safeguard citizens’ data is seen as less important than the results. And to MAGA loyalists who believe that an anti-Trump “deep state” operates in Washington, the ends are fully justified.

Frustration with Congress’ failure to tackle budget deficits, whichever party is in power, also plays into the narrative of Mr. Musk as the outsider who can cut the Gordian knot.

“We need some fresh eyes on this thing who are outside of Washington, who can say, ‘What’s wrong here? How can we get this on track?’ And I think DOGE serves that purpose,” says Tom Davis, a former Republican congressman from Virginia.

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Democratic lawmakers and other opponents of Mr. Trump have recoiled at Mr. Musk’s cavalier attitude and his assault on the U.S. Agency for International Development. Over the weekend, Mr. Musk insisted that the agency should be shut down. On Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that USAID would be downsized and folded into his department. Mr. Musk also had a hand in a memo sent to federal employees seeking resignations by Sept. 30 titled “Fork in the Road,” the same as an offer sent to Twitter workers in 2022 when he bought the social platform now called X.

Some warn that a constitutional crisis is under way, as Mr. Musk and his DOGE team ride roughshod over various statutes governing how the executive branch operates, such as the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, as well as protections for career civil servants. Mr. Trump’s advisers view some of these laws as unconstitutional constraints on the executive, setting up a fight in the courts.

“This vision of executive power is extremely dangerous,” says Richard Painter, the chief White House ethics lawyer under former President George W. Bush.

Where does DOGE fit in government?

Mr. Musk’s ill-defined role in the Trump administration and what DOGE does may also be challenged, says Professor Painter, who teaches law at the University of Minnesota. An executive order signed by Mr. Trump after he took office made DOGE part of the executive branch, not an advisory panel as it was first envisioned. Mr. Musk hasn’t been confirmed by Congress, and his group appears to operate as a stealth unit within the administration.

Kevin Lamarque/AP

Elon Musk, right, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai arrive before the 60th Presidential Inauguration in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 20, 2025.

As a federal officer in the Trump administration, Mr. Musk would have the authority to demand the cooperation of a government agency, says Professor Painter. But he would then also be required to disclose his financial assets and to recuse himself from any matter that could have a direct impact on his assets. The other option is for DOGE to be a federal advisory panel, which is required by law to hold public meetings and disclose its records. “You can’t just pick and choose,” he says.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Monday that Mr. Musk is classified as a “special government employee,” not a full-time employee. Such an employee works for 130 days or fewer per year.

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat who serves on the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, wrote to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent questioning why Mr. Musk and his team were granted access to federal payments systems that process more than $5 trillion annually, including tax refunds and Social Security checks. “I am alarmed that as one of your first acts as Secretary, you appear to have handed over a highly sensitive system responsible for millions of Americans’ private data – and a key function of government – to an unelected billionaire and an unknown number of his unqualified flunkies,” she wrote.

Also on Monday, the American Federation of Government Employees union joined other groups to sue the Treasury Department “for sharing confidential data with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), run by Elon Musk.”

“He’s a big cost cutter”

Mr. Musk argues that his goal is to stop “illegal” payments that go through the Treasury Department. He wrote on X that his team is “cutting funding to fraudsters, wastrels & terrorists.” He also accused Treasury officials of “breaking the law every hour of every day by approving payments that are fraudulent or do not match the funding laws passed by Congress.”

It’s not clear which, if any, payments have been stopped, although Mr. Musk claimed that he had cut off a refugee support-services agency. Mr. Musk’s focus on Treasury payments comes as a White House effort to pause all federal financial assistance is tied up in federal court.

On Sunday, Mr. Trump said he supported Mr. Musk’s efforts, without commenting on specific actions. “He’s a big cost cutter,” Mr. Trump told reporters. “Sometimes we won’t agree with it and we’ll not go where he wants to go, but I think he’s doing a great job. He’s a smart guy, very smart, and he’s very much into cutting the budget of our federal government.”

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For longtime advocates of limited government, however, Mr. Musk’s high-profile strikes on federal agencies and the use of executive orders to force change have obvious drawbacks.

Alex Nowrasteh, vice president of economic and social policy studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, was enthusiastic when DOGE was first announced. But he’s not impressed by its attempt to shut down USAID, or its claims of huge savings from fraud and waste that can be found, when the bulk of government spending goes for pensions, health care, and defense.

Mr. Musk is “getting a lot of pushback on trying to reform a tiny sliver of the U.S. budget,” Mr. Nowrasteh says. “It seems like a lot of pain borne by American governing institutions and not much payoff.”

Congress’ power of the purse at stake

The best-case scenario, says Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman from Minnesota, is that ultimately Congress works with the administration to pass spending bills that rein in deficits. “They are trying to tell the country that Washington can work,” says Mr. Weber, a GOP strategist, referring to Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk.

A less rosy outcome, Mr. Weber says, would be protracted litigation that sours voters even more on the government’s efficacy. Either way, lawmakers share the blame for winding up with a dysfunctional system for spending bills. “Congress needs to look in the mirror. If they had protected the regular appropriation process, I don’t think we would be where we are today,” he says.

Matt Salmon, a former GOP congressman from Arizona who served on what is now the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, says Mr. Musk is wrong to dismantle USAID, not only because the agency does good work, but also because Congress has authorized its spending. Mr. Salmon, a Trump critic, says Republicans who are ignoring DOGE’s excesses have short memories.

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“I used to complain a lot when President Obama was, through executive orders, doing things that clearly should have been [done] by Congress. If you’re a strict adherent to the Constitution, you can’t [complain] just when it’s a president of the other party,” Mr. Salmon says.

Rooting out waste and increasing transparency are worthy goals, says Faith Williams, director of the Effective and Accountable Government Program at the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog group. But empowering Mr. Musk, an unelected businessman, to close down an agency without holding any hearings doesn’t feel like accountability, especially when the Trump administration is simultaneously firing inspectors general at multiple government agencies.

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“When we talk about abuses [in government] we also talk about abuses of power, and that’s what we’re seeing now,” Ms. Williams says.

She also expects to see litigation over DOGE’s free-wheeling tactics. Still, even if the courts ultimately overturn specific actions, the damage may already have been done to expectations for how presidents can wield authority. “The norms are being weakened and challenged, and that’s not something that we litigate,” she says.

3. Trump resistance? A 1940s US sabotage manual goes viral

I wish people would not misuse the term resistance. And please do not disrespect our OSS simple sabotage manual and the great work of the OSS. Yes it has long been a point of satire to say that our bureaucracy has perfected the techniques in the manual.

If you disagree with the administration's policies and actions I urge you, I implore you to use our political process to seek change. Do not talk about resistance unless you plan an insurrection to overthrow our political processes. Talking about resistance undermines the credibility of any opposition. But if you truly believe in America, regardless of your partisan political persuasion you should work to make our government work in accordance with the Constitution. And if you disagree with the political factions of the other side you will use the appropriate political processes to either change policy or seek compromise.

Trump resistance? A 1940s US sabotage manual goes viral

https://www.france24.com/en/americas/20250205-trump-resistance-a-1940s-us-sabotage-manual-goes-viral?utm

Analysis

Americas

Since the inauguration of Donald Trump in January, tens of thousands of people have downloaded the “Simple Sabotage Field Manual”, a guide written by a US intelligence agent in 1944 to help the allied resistance during World War II. Its newfound popularity comes amid an emerging grassroots opposition to waves of executive orders from the new president.

Issued on: 05/02/2025 - 17:274 min

By:

Sébastian SEIBT

US President Donald Trump speaks with the world's richest man Elon Musk in Texas, US, on November 19, 2024. © Brandon Bel, Reuters

The first time Donald Trump was elected US president in 2017, George Orwell’s dystopian thriller “1984” made a surprise return to the top of bestseller lists as readers discovered a new appetite for the novel that examines how a totalitarian government’s use of “double speak” fatally erodes the concept of truth.

Eight years later, Trump’s return to the White House has ignited interest in another decades-old publication, this time from the non-fiction aisle.

The “Simple Sabotage Field Manual” was produced in 1944 by the US Office of Strategic Service (OSS) – predecessor to the CIA – and on February 1 became the most popular book on Project Gutenberg, the world’s biggest platform for downloading open-source free and public domain ebooks.

American spies used the manual when they were on the ground in Europe towards the end of World War II.

“It was meant as a tool for OSS ground operatives to recruit and train citizens in occupied territory and teach them simple and efficient sabotage techniques while minimizing the risk of getting caught,” says Simon Willmetts, associate professor of Intelligence Studies at Holland’s Leiden University.

But in the final week of January this year – one week after Trump’s inauguration – there were 158,421 downloads of the 80-year-old document. On February 2, there were 34,000 downloads in a single day.

Downloads of the how-to guide, written by former OSS director William Donovan, overtook literary classics including Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliette”, Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick”, and Lewis Caroll’s “Alice in Wonderland”.

Willmetts says the 20-page publication, declassified by the CIA in 2008, “is just a document that presents in a dry and bureaucratic fashion ordinary sabotage, as opposed to big complex operations, like blowing up a factory or a bridge”.

Citizen-saboteurs

According to the manual, “simple” sabotage can be executed by normal citizens using everyday objects, and “carried out in such a way as to involve a minimum danger of injury, detection, and reprisal”.

It details how to spot opportunities for small-scale sabotage in a variety of everyday situations, especially in the workplace, often through making clumsy “mistakes” or sewing discord among other employees.

In short, the guide is “good for training you to become incompetent at work”, Willmetts says.

For instance, railway workers were advised to print multiple tickets for the same seat on trains used by German soldiers, and secretaries to make callers wait for long periods or even to “forget” to connect important calls. Saboteurs working in factories that were important for the German war effort were even encouraged to let whole rolls of toilet paper fall into the toilet bowl to block facilities.

It encouraged managers to “lower morale” and production by promoting inefficient workers, complaining about those who did good work and finding excuses to waste time.

“Make ‘speeches’. Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your ‘points’ by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate ‘patriotic’ comments,” it reads.

Meanwhile, lower-level employees were encouraged to scrupulously apply company rules to slow down the workflow as much as possible.

“Insist on doing everything through ‘channels’. Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions," the guide advises.

Broadly speaking, the manual says citizen-saboteurs should seek out opportunities “to make faulty decisions, to adopt a non-cooperative attitude, and to induce others to follow suit”, subtly ramping up poor-workplace behaviour that is “frequently responsible for accidents, delays, and general obstruction even under normal conditions”.

The overall objective was to introduce so many small obstructions in individual workplaces that it slowed the wider economy in occupied territory.

"There are historical examples of success using this method,” says Robert Dover, professor of Intelligence and International Security at the UK’s University of Hull. Towards the end of World War II “in some production factories they managed to build unreliable engines that lasted less long than the usual ones," he adds.

Opposition to Trump?

The idea that a large number of small gestures can combine to create collective force is also known as “the war of the flea”, first conceptualised by former Chinese Leader Chairman Mao. “There is an analogy with fleas that constantly keep coming back to a dog to create massive irritation," Dover says.

It was perhaps an unusual technique for US intelligence forces to champion during World War II. But “the OSS has a unique history with all these interesting creative people who came up with a lot of original ideas,” Willmetts says. Donovan also authored a manual for spies detailing how to come up with a temporary disguise.

It is not at all surprising that the idea of simple sabotage is finding a new audience in 2025, says Willmetts.

"The manual was already trending last year, before Trump, when it was said to be linked to the quiet quitting movement," he says.

But now the political landscape in the US has changed, the concept seems to appeal to an even wider audience. “I can understand the appeal for both the far-right movement who want to fight the establishment and preppers who want to go off-grid, but also for opponents to Donald Trump and Elon Musk,” Dover says.

Among Trump opponents, calls for resistance are proliferating. On the social network Reddit, some federal workers are discussing how to stay in their jobs and also oppose changes mandated by Trump that would see the institutions they work for changed beyond recognition.

Trump offers 2 million federal employees eight months pay to quit

If Trump’s first presidency prompted soul-searching among his opponents, his second looks set to provoke a different – perhaps more confrontational – response.

Dover says, “as opposed to a more intellectual book like ‘1984’, this time around a practical guide sits better with where people are right now”.

This article was adapted from the original in French by Joanna York.

4. Elon Musk's Enemy, USAID, Was Investigating Starlink's Contracts in Ukraine

So I have seen this reported. Is this an accurate account?

if true was this something appropriate for USAID to do?

Elon Musk's Enemy, USAID, Was Investigating Starlink's Contracts in Ukraine

Gizmodo · by Lucas Ropek · February 5, 2025

Published February 5, 2025 | Comments (221) |

Since coming into power, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has barraged USAID, the international aid agency that dispenses food and supplies to nations all over the world. It is likely that the agency will soon be shuttered and could be subsumed into the U.S. State Department. Now, new reporting shows USAID was actually investigating equipment from one of Musk’s companies at the time that he attacked the agency.

The Lever reported Tuesday that USAID’s inspector general was in the process of investigating its own public-private partnership between Musk’s Starlink and the Ukrainian government at the time that the billionaire’s DOGE crippled the agency. Publicly available information about that probe is still online. An announcement from last May reads: “The USAID Office of Inspector General, Inspections and Evaluations Division, is initiating an inspection of USAID’s oversight of Starlink satellite terminals provided to the Government of Ukraine. Our objectives are to determine how (1) the Government of Ukraine used the USAID-provided Starlink terminals, and (2) USAID monitored the Government of Ukraine’s use of USAID-provided Starlink terminals.”

Musk has called the agency “evil” and a “criminal organization,” though the fact that USAID was investigating the Starlink activities may suggest ulterior motivations for the billionaire’s vitriol. It’s unclear what the Starlink probe’s status is right now.

Musk’s “criminal” remarks are funny since it increasingly looks like Musk’s DOGE activities represent breaches of federal law and, therefore, may be construed as rampant criminal behavior. On Tuesday, the Washington Post noted that officials at half a dozen federal agencies had raised concerns over whether what Musk was doing was illegal. Those agencies included the “Treasury Department, the Education Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the General Services Administration, the Office of Personnel Management, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the White House budget office, among others,” the newspaper reported.

DOGE also suffered its second lawsuit this week, when union groups that protect federal workers sued the organization over its hijacking of the Treasury computer systems. The litigation alleges that DOGE may be violating a federal privacy law by allowing Musk’s stooges to access certain systems.

DOGE has been staffed by a bunch of kids in their 20s who are now engaged in unprecedented, legally risky work. As far as I can tell, it’s basically Elon being followed around by a bunch of “Gregs.” If the bottom ever falls out of this thing and DOGE runs into legal trouble, it’s easy to imagine that Musk’s army of anti-bureaucracy grunts might be considered expendable.

USAID has a long, controversial history and has often been accused by foreign governments of being a front for the CIA. While the agency dispenses aid to foreign countries, it has often been entangled in scandals. It hardly represents, as Sean Hannity recently put it, “radical DEI, woke, transgender, you know, leftist, Green New Deal madness.” Given its history, it’s obvious that Musk’s battle against the agency will play well with voters who earnestly believe Trump wants to “destroy the deep state.” That said, Elon Musk literally works for the deep state, so I don’t know how his being in charge is any better.

This story has been updated to clarify the nature of USAID’s probe.

DOGE Elon Musk Starlink USAID

Gizmodo · by Lucas Ropek · February 5, 2025

4. Trump Gets McKinley’s Tariffs Wrong

Excerpts:

But Mr. Trump is drawn to McKinley for one reason: tariffs. So much so that he gave him a shout-out in his inaugural address, saying the Ohioan “made our country very rich through tariffs.”

One problem: On tariffs, the president gets McKinley wrong in important ways. For starters, McKinley presided over Washington in a very different time. Federal spending in 1900—the year of his presidential re-election—was 3% of gross domestic product. Last year, federal outlays were 23% of GDP. It would be impossible to rely on tariffs on nearly $3.3 trillion in foreign imports to fund last year’s more than $6.8 trillion federal budget.

Tariffs in McKinley’s time had long been a budgetary staple. From 1863 to 1913, they brought in 49% of federal revenue, and much of the rest came from excise taxes on tobacco and liquor. In 2024, 48% of revenue came from personal income taxes, 36% from Social Security and Medicare taxes, and 10% from corporate taxes. Only 1.9% came from tariffs.

Trump Gets McKinley’s Tariffs Wrong

The 25th president came to support them only as a means to trade reciprocity.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/trump-gets-mckinley-wrong-trade-tariffs-history-policy-3cfc1fc3?mod=latest_headlines

By Karl Rove

Feb. 5, 2025 5:05 pm ET

A William McKinley campaign handkerchief. Photo: Thomas Graphics

President Trump has a man crush on a predecessor. It isn’t Washington, Jefferson or Lincoln but William McKinley.

There’s much to admire in the 25th president, a decorated Civil War veteran, respected congressman and two-term Ohio governor. As president, he restored prosperity after a terrible depression, quickly won a war with Spain, and broke the Gilded Age’s political stalemate, ushering in a 36-year period of Republican domination.

But Mr. Trump is drawn to McKinley for one reason: tariffs. So much so that he gave him a shout-out in his inaugural address, saying the Ohioan “made our country very rich through tariffs.”

One problem: On tariffs, the president gets McKinley wrong in important ways. For starters, McKinley presided over Washington in a very different time. Federal spending in 1900—the year of his presidential re-election—was 3% of gross domestic product. Last year, federal outlays were 23% of GDP. It would be impossible to rely on tariffs on nearly $3.3 trillion in foreign imports to fund last year’s more than $6.8 trillion federal budget.

Tariffs in McKinley’s time had long been a budgetary staple. From 1863 to 1913, they brought in 49% of federal revenue, and much of the rest came from excise taxes on tobacco and liquor. In 2024, 48% of revenue came from personal income taxes, 36% from Social Security and Medicare taxes, and 10% from corporate taxes. Only 1.9% came from tariffs.

Mr. Trump also doesn’t grasp that McKinley’s tariff views shifted as our economy grew and changed. He told a Virginia audience in 1885, “I am a high protectionist.” That political boast was misleading. As House Ways and Means Committee chairman, he told business leaders pleading for higher tariffs not to tell him what they wanted but what they needed. He complained that in the tariff bills he authored as a congressman in 1890 and supported as president in 1897, he was forced to accept hundreds of Senate amendments that raised levies higher than he wanted. He had warned them that if tariffs were too high, “you diminish importations and to that extent diminish the revenue.”

Moreover, he saw the effect of industrialization and technological innovation on America’s economy. These raised production, increasing the importance of trade to the nation’s prosperity. The U.S. needed more markets.

The change in his thinking became apparent while he worked as Ways and Means chairman to pass a tariff bill in 1890. Divisions between high protectionists and Republicans who favored moderate tariffs made McKinley’s task difficult. Secretary of State James G. Blaine plunged into the debate. He urged Republicans to unite behind the principle of reciprocity: America would negotiate mutual reductions in tariffs with trading partners. This appeal worked somewhat. As the Senate loaded up McKinley’s bill with 496 amendments increasing tariff rates, the upper chamber accepted a watered-down reciprocity provision. Still, the law established the principle that the U.S. would treat countries as they treated us.

McKinley returned to reciprocity after his inauguration as president in March 1897. He called a special session of Congress that approved a moderate tariff measure that also gave him power to negotiate agreements with trading partners and to cut tariffs up to 20% in return for equal reductions on American exports.

The new president grabbed the chance to lower trade barriers. He appointed the first U.S. trade representative, who negotiated deals with Britain, France, Argentina and other trading partners. But the Senate—dominated by high protectionists—turned the treaties down.

Following his 1900 re-election, McKinley returned to the issue, touring the country to extol reciprocity’s virtues. He emphasized the idea at the Pan-America Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y., in September 1901. There he proclaimed the U.S. was in “a state of unexampled prosperity.” The cause wasn’t tariffs but “our capacity to produce.” Expanded trade was crucial to continued prosperity, so America must negotiate mutual reductions in tariffs. Reciprocity agreements “are in harmony with the spirit of the times; measures of retaliation are not.”

This was his last speech. The next day, in a receiving line, he was shot twice by a terrorist. He died eight days later.

It’s impossible to know what would have happened if he had survived. But it is clear that he recognized reciprocal low tariffs were important to U.S. prosperity. That’s still true today. Let’s hope his fan in the Oval Office realizes it.

Mr. Rove helped organize the political-action committee American Crossroads and is author of “The Triumph of William McKinley” (Simon & Schuster, 2015).

White House says it will cancel $8 million in Politico subscriptions after a false right-wing conspiracy theory spreads | CNN Business

CNN · by Liam Reilly · February 5, 2025

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt holds the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington, DC, on February 5, 2025.

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images

CNN —

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, responding Wednesday to a question about a right-wing conspiracy theory, announced that the federal government would cancel $8 million worth of Politico subscriptions.

Leavitt elevated a bogus claim spreading on social media that Politico and the Associated Press for years received millions of dollars from the US Agency for International Development, which President Donald Trump and Elon Musk have targeted by placing staff on leave. In reality, the payments represented the whole of the federal government’s subscriptions to the news outlets’ services. All federal agencies combined spent $8.2 million last year on Politico Pro, according to USASpending.gov.

At a White House press briefing, Leavitt told reporters that she had been made aware of USAID funding to media outlets, including Politico, and noted that taxpayer dollars that have been allocated toward “essentially subsidizing subscriptions to Politico on the American taxpayers’ dime will no longer be happening.”

“The DOGE team is working on canceling those payments now,” Leavitt said.

But as reporters quickly pointed out in response to false statements on social media, the payments are not exclusively USAID funds.

“I looked at these contracts and I have my own fun fact,” Byron Tau, an investigative reporter at the Associated Press, said via X. “This is occurring because agencies (not just USAID) are buying subscriptions to Politico’s Pro editorial product, not because Politico is getting grants or other federal funding.”

The Trump administration’s focus on the false narrative that Politico received USAID funds follows an erroneous claim by Kyle Becker, a conservative political commentator, on Wednesday. In an X thread, Becker tied a Tuesday report from Semafor that showed Politico staffers hadn’t been paid over a “technical error” that was subsequently fixed to a USASpending.gov page that shows Politico received $8.2 million across 237 transactions.

“Fun Fact: @Politico received USAID funds,” Becker said via X. “Everything makes sense now.”

Becker attempted to tie the “technical error” reported by Semafor to USAID funds, claiming the funds have been fueling Politico’s premium subscriptions. In the thread, Becker also claimed that the Associated Press has received millions of taxpayer dollars for years.

Becker’s posts quickly caught the attention of far-right media personalities, including Benny Johnson, Charlie Kirk, and Dana Loesch, the latter of whom called for protests outside Politico’s offices. In an X post, Will Sommer, a media reporter at The Washington Post, pointed out that Johnson, who helped buoy the false theory, ironically received secret, illegal payments from the Russian government

Musk, who oversees the Department of Government Efficiency, also chimed in on Becker’s post, calling the alleged payments “a huge waste of taxpayer money!”

Politico’s leaders, Goli Sheikholeslami and John Harris in a memo to staff Wednesday, denied that the media company has received any funding from the government.

“POLITICO has never been a beneficiary of government programs or subsidies — not one cent, ever, in 18 years,” the news outlet’s leaders wrote in the memo.

The media company acknowledged government agencies subscribe to its pro service, just like corporations do. “The value of this journalism is clear, as evidenced by our subscription re-enlistment rates,” Politico’s leaders said. The news outlet said it welcomes conversations with government subscribers “and are confident that most will see the continued value.”

In a statement, the AP said that the federal government has “long been an AP customer — through both Democratic and Republican administrations.”

“It licenses AP’s nonpartisan journalism, just like thousands of news outlets and customers around the world,” the AP said. “It’s quite common for governments to have contracts with news organizations for their content.”

It is not uncommon for federal employees to expense premium news subscriptions that provide the facts and analysis they require to do their jobs. Isaac Saul, who founded the independent Tangle newsletter, called the false narrative “DOGE nonsense.”

“Politico has a super expensive pro subscription with very valuable info that loads of US agencies and employees want and pay for,” Saul said on X. “As do other news orgs.”

This is not the first time the Trump administration has caused a stir over federal employees’ subscriptions to news organizations. In 2019, the Trump administration urged all federal agencies to end their subscriptions to The Washington Post and The New York Times after the White House announced it would “terminate” its subscriptions to the newspapers. It’s unclear whether federal staffers were actually forced to end their subscriptions to the news outlets at the time.

CNN · by Liam Reilly · February 5, 2025

6. Like it or not, the rules-based order is no more

So what comes after the collapse of the rules-based international order?

Like it or not, the rules-based order is no more

In Trump’s world, it does little good to use the language of treaties or rules or laws. For Denmark and others to get their way, they’ll have to speak the language of power.

https://www.politico.eu/article/rules-danish-prime-minister-mette-frederiksen-us-president-donald-trump-greenland-power-politics/

Mette Frederiksen acknowledged that the U.S. has a “big interest” in Greenland. | Maja Hitij/Getty Images

From Across the Pond

February 5, 2025 4:00 am CET

By Ivo Daalder

Ivo Daalder, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, is CEO of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and host of the weekly podcast “World Review with Ivo Daalder.” He writes POLITICO’s Across the Pond column.

A few weeks ago, when Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen spoke with soon-to-be U.S. President Donald Trump about his insistence on making Greenland part of America, the phone call didn’t go well.

She understood America’s defense concerns, but Greenland wasn’t for sale, she said.

Trump was having none of it.

The call between these two equally obdurate leaders not only revealed a clash of interests but a clash of realities: Frederiksen’s reality is the rules-based order, a world where nations are expected to abide by treaties, rules and norms. Whereas Trump’s reality is the world of power politics, where the strong do as they will and the weak — even allied nations — do as they must.

Until that phone call, most had dismissed Trump’s musings about Greenland (and the Panama Canal) as bluster and tough talk meant to set the stage for negotiations. No one took the idea of the U.S. seizing the territory of an ally by force seriously.

But that was a big mistake. This time around, Trump is serious, and he’s no longer surrounded by his former aides whose job it was to steer him away from crazy ideas. Rather, his current cadre is a team of loyalists, who see it as their job to implement whatever their leader wants — and what he wants is Greenland.

“For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World,” Trump wrote last December, “the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.” And unlike his first term, he’ll stop at nothing to get it. “I’m not going to commit to that,” he said when asked if he’d rule out using force. “We need Greenland for national security purposes.”

His new aides have gotten the message too. “This is not a joke,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week. “This is not about acquiring land for the purpose of acquiring land. This is in our national interest.”

Even John Bolton, Trump’s former national security advisor who worked to deflect the president when he first raised the idea of buying Greenland in 2019, now agrees.

Pointing to China’s interest in becoming an Arctic power and the Northwest passage becoming a viable shipping route because of climate change, “Greenland is intimately connected with our security,” he told the Free Press. “So given Greenland’s geographic proximity to the United States, it’s obviously a strategic interest.”

The Danish government doesn’t disagree. Frederiksen acknowledged that the U.S. has a “big interest” in Greenland and offered “a very, very close cooperation with the U.S.” The country then announced a major increase in defense spending to protect Western interest on the island, and was open to discussing other ways of cooperation to promote joint security.

Most had dismissed Donald Trump’s musings about Greenland (and the Panama Canal) as bluster and tough talk meant to set the stage for negotiations. | Jim Watson/Getty Images

The Danish government has essentially approached the issue from the perspective of a staunch American ally — one that has significantly increased defense spending, lost more troops per capita in Afghanistan than any other country, and contributed more to Ukraine’s defense as a percentage of GDP than all but one other country.

It’s an approach that assumes countries, especially allies, play by agreed rules and standards, abide by existing treaties and are friendly. In this view, borders are inviolable and can’t be changed by force, and disagreements are settled through diplomacy.

But while this may be Denmark’s version of reality, it certainly isn’t Trump’s.

Trump doesn’t see laws, rules and norms as constraints on behavior. This is a man who has spent most of his life battling people in court, and he sees life as a zero-sum game of winners and losers. He’s a former president who refused to accept he lost a free and fair election, and called every effort to bring him to account a “witch hunt.”

Today, he is a president who signed a plethora of executive orders in his first two weeks, intending to upend not just existing laws and regulations but core constitutional principles — principles like Congress’s power of the purse, the president’s obligation to faithfully execute laws and even the traditional basis of U.S. citizenship.

In Trump’s world, treaties and norms are simply irrelevant. He’ll break trade agreements to impose tariffs on neighboring states, take back a canal in Panama that was built and formerly operated by the U.S., and likely ignore security commitments enshrined in treaties for 75 years or more. He’ll also make sure the U.S. gets Greenland.

The only language Trump understands is that of power. It does little good to use the language of rules or laws in his world. And for Denmark or others to get their way, they’ll have to speak the language of power.

The return of power politics thus requires Denmark and other European allies to reduce their reliance on the U.S. and increase the cost of unacceptable behavior. Greenland may be hard to defend if Trump is willing to use military force, but deploying troops and bringing in allies would force the White House to think twice. The same is true in response to tariffs and other trade measures the U.S. president has threatened too.

Like it or not, with Trump in office, the rules-based order is no more.

7. A trade war could crash China Trump's timing couldn't be worse for Beijing

A major element of political warfare is economic.

Conclusion:

China can probably withstand or deflect a trade spat or disturbance, even as its economy struggles. But if serious trade conflict were to break out, with high tariff rates and other restrictions, things could get painful pretty quickly. And not only would Chinese mercantilism be on the hook — the whole world would feel the chill. Trump may be the proximate cause of protectionist tariffs as we look around the world, but unless China is willing to change its economic and political ways, trade conflict and commercial resistance are inevitable.

A trade war could crash China Trump's timing couldn't be worse for Beijing

George Magnus

February 5, 2025 4 mins

https://unherd.com/2025/02/a-trade-war-could-crash-china/

Even though it is Chinese New Year this week, Beijing has wasted no time in hitting back at Trump’s additional 10% tariff on all US imports from China. For now, though, this remains a mere skirmish, yet to escalate into a full-blown trade war — it could yet lead to some sort of negotiation and agreement. We’ve seen this already in Mexico and Canada. The risk, though, is that while these north American countries are neighbours and supposedly America’s allies, China is a strategic adversary. Trade conflict is a symptom of deeper political and economic tensions. The problem for China is that its economy is not well positioned to weather a new major external shock.

For now, a 10% tariff increase would have a minor impact, maybe subtracting about 0.2% from Chinese GDP in 2025 — a fairly trivial amount in an $18 trillion economy. Nonetheless, Beijing can’t be seen to lose face. And so, having previously promised “countermeasures”, and that it would file a complaint with the World Trade Organisation, it will also lift tariffs on 10 February by 10% on American coal and LNG, and levy 15% on crude oil, agricultural equipment and large autos. Even so, these products barely account for $14 billion — or less than 10% — of imports from the US; China can get almost as much oil and gas from Russia to compensate. Because China has fewer American imports on which to act, it is notable that it announced investigations into Google, Intel and Nvidia for possible breach of anti-monopoly laws, along with export controls on tungsten and about two dozen other rare earth minerals.

“Almost 20 years ago, Premier Wen Jiabao noted that China’s economy was unbalanced, unstable, uncoordinated and unsustainable.”

These initial moves by the US and China are hardly of sufficient gravity to qualify as a trade war. None will have a serious impact on the world’s two largest economies, and any of them could be suspended, or dialled back if there were a sudden willingness to calm down and discuss at least temporary ways of addressing mutal concerns.

If, though, the Trump Administration takes offence and escalates further, China would be bound to respond — by allowing the Renminbi to decline and perhaps with targeted measures on exports of sensitive materials. But any move would be carefully weighed. Beijing would dearly relish it if the President’s attention were to remain focused on his nearer neighbours, along with those who are yet to feel the slap of a tariff, such as Europe and even Britain. One imagines that nothing would please China more than to watch Nato countries in disharmony and distrust over the coercive tariff policies of the US.

By George Magnus

Ultimately though, it is the fracturing of Sino-US relations that will be the major axis on which the world will pivot. Everyone would feel the blowback. And even as both tread gingerly for now, it is inevitable that as China and the US both struggle for global dominance, they will throw down the trade and commercial gauntlet from time to time. These tensions are a symptom of their adversarial relationship, and as the world order shifts, it is certain to intensify.

What is more important, though, beyond this spat over tariffs, is a far more consequential trade story which has been playing out over the last few years and which has deep, deleterious roots.

According to the IMF, China’s balance of payments surplus in 2025 is expected to be 1.6% of GDP — or roughly $300 billion. This is most probably a considerable underestimate, since it was in the region of $600-700 billion in 2024, or around 3.5% of GDP. In actual fact, China’s trade surplus probably reached around $1 trillion last year, with Chinese exports growing four times more than the estimated 3% rise in world trade.

This matters because in a properly functioning trade system, countries produce and export what they are good at and import where they have shortcomings. In China’s case, exports are booming, partly because China’s uniquely well-funded industrial policies are the cornerstone of its economic and political strategy, and partly because China produces things the world wants — like EVs, batteries, wind and solar equipment — relatively cheaply. This focus on production and capacity, bolstered by serious industrial policies which stress self-reliance, has contrived to propel exports at breakneck speed, and keep imports subdued. But the consequence of such imbalance is that far from being the main engine of world growth, as is often claimed, China is one of the biggest drags on it. Put another way, countries that sell more to the rest of the world than they buy are forcing other nations to import more which subtracts from growth; while countries that buy more than they sell, like the US or UK, are offering stronger export opportunities for other countries, which adds to growth.

By N.S. Lyons

The reason imports are so weak is twofold: China owns the entire supply chain in a large number of goods, so it has no need to import intermediate or component products; more important, though, is the fact that household incomes, and therefore consumer demand, are in the doldrums. And the government has no desire, or finds it hard politically, to recalibrate this economic imbalance.

For now, then, China’s modern, vibrant tech sector is concealing other vulnerabilities. It sits alongside leading firms and brands in clean energy, electric vehicles, batteries, industrial machinery, semiconductors, robotics, life sciences and biotechnology. But it only accounts for about 13% of GDP. And much of that remaining 87% is treading water, with the country’s still outsized real estate and infrastructure sectors facing difficult years ahead as they come to terms with excess supply, shrinking demand, and severe financial problems among heavily indebted provincial governments.

A plethora of measures have been undertaken to stabilise the real estate market, encourage the equity market to rise and banks to lend, as well as restructuring local government debt — but the implementation of market reforms and the redistribution of income, wealth and ownership, entailing a redistribution of political power to private households and entrepreneurs, can’t possibly be contemplated by Beijing. So while the glitzy tech sector prospers, the greater part of the economy suffers from slow growth, troubling unemployment, stagnating productivity, and misallocation of capital.

Almost 20 years ago, Premier Wen Jiabao noted that China’s economy was unbalanced, unstable, uncoordinated and unsustainable. In some important ways, things are much worse now. But its impressive looking tech scene and surging exports are drawing attention away from systemic weaknesses for which they cannot compensate.

China can probably withstand or deflect a trade spat or disturbance, even as its economy struggles. But if serious trade conflict were to break out, with high tariff rates and other restrictions, things could get painful pretty quickly. And not only would Chinese mercantilism be on the hook — the whole world would feel the chill. Trump may be the proximate cause of protectionist tariffs as we look around the world, but unless China is willing to change its economic and political ways, trade conflict and commercial resistance are inevitable.

George Magnus an economist and author of Red Flags: Why Xi’s China is in Jeopardy. He is an Associate at the China Centre at Oxford University.

8. Elon Musk Reportedly Has a Huge Conflict of Interest Motivating Him to Gut USAID

It is interesting to read the attempts to discredit Musk with these articles. The information campaign will not be successful and I think the reason why comes from James Freeman's comments in his WSJ OpED, "The New Resistance."

It is hard to "defend the indefensible," especially if the American people are not interested in such defense.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-new-resistance-a870b64d?mod=hp_opin_pos_4#cxrecs_shttps://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-new-resistance-a870b64d?mod=hp_opin_pos_4#cxrecs_s

Is USAID the political hill Democrats of the "resistance" want to die on? (and damn I hate that people are using the word resistance so liberally.)

Politics tends to attract people with more ambition than intelligence, more charisma than industriousness. So it’s a rare stroke of luck for U.S. citizens that a few of the smartest people in the country have agreed to come to Washington and work around the clock to identify federal waste, fraud and abuse. Last year Donald Trump campaigned with Elon Musk and promised to appoint the entrepreneur to lead such an effort. Voters then elected Mr. Trump and he has kept his word. Yet many Democrats now pretend that Mr. Musk, tasked by our duly elected president to fulfill this promise to voters, is somehow illegitimate and that the real authority in our government rests with unelected bureaucrats. They even have the nerve to refer to their play for unearned power as “democracy.”

This “resistance” act is getting old, especially since the well-fed participants are mainly resisting challenges to the profligate Beltway status quo. Congressional Democrats have decided to position themselves as ardent apologists for every last misspent nickel in Washington. Witness their howling defense of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Yet a few prominent Democrats have begun to wonder out loud whether they really ought to be defending the indefensible.

Even if most voters have never heard of USAID, they are skeptical of its alleged purpose. Jason Lange reports for Reuters on a new poll of Americans finding that “56% backed freezing U.S.-funded foreign assistance programs, with 40% of respondents opposed to such cuts.”

The public’s significant opposition to foreign aid is bound to increase as people learn just how little of it makes its way to feeding and clothing the needy. The Beltway caterwauling about the invaluable role of USAID in responding to humanitarian crises is as insincere as political discourse gets. If the Beltway shriekers truly believed their rhetoric, they would be even more appalled than Team Trump that needed funds are being siphoned off to fund political race and gender projects and even allies of terrorists. How many starving children could be fed with the money now used to pay the agency’s 10,000 employees?

In truth, such charitable work is best left to taxpayers acting voluntarily on their own, spending dollars more efficiently with far less overhead. If charity dollars need to flow through Washington, they often never leave.

We Are No Longer the World

Feb 5, 11:44 AM EST by Victor Tangermann

Elon Musk Reportedly Has a Huge Conflict of Interest Motivating Him to Gut USAID

"It is an autocratic power grab and a direct attack on the sovereignty of the American people."

https://futurism.com/elon-musk-conflict-interest-shutting-down-usaid?utmhttps://futurism.com/elon-musk-conflict-interest-shutting-down-usaid?utm

/ Future Society / Elon Musk / Space X / Starlink

Image by Getty / Futurism

Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has laid waste to USAID, an international development agency that typically spends tens of billions of dollars on aid across the world.

Its demise could result in the death of "thousands, if not hundreds of thousands" of people, as one anonymous USAID official told Politico.

In an excoriating series of tweets, Musk called the agency a "criminal organization" and argued that it was "evil," while furthering harebrained conspiracy theories claiming it was somehow linked to the outbreak of COVID.

Now, it's starting to sound like Musk's seething hatred towards the aid organization can be traced back to at least one conflict of interest at one of his business ventures: according to The Lever, USAID's inspector general was investigating Musk's Starlink partnership with the Ukrainian government around the time DOGE shut down the organization.

Needless to say, it's a charge that perfectly illustrates why Musk is unsuited for the job he's been given. Besides the billionaire's racist and xenophobic ideologies, Musk's singling out of USAID was more than likely self-serving — and has nothing to do with it allegedly being run by "radical left lunatics," as he's said.

Put simply, Musk's own greed could soon kickstart a senseless and entirely preventable humanitarian disaster of epic proportions, with The Lever reporting that USAID's office of inspector general informed Congress in September that it was reviewing "USAID’s oversight of Starlink Satellite Terminals provided to the Ukrainian government, and USAID’s efforts to protect against sexual exploitation and abuse in Ukraine."

USAID's website has also since been scrubbed of any mentions of Musk's ventures, including SpaceX and Starlink after Musk started gutting.

In early 2022, SpaceX delivered tens of thousands of Starlink terminals to Ukrainians on the front lines, greatly enhancing their connectivity. It didn't take long for Musk to get cold feet, arguing that it was "unreasonable" for SpaceX to continue footing their bills.

Musk has also reportedly met with Russian president Vladimir Putin several times during the country's invasion.

According to Walter Isaacson's biography of the mercurial entrepreneur, Musk intentionally hamstrung the Starlink satellite network to thwart a Ukrainian attack on Russia's naval fleet near the Crimean coast.

"How am I in this war?" Musk asked Isaacson. "Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars. It was so people can watch Netflix and chill and get online for school and do good peaceful things, not drone strikes."

In response, Musk admitted that he refused to "agree" to an "emergency request from government authorities to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol," which had the "obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor."

Russian forces have since made use of black market Starlink terminals to power their warfare in Ukraine.

Several years later, Musk's coup in Washington, DC, is already claiming plenty of victims. USAID workers and their families have already been told to uproot their lives, leaving a massive vacuum in the global aid sector.

The organization's dismantling is nothing less than a massive overreach of power, orchestrated by the richest man in the world.

"I don’t even know if crime is the right word for the illegal destruction of USAID," New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie wrote in a post on Bluesky. "It is an autocratic power grab and a direct attack on the sovereignty of the American people."

More on DOGE: Elon Musk Says DOGE Will Now Shut Down Government Payments He Doesn't LikeWe Are No Longer the World

9. They lived through Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover. Now, they have advice for federal government employees

You can't argue with the idea that you have to question requirements (though not in the way the OSS Simple Sabotage Manual would have you do and perhaps not in the extreme way Musk has demonstrated ). This is really one key to efficiency.

“[B]asically, question every requirement, assume that every requirement that anybody ever gives you is dumb. Question it, eliminate it wherever possible,” they said. “I remember him directly saying, ‘If you’re not adding things back in afterwards, then you weren’t cutting hard enough to start with.’”

They lived through Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover. Now, they have advice for federal government employees

By Clare Duffy and Hadas Gold, CNN

8 minute read

Published 1:04 PM EST, Wed February 5, 2025

255 comments

Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks at a rally for President Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden. Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images

New YorkCNN —

As Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency associates barrel through the federal government, former Twitter (now X) employees have seen this all before.

Musk appears to be bringing his Twitter takeover playbook to the public sector, and, as they did at the social media company, his moves are causing chaos and confusion for federal workers.

The richest man in the world has attempted to reduce costs and gut entire departments, including by playing a role in an ultimatum email to federal workers with the same subject line — “Fork in the Road” — that more than two years ago, topped an email asking Twitter staff to commit to working “extremely hardcore” under Musk’s new leadership or resign.

The consequences this time around are potentially much more serious: Twitter is a social media platform; the federal government has a direct impact on the lives of billions of people in the United States and around the world. But Musk’s takeover of Twitter could foreshadow what may happen next for US government workers.

Musk, DOGE and X did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

Cut to the bone

Like he did when taking over Twitter, Musk has framed his actions within the federal government in dire terms, as necessary to reduce wasteful spending and save democracy.

But a former senior employee at Twitter, who worked extensively under Musk before leaving the company, told CNN the moves are also in keeping with the billionaire’s “algorithm that he basically touts as his … keys to success with anything.”

“[B]asically, question every requirement, assume that every requirement that anybody ever gives you is dumb. Question it, eliminate it wherever possible,” they said. “I remember him directly saying, ‘If you’re not adding things back in afterwards, then you weren’t cutting hard enough to start with.’”

How Elon Musk set off two weeks of chaos across Washington

Two former Twitter employees asked not to be named so they could speak freely about their time at the company and avoid any potential retaliation from Musk.

Within hours of acquiring Twitter, Musk had fired its top executives; within days, he’d laid off around 3,500 employees, around 50% of the company’s total staff. Ultimately, he trimmed 80% of Twitter’s workforce, demanded everyone return to the office, and often required employees to work far more than 40 hours a week.

Musk’s DOGE, with its goal of cutting potentially trillions of dollars out of the federal budget, is making similar cuts throughout government: the United States Agency for International Development appears to be in the process of shutting down; two sources told CNN the Office of Personnel Management was directed to prepare to eventually cut as much as 70% of its workforce; and the General Services Administration was told to present proposals to cut 50% of business expenses, according to multiple sources with knowledge fo the situation.

“Elon seems to think that he’s bought the federal government now, and he’s playing out the same series of events” as he did at Twitter, said Shannon Liss-Riordan, an attorney who represents thousands of former Twitter employees who took legal action against the company after Musk’s takeover.

The ultimatum

Federal government employees have been told they now have until Thursday to decide whether to remain in their roles and accept the Trump administration’s new demands, which include being “reliable, loyal, trustworthy,” or to resign and accept a buyout paying them through September. But if they take the deal, they may not necessarily be able to count on the money.

“It’s not clear whether the President has the authority to even guarantee that, given that federal funding has not been authorized by Congress through September, given that there are likely to be legal challenges by some conservative groups that might challenge the government continuing to pay employees who are not doing work,” Liss-Riordan said, adding that she’s already heard from federal workers with questions on the legality of the offer.

Federal employees may also be expected to work — rather than looking for new jobs — through that September date. The resignation letter that federal government employees have been asked to sign says: “I will assist my employing agency with completing reasonable and customary tasks and processes to facilitate my departure.” And workers may face legal hurdles to getting other jobs while still on the government’s payroll.

A worker removes letters from the Twitter sign that is posted on the exterior of Twitter headquarters on July 24, 2023 in San Francisco, California. After Musk's acquisition, the company underwent widespread cuts and major changes, including renaming it to X. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Thousands of former Twitter employees took legal action against the company after Musk’s layoffs, alleging that they were promised greater severance payments than they were given, most of which are still making their way through the courts or confidential legal proceedings. X has moved to handle many of the claims in private arbitration or dismiss them outright, court filings show.

But for federal employees, “unfortunately, it is very difficult to sue the federal government,” Liss-Riordan said.

“I’m giving similar advice to what I gave employees who came to me when the fork in the road email went out to Twitter employees, which is that you need to decide what’s in your best interests, and there’s no way to predict exactly how this is going to come out,” she said.

“This is a rare, generous opportunity — one that was thoroughly vetted and intentionally designed to support employees through restructuring,” OPM spokesperson McLaurine Pinover said in a statement. She added that employees who take the offer will be placed on leave and not expected to continue working for the bulk of the period while they are paid out through September.

A memo released by OPM leaders on Tuesday also noted: “Were the government to backtrack on its commitments, an employee would be entitled to request a rescission of his or her resignation.

Bull in a china shop

Musk has been implementing DOGE’s cuts for less than a month and already there are several lawsuits filed over the group’s actions, questioning the legality of everything from shutting down an entire agency to whether the personal data of millions of employees is being properly protected.

But former Twitter employees say Musk sees laws, regulations and procedures as unnecessary speed bumps meant to be ignored.

“Elon thinks that all that stuff [laws and regulations] is frankly, just bulls**t, and it’s just there to be a harassment,” the former senior employee said.

“Regulations, basically, should be default gone,” Musk said during an X spaces conversation last week. “Not default there, default gone. And if it turns out that we missed the mark on a regulation, we can always add it back in.”

For example, in an infamous incident, the billionaire unexpectedly forced a Twitter team to take one of the company’s data centers offline for cost savings on Christmas Eve in 2022. According to the former senior employee, best practice would have been for the servers to be wiped clean for data privacy reasons, but they were not.

“When we were going to shut down this data center, the people from the data center team worked with him, and were basically saying, ‘Look, if we want to do this and do it safely, it’s going to take … like six months or eight months,’” the former senior employee said. “(Musk’s) like, ‘Ah, f**k that.’”

Former Twitter employees said that while Musk’s pronouncements and changes can be disruptive, they aren’t always set in stone and they can backfire.

The ‘Muskification’ of the federal government is in full swing

Some staff that resigned or were laid off were asked to return, former employees said, as the company realized valuable skills and experience had been lost.

In the months after Twitter shut down the data center nearly overnight, the platform suffered numerous major outages and technical glitches. Although the platform has largely stabilized, it is still prone to snafus — most famously the massive meltdowns that delayed live interviews on X between Musk and presidential candidates — including Trump and Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

“Musk leads very much like a bull in a china shop that, through the mere force of his desires, his impulsiveness and his will, he tries to do something very immediately bold and disruptive,” a former manager at Twitter who left the company the year Musk took over told CNN. But “the bluster and the disruption that he leads with out of the gate is often not the end of the story … You cannot lose sight of the institutional means that you have to push back on some of this disruption, even if it proceeds more slowly.”

Indeed, there have been examples of Musk taking a strong public stand on an issue, only to reverse course after facing resistance.

In recent years, the Brazilian Supreme Court ordered X to block a number of accounts, mostly belonging to political supporters of far-right former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, that it said contained hate speech.

Musk pushed back hard against the request, saying X would close its operations and fire its staff in Brazil, calling the order censorship and the judge who issued the order an “evil dictator.” But ultimately, after a three-week shutdown of the platform in Brazil, X agreed to the Brazilian government’s demands in order to be reinstated.

“Many times, the real outcome of these very dramatic situations, they may happen weeks and months later, but the reality of what comes out very quietly is quite different from what Musk wanted in the first place,” the former manager said.

Advice

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Former Twitter employees are now offering advice to federal government workers about how to navigate Musk’s leadership — from practical tips such as keeping records of the changes or communicating securely through encrypted platforms like Signal, to more personal guidance about living through such upheaval.

“As someone who went through an eerily similar episode of hostile takeover that also played out in public in real time, I want to tell all the fed workers, ‘I’m so sorry this is happening to you, I know how this feels,’” Yao Yue, former principal software engineer at Twitter wrote on X.

She added: “Don’t comply without question, don’t fold over in advance. Find small routines that anchor you and make you feel in control, even just for a few moments each day.”

For federal government workers who might now be looking to preserve work they care about, the former senior employee said Musk “likes it when people refer to things positively. He doesn’t like to hear the negatives about things. He’s generally not a fan of adjectives when you communicate with him.”

But, the former senior employee warned “if somebody is asking you to do something that is beyond the pale, make sure that you know you’re clear that, hey, this is not how this is supposed to work. Because at the end of the day, they don’t care, whatever the fastest path is to something is what they’re going to take.”

10. Waging a Good Fight: Strategic Nonviolence in the Civil Rights Movement

There is still so much to learn from Dr. King and our civil rights movement.

This is an interesting comparison between DEI and MAGA "strategic approaches" and the civil rights strategy fo Dr. King.

Excerpts:

From a strategic perspective, Dr. King employed methods and individuals (means and ways) to uphold traditional civic and religious ideals relevant to all Americans. The objective was to include all Americans among the blessings of liberty, and the result advanced this state of being more than any other attempt before it except the Civil War. For national movements, a universal appeal is more likely to succeed than a hyper-individualistic one. Interestingly, the Civil Rights movement proved less effective in the more secular North than in the more religious South. While some battles were lost in certain regions, the “national war” was not lost. The same strategic approach doesn’t always work and requires adjustments in response to reality. Great strategists accept this despite previous success.

Nevertheless, the assumptions about racism were accurate, the execution methods won battles, the means were sustainable, the goals were attainable, and the strategy ultimately ended the “Jim Crow” era. Racism persists, but the series of strategic victories by 1968 transformed the American legal and practical landscape in ways that resonated for generations and aligned the nation more closely with its promise. DEI and MAGA do not share the same level of accurate assumptions, execution methods, or aligned “ends-ways-means” to achieve a universally beneficial outcome for the nation.

...

It is important to note that the same strategic approach does not always yield the same results; it requires adjustment in response to reality. When things are not working, go back and figure out why. Dr. King never had the chance to revise and improve his strategy. However, history reveals that his assumptions about racism were accurate, the execution methods won significant battles, and the strategy employed was sustainable. Most importantly, although hard to imagine, the desired outcomes were achievable. While racism persists, the series of strategic victories achieved by 1968 significantly altered the American legal and practical landscape, resonating for generations and bringing the nation closer to its foundational promise.

In contrast, the approaches of DEI and MAGA do not share the same level of accurate assumptions, effective methods of execution, or aligned “ends-ways-means” to achieve a universally beneficial outcome for the nation. These movements should conduct a strategic review and determine how to revise their assumptions, methods, and ends-ways-means. Perhaps they should ask if their movement benefits all Americans or just a select few. If the latter, these movements should consider a universalist end state and proceed from there. Otherwise, DEI and MAGA are bound to simply fade into history, unlike Dr. King’s powerful strategy, which did not die despite his assassination. It continued as America strives, fails, and tries again to live “the dream.”

Waging a Good Fight: Strategic Nonviolence in the Civil Rights Movement

14 hours ago13 min read

The Strategy Behind America’s Struggle to Live Up To Her Ideals

Strategy Central

For And By Practitioners

By Monte Erfourth, February 5, 2025

https://www.strategycentral.io/post/waging-a-good-fight-strategic-nonviolence-in-the-civil-rights-movement?utm

Introduction

Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) approached the civil rights movement with strategic precision that mirrored military campaigns. Their actions were not spontaneous protests but meticulously planned operations designed to achieve maximum impact while adhering to the principles of nonviolent resistance. King and his colleagues understood that systemic racism and segregation were deeply entrenched in American society, particularly in the South, and that dismantling them required careful organization, strategic resource allocation, and a clear vision of objectives.

The Civil Rights Movement from 1954 to 1968 was a social campaign grounded in the philosophy of strategic nonviolence. Martin Luther King Jr., the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and influential figures like Bayard Rustin wove together the principles of nonviolence with the ideals of liberty, equality, and justice as articulated by the framers of the Constitution. The movement’s success stemmed largely from its meticulous planning, training, coalition-building, and media strategies, which ensured that nonviolence was a moral position and a powerful means for systemic change that urged America to live up to its founding principles.

The Strategic Philosophy of Nonviolence

Nonviolence was the cornerstone of the Civil Rights Movement, inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s strategy and tactics during the Indian independence struggle. The philosophy of nonviolence was not passive; as John Baldoni notes in his analysis, “People talk about passive resistance, which is the wrong term. The Civil Rights Movement was built on confrontational nonviolence and aggressive, repetitive, sustained use of nonviolent pressure to bring about social change” (Baldoni). This approach required rigorous training and discipline, as activists had to endure physical and verbal abuse without retaliating. The effectiveness of this strategy was demonstrated in events like the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the sit-ins at segregated lunch counters, where students were trained to withstand provocation while maintaining their composure.

Bayard Rustin was instrumental in shaping the Civil Rights Movement’s strategy. Rustin, a close advisor to King, had extensive experience in nonviolent activism, having studied Gandhi’s methods in India and worked with various pacifist organizations. Rustin’s meticulous planning was critical in events like the 1963 March on Washington, where over 200,000 people gathered in an event that required immense logistical coordination ("Rustin, Bayard").

Rustin’s influence extended beyond logistics; he was a key advocate for nonviolence, ensuring that the movement’s philosophy remained intact even in the face of extreme provocation. King recognized Rustin’s expertise, stating, “We are thoroughly committed to the method of nonviolence in our struggle and we are convinced that Bayard’s expertness and commitment in this area will be of inestimable value” ("Rustin, Bayard"). Despite personal attacks on Rustin due to his sexuality and past Communist affiliations, his strategic acumen made him indispensable to the movement’s success.

Planning and Execution: The Role of SCLC and King’s Leadership

Under King’s leadership, the SCLC operated like a military organization, selecting key battlegrounds where their efforts would have the most significant effect. The movement targeted cities with both deeply entrenched racism and media accessibility to ensure that violent responses from segregationists would be broadcast nationally. Birmingham, Alabama, was a prime example, where Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor’s predictable overreaction to peaceful protests—such as setting attack dogs on children—exposed the brutality of segregation to the world. This careful selection of confrontation sites was critical to the movement’s success ("Waging The Good Fight").

The movement adopted multiple lines of effort as part of their overall campaign:

· Training and Discipline. To ensure that protests remained nonviolent even in the face of police brutality and white mob aggression, the SCLC implemented rigorous training sessions for activists. At centers such as the Highlander Folk School and later through their Citizenship Education Program, civil rights activists were taught how to withstand physical and verbal abuse without retaliating. This training included role-playing exercises in which volunteers simulated hostile encounters with police officers and segregationists. King and his strategists understood that any instance of violence from their side, even in self-defense, would be used to delegitimize the movement.

· Media Strategy and the Role of Television. A key strategic element was the SCLC’s deliberate use of the media. King and his advisers recognized the growing influence of television in shaping public opinion and worked to ensure that national and international news outlets covered their demonstrations. The movement’s leaders timed protests to maximize their media impact, often coordinating with journalists to ensure that brutal police responses would be broadcast to the widest possible audience. The shocking images of young protesters being attacked by police dogs and knocked down by fire hoses in Birmingham, for instance, played a significant role in shifting public opinion and increasing pressure on the federal government to intervene.

· Legal and Political Maneuvering. The SCLC also engaged in strategic legal and political maneuvering to support their direct-action campaigns. King collaborated closely with lawyers like Fred Gray and organizations such as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund to contest segregation in the courts. By combining grassroots activism with legal challenges, this dual approach ensured that legal precedents strengthened victories on the streets. For instance, the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955–1956, which the SCLC helped coordinate, led to a Supreme Court ruling declaring bus segregation unconstitutional. This integration of legal and protest strategies was a defining feature of the movement’s success.

· Sustained Campaigns and Economic Pressure. Economic pressure was another vital component of the SCLC’s strategy. King and his team recognized that many segregationist policies were maintained by economic interests, and they aimed to disrupt these systems through boycotts and continuous pressure on local businesses. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, for instance, lasted more than a year, significantly affecting the city’s transit revenue until authorities had to desegregate buses. Similarly, during the Birmingham Campaign of 1963, activists focused on downtown businesses with boycotts, diminishing their profits and compelling local leaders to engage in negotiations. This strategy showcased that civil rights activists were not simply making moral appeals but also utilizing economic power to drive change.

· Alliances and coalitions Building. Beyond direct protests, King and the SCLC actively built alliances with labor unions, religious groups, student activists, and even sympathetic politicians. They understood that a broad-based coalition was essential to sustaining momentum and ensuring that civil rights legislation passed at the federal level. The 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, was a coalition effort that included labor leader A. Philip Randolph and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). By uniting different factions of the civil rights movement and maintaining relationships with figures in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, the SCLC was able to influence national policy, leading to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

· Timing and Political Pressure. The movement’s leaders were also highly strategic about timing their actions to maximize political pressure. They often launched major campaigns in election years or at moments when the federal government was susceptible to public opinion. For example, the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery marches were carefully timed to coincide with the growing national debate over voting rights. The brutal crackdown on marchers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge—televised to millions—forced President Lyndon B. Johnson to push for the Voting Rights Act.

· Selection of Key Battlefields. One of the most crucial strategic decisions made by King and the SCLC was choosing cities and towns where their efforts would have the greatest impact. The organization did not merely target areas with high levels of racism; instead, they opted for locations where the combination of racial injustice, media access, and the potential for violent backlash could reveal the brutality of segregation to the broader American public. Birmingham, Alabama, stands out as a prime example. The city was infamous for its severe segregationist policies and the extreme brutality of its police force under Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor. SCLC leaders understood that Connor’s predictable overreactions to peaceful protests would create a stark contrast to the discipline of nonviolent demonstrators, thereby garnering national and international sympathy for the movement.

Sustaining the Movement: Long-Term Strategy and Coalition Building

Unlike isolated protests, the Civil Rights Movement was a sustained campaign that built upon each victory. Over time, the movement expanded its focus from desegregating buses to integrating lunch counters to securing voting rights. Activists continually sought new opportunities to challenge systemic racism, such as the Freedom Rides and the voter registration drives of Freedom Summer, despite extreme violence against participants ("What the Civil Rights Movement Teaches Us About Strategy").

The movement also relied on broad coalitions, bringing together Black church leaders, labor unions, students, and sympathetic politicians. Rustin played a significant role in coalition-building, advocating alliances between Black activists, liberal white groups, and religious organizations to maintain political momentum ("Rustin, Bayard"). These alliances ensured that civil rights reforms were not just short-term gains but became embedded in American law and society.

Lessons From History & Greatness

The Civil Rights Movement’s success was not accidental but the result of strategic, disciplined, and well-organized planning. Nonviolence, far from being a passive approach, was a confrontational yet effective method that forced systemic change through legal action, economic pressure, media strategy, and coalition-building. Figures like King and Rustin ensured that every protest, boycott, and march was part of a broader campaign designed to dismantle segregation and secure civil rights for Black Americans. By treating their struggle as a military campaign—choosing battlefields wisely, training activists rigorously, and leveraging public opinion—the movement transformed American society and set a model for nonviolent resistance worldwide.

The civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr. was deeply rooted in the Founding Fathers' principles and Christian teachings, emphasizing human dignity, equality, and moral responsibility. King frequently invoked the Declaration of Independence, particularly its assertion that “all men are created equal,” as a foundational promise that the United States had yet to realize fully. He argued that the Constitution, while imperfect in its original application, contained the framework for justice and equality through the principles of natural rights and the rule of law. In his speeches and writings, including the famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” King urged the nation to uphold its founding ideals by extending the blessings of liberty to all Americans, regardless of race. His nonviolent resistance philosophy reflected the Founding Fathers' revolutionary spirit, who stood against tyranny in the name of freedom and justice.

King’s movement also found its moral underpinnings from Christianity. Dr. King’s moral vision and his strategy of nonviolent resistance were a natural fit for the gospel he preached. Drawing from the teachings of Jesus, particularly the Sermon on the Mount, King advocated for love, forgiveness, and turning the other cheek in the face of oppression. He viewed the struggle for civil rights as a political battle and a moral crusade rooted in the biblical command to love one’s neighbor and seek justice for the oppressed. King also drew inspiration from the writings of Christian theologians like Reinhold Niebuhr and St. Augustine, who highlighted the moral responsibility to confront injustice. By blending Christian ethics with the democratic principles of the American founding, King established a movement that challenged segregation and called the nation to uphold a higher moral standard, urging it to realize the promise of justice and equality inherent in its religious and civic traditions.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s approach to social change was rooted in universal human dignity, moral persuasion, and a colorblind ideal of justice, emphasizing equality of opportunity rather than enforced equality of outcome. His vision, articulated in the “I Have a Dream” speech, called for a society where individuals are judged “not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” King sought to remove legal and institutional barriers to equality through nonviolent resistance, coalition-building, and appeals to America’s founding ideals and Christian ethics. His strategy was fundamentally about inclusion—demanding that America live up to its promise of equal rights under the law, ensuring that all citizens had access to the same opportunities regardless of race.

The Current Moment: Trump, King, & DEI

Martin Luther King Jr.'s approach to social change was rooted in nonviolent resistance and the pursuit of racial equality. He aimed to transform societal structures peacefully. King’s philosophy emphasized love, justice, and the moral imperative to challenge unjust laws. He sought to unite individuals across racial lines to achieve a more inclusive society. King's methods involved organized protests, civil disobedience, and eloquent appeals to the nation's conscience, all designed to highlight systemic injustices and mobilize public support for civil rights reforms. Today’s movements do not rise to this level of alignment of civic and moral coherence or mass appeal.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts often focus on achieving demographic representation and equitable outcomes through institutional policies such as racial preferences, quotas, and identity-based initiatives. While DEI promotes diversity and aims to address historical injustices, it departs from King’s race-neutral vision by prioritizing group identity over individual merit and character. DEI policies can sometimes deepen divisions by focusing more on systemic disparities than on common civic and moral values which is a recipe for polarization. This approach contradicts King's ideals, shifting attention from equal rights and personal character to categorizing people based on race, gender, and identity, which strays from his universalist philosophy of a united people.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives reflect King's dedication to creating a more equitable society by enhancing representation and fairness across various sectors. DEI strategies frequently involve enacting policies that specifically tackle disparities through targeted programs and interventions. While King's approach was rooted in moral appeals and mass mobilization to alter unjust laws, DEI efforts operate within existing institutional frameworks to foster inclusivity through identity categorization. Thus, DEI actively seeks social justice by addressing systemic inequalities within organizations by systematically enforcing the inclusion of identity groups deemed appropriate by DEI standards. There is often a direct or sometimes subtle assertion opposing white, male patriarchy as the identity to dismantle by embracing all other groups. This approach predominantly centers on appearance or expressions of identity rather than on universal values meant to unite Americans as a cohesive group.

In contrast, Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) movement aims to restore a perceived past national greatness. It often emphasizes nationalism, economic protectionism, and a return to traditional values. The MAGA strategy employs populist rhetoric to evoke a sense of patriotism and address concerns about economic and cultural changes viewed as detrimental to predominantly white, rural, or conservative groups. The movement maintains a tension between upholding traditional values and rejecting the institutions that support a universalist American way of life.

While all three movements aim for societal change, they differ fundamentally in their methods and underlying philosophies. King's movement is inclusive, seeking to expand rights and opportunities for marginalized groups through nonviolent means, whereas DEI aims to establish more precise distinctions among individuals to determine who deserves equitable treatment. Although not explicitly intended to be so, in practice, DEI often tends to be inherently segregationist. In contrast, the MAGA movement calls for a return to an idealized past when whites constituted the overwhelming national majority. Some critics argue it marginalizes minority communities and is inherently exclusionary. Both the DEI and MAGA movements share a rejection of facts, promotion of tribal identity, and a sense of moral superiority that is detrimental to a healthy civic life.

Each of these movements is distinctly American. However, Dr. King’s civil rights movement most closely aligns with the Founding Fathers’ principles of liberty, equality, and justice. Neither DEI nor the “MAGA movement” can genuinely claim the morally and legally superior foundation of the civil rights movement from 1957 to 1968. As both a strategy and philosophy for our generation to emulate, it’s hard to find anything better than the teachings from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in their march for a more just America.

The Final Word on Strategy

From a strategic perspective, Dr. King employed methods and individuals (means and ways) to uphold traditional civic and religious ideals relevant to all Americans. The objective was to include all Americans among the blessings of liberty, and the result advanced this state of being more than any other attempt before it except the Civil War. For national movements, a universal appeal is more likely to succeed than a hyper-individualistic one. Interestingly, the Civil Rights movement proved less effective in the more secular North than in the more religious South. While some battles were lost in certain regions, the “national war” was not lost. The same strategic approach doesn’t always work and requires adjustments in response to reality. Great strategists accept this despite previous success.

Nevertheless, the assumptions about racism were accurate, the execution methods won battles, the means were sustainable, the goals were attainable, and the strategy ultimately ended the “Jim Crow” era. Racism persists, but the series of strategic victories by 1968 transformed the American legal and practical landscape in ways that resonated for generations and aligned the nation more closely with its promise. DEI and MAGA do not share the same level of accurate assumptions, execution methods, or aligned “ends-ways-means” to achieve a universally beneficial outcome for the nation.

From a strategic standpoint, Dr. King used methods and people (means and ways) to uphold traditional civic and religious ideals applicable to all Americans. The ends were inclusive of all Americans. In national movements, a universal appeal is generally more effective than a hyper-individualistic one, and this understanding stands out as a key strategic assumption for the movement. Interestingly, the Civil Rights movement succeeded more in the largely religious South than in the more secular North. Non-violence was rejected, and militant groups agitated for a more forceful strategy. Although non-violent based battles were lost in the struggle, the overall “war” was not. The violent movements petered out and never achieved the lasting results Dr. King and his adherents did.

It is important to note that the same strategic approach does not always yield the same results; it requires adjustment in response to reality. When things are not working, go back and figure out why. Dr. King never had the chance to revise and improve his strategy. However, history reveals that his assumptions about racism were accurate, the execution methods won significant battles, and the strategy employed was sustainable. Most importantly, although hard to imagine, the desired outcomes were achievable. While racism persists, the series of strategic victories achieved by 1968 significantly altered the American legal and practical landscape, resonating for generations and bringing the nation closer to its foundational promise.

In contrast, the approaches of DEI and MAGA do not share the same level of accurate assumptions, effective methods of execution, or aligned “ends-ways-means” to achieve a universally beneficial outcome for the nation. These movements should conduct a strategic review and determine how to revise their assumptions, methods, and ends-ways-means. Perhaps they should ask if their movement benefits all Americans or just a select few. If the latter, these movements should consider a universalist end state and proceed from there. Otherwise, DEI and MAGA are bound to simply fade into history, unlike Dr. King’s powerful strategy, which did not die despite his assassination. It continued as America strives, fails, and tries again to live “the dream.”

Works Cited

Baldoni, John. "What the Civil Rights Movement Teaches Us About Strategy." LinkedIn, 24 Mar. 2024.

"Rustin, Bayard." The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University.

"Waging The Good Fight V1 02-04-2025." Strategy Central.

11. Lawmakers Push to Ban DeepSeek App From U.S. Government Devices

Excerpts:

“Our personal information is being sent to China, there is no denial, and the DeepSeek tool is collecting everything that American users connect to it,” Tsarynny said in an interview.

That analysis pushed LaHood and Gottheimer to develop the legislation. The two are the top Republican and Democrat respectively on a subcommittee of the House Select Committee on Intelligence.

“Under no circumstances can we allow a CCP company to obtain sensitive government or personal data,” said LaHood, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.

Other nations have already taken steps to ban the app from obtaining government data. Australia banned DeepSeek from its government systems on Tuesday citing data-security concerns, as did key South Korean government ministries this week. Italy did so in January.

Lawmakers Push to Ban DeepSeek App From U.S. Government Devices

Bipartisan bill comes amid concerns that the application allows China to see user data

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/lawmakers-push-to-ban-deepseek-app-from-u-s-government-devices-6a76151a?mod=hp_lead_pos1

By Natalie Andrews

Feb. 6, 2025 5:00 am ET

DeepSeek, a disruptive new Chinese AI company, emerged seemingly out of nowhere earlier last month. Photo: Kim Jae-Hwan/Zuma Press

WASHINGTON—Lawmakers plan to introduce a bill Thursday that would ban DeepSeek’s chatbot application from government-owned devices, over new security concerns that the app could provide user information to the Chinese government.

The legislation written by Reps. Darin LaHood, an Illinois Republican, and Josh Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat, is echoing a strategy that Congress used to ban Chinese-controlled TikTok from government devices, which marked the beginning of the effort to block the company from operating in the U.S.

“This should be a no-brainer in terms of actions we should take immediately to prevent our enemy from getting information from our government,” Gottheimer said.

DeepSeek, a disruptive new Chinese AI company, emerged seemingly out of nowhere last month. The chatbot for the Chinese startup is now the most downloaded app in the U.S. DeepSeek also gave its models away, as open-source code, which helped make it immediately popular among consumers, businesses and developers.

The chatbot app, however, has intentionally hidden code that could send user login information to China Mobile, a state-owned telecommunications company that has been banned from operating in the U.S., according to an analysis by Ivan Tsarynny, CEO of Feroot Security, which specializes in data protection and cybersecurity. Tsarynny’s analysis was published earlier by the Associated Press.

“Our personal information is being sent to China, there is no denial, and the DeepSeek tool is collecting everything that American users connect to it,” Tsarynny said in an interview.

That analysis pushed LaHood and Gottheimer to develop the legislation. The two are the top Republican and Democrat respectively on a subcommittee of the House Select Committee on Intelligence.

“Under no circumstances can we allow a CCP company to obtain sensitive government or personal data,” said LaHood, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.

Other nations have already taken steps to ban the app from obtaining government data. Australia banned DeepSeek from its government systems on Tuesday citing data-security concerns, as did key South Korean government ministries this week. Italy did so in January.

DeepSeek didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Some federal agencies such as the U.S. Navy and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration have blocked the app due to security and privacy concerns. Texas was the first U.S. state to ban DeepSeek on government devices, citing national-security concerns.

Congress banned TikTok from government devices in 2022, sliding the legislation into a spending bill. Lawmakers became alarmed that the Chinese government would be able to access user data and sought to first ban the app from government devices and then overall in the country. Congress passed legislation last year to ban TikTok in the U.S., unless an American buyer was found to force it to be separated from ByteDance, its Chinese owner.

When the deadline passed and TikTok hadn’t been sold, President Trump extended the time for the app to find a U.S. buyer. TikTok has repeatedly said that it has never shared U.S. user data with the Chinese government and wouldn’t if asked.

Write to Natalie Andrews at natalie.andrews@wsj.com

12. Largest US intelligence agencies press employees to resign

Largest US intelligence agencies press employees to resign

Trump-administration "deferred resignation" offers have been issued to the workforces of the CIA, NSA, NGA, DIA, and the overseeing ODNI.

defenseone.com · by David DiMolfetta

Brooks Kraft /Getty

Trump-administration "deferred resignation" offers have been issued to the workforces of the CIA, NSA, NGA, DIA, and the overseeing ODNI.

February 5, 2025 05:00 PM ET

By David DiMolfetta

Cybersecurity Reporter, Nextgov/FCW

February 5, 2025 05:00 PM ET

The Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have offered their workforces a "deferred resignation" offer akin to the one recently sent to federal civilian agencies through the Office of Personnel Management, the spy agencies confirmed Wednesday.

The CIA and NSA have also offered their workforce a similar deal. On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported the CIA offer, and similar reports followed about the National Security Agency.

“As directed by OPM and DoD, the deferred resignation program is available to eligible NSA employees,” a spokesperson for the signals intelligence agency said.

The Trump administration, seeking to downsize the federal workforce, has announced that employees who resign by Thursday will remain on the payroll with full benefits until the end of September. [Editor's note: The agreement also says employees might be called back to work "in rare circumstances"; they also give up the right to redress if the government reneges, according to a Feb. 4 memo from OPM. The memo asserts that the offer is legal; others, including Democratic lawmakers, have raised doubts.]

The offer asks IC workers to decide on the offer by Feb. 6.

It’s not clear how many IC staffers would accept the proposal. [On Tuesday, administration officials told reporters that more than 20,000 feds had taken the offer. That's about one percent of the total federal workforce, which typically sees about five or six percent attrition each year.]

Around two weeks ago, an email landing in employees’ inboxes from the address hr@opm.gov told recipients that it was a “test of a new distribution and response list” and asked them to reply “YES” to it. Many workers suspected it was a phishing email and reported it to their IT departments.

A second test email went out the following day, and federal employees were later sent a deferred resignation offer using the same system shortly thereafter, saying they would be paid until Sept. 30 — provided they resign by Feb. 6. It wasn’t clear at the time whether that type of offering would be made available to the intelligence community.

President Donald Trump has long railed against the intelligence community, accusing it of being weaponized against him, his campaign and his allies.

Democratic lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee rallied against White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles in a Wednesday letter accusing Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency — a cost-cutting unit headed by billionaire Elon Musk — of circumventing classified information protocols with DOGE recently accessing systems inside the Treasury Department, Office of Personnel Management and USAID.

“As you know, information is classified to protect the national security interests of the United States. Government employees and contractors only receive access to such information after they have undergone a rigorous background investigation and demonstrated a ‘need to know.’ Circumventing these requirements creates enormous counterintelligence and security risks,” they wrote.

13. White House Orders C.I.A. to Send an Unclassified Email With Names of Some Employees

If you were hired in the past two years you are considered low hanging fruit. Or do they assume that somehow the vetting process that takes some time requires that those hired in the previous 2 (or 4) years were hired because they are Democrats or somehow loyal to the previous administration and not the current one?

In 5 to 10 to 20 years where will our intelligence expertise on China be?

Excerpts:

The list included first names and the first initial of the last name of the new hires, who are still on probation — and thus easy to dismiss. It included a large crop of young analysts and operatives who were hired specifically to focus on China, and whose identities are usually closely guarded because Chinese hackers are constantly seeking to identify them.

The agency normally would prefer not to put these names in an unclassified system. Some former officials said they worried that the list could be passed on to a team of newly hired young software experts working with Elon Musk and his government efficiency team. If that happened, the names of the employees might be more easily targeted by China, Russia or other foreign intelligence services.

One former agency officer called the reporting of the names in an unclassified email a “counterintelligence disaster.”

White House Orders C.I.A. to Send an Unclassified Email With Names of Some Employees

The list of partial names was provided in an effort to comply with an executive order to trim the federal work force.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/us/politics/cia-names-list.html?referringSource=articleShare&smid=nytcore-ios-share&utm

John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, during his swearing-in ceremony last month. Mr. Ratcliffe has begun an effort to push long-tenured agency officers to retire early.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

By David E. Sanger and Julian E. Barnes

Reporting from Washington

Feb. 5, 2025

The White House ordered the C.I.A. to send an unclassified email listing all employees hired by the spy agency over the last two years to comply with an executive order to shrink the federal work force, in a move that former officials say risked the list leaking to adversaries.

The list included first names and the first initial of the last name of the new hires, who are still on probation — and thus easy to dismiss. It included a large crop of young analysts and operatives who were hired specifically to focus on China, and whose identities are usually closely guarded because Chinese hackers are constantly seeking to identify them.

The agency normally would prefer not to put these names in an unclassified system. Some former officials said they worried that the list could be passed on to a team of newly hired young software experts working with Elon Musk and his government efficiency team. If that happened, the names of the employees might be more easily targeted by China, Russia or other foreign intelligence services.

One former agency officer called the reporting of the names in an unclassified email a “counterintelligence disaster.”

Current officials confirmed that the C.I.A. had sent the names of employees to the Office of Personnel Management, complying with an executive order signed by President Trump. But the officials downplayed security concerns. By sending just the first names and initials of the probationary employees, one U.S. official said, they hoped the information would be protected.

But former officials scoffed at the explanation, saying that the names and initials could be combined with other information — from driver’s license and car registration systems, social media accounts and publicly available data from universities that the agency uses as recruiting grounds — to piece together a more complete list.

Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, wrote in a social media post that the sharing of the officers’ names was “a disastrous national security development.”

“Exposing the identities of officials who do extremely sensitive work would put a direct target on their backs for China,” Mr. Warner wrote.

The number of officers involved remains classified, but it could be significant. In 2024, the C.I.A. had its best recruiting drive since the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. C.I.A. officers, because of their intense training, have a long probationary period, up to four years. However, the White House required only the names of people who had served two years or fewer.

Under William J. Burns, the former C.I.A. director, the agency put a new emphasis on trying to recruit a diverse group of officers, arguing that overseas spying operations required people with an array of language skills and cultural knowledge. He focused particularly on expanding the agency’s coverage of China, creating a China center at the headquarters that included analysts, operatives and others. When Mr. Burns arrived at the agency in 2021, about 9 percent of the agency’s budget was devoted to China-related analysis and espionage; today it is closer to 20 percent.

So any large-scale culling of more recent hires could have a disparate impact on Mandarin speakers and technology experts, along with the agency’s minority work force. But current officials said the C.I.A.’s new director, John Ratcliffe, was prioritizing China and did not want to see any mass exodus of people with expertise in that area.

The Trump administration has made quick work of diversity programs, ordering them shut down and scrubbed from websites.

The White House-ordered review of probationary hires comes as Mr. Ratcliffe has begun an effort to push long-tenured agency officers to retire early. Mr. Ratcliffe, officials said, hopes to clear a path to leadership jobs for midcareer officers.

The C.I.A. is offering its employees what it is calling “deferred resignation,” an option to quit but continue to be paid through September, as part of the efforts led by Mr. Musk to shrink the size of the federal work force, officials said.

National-security-related agencies had originally been exempted, at least partially, from the governmentwide “fork in the road” offer to leave their jobs that was extended last week. But Mr. Ratcliffe pushed to have a version of the offer extended to his work force.

Under the C.I.A.’s program, the agency will retain some say over the timing of when anyone leaves to ensure that critical areas have enough officers.

Otherwise, however, the offer is structured in much the same way as what Mr. Musk’s team pushed out across the federal government.

In an email sent on Tuesday, agency officers were extended an offer to leave the agency effective Sept. 30 but continue to be paid. An aide to Mr. Ratcliffe said it was “effectively giving them a buyout and a runway to the private sector.”

The offer was reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.

The aide to Mr. Ratcliffe, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under agency protocol, said the effort was meant to encourage some of the large group of officers who joined after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to retire early.

“These moves are part of a holistic strategy to infuse the agency with renewed energy, provide opportunities for rising leaders to emerge and better position the C.I.A. to deliver on its mission,” according to a statement released by a C.I.A. spokeswoman.

The spokeswoman said the offer would ensure that the agency’s work force was responsive to the Trump administration’s “national security priorities.”

A correction was made on Feb. 5, 2025: An earlier version of this article misstated where the C.I.A. sent a list of employees. It went to the Office of Personnel Management, not to the Office of Management and Budget.

When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more

David E. Sanger covers the Trump administration and a range of national security issues. He has been a Times journalist for more than four decades and has written four books on foreign policy and national security challenges. More about David E. Sanger

Julian E. Barnes covers the U.S. intelligence agencies and international security matters for The Times. He has written about security issues for more than two decades. More about Julian E. Barnes

A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 6, 2025, Section A, Page 17 of the New York edition with the headline: C.I.A. Sends White House Unclassified Email Listing Employee Names. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

14. DOGE Births a Counterintelligence Disaster

This could be an example of one of the necessary inefficiencies of government. Yes, it is more difficult to transmit information concerning the intelligence community because of security precautions. As we work to slay the Deep State and the bloated bureaucracy we need to ensure the slaying is rhetorical and not actual.

Excerpts:

What DOGE has done may be legal, strictly speaking, but it’s immoral as well as stupid. Intentionally exposing American spies to public view is a crime, as enshrined in the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, which was enacted in response to the 1975 murder of CIA’s Athens station chief Richard Welch by Marxist terrorists, after Welch was unmasked by a left-wing magazine. In exposing American intelligence officers to harm by half-identifying them, DOGE has violated the spirit of that law, if not its letter.

The second Trump administration must do better, without delay. The pressing need for improved American counterintelligence has been explained by this author many times. Particularly after the numerous counterespionage debacles birthed during the Biden administration, which this newsletter reported in great detail, the Intelligence Community needs a thoroughgoing counterintelligence shakeup. If Tulsi Gabbard is soon confirmed by the Senate as Director of National Intelligence, as seems increasingly likely, she must make counterintelligence a top priority, rather than the afterthought it’s been for IC leadership for the past half-century. The first step is to keep DOGE away from the spy business, before Americans get killed.

DOGE Births a Counterintelligence Disaster

Trump 2.0’s first security debacle is a real doozy for the Intelligence Community

https://topsecretumbra.substack.com/p/doge-births-a-counterintelligence?utm

John Schindler

Feb 06, 2025

∙ Paid

There’s no chance that the Intelligence Community can avoid the federal government purge that’s shaping up to be a hallmark of President Donald Trump’s nonconsecutive second administration. Dismantling the “administrative state” is a high MAGA priority and, while there’s ample skepticism about how easy or even possible this task will be, there can be no doubting Team Trump’s sincerity about wanting to shake up our nation’s capital.

Indeed, the Deep State is a high-priority target for the White House. From the MAGA viewpoint, the first Trump administration made the fatal mistake of not purging America’s intelligence agencies of Obama-Biden loyalists, who then subverted the White House and its agenda, becoming an arm of the Democrats. There can be no doubt that this view contains a good deal of truth, so Team Trump has learned from their mistakes and this time plans to purge the IC of Democrat partisans at the outset.

That the spooks won’t be spared the budget-cutting axe that’s coming for the alphabet soup of federal agencies around the Beltway was made evident by the news this week that the Central Intelligence Agency has offered buyouts to the entire workforce. It’s doubtful that many CIA staffers will be enticed to walk away in exchange for just eight months of pay and benefits, but perhaps some fed-up spooks close to retirement might.

Other IC agencies just have issued similar “please leave” buyout offers to their workforce, including the National Security Agency. Neither is this entirely uncharted water. Some 25 years ago, before jihadists flew into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon on 9/11, opening up the cash hydrant for the spooks for the next decade, there was discussion in Washington, DC, about buyouts and maybe even layoffs to trim bloated spy payrolls.

Firing intelligence personnel isn’t like thinning ranks in the rest of the federal government, however, it brings significant counterintelligence concerns. If middle-aged IC personnel find themselves jobless, with mortgages to pay and kids in college, meanwhile the gravy train of federal contractor jobs has halted, bad things will follow. Inevitably, some desperate people will find cash the easy way (at least in the short term), by walking into the Chinese or Russian embassies, offering to sell U.S. secrets. It seems doubtful that anybody on Team Trump has even contemplated such risks.

We already know that counterintelligence and protecting American secrets is a low priority for Trump 2.0. Take the so-called Department of Government Efficiency – DOGE, get it? – which isn’t a department and isn’t really the U.S. Government, rather is First Buddy Elon Musk’s peculiar effort to remake FedGov. With artificial intelligence and a gaggle of college-age IT nerds, the world’s richest man believes he can save taxpayers trillions of dollars. As much as I’d like that to happen, count me highly skeptical. Thirty years ago, President Bill Clinton tried to “reinvent government” and simply didn’t.

Moreover, the DOGE experiment confronts a near-mountain of ethical and legal restrictions which Musk seems to care nothing about. Federal judges, however, may. For now, DOGE is charging full steam ahead in its crusade against the executive branch. Its first target is the U.S. Agency for International Development, which Musk with his trademark trolling denounced as a “criminal organization” which needs to “die.” The DOGE plan is to strip USAID of anything smacking of left-wing activism in its NGO-driven mission – which, to be fair, there’s plenty of – then hand the remnants over to the State Department.

Regardless, the DOGE campaign against USAID reveals that Musk and his minions don’t understand how any of this works. DOGE is grabbing sensitive information from multiple federal agencies, in a seemingly haphazard fashion, ostensibly to allow better number-crunching and efficiencies. Last weekend, a DOGE team attempted to breach USAID’s headquarters, including its Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, for handling Top Secret information, located on the building’s sixth floor. John Voorhees, USAID’s security boss, attempted to stop the “Muskovites” yet was overruled, apparently by Musk himself. This seems to be a violation of federal law, since it’s not believed that those DOGE staffers possess Top Secret security clearances, as one must to enter any SCIF without proper escort. Voorhees was placed on administrative leave for doing his job.

That was just the beginning of DOGE’s unfolding counterintelligence disaster. Yesterday, the New York Times reported that Musk’s drive for greater efficiency has compromised a large number of CIA employees. Pursuant to a executive order signed by President Trump requiring all federal agencies to send, via unclassified email, the names of all employees hired over the past two years, Langley reluctantly followed orders. The email was sent to the Office of Personnel Management, on White House demand. Per the NYT:

That, it certainly is. Team Trump is spinning this as no big deal, since what’s the harm if surnames are omitted except for their first letter? That’s a very naïve view that doesn’t understand Counterintelligence 101. We don’t know how many CIA employees were listed in that email, but it’s not a short list. Since Russia reinvaded Ukraine three years ago, Langley’s been on a hiring binge on a scale not seen since the years following 9/11. A signature block with a common name – say, John S – doesn’t seem like a big deal (it’s how it appears in most CIA classified internal emails, for security reasons). But what if your name is less common, like Mercedes R(odriguez) or Devonte W(ashington)?

All unclassified government emails in Washington, DC, especially anything touching the White House or intelligence agencies, are assumed to be compromised, intercepted by foreign signals intelligence collectors from China, Russia, and other countries. Plus, since they’re unclassified, there’s nothing stopping DOGE, which includes unvetted personnel, from sharing those emails with anyone they like.

Foreign intelligence services meticulously study SIGINT and other intelligence, comparing lists of possible intelligence personnel against public databases, school records, driver’s license and vehicle registration records, property records, plus of course social media. Spies use social media too, although they’re encouraged to be discreet in their postings: however, there’s nothing more suspicious from a counterintelligence viewpoint than a twentysomething these days without any social media presence. Taken together, any competent spy agency can figure out in many cases who’s actually a spy.

For CIA personnel working around Northern Virginia – the analysts, staffers, and support personnel who make up much of that agency – the risk from this DOGE misstep is modest. These folks are discouraged from talking about their work affiliation outside close friends and family, but they’re usually not working undercover in any meaningful sense. (The standard Beltway insider joke is that anyone at a cocktail party who’s sketchy about where s/he works, saying only “U.S. Government,” is really CIA, while the guy or gal who only says “Department of Defense” is NSA.) This compromise may raise their odds of becoming a target for a foreign intelligence service in the long term, particularly if they have a unique first name.

The risk is far more serious for CIA personnel who work abroad clandestinely, usually with the Directorate of Operations. These officers serve all over the world, customarily undercover, most often posing as diplomats from the State Department. In high-to-medium threat countries, local security services put a lot of effort at playing “spot the spy,” attempting to determine which American diplomats assigned to the local U.S. embassy or consulate are really diplomats, and which appear to be spies. The ones assessed as spies will get extra attention from local security services, sometimes unpleasantly.

It gets more dangerous than that. In some countries, American spies are targeted not just by surveillance and harassment, but violence too. If terrorists get their hands on lists of suspected Americans spies, death can follow. This risk is especially acute for the elite cadre of DO officers serving abroad under non-official cover, posing as businesspeople and whatnot rather than diplomats. These NOCs enjoy none of the protections enjoyed by spies serving under “official” cover. I would strongly discourage any DO personnel hired over the last two years from joining the agency’s NOC program – your lives are now at risk thanks to DOGE.

The good news is that the DO training pipeline for new personnel is so long – including a stint at Camp Peary AKA “The Farm,” often language training, plus some time at headquarters before the first overseas posting, it takes a couple years at least, usually more – that few if any of the new hires listed in that unclassified email are serving abroad yet. The bad news is that the Trump White House has gifted them counterintelligence concerns that will linger for decades, perhaps through their whole careers. Watch your back from now on, folks.

What DOGE has done may be legal, strictly speaking, but it’s immoral as well as stupid. Intentionally exposing American spies to public view is a crime, as enshrined in the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, which was enacted in response to the 1975 murder of CIA’s Athens station chief Richard Welch by Marxist terrorists, after Welch was unmasked by a left-wing magazine. In exposing American intelligence officers to harm by half-identifying them, DOGE has violated the spirit of that law, if not its letter.

The second Trump administration must do better, without delay. The pressing need for improved American counterintelligence has been explained by this author many times. Particularly after the numerous counterespionage debacles birthed during the Biden administration, which this newsletter reported in great detail, the Intelligence Community needs a thoroughgoing counterintelligence shakeup. If Tulsi Gabbard is soon confirmed by the Senate as Director of National Intelligence, as seems increasingly likely, she must make counterintelligence a top priority, rather than the afterthought it’s been for IC leadership for the past half-century. The first step is to keep DOGE away from the spy business, before Americans get killed.

15. West Point shuts down clubs for women and students of color in response to Trump's DEI policies

Are we going overboard here? Was this directed or a "precaution" taken by the Academy leadership? Are they afraid of possible White House criticism or action against it? Or is this an action to try to demonstrate we have gone overboard and try to attract attention through absurdity? (ugh, a form of "resistance" that should not be taking place and hopefully is not at the Military Academy)

Interestingly we have worked with the Asian-American clubs at all three Academies for the past two years conducting Indo-Pacom security seminars. And the members of these Asian-American clubs were not all of Asian descent, there were diverse ethnicities participating who were all interested in studying Asia Pacific security issues.

Excerpts:

The West Point memo also ordered all other cadet clubs to pause activities until officials can review the groups to ensure that they comply with Trump administration rules.

The U.S. Military Academy at West Point released a statement that said it is reviewing programs affiliated with its former office of diversity and inclusion and that the clubs that were shut down were sponsored by that office.

“More than one hundred clubs remain at the U.S. Military Academy, and our leadership will continue to provide opportunities for cadets to pursue their academic, military, and physical fitness interests while following Army policy, directives, and guidance,” the statement reads.

West Point shuts down clubs for women and students of color in response to Trump's DEI policies

AP · by Updated [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year] · February 5, 2025

WEST POINT, N.Y. (AP) — The U.S. Military Academy has disbanded a dozen West Point cadet clubs centered on ethnicity, gender, race and sexuality in response to the Trump administration’s push to eliminate diversity programs throughout government.

The famed military academy in New York issued a memo Tuesday shutting down groups including the Asian-Pacific Forum Club, Latin Cultural Club, National Society of Black Engineers Club and Society of Women Engineers Club in order to adhere to recent guidance from the Army and Defense Department. It also shut down the Corbin Forum, a decades-old leadership club for female cadets, and Spectrum, a gay-straight alliance.

President Donald Trump last month signed an executive order aimed at halting diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal government and ordered the federal diversity, equity and inclusion staff be put on paid leave and eventually be laid off.

The West Point memo also ordered all other cadet clubs to pause activities until officials can review the groups to ensure that they comply with Trump administration rules.

The U.S. Military Academy at West Point released a statement that said it is reviewing programs affiliated with its former office of diversity and inclusion and that the clubs that were shut down were sponsored by that office.

“More than one hundred clubs remain at the U.S. Military Academy, and our leadership will continue to provide opportunities for cadets to pursue their academic, military, and physical fitness interests while following Army policy, directives, and guidance,” the statement reads.

The Department of Defense directed questions on the memo to the Army and West Point but sent a link to recent Defense Department guidance that said “Going forward, DoD Components and Military Departments will not use official resources, to include man-hours, to host celebrations or events related to cultural awareness months” such as Black History Month.

“Efforts to divide the force — to put one group ahead of another — erode camaraderie and threaten mission execution,” the Defense guidance reads.

West Point graduate Geoffrey Easterling, who was a member of one of the now-disbanded clubs when he was at the academy, said the groups were open to all cadets and provided a way for students to interact with people from different cultures and build relationships with classmates.

“It was just community. There wasn’t any teaching of all these things people are worried about,” he said. “You could find help with your homework from upperclassmen, get help to know the military.”

Diversity, equity and inclusion programs are intended to provide support for communities that have been historically marginalized. But such initiatives have been criticized by conservatives who argue they are discriminatory against white people.

The nation’s military service academies have slowly become more racially diverse and have admitted more women in recent decades, but female cadets and cadets of color have spoken out about having to overcome hostility.

AP · by Updated [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year] · February 5, 2025

16. Trump nominates Air Force veteran to oversee special operations forces

I never served with him so I do not know him. But congratulations to him and I wish him the best in taking care of our SOF enterprise.

Trump nominates Air Force veteran to oversee special operations forces

defensescoop.com · by Jon Harper · February 5, 2025

President Donald Trump tapped Michael Jensen, an Air Force veteran with experience in special operations forces, to take a high-level Pentagon job as assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict.

His nomination was submitted to the Senate and referred to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Monday, according to a notice posted on Congress.gov.

If confirmed, he would be responsible for providing civilian oversight of the U.S. military’s SOF enterprise and exercising “authority, direction, and control of all special operations peculiar issues relating to the organization, training, and equipping of special operations forces,” according to a Defense Department description of the job.

Jensen, an Air Force Academy graduate, served in the military for more than 20 years before becoming a business executive in 2021, according to his LinkedIn bio.

Some of his most notable duty assignments included 26th Special Tactics Squadron commander and deputy commander of the 724th Special Tactics Group, which are part of Air Force Special Operations Command. He also served as a strategy lead in the Air Force’s Checkmate office at the Pentagon.

If confirmed, Jensen would assume a top leadership role as the SOF community adapts for great power competition with advanced adversaries such as China and Russia, and pursues new digital applications, AI and autonomy, drones and other cutting-edge tech.

The DOD is also promoting a concept known as the “SOF-Space-Cyber triad.”

“This integration enables on-the-ground intelligence, access, global communication, surveillance, information warfare and network disruption. Together, these elements create a force multiplier factor that enable the Joint Force to conduct operations with reduced risk of escalation,” U.S. Special Operations Command officials wrote in a new strategy document that was released in December, called “SOF Renaissance,” which noted the need to be prepared for “hyper-transparent battlefields.”

The duties of ASD for SO/LIC are currently being performed by Colby Jenkins, according to the Pentagon. Christopher Maier held that role during the Biden administration.

Written by Jon Harper

Jon Harper is Managing Editor of DefenseScoop, the Scoop News Group’s online publication focused on the Pentagon and its pursuit of new capabilities. He leads an award-winning team of journalists in providing breaking news and in-depth analysis on military technology and the ways in which it is shaping how the Defense Department operates and modernizes. You can also follow him on X (the social media platform formerly known as Twitter) @Jon_Harper_

defensescoop.com · by Jon Harper · February 5, 2025

17. Pentagon Caught Flat-Footed on Trump's Bombshell Proposal to Seize Gaza, Potentially with US Troops

Any military planner who saw this coming must have had a crystal ball. This is one "contingency" I would not have thought of planning for.

Sustaining the necessary presence to accomplish this mission might break the Army and could negatively impact readiness for other missions and deterrence.

But then there is the late Secretary Albright's famous statement to the Chairman along the lines of, "what good is an Army if you do not use it." (though we know that a sheathed sword can achieve more powerful strategic effects so it perhaps should only be used sparingly) And then we went to the Balkans (which on the other hand did not necessarily break the Army but we also did not see the threats from the current axis of upheaval then as we have now).

Pentagon Caught Flat-Footed on Trump's Bombshell Proposal to Seize Gaza, Potentially with US Troops

military.com · by Konstantin Toropin · February 5, 2025

After President Donald Trump's announcement Tuesday that he was prepared to use U.S. military forces in Gaza, the Pentagon appeared to once again be caught off guard by the change in policy, and officials were unable to offer any details or confirm any planning.

"The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it, too," Trump told reporters at a news conference Tuesday evening alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He vowed to turn the territory that two million Palestinians call home into "the Riviera of the Middle East."

Trump didn't rule out using U.S. troops to accomplish that goal when asked by reporters, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters Wednesday that he was "prepared to look at all options."

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Wednesday also called Trump's plan historic, "outside-of-the-box" thinking while also not ruling out the use of U.S. troops. She said Trump had not committed to putting "boots on the ground."

Meanwhile, when several military officials within the Pentagon were asked by Military.com about any plans, they were not prepared to offer any details.

One official said they were unaware of any plans being drawn up, before adding a phrase that is so often repeated that it has become cliche within the walls of the Pentagon: "We are a planning organization, though."

Hegseth commented to reporters on Wednesday but provided no new details on any military planning for Gaza.

"The president is involved in very complex and high-level negotiations of great consequence to both the United States and the state of Israel, and we look forward to working with our allies, our counterparts, both diplomatically and militarily, to look at all options," Hegseth said.

"We certainly would not get ahead of the president or provide details about what we may or may not do," he said.

In fact, Pentagon officials have spent most of the early days of Trump's second term reacting to executive orders or policy announcements that they would learn about at the same time as the public.

The military had to scramble to push troops to the southern border after Trump ordered their involvement, and officials then had no details to offer when Trump and Hegseth said military strikes inside Mexico were on the table.

Officials weren't ready to say how they would detain nearly 30,000 migrants in Guantanamo Bay in the days after Trump said he wanted to use the remote base in Cuba for his deportation efforts. The Pentagon also had no ready plan to allow troops who were booted for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine to return to service with back pay when that order was signed.

Experts have already chimed in and noted that Trump's plan to forcibly remove the Palestinians in Gaza, seize control of the land and redevelop it would be a colossal logistical and financial challenge that could easily trigger a new wave of violence and conflict.

Plus, there doesn't appear to be any legal authority that would allow the U.S. to seize control of Gaza, and removing its entire population would violate international law.

Saudi Arabia, as well as Turkey and Egypt, also issued statements overnight condemning the plan.

Trump's bombshell announcement that he intends the U.S. to take control of one of the most volatile areas in the world comes after him campaigning on keeping the U.S. out of foreign wars.

The U.S. military was involved in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for two decades, efforts that included holding territory and building up local areas, similar to what the president proposed on Tuesday.

The eagerness to involve the U.S. military in Gaza is also a sharp departure from the position that many Republicans took less than a year ago when they criticized President Joe Biden's plan to use an Army mobile pier system to deliver aid to the war-stricken region.

In April, as the pier was being set up, a mortar attack on the area led Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the highest-ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, to release a statement saying that, "Biden should never have put our men and women in this position, and he should abandon this project immediately before any U.S. troops are injured" and that "the risk to Americans will only intensify."

No troops were injured.

Then, after a few disappointing months of operation, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., the Republican lawmaker who leads the House Armed Services Committee, wrote to the Biden administration and called for an end to the mission, citing among other reasons the fact that three service members were injured in the effort.

The injuries occurred at sea, because the Biden administration was firm on the fact that no U.S. troops would set foot in Gaza.

military.com · by Konstantin Toropin · February 5, 2025

18. China’s Trump Strategy

Excerpts:

After eight years of learning and preparing to mitigate the negative repercussions of Trump’s policies, by investing at home and building partnerships with the global South, Beijing believes it can endure a turbulent U.S. presidency. There may be some wishful thinking driving its strategy. The Chinese economy is in a precarious position, and the country’s overcapacity problem is forcing it to increase exports and creating pushback across the world. China’s economic future is uncertain, and the downturn may not be reversed even with active government intervention, regardless of what the United States does.

Yet Chinese leaders remain confident that, even if the country’s economy suffers, four years of Trump is unlikely to send it into a full-blown crisis. And they anticipate that if Trump follows through on his declared policies, such as those on trade and territorial expansion, he could do severe damage to the United States’ credibility and global leadership. Beijing thus sees Trump’s second term as a potential opportunity for China to expand its influence farther and faster. In this view, competition with the United States is not in itself the driving force behind China’s grand strategy. It is instead one component of a larger process: China’s rise and displacement of the United States as the world’s leading superpower, what Xi often describes as “changes unseen in a century.” Beijing assumes that Washington’s own policies will dismantle the foundations of U.S. global hegemony, even if it creates a lot of turbulence for other countries in the process. China’s top priority, then, is simply to weather the storm.

China’s Trump Strategy

YUN SUN is Director of the China Program at the Stimson Center.

Foreign Affairs · by More by Yun Sun · February 6, 2025

Beijing Is Preparing to Take Advantage of Disruption

Yun Sun

February 6, 2025

At a ceremony in Beijing, September 2024 Florence Lo / Reuters

YUN SUN is Director of the China Program at the Stimson Center.

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In the months since Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election in November, policymakers in Beijing have been looking to the next four years of U.S.-Chinese relations with trepidation. Beijing has been expecting the Trump administration to pursue tough policies toward China, potentially escalating the two countries’ trade war, tech war, and confrontation over Taiwan. The prevailing wisdom is that China must prepare for storms ahead in its dealings with the United States.

Trump’s imposition of 10 percent tariffs on all Chinese goods this week seemed to justify those worries. China retaliated swiftly, announcing its own tariffs on certain U.S. goods, as well as restrictions on exports of critical minerals and an antimonopoly investigation into the U.S.-based company Google. But even though Beijing has such tools at its disposal, its ability to outmaneuver Washington in a tit-for-tat exchange is limited by the United States’ relative power and large trade deficit with China. Chinese policymakers, aware of the problem, have been planning more than trade war tactics. Since Trump’s first term, they have been adapting their approach to the United States, and they have spent the past three months further developing their strategy to anticipate, counter, and minimize the damage of Trump’s volatile policymaking. As a result of that planning, a broad effort to shore up China’s domestic economy and foreign relations has been quietly underway.

China’s preparations roughly mirror the Biden administration’s China strategy of “invest, align, and compete,” which involved investing in U.S. strength, aligning with partners, and competing where necessary. Beijing’s playbook for riding out the Trump years, meanwhile, focuses on making the domestic economy more resilient, reconciling with key neighbors, and deepening relationships in the global South. Trump may well be able to score some short-term victories, but Beijing’s plans look beyond him. Chinese leaders remain convinced of the country’s historic destiny to rise and displace the United States as the world’s preeminent power. They think that Trump’s policies will undermine U.S. power and reduce U.S. global standing in the long run. And when that happens, China wants to be ready to take advantage.

REFORM MOVEMENT

Fortifying the home front has been a key element of Beijing’s strategy. Expecting that Trump’s presidency will bring volatility in the form of trade, sanctions, and export controls, China has been introducing stimulus measures to boost the real economy and strengthen domestic consumption. On November 8, three days after the U.S. election, Beijing announced a program to distribute $1.4 trillion to reduce local government debts over two years. The International Monetary Fund estimates that Chinese local government debts total around $9 trillion; addressing the problem represents a major push by the central government to stabilize the economy and instill more confidence in the Chinese market. A month later, on December 9, Beijing pledged “more active fiscal policies and moderately loose monetary policies,” which in practice entail more government spending, budgetary expansion, and lower interest rates. This marks a shift away from the belt-tightening policies that have been in place since 2010 and toward economic stimulus. In mid-December, China’s Central Economic Work Conference, a key government meeting that determines the economic policy for the next year, reiterated those promises. Its recommendations included more government spending, interest rate cuts, and other policies meant to generate growth.

Beijing has reason to introduce such measures regardless of Trump. The economic slowdown in recent years and the tepid results of the government’s stimulus efforts so far warrant more substantial intervention. But apprehension about rising tensions with the United States undoubtedly spurred policymakers on. In its December announcement, the Central Economic Work Conference cited the “deepening negative impact from the changed external environment” as the motivation for its updated fiscal policies. The most significant change to China’s external environment is the outcome of the U.S. election.

Trump’s imposition of tariffs seemed to justify China’s worries.

Beijing’s push for reform is not just about fixing domestic economic problems, either. It is also an effort to open up new opportunities for international trade. In discussions with members of the U.S. policy community after the November election, Chinese interlocutors expressed interest in fulfilling the Phase One trade deal signed by Beijing and Washington in January 2020, which would see China purchase $200 billion worth of U.S. products. They even brought up the possibility of beginning Phase Two negotiations, which would focus on structural reform, including measures addressing the relationship between the Chinese government and state-owned enterprises. Given Beijing’s sensitivity regarding such topics, progress on these negotiations has long seemed a remote prospect. But with an economic slowdown at home and the trade war with the United States escalating, China is feeling more pressure.

China is also looking to diversify its trade options. Over the past few months, statements from the Chinese foreign and commerce ministries have referred repeatedly to China’s effort to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the 12-member trade agreement that succeeded the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which stalled in 2017 after the United States withdrew. Members of the CPTPP must meet stringent entry requirements, which in China’s case would require serious structural reform. Beijing recognizes the value of multilateral trade mechanisms: China’s accession into the World Trade Organization in 2001 was probably the single largest factor in China’s economic rise. As countries move away from the WTO and toward alternative arrangements such as the CPTPP, Beijing wants to make sure it is not left out. With Trump in power, inclusion is all the more vital as China seeks to compensate for lost access to U.S. markets.

MENDING FENCES

China’s preparations for Trump have also involved a diplomatic push. In anticipation of heightened tension in the Indo-Pacific, China has tried to tie up loose ends with India and Japan, two neighbors with whom China had turbulent relationships for the past several years. Stability in China’s immediate neighborhood will minimize distractions for Beijing and could undermine U.S. efforts to push its partners to pressure China. Improving ties with both Japan and Australia, too, is a way for China to ingratiate itself with the leaders of the CPTPP.

The thaw in Chinese-Indian relations has been notable. In October, China and India suddenly reached an agreement to disengage in the disputed border territory of Ladakh after a four-year military standoff. Following Trump’s election, China invited Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval to Beijing for talks about border issues. Doval was even granted a meeting with China’s Vice President Han Zheng—an unusual move and a gesture of goodwill. China offered concrete deliverables to India during the visit, too, including allowing Indian nationals the right of passage to resume pilgrimages to Tibet, cooperation on shared waterways, and trade between the two countries at the Nathu La mountain pass. More important, China pledged to pursue “a fair, reasonable, and mutually acceptable package solution to the border issue.” Beijing has long deferred a comprehensive agreement on the Chinese-Indian border—a deal New Delhi wants—as it believes that keeping the dispute alive gives it leverage. But now China seems willing to commit.

Trump may score short-term victories, but Beijing is looking beyond him.

China has made progress with Japan as well, hoping to improve relations with the United States’ most important ally in the region. In September 2024, Beijing announced that it would gradually dismantle the import ban on Japanese seafood it had imposed in August 2023. After Chinese leader Xi Jinping met with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru in November, China restored visa-free entry for Japanese visitors. And China-Japan ruling party exchanges, which began in 2004 but have been suspended for the past seven years, resumed in January, with China hosting a Japanese delegation in Beijing. During that meeting, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi reportedly proposed that Ishiba visit China during the 2025 Asian Winter Games, which China will host. At the same time, China has been making overtures to Australia, unilaterally announcing in late November a 30-day visa-free policy for Australian nationals visiting China.

It was not until Trump’s return became a real prospect that Beijing started focusing on outreach to these U.S. partners. Even as China gradually dropped its hostile “wolf warrior” diplomacy after the country’s post-COVID reopening in 2023, Chinese relations with India and Japan in particular remained frosty: border tensions with India continued, and Beijing mounted ferocious criticism of Japan over its release of treated radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean. But when faced with the uncertainty that a second Trump presidency could bring, China set out to improve its relations with both countries.

ALTERNATE ROUTES

China has also been expanding its cooperation with countries in the global South that offer backdoor access to U.S. markets. As tariffs and supply-chain disruptions break direct trade links between the United States and China, more and more trade happens indirectly. In effect, the same Chinese materials and parts are used in goods exported to the United States—but now the final products are manufactured or assembled in countries other than China. Beijing has accepted this transition to backdoor trade; China’s exports are still strong, with the country’s trade surplus reaching a peak of almost $1 trillion in 2024. Its fastest growing export markets are countries in the global South, including Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam, many of which are acting as middlemen by processing Chinese materials and exporting the finished goods to the United States.

Over the past few years, China has deliberately facilitated growth in these supply networks through investment in Asia and Latin America. Chinese investment in Vietnam, for example, increased by 80 percent in 2023 to $4.5 billion, and Chinese-Vietnamese bilateral trade reached $260 billion—more than China’s trade with Russia, even with all the oil and gas China has purchased from Russia during the war in Ukraine. In Mexico, according to Xu Qiyuan, a senior economist at the China Academy of Social Sciences, China’s outbound direct investment in 2023 reached as high as $3 billion, 10 times more than what the official data reports. Where countries can offer routes into the U.S. market, Chinese companies have been eager to invest.

Although China would still prefer to trade directly with the United States, leading a parallel trading system with the global South is an acceptable alternative for Beijing. There is a chance Trump could decide to punish third-party countries for their economic cooperation with China, as he has threatened in the case of Panama. Beijing does not have an obvious, easy solution to this type of disruption. But Trump’s moves may not necessarily harm China’s economic relationships, either—for countries on the receiving end of his ire, practical economic considerations could still prevail. Indeed, after Italy withdrew from China’s Belt and Road Initiative in December 2023, its economic ties to China did not disappear—bilateral trade increased in 2024. For many countries in the global South, lucrative economic deals with China will still have strong appeal. Beijing, furthermore, could reap the benefits if heavy-handed U.S. measures undermine Washington’s relations with key countries.

THE LONG GAME

China has options for a direct response to additional tariffs or other trade measures Trump may impose: its toolkit includes export controls, sanctions on U.S. companies, Chinese currency depreciation, retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports to China, and more. Which of these measures China deploys and when will depend on what Trump decides to do. Unlike its largely reactive approach during Trump’s first term, however, this time around Beijing will have not only a tactical response but also a bigger strategy. Ultimately, China hopes to use Trump’s policies to its own advantage. Chinese leaders could use a U.S.-instigated trade war to rally various domestic interest groups around meaningful reforms at home and to expand ties to countries the United States alienates, strengthening China’s position in a reoriented global trade system.

Unlike in 2016, China’s leadership also knows what to expect from Trump. In his first term, Trump showed Beijing that nothing was off the table. His administration broke taboos when it came to discussing the Chinese Communist Party and Taiwan, and it disproved the assumption that U.S.-Chinese relations would not sink below a certain floor. That experience has prepared policymakers in Beijing to take seriously the possibility that the U.S. administration will impose ruinously high tariffs on all Chinese goods or seek to advance U.S. relations with Taiwan. Having witnessed the freefall of bilateral relations in 2020 after the outbreak of COVID-19, Chinese leaders can’t help but feel they have already seen the worst. In effect, Trump has lost the element of surprise.

Ultimately, China hopes to use Trump’s policies to its own advantage.

After eight years of learning and preparing to mitigate the negative repercussions of Trump’s policies, by investing at home and building partnerships with the global South, Beijing believes it can endure a turbulent U.S. presidency. There may be some wishful thinking driving its strategy. The Chinese economy is in a precarious position, and the country’s overcapacity problem is forcing it to increase exports and creating pushback across the world. China’s economic future is uncertain, and the downturn may not be reversed even with active government intervention, regardless of what the United States does.

Yet Chinese leaders remain confident that, even if the country’s economy suffers, four years of Trump is unlikely to send it into a full-blown crisis. And they anticipate that if Trump follows through on his declared policies, such as those on trade and territorial expansion, he could do severe damage to the United States’ credibility and global leadership. Beijing thus sees Trump’s second term as a potential opportunity for China to expand its influence farther and faster. In this view, competition with the United States is not in itself the driving force behind China’s grand strategy. It is instead one component of a larger process: China’s rise and displacement of the United States as the world’s leading superpower, what Xi often describes as “changes unseen in a century.” Beijing assumes that Washington’s own policies will dismantle the foundations of U.S. global hegemony, even if it creates a lot of turbulence for other countries in the process. China’s top priority, then, is simply to weather the storm.

YUN SUN is Director of the China Program at the Stimson Center.

Foreign Affairs · by More by Yun Sun · February 6, 2025

19. A World Safe for Prosperity

Economic security agreements could be either built on top of existing free-trade agreements or negotiated as standalone frameworks. For instance, the anticipated renegotiation of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement is a near-term opportunity to experiment with incorporating economic security principles into a comprehensive trade agreement. Take, for example, the auto sector, which is highly integrated across the North American market. The United States will want to prioritize preventing Chinese-owned automakers from opening factories in Mexico to benefit from the USMCA’s preferential tariffs. Regional auto trade will also be affected by new government policies intended to address national security risks. The United States recently placed restrictions on the use of Chinese hardware and software components in vehicles sold in the U.S. market. (Canada is considering implementing its own restrictions, as well.) To ensure the security and integrity of the North American auto market, the three USMCA partners should discuss these policy tools as part of a more holistic negotiation.

Beyond the USMCA, the United States should focus on Australia, Japan, and the United Kingdom as prime candidates for economic security agreement talks. The U.S.-Australia relationship is ripe for such an agreement: the countries have a trade agreement that needs updating; they already cooperate on defense technology and export controls through AUKUS; and they are both experienced in countering Chinese economic coercion. Japan, a leader in Asia, has advanced technology sectors and wants to enshrine broader protections for trade in digital goods and services. The United Kingdom, already a close security partner, completed several rounds of trade negotiations with the first Trump administration and has strong incentives to strike more deals as it continues to recover from the economic effects of Brexit.

As the Trump administration wields the tariff hammer, both U.S. companies and trade negotiators in capitals around the world are bracing for confrontation. But Trump’s transactional approach to international economics also sets the stage for potential dealmaking. Trump’s attraction to disruption could lead to a shakeup of the moribund international economic order and put in place the conditions for a much-needed transformation. But this past weekend’s tariffs, which amount to coercion of close U.S. security allies, make this task harder by causing trading partners to question the durability of any new U.S. commitments. Should the Trump administration continue with haphazard threats to close partners, these countries may even come to see their integration with and dependence on the U.S. market not as an asset but as a geopolitical vulnerability, a development that would delight Beijing. The challenge will be to focus on the right target—China—and to use economic security agreements to chart a durable path forward for the future of the global economic order.

A World Safe for Prosperity

Foreign Affairs · by More by Geoffrey Gertz · February 6, 2025

How America Can Foster Economic Security

Geoffrey Gertz and Emily Kilcrease

February 6, 2025

A cargo ship near a port in Oakland, California, February 2025 Carlos Barria / Reuters

GEOFFREY GERTZ is a Senior Fellow with the Energy, Economics, and Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. During the Biden administration, he served at the National Security Council and in the State Department.

EMILY KILCREASE is a Senior Fellow at and Director of the Energy, Economics, and Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. She served as Deputy Assistant U.S. Trade Representative during the Trump and Biden administrations and held positions on the National Security Council and in the Department of Commerce during the Obama and Trump administrations.

More by Emily Kilcrease

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U.S. President Donald Trump jolted the global economy this past weekend when he announced sweeping tariffs on Canada, China, and Mexico, the United States’ three largest trading partners. Although most of these levies were ultimately delayed after a frantic few days of negotiations, Trump’s actions confirmed what his campaign rhetoric had led observers to believe: that tariffs, whether implemented or threatened, will be central to his foreign policy. The moves sparked outcry from industry leaders and economists, who cited the risks of crippled supply chains and higher prices for American consumers and companies. It was a strategic misstep from an administration faced with the opportunity to reshape the rules of the global economy to benefit U.S. national security.

The global economic order, comprising multilateral institutions such as the World Trade Organization as well as regional and bilateral trade and investment agreements, has grown stagnant and no longer advances the United States’ most important concerns. Economic security—the idea that the government should more assertively intervene in the world economy to improve resilience and address national security risks—has emerged as perhaps the central objective of U.S. international economic policy. The United States and other countries increasingly fear that economic interdependence can make them vulnerable to adversaries and susceptible to wider shocks; Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in 2022, put this weakness into stark relief. Protecting the U.S. economy from these dangers has become an area of bipartisan consensus in Washington, as evident in a suite of policies enacted during the past two administrations, including sanctions, supply chain reviews, sweeping export controls, and restrictions on both outbound investments and flows of sensitive data.

Many of the United States’ closest trading partners also prioritize economic security. But today’s trade and investment agreements tend to relegate it to the periphery rather than treat it as central to economic relationships. This must change. Working with like-minded partners, the United States should champion economic security as the core organizing principle of a new international economic project that complements the open-market system, which promotes efficiency and growth. Building on their existing commitments, the United States and its close partners should pursue a series of binding bilateral or regional economic security agreements that will nurture greater economic cooperation as well as more effective coordination against outside rivals, particularly China.

The power of economic security agreements will hinge on how they combine defensive economic policies, such as tariffs and export controls, with more proactive ones, such as lowering trade barriers between allies in critical sectors. Such agreements can provide frameworks for partners to counter threats from China and, to compensate for the costs of doing so, deepen the partners’ integration. Washington and its partners should make binding commitments on broad, cross-sector issues, including foiling China’s economic coercion and addressing its production overcapacities and exploitative practices—for example, its massive subsidies for Chinese firms—that distort markets. Those commitments should be paired with efforts to court other markets in critical sectors, such as microchips and energy. At a time when many U.S. allies are wary of Washington’s bludgeoning approach to economic policy, such moves would help align the United States’ economic security tools with those of its trading partners. In the end, Washington cannot pursue its economic security agenda alone.

RIDING THE WAVE

The shift toward economic security in government policy has been building for years. The Great Recession, the COVID-19 pandemic, worsening natural disasters, and geopolitical conflicts have all drawn attention to the fragilities of a globalized economy. In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, for instance, Western governments implemented a vast set of sanctions and export controls to sever Russia, the world’s 11th-largest economy and one of its most important energy exporters, from the global economy. Above all, the intensifying of geopolitical competition between China and the United States—the world’s two dominant economic powers—has made economic interdependence more perilous.

The United States and many of its allies have common economic security objectives. Close U.S. partners in Asia, for instance, are increasingly concerned about the consequences of their economic dependence on China. Europe has built a variety of new economic tools to limit its reliance on China and punish Russia. At the 2023 G-7 summit, member states issued a joint statement on economic resilience and security that signaled a desire to work together in dealing with challenges that arise from economic entanglement, including aligning policies on technology controls.

The current global economic order is defined by rules designed to safeguard openness. Countries agree to abide by those rules but are allowed to deviate from them for issues of national security. As such, the economic order treats these security concerns as exceptions to the norm and assumes their impact on overall trade and investment flows will be negligible. But governments are treating more and more economic activity as matters of national security; as a result, the use of coercive economic measures—sanctions, export controls, investment screening—is at an all-time high. Increasingly, the world is deviating from its rules-based economic system, and policymakers have not fully resolved that the actions they are taking to uphold their countries’ security order may be eroding the economic one.

Washington cannot pursue its economic security agenda alone.

The World Trade Organization, although it remains an important institution for many countries, is ill suited to advance economic security interests, owing to its near universal membership and emphasis on nondiscriminatory trade. And although groups such as the G-7 and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development can be useful discussion forums, they do not have the authority to develop the kind of deep and binding commitments the private sector relies on to make long-term investments. Informal and ad hoc efforts to strengthen cooperation, such as the Minerals Security Partnership Forum, led by the European Commission and the United States, or talks between Japan, the Netherlands, and the United States on semiconductor export controls have made some progress on shared economic security concerns. But their scope and ambition are too incremental to achieve a fundamental shift in the economic order. A larger, more formalized architecture is needed.

The Trump administration should invest in economic security agreements that mirror the United States’ latticework of security alliances and partnerships. A central element of the new economic security architecture must be the integration of defensive and proactive economic policies. The United States’ international economic strategy is dominated by defensive measures, such as tariffs and export controls, that tend to be implemented unilaterally. But these will get Washington only so far. For instance, the United States cannot afford to produce all critical goods within its borders, and thus reliable supply chains will require some degree of “friendshoring,” in which goods are sourced from trusted partners. Coordination is also critical: U.S. export controls preventing China from acquiring advanced technologies, for instance, are ineffective if China can simply acquire them from another country.

Washington must adopt a more pragmatic approach to trade, as well. Continued decoupling from China will result in the United States’ losing a big buyer for its goods, a deficit that cannot be wholly addressed by trying to spur domestic demand. Expanding to other foreign markets—in ways that ensure high protections for U.S. workers and the environment, the absence of which has doomed past trade initiatives—will be essential for U.S. firms to grow, innovate, and retain their competitive edge. A more effective strategy is for like-minded governments to deploy all their economic tools—regulatory sticks and incentive-based carrots—in tandem to achieve their common economic security objectives.

TRICKS OF THE TRADE

The Trump administration should be both opportunistic and ambitious in its pursuit of economic security agreements. Small, targeted deals in key areas such as critical minerals or advanced technologies can provide near-term opportunities for the United States and its partners to align—as occurred when the first Trump administration brokered a narrow agreement with Japan on digital trade—while avoiding the pitfalls that come with more comprehensive negotiations. Such deals will be important in reestablishing U.S. credibility with partners that were affected by some of the United States’ prior moves on trade, including its withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership in 2017 and its threatened tariffs on major trading partners.

U.S. negotiators should design these smaller pacts to be building blocks to broader, more ambitious economic security agreements. These larger deals should include commitments across multiple critical sectors, including semiconductors and artificial intelligence, and enable partners to leverage all their policy tools, both defensive and proactive. The United States will request certain actions from its partners: likely further decoupling from Chinese supply chains and stricter labor and environmental protections. In return, the United States must offer tangible benefits. These could include tariff reductions or the elimination of nontariff trade barriers.

The biggest innovation in economic security agreements will be promoting cooperation on cross-sector issues such as economic coercion. In recent years, China has used its economic might to pressure Australia, Japan, Lithuania, South Korea, and other countries to abide by its geopolitical preferences. For example, it informally blocked large amounts of trade with Lithuania to pressure it to close a Taiwanese representative office and cut off Australian imports as punishment for Australia requesting an inquiry into the origins of COVID-19.

Economic security agreements should enshrine cooperative responses to deter and defeat such behavior, including consultations on instances of suspected coercion—akin to the G-7’s Coordination Platform on Economic Coercion—and commitments to develop or maintain the capabilities to act quickly in support of a coercion target. Each act of coercion will require a bespoke reaction, but a common toolkit of punitive measures (for example, retaliatory tariffs against the coercive country) and mitigative ones (for example, financial aid to the target) will enable faster and more persuasive coordinated responses. Of course, after the recent tariff threats, the United States will need to convince its allies that it will live up to its commitments—and refrain from coercion itself.

Another area in which the United States and its partners can cooperate more deeply is in addressing overcapacity in global markets, including in sectors such as steel, vehicles, and less advanced chips. China has made a practice of manufacturing more products than it can consume domestically and then dumping the surplus in foreign markets, undercutting the global competitiveness of U.S. firms and distorting prices. But joint action between the United States and its partners to combat Chinese overcapacity is currently ad hoc and informal. Economic security agreements could create concrete, more ambitious frameworks for this, including for consultations between partners and joint defensive actions—similar to how Canada, the United States, and the European Union imposed tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles last year in response to China’s rapidly expanding market share in this sector. More ambitiously, members could exempt one another from tariffs or other actions specifically designed to counter Chinese overcapacity.

Like-minded governments should deploy all their economic tools in tandem.

Economic security agreements should also formalize greater alignment on the defensive toolkit of sanctions, export controls, inbound investment screening, and outbound investment restrictions. Many U.S. partners have inadequate authorities or resources to implement these policies effectively. For example, many countries implement only the limited export controls agreed to by multilateral coordination bodies, which often move slowly and struggle to reach a consensus. Signatories to an economic security agreement should commit to creating and maintaining national authorities that can impose controls on a unilateral or plurilateral basis in coordination with the United States, as well as investing in the bureaucratic capabilities to implement them.

As a corollary, members of economic security agreements should pledge to minimize national security-based trade and investment restrictions on their partners. Doing so can enhance joint technological innovation and bolster shared defense-industrial bases. The United States, for its part, has already relaxed certain export controls on Australia and the United Kingdom as part of AUKUS, the countries’ trilateral security agreement. Furthermore, U.S. investment security policies include limited provisions to exempt close security partners from certain review requirements. Although these moves are positive, they have been implemented only narrowly, hampering their utility and irritating U.S. partners in the process.

Economic security agreements could be either built on top of existing free-trade agreements or negotiated as standalone frameworks. For instance, the anticipated renegotiation of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement is a near-term opportunity to experiment with incorporating economic security principles into a comprehensive trade agreement. Take, for example, the auto sector, which is highly integrated across the North American market. The United States will want to prioritize preventing Chinese-owned automakers from opening factories in Mexico to benefit from the USMCA’s preferential tariffs. Regional auto trade will also be affected by new government policies intended to address national security risks. The United States recently placed restrictions on the use of Chinese hardware and software components in vehicles sold in the U.S. market. (Canada is considering implementing its own restrictions, as well.) To ensure the security and integrity of the North American auto market, the three USMCA partners should discuss these policy tools as part of a more holistic negotiation.

Beyond the USMCA, the United States should focus on Australia, Japan, and the United Kingdom as prime candidates for economic security agreement talks. The U.S.-Australia relationship is ripe for such an agreement: the countries have a trade agreement that needs updating; they already cooperate on defense technology and export controls through AUKUS; and they are both experienced in countering Chinese economic coercion. Japan, a leader in Asia, has advanced technology sectors and wants to enshrine broader protections for trade in digital goods and services. The United Kingdom, already a close security partner, completed several rounds of trade negotiations with the first Trump administration and has strong incentives to strike more deals as it continues to recover from the economic effects of Brexit.

As the Trump administration wields the tariff hammer, both U.S. companies and trade negotiators in capitals around the world are bracing for confrontation. But Trump’s transactional approach to international economics also sets the stage for potential dealmaking. Trump’s attraction to disruption could lead to a shakeup of the moribund international economic order and put in place the conditions for a much-needed transformation. But this past weekend’s tariffs, which amount to coercion of close U.S. security allies, make this task harder by causing trading partners to question the durability of any new U.S. commitments. Should the Trump administration continue with haphazard threats to close partners, these countries may even come to see their integration with and dependence on the U.S. market not as an asset but as a geopolitical vulnerability, a development that would delight Beijing. The challenge will be to focus on the right target—China—and to use economic security agreements to chart a durable path forward for the future of the global economic order.

Foreign Affairs · by More by Geoffrey Gertz · February 6, 2025

20. What DeepSeek just pulled off — and why space tech should worry

What DeepSeek just pulled off — and why space tech should worry

spacenews.com · by Ana Laura Villicaña · February 5, 2025

On Jan. 27, Wall Street was shaken by a trillion-dollar market drop after the Chinese AI company DeepSeek surpassed ChatGPT in popularity, becoming the number one downloaded app on Apple’s iPhone store. What truly rattled the industry was DeepSeek’s claim that it built its latest AI model using a mere $6 million — a fraction of the cost American tech giants spend on AI development.

DeepSeek’s disruptive market entrance comes just weeks after the Biden administration issued a particularly onerous export rule that aimed to regulate the global diffusion of advanced AI chips and models. This rule categorizes countries into three different tiers, classifying 150 countries into a middle tier to which exports of advanced computing chips will be subject to several restraints. Critics have pointed out that this will only lower global demand for United States-designed computing chips and encourage “middle-tier” countries to develop non-U.S. computing ecosystems, weakening U.S. leadership in advanced computing and AI specifically. It’s worth noting that DeepSeek engineers had to work around U.S. chip export restrictions by innovating on outdated Nvidia chips—ironically achieving a breakthrough despite, or perhaps because of, these limitations.

Rather than restricting access to cutting-edge technology and thus, halting the exchange of know-how and ideas, the U.S. should consider a more flexible approach through adaptive regulations and regulatory sandboxes to fuel innovation. These frameworks lower entry barriers for startups and small businesses by reducing compliance costs and encouraging risk-taking and investment. Expanding international cooperation would also allow U.S. businesses to compete seamlessly across borders, reinforcing the country’s leadership in key industries. Overregulation does the opposite: it halts competition and drives innovation elsewhere. DeepSeek’s AI breakthrough may be a cautionary tale of how restrictive laws can backfire.

This regulatory dilemma is not unique to AI; the space industry has long struggled with similar challenges under restrictive export control regimes. The same logic that applies to AI — where excessive restrictions risk backfiring — applies to space technologies, where rigid regulations like the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) have made it difficult for American companies to collaborate internationally or maintain a leading role in the commercial space race. The DeepSeek case serves as a timely warning: if the U.S. continues to impose overly restrictive policies on space technology, it risks ceding ground to foreign space competitors just as in AI.

A clear example of this can be seen in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging satellites. SAR technology, which enables high-resolution imaging through cloud cover or darkness, is subject to strict ITAR controls in the U.S., severely limiting its export and international collaboration. However, foreign competitors, such as Finland’s ICEYE, have successfully commercialized SAR satellites without similar restrictions. As a result, while U.S. companies face regulatory barriers that slow innovation and market expansion, foreign companies like ICEYE are gaining a competitive edge in the global space industry. Although export regulations such as ITAR are key to protecting national defense technologies, it’s also fair to say that the complex regulatory framework makes it difficult for the U.S. to maintain its leadership in the commercial space industry.

The DeepSeek case must serve as a wake-up call for the tech and space industry to rethink the increasingly insular approach the U.S. export control regime has adopted. By restricting access to global markets, the U.S. is not only limiting its own companies but also missing out on the exchange of knowledge and expertise that fuels innovation. While safeguarding national security is essential, over-regulation can hinder competitiveness and drive technological progress abroad.

To maintain its leadership in AI and space technology, the U.S. must aim for a better balance between security and innovation. Rather than relying on blanket restrictions, policymakers should adopt flexible regulations that foster strategic partnerships and international collaboration. Otherwise, the DeepSeek lesson may repeat itself in the space industry, with the next major space breakthrough happening far beyond U.S. borders.

Ana Laura Villicaña is an LL.M. candidate in Technology Law and Policy at Georgetown University, a Legal Extern at Aegis Space Law, and a Student Board member at the Association of Commercial Space Professionals. She has also written on regulatory barriers affecting the commercial nuclear space industry.

SpaceNews is committed to publishing our community’s diverse perspectives. Whether you’re an academic, executive, engineer or even just a concerned citizen of the cosmos, send your arguments and viewpoints to opinion@spacenews.com to be considered for publication online or in our next magazine. The perspectives shared in these op-eds are solely those of the authors.

spacenews.com · by Ana Laura Villicaña · February 5, 2025

21. Lessons from the Frontlines: Ukrainian SEAD Operations and Their Implications for Western Special Operations Forces

A "wealth of wisdom." I like that phrase and may borrow it.

Conclusion:

Ukrainian SEAD operations during the Russian-Ukraine War have demonstrated a wealth of wisdom. In future conflicts against advanced adversary air defenses, U.S. and NATO special operations forces are again being called to serve as key components within the joint targeting cycle. By embracing lessons from Ukraine, including the value of stand-in capabilities, targeting critical nodes, and embracing rapid technological adaptability, Western SOF can better prepare for the future of modern conflict.

Lessons from the Frontlines: Ukrainian SEAD Operations and Their Implications for Western Special Operations Forces

https://irregularwarfare.org/articles/ukrainian-sead-operations-lessons-for-western-sof/

February 6, 2025 by Daniel Sullivan, Riley Murray, Rylan Neely Leave a Comment

Set to the backdrop of rock music, a video originating from the 14th Ukrainian Special Operations Regiment cuts sharply between shots of Russian military vehicles. At the 25-second mark, precision strikes—likely from rocket artillery—light up the screen, followed by secondary explosions, burning wreckage, and wounded personnel. The destroyed targets include a jammer and multiple surface-to-air missile system radars. Despite the target operating 50 kilometers (31 miles) behind the front line, Ukrainian unmanned aerial systems (UAS) were able to locate and identify the highly capable Russian air defense equipment and spot for the precision strikes that eliminated these systems.

Flaming Buk-M2 (NATO Designated SA-17) Transporter Erector Launcher and Radar (TELAR).

Source: 14th Separate Regiment (UKR), 18 December 2023, via X/Twitter

Drawing on the notable successes of Ukrainian special operations forces (SOF) in degrading Russian integrated air defense systems (IADS) (as shown in the video referenced above), this article explores how their innovative suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) tactics offer vital lessons for U.S. and NATO SOF in countering advanced air defenses. It also analyzes why SEAD will be a critical mission set for Western SOF in future conflicts. Leveraging exemplary open sources on the Ukraine conflict, we then tap our novel dataset of SEAD strikes to highlight relevant experiences and derive lessons from recent operations. Although anecdotal and drawn from an admittedly biased sample of publicly available information, which tends to favor successful strikes over failures, the dataset provides useful insights into a complex mission set.

Why the Focus on SEAD?

SEAD encompasses any activity that “neutralizes, destroys, or temporarily degrades enemy surface-based air defenses by destructive and/or disruptive means.” It is achieved by a myriad of tactics, including striking stationary and mobile air defense sites, jamming search and fire control radars, and disrupting communications links that direct surface-to-air missile systems and air defense artillery. SEAD is critical for successful military operations because opening defended airspace enables offensive air strikes, air transport, and aerial surveillance and reconnaissance.

As air defense technology advances and surface-to-air missile systems achieve longer effective ranges, many assets supporting SEAD operations will be forced to operate farther away from their targets. Non-traditional capabilities presented by SOF offer the chance to get closer to targets in unanticipated ways and overtax adversary air defenders with tactical dilemmas. By disrupting adversary air defenses, SOF can remove or degrade impediments to friendly operations, thereby contributing to tactical, operational, and strategic impacts.

U.S. and NATO SEAD doctrine focuses on creating narrow windows of opportunity for friendly aircraft to successfully fly through enemy defended airspace. Ukrainian forces face different circumstances, however, than the tactical scenarios U.S. and NATO military planners normally consider. Neither Russia nor Ukraine has achieved air superiority, preventing both sides from operating manned aircraft over opposing territory. In addition, the Ukrainians must operate their aircraft at extremely low altitudes to remain beneath the radar horizon of Russian long-range surface-to-air missiles. These obstacles to offensive aerial capabilities make it extremely difficult for Ukrainian aviation to exploit windows of opportunity within Russia-controlled territory.

Despite these challenges, Ukraine has occasionally succeeded in degrading Russian IADS enough to enable tactical operations. Of particular importance to overall operations, reducing the capability of Russian air defenses has increased the survivability of UAS, which provide critical reconnaissance and spotting for artillery fires, strikes from other UAS, and long-range precision munitions. Ukrainian sources have continuously reiterated the importance of the freedom of UAS maneuver and the value of targeting jamming systems, expanding the SEAD target set previously demonstrated in U.S. operations against Iraq and Libya. With better local conditions, precision munitions survive adversary aerial defenses more often, leading to strikes that have significantly degraded Russian offensive operations.

Ukrainian SEAD Operations Throughout the War

In the early days of the invasion, clumsy Russian offensive moves led to some spectacular successes against Russian air defenses. For instance, armed UAS caught stalled convoys of Russian surface-to-air missiles, demonstrating the vulnerability of air defense equipment in a dynamic battlefield. Additionally, the Ukrainian Air Force was able to successfully employ high speed anti-radiation missiles against Russian air defense radars. While Russian air defense operators adapted to this new threat by limiting their radar emissions, Ukrainian forces were still able to take advantage of the temporary suppression to launch other strikes.

As frontlines became more stable in 2022, UAS-provided intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) demonstrated significant value for Ukrainian SEAD operations by locating Russian tactical air defenses. These “fixes” were especially effective when paired with Western-provided precision-guided munitions or one-way attack UAS. Ukrainian troops, including SOF, demonstrated the ability to rapidly find and target air defense systems, driving down the time between detections and engagements from hours to minutes. As the effective range and quantity of both Ukrainian precision fires and reconnaissance expanded, Ukrainian forces have been able to target additional operationally-significant air defense systems, such as long-range surface-to-air missile systems and air surveillance radars.

Destroyed 1L119 “NEBO-SVU” Air Surveillance Radar

Source: WarSpotting, 22 August 2024, via X/Twitter

Beyond SEAD and enhancing offensive freedom of action for friendly forces, these efforts also carry significant strategic implications. The depth and capability of Russian air defenses forced the Ukrainian military to pursue an attritional campaign against Russian IADS, gradually improving the operating environment and degrading limited Russian resources. Pitting inexpensive UAS against costly IADS, Russia has hemorrhaged expensive and scarce resources and been forced to move assets from other parts of the country. Even with reinforcements, Russia has not been able to stop Ukrainian strikes on tactical targets and strategic targets alike; examples include ammunition depots, airfields, and oil refineries within Russia itself.

Ukrainian SOF targeting a Russian Borisoglebsk-2 Electronic Warfare system with a OWA UAS.

Source: DefenseU, 10 April 2024, via X/Twitter

Ukrainian SOF’s Role in SEAD:

Ukrainian SOF, including military special operations units and elite paramilitary formations under intelligence agencies, have played critical roles in many SEAD operations. These special operations forces frequently operate in the same battlespace as conventional military units, but with superior ISR and attack UAS capabilities. Ukrainian SOF units benefit from additional resources and support, especially uniquely qualified personnel like pre-war UAS hobbyists and engineers. These personnel are especially critical in the cat-and-mouse game of UAS countermeasures and counter-countermeasures to quickly adapt to improvements in Russian defenses. This adds value to local operations, including against air defense targets.

While many of these intelligence and fires capabilities are not specific to SOF, Ukrainian special operations units are able to leverage their organizational flexibility, human capital, and superior resourcing to generate significant battlefield effects against high value targets. Several Ukrainian SOF units with specialized UAS capabilities, such as the 14th Ukrainian SOF Regiment and the Alfa unit, have contributed to a significant number of the published SEAD strikes. In fact, these two units alone account for over 12% of successful strikes on our tracker of open-source videos. Similar to classical special operations raids, short duration targeting operations and strikes improve local operating conditions in the short-term and continue to wear down the Russian IADS in the long-term.

Still from a video released by the 14th Regiment of night capable UAS spotting for a GMLRS strike against Russian SAMs

Source: Rob Lee, 2 January 2024, via X/Twitter

Lessons Learned for U.S. and NATO SOF:

Should war come to Europe again, the ability to degrade Russian IADS will be critical to future U.S. and NATO defensive operations. Ukrainian forces have demonstrated many lessons for SEAD, giving Western SOF the opportunity to take valuable insights. In large scale combat operations against advanced air defense systems, additive effects to locate, overwhelm, and degrade IADS by multiple contributors are critical to counter the scale and complexity of the problem. Ukrainian SOF have successfully demonstrated the ability to contribute to overall SEAD operations by assisting at critical junctures in the targeting process and leveling up local capabilities. They more effectively destroy and damage air defense systems, complicate survivability for Russian air defenders, and force Russian IADS to defend against a wider array of high and low technology threats. The potential contributions of SOF to SEAD do not represent a “golden bullet” to solve the problems presented by IADS, but when combined with other efforts against an already strained target system, SOF’s contributions can provide previously absent or limited advantages. Even minor improvements over time against adversary air defenses open opportunities for other components of the joint force. Altogether, this can set the conditions for strategic impacts through air superiority and targeted strikes.

Precision Targeting

The Ukrainian experience in SEAD operations reiterates the value of well-developed target system analysis and operational employment. Pursuing tactical targets with strategic impacts has long been a tenet of Western SOF ethos. Success in targeting adversary IADS will depend on identifying critical capabilities and vulnerabilities. Ukrainian forces have deliberately pursued the key components of critical early warning systems such as the target engagement radars of Russian surface-to-air missile units and air surveillance radars. Building on the Ukrainians’ example, western SOF should leverage the core principles honed through their long-standing campaigns against terrorist networks to support joint operations against IADS. By doing so, they can complement existing target systems analysis efforts with their distinct capabilities and perspectives. The integrated air defense system consists of platforms, people, organizations, and other subsystems ripe for disruption through SOF targeting efforts.

SEAD Raiding during Campaigns of Attrition

U.S. SEAD approaches emphasize massing capabilities for brief, localized suppression of enemy air defenses. Yet Ukrainian SEAD operations have demonstrated the effectiveness of using the same capabilities for attritional SEAD, intensifying dilemmas by degrading limited and critical components of the Russian IADS. While there is value in providing carefully synchronized effects at critical points in a tactical operation, “SEAD raiding” should not be discounted. Similar to British Special Air Service raids targeting parked German aircraft in North Africa during World War II, SEAD raiding entails strikes directed against high value targets to impact the overall IADS over the long term, rather than merely impacting it for the duration of an air operation. This approach would allow SOF to hinder air defenses through strikes against ‘hard to replace or repair’ components. Supporting aerial strike packages often requires a level of placement, communication, and timing that presents serious challenges for forward deployed SOF teams in a conventional conflict. SEAD raiding presents an additional line of effort to conduct continual shaping operations in support of short duration airpower pulses (a mainstay of the U.S. Air Force’s future operating concept). SOF operating in highly contested environments, cut off from persistent communication, should leverage delegated authorities to deny, degrade, deceive, or destroy valuable portions of an adversary IADS to set more favorable conditions for tactical and operational success of the broader joint force in the future.

Stand-In Capabilities

SOF can utilize their unique placement and access to offer stand-in (operating within the range of adversary air defenses) capabilities. The intended effects can be direct (the destruction of critical systems or successful decoys) or indirect—adversary air defense systems changing behavior to account for the threat from SOF. The latter might include storing equipment in hide sites and frequent movements to avoid detection, which makes key systems more survivable but also decreases radar coverage, leaving gaps in the overall defensive posture.

To directly affect Russian IADS once found, Ukrainian SOF have demonstrated a range of kinetic capabilities to engage air defense systems including drone-dropped munitions, first-person-view drones, loitering munitions, and bomber UAS. The ability to engage high-value air defense systems from a distance with precision munitions can open the lane for larger strike packages. In addition, although visible kinetic strikes dominate publicly available footage, non-kinetic options like stand-in jammers could take advantage of their closer range to more effectively jam radars. Moreover, short range decoys can complement long range decoy options to saturate adversary tracking capabilities and draw air defense fires away from other friendly efforts.

SOF can also generate positive effects by providing richer information as part of their core special reconnaissance task. In addition to finding and tracking enemy air defense systems, stand-in SOF can provide “eyes-on” bomb hit assessment and battle damage assessment—both of which are critical to synchronizing dynamic warfighting. With lower visibility capabilities that can complement other forms of intelligence collection, SOF can fill gaps at vital times and places, like coverage under cloud decks. In addition, SOF can leverage proxies and surrogates to perform close-in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance in denied areas and at greater scale. SOF can expedite kill chains, report battlefield assessments, and report atmospheric conditions of the battlespace to best advise the joint force of pacing and timing of effects across all domains.

A Ukrainian UAS spots for an ATACMS strike against an S-400 (NATO Designated SA-21) located approximately 30 miles behind Russian lines in May 2024, maintaining target custody and providing BDA

Source: Yaroslav Trofimov, 24 May 2024, via X/Twitter

UAS Integration

The criticality of UAS to Ukrainian special operations portends the requirements for U.S. SOF to assimilate and master UAS. Ukrainian forces have been keen on leveraging personnel with technical experience from civilian life, and military personnel have continued to master the technical aspects of UAS operations. Western SOF should similarly interface with broad civilian knowledge and prowess to workshop effective organic capabilities within units. Especially given the rapid pace of innovation in unmanned systems operations, U.S. and NATO SOF must embrace this technical adaptability in addition to more traditional SOF skillsets.

Conclusion

Ukrainian SEAD operations during the Russian-Ukraine War have demonstrated a wealth of wisdom. In future conflicts against advanced adversary air defenses, U.S. and NATO special operations forces are again being called to serve as key components within the joint targeting cycle. By embracing lessons from Ukraine, including the value of stand-in capabilities, targeting critical nodes, and embracing rapid technological adaptability, Western SOF can better prepare for the future of modern conflict.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the United States Air Force Academy, Department of the Air Force, Department of Defense, or of any organization with which the authors are affiliated.

Daniel “Droid” Sullivan is a US Air Force lieutenant colonel and combat systems officer. He is an airpower strategist at Headquarters United States Air Force.

Riley Murray is a US Air Force captain currently serving as an instructor in the Military and Strategic Studies Department at the United States Air Force Academy and an advisor to the Irregular Warfare Initiative’s Project Air & Space Power.

Rylan “NY” Neely is a US Air Force Senior Master Sergeant and Combat Controller. Rylan is the Senior Enlisted Leader for Advanced Programs and Special Operations integration for U.S. Air Forces in Europe – Air Forces Africa

Image: Ukrainian Special Forces Soldiers prepare for a mission with the 12th Combat Aviation Brigade and U.S. Army’s 10th Special Forces Group during Exercise Combined Resolve 16 in Hohenfels, Germany, December 8, 2021. The exercise is designed to evaluate and assess the readiness of the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division but also created opportunities for Special Operations Forces from Ukraine and The U.S. along with the Lithuanian KASP (National Volunteer Defence Forces) to hone unconventional warfare skills. (U.S. Army Photo by Sgt. Patrik Orcutt.)

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22. It’s Time to Ditch Huntington

Excerpts:

Military leaders need to ditch the Samuel Huntington ideal and instead realize that they are an integral part of the political process. This is not a clarion call to ditch the idea of civilian control; no, that is a republican tradition that goes back (in the United States case) to George Washington and even further in global history. Washington is an excellent case study insofar as he was immersed in politics yet did not interfere and certainly did not place his or the military’s needs above that of the nascent independence movement. And still, the Continental Congress influenced many of his strategic decisions. Throughout the war, he had to consistently reinforce his subordination to civilian control while staving off mutineers frustrated with an ineffectual Congress. All while understanding that the war was political. The most important events of the war were, in fact, political—not tactical. Thanks to Huntington, officers today expect clear guidance so they can go ahead and execute their mission—this is antithetical to the political process, where officers must be prepared to discuss and debate with civilian leaders while providing their best military advice.

To be fair, the challenge of balancing military professionalism with civilian control affects all branches of the armed forces. I focus specifically on the U.S. Army based on my extensive firsthand experience through years of active service and later academic study of the institution. What’s particularly noteworthy is how uniformly the entire Department of Defense has embraced Huntington’s principles. This consensus stands in stark contrast to the frequent inter-service disputes over defense budget allocations, missile procurement, and the like.

The United States has failed to win protracted conflicts since 1945 due to its cultural inability to cross spheres of influence with civilian partners. This is thanks, in large part, to an institutional focus on Huntingtonian objective control. In focusing on the military sphere of influence, the Army has managed to maintain professionalism while placing the responsibility for losing wars at the feet of politicians. Army officers must understand the fluid nature of politics and war and understand themselves as political actors—which is not the same as being partisan. If the Army is to succeed in its next war, it’s time to ditch Huntington.

It’s Time to Ditch Huntington

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/02/06/its-time-to-ditch-huntington/

by Robert Williams

02.06.2025 at 06:00am

Samuel Huntington’s 1957 classic The Soldier and the State has guided military thought on civil-military relations for over half a century. Controversial in its time, his ideas continue to shape officers today. Is it any wonder that the US military has been unsuccessful in long-term counterinsurgencies since? All war is political; at its most straightforward, wars are organized violence to serve political ends. Like Anton-Henri Jomini wrote before him, Samuel Huntington tried to separate military operations from their political nature.

To poorly distill Huntington’s main ideas into a few sentences, he argued that “objective control” is the ideal state of civil-military relations. Huntington’s objective control is akin to a deal with the devil. It fosters an attitude that if politicians give the military autonomy, the military will leave the politicians alone. As Samuel J. Watson wrote, “No coup, no problem.” While that’s an overly simplistic distillation of the Huntingtonian ideal, it is a good summation of how officers tend to view civil-military relations.

Huntington’s antithesis, “subjective control,” involves politicians who are deeply involved in military affairs. Objective control requires a professional officer corps that can be given autonomy within a clearly defined military sphere. Army officers take his ideas to heart and believe that military officers should be given complete independence once the shooting happens. That there exists a separation between politics and war. Once unleashed, they should be given free rein to do as they must to achieve victory.

Nothing about the profession of arms could be more incorrect. If officers digested Clausewitz as much as they quote his most famous zinger – war is a continuation of politics by other means – then they would understand there is no separation. There exists no clearly defined military sphere. The political dimension has been much more critical than tactical operations in the ambiguous “low-intensity” counterinsurgency-type conflicts of the past twenty years. Risa Brooks has eloquently written, Huntington’s apolitical prescription encourages an officer corps that believes “engagement in debate about political considerations and political thinking in war are antithetical to the roles and responsibilities of a military professional.” Therein lies the problem, as war is politics, and to wage it well and win requires political considerations and thinking.

Congress has abdicated its constitutional role by giving such autonomy to define its mission and problem set to an organization that eschews all things political. As Huntington prescribes, autonomy creates a feedback loop where the military defines which missions it will perform, develops expertise, and creates solutions to the problems it defines within those missions. In demonstrating their hard-won expertise through self-created training and testing scenarios, the military then reinforces the idea that they had identified the correct solutions to the problem. Their preferred problem. Not the reality of the global environment.

This is where the US Army, my focus in this article, often “shirks” its duties. The Army chose its potential mission-set and had a very professional force well-prepared for that one mission type. The US Army excludes other mission sets by focusing on large-scale ground combat because multitasking takes away valuable resources from its fighting large-scale combat operations. Any other duties would distract from fighting and winning the nation’s wars. This deliberate decision is expected, as the service will ultimately focus on espoused institutional priorities, in this case, “sustained land combat to defeat enemy ground forces and seize, occupy, and defend land areas.” There is a long history of the Army preparing for the wars it wants to fight rather than the wars it is likely to fight.

The United States has failed to win protracted conflicts since 1945 due to its cultural inability to cross spheres of influence with civilian partners. This is thanks, in large part, to an institutional focus on Huntingtonian objective control.

The eschewing of all other duties besides “sustained land combat” was highly evident in the post-Vietnam era. General James McConville addressed this in his preface to the 2022 Field Manual 3-0, where he recognized the 1973 Arab-Israeli War as instrumental in refocusing the army away from messy counterinsurgency as in Vietnam, and on to large-scale operations then known as AirLand Battle and its subsequent success in Operation Desert Storm.

Yet the Army was ill-prepared for the insurgency that developed after the post-9/11 invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. It could occupy the terrain but was ill-prepared to do anything about it. It was not prepared for the complex counterinsurgency and nation-building tasks—diplomacy backed by the threat of force—that it found itself performing in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is true even though those two conflicts are what the US military has done most throughout its history.

In addition, the decades of Huntington have made politics such an undesirable topic and made being apolitical so idealized that anything involving the word politics is revolting to Army officers and has precluded the US from success in conflicts since. Huntingtonian separate spheres of influence preclude army officers from properly welding tactical gains with political ends because officers cannot fathom anything political. Rather than consider the difficult work of counterinsurgency, officers prefer to remain in their comfortable bubble of killing people and breaking things. This presents a danger of over-militarizing foreign policy when the military is relied upon to lead the way in strategy.

In the modern sense, this includes the US Army defining large-scale ground combat as its priority while failing to account for twenty years of failure in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rather than rectify that and deal with why the service failed to achieve national political goals, military leaders are much more comfortable washing their hands and moving on to the next—desired—threat. This decision is the direct result of the autonomy given by the Huntingtonian ideal, which has led to not only cherry-picking its mission but also a lack of accountability to Congress and, by proxy, the people.

Military leaders need to ditch the Samuel Huntington ideal and instead realize that they are an integral part of the political process. This is not a clarion call to ditch the idea of civilian control; no, that is a republican tradition that goes back (in the United States case) to George Washington and even further in global history. Washington is an excellent case study insofar as he was immersed in politics yet did not interfere and certainly did not place his or the military’s needs above that of the nascent independence movement. And still, the Continental Congress influenced many of his strategic decisions. Throughout the war, he had to consistently reinforce his subordination to civilian control while staving off mutineers frustrated with an ineffectual Congress. All while understanding that the war was political. The most important events of the war were, in fact, political—not tactical. Thanks to Huntington, officers today expect clear guidance so they can go ahead and execute their mission—this is antithetical to the political process, where officers must be prepared to discuss and debate with civilian leaders while providing their best military advice.

To be fair, the challenge of balancing military professionalism with civilian control affects all branches of the armed forces. I focus specifically on the U.S. Army based on my extensive firsthand experience through years of active service and later academic study of the institution. What’s particularly noteworthy is how uniformly the entire Department of Defense has embraced Huntington’s principles. This consensus stands in stark contrast to the frequent inter-service disputes over defense budget allocations, missile procurement, and the like.

The United States has failed to win protracted conflicts since 1945 due to its cultural inability to cross spheres of influence with civilian partners. This is thanks, in large part, to an institutional focus on Huntingtonian objective control. In focusing on the military sphere of influence, the Army has managed to maintain professionalism while placing the responsibility for losing wars at the feet of politicians. Army officers must understand the fluid nature of politics and war and understand themselves as political actors—which is not the same as being partisan. If the Army is to succeed in its next war, it’s time to ditch Huntington.

Disclaimer: The views presented in this article reflect the authors and do not reflect those of Army University Press, the Combined Arms Center, or the United States Army.

Tags: military culture, military thinking, military thought

About The Author

Robert Williams
Robert F. Williams is a historian with Army University Press at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He earned his Ph.D. in military history at Ohio State University in 2023. His book, The Airborne Mafia: The Paratroopers who Shaped America’s Cold War Army comes out from Cornell University Press in March 2025. His scholarship has appeared in the Journal of Military History, Military Review, On Point: The Journal of Army History, Modern War Institute, War on the Rocks, ARMY Magazine, VFW Magazine and various OpEds in newspapers and online outlets. Before becoming a historian, Before that, he served as an airborne infantryman with three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. His views are his alone and do not reflect those of Army University Press, the Combined Arms Center, or the United States Army.

23. USAID Should Be Retooled, Not Destroyed

I concur. And I think it will be. This is like an extreme makeover on reality TV. And USAID (or a new organization) could be better for it in the long run.

Re-examine Kennedy's vision and again take a holistic approach to the strategic problems we face by adapting our national security tools appropriately.:

the vision of President John F. Kennedy when he created the US Agency for International Development and the Peace Corps, authorized the Green Beret for US Army Special Forces, and established the US Navy SEALs. He significantly expanded the scope and capabilities of the US Information Agency that President Eisenhower established. He sought to develop national security tools and concepts that would allow the US to proactively and offensively compete below the threshold of large-scale combat operations. Sadly, he could not fully implement his vision, and his successors never fully embraced his concepts because they did not have his strategic foresight. However, Kennedy might be described as the father of the idea of harnessing the power of 3D – diplomacy, development, and defense.

https://www.19fortyfive.com/2025/01/seizing-the-initiative-in-the-gray-zone-the-case-for-a-us-office-of-strategic-disruption/

USAID Should Be Retooled, Not Destroyed - Providence

providencemag.com · by James Diddams · February 5, 2025

Two weeks into President Donald Trump’s second term, it is clear that his administration planned an early shakedown of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The speed with which the White House and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) froze foreign assistance accounts, shuttered USAID’s Washington, DC office, and recalled USAID employees from around the world signals Trump’s desire to fundamentally revamp Washington’s approach to foreign aid.

On February 3rd, the White House published a list of “waste and abuse” at USAID: $2 million for “sex changes and ‘LGBT activism’” in Guatemala, $70,000 for a “DEI musical” in Ireland, $47,000 for a “transgender opera” in Columbia, and $32,000 for a “transgender comic book” in Peru, among others. In the grand scheme of the U.S. federal budget, these figures are small. For many countries around the world, however, the Biden administration’s activist left-wing agenda that pervaded U.S. foreign assistance was not received favorably. In a private meeting last year, public and private sector representatives from various Central Asian states shared quite bluntly that Washington’s woke proselytizing made working with America harder, not easier.

Strategically, Trump is right to retool Washington’s approach to foreign assistance. Tactically, however, DOGE’s sledgehammer approach to USAID is imperiling the good programs that advance U.S. national interests — specifically those targeting the malign influence of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Trump has good reason to protect and strengthen these initiatives: they originated in large part during his first term in office.

Over the past eight years, USAID has quietly undertaken an impressive counter-CCP agenda. Foremost among these was the Clean Network, Trump’s efforts to help interested nations rip out CCP-controlled telecommunications equipment from companies like Huawei, and replace it with trusted hardware. Then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo launched it from the State Department in 2020, but USAID was responsible for significant financing. This program serves America’s national security interests at the most basic level: Huawei hardware and software affords various espionage options to the CCP and could materially impact the U.S. military’s operations around the world.

Consider USAID’s Infrastructure Transaction Advisory Services. One would never know it by the name, but its purpose is to finance U.S. companies competing against PRC state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects. The Trump administration stood up the initiative in 2019. Since then, USAID has zeroed-in on key regions that Beijing is targeting for economic exploitation: the Pacific Islands, Southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America. Foremost among these projects is USAID’s support for constructing an undersea cable for Palau, a COFA partner of the United States and a victim of CCP harassment.

For all its faults, the Biden administration built on Trump’s approach. In 2024 USAID provided $1.3 million to help the Dominican Republic rehabilitate the Port of Manzanillo. This was not accidental. According to a conversation with Francisco Bencosme, former China Policy Lead and Senior Policy Advisor at USAID, several Chinese companies were bidding on this same project before USAID stepped in. Bencosme also referenced the Agency’s work to support local newspapers in Global South nations to lessen their dependence on CCP-controlled outlets like Xinhua. USAID also prioritized economic support for Taiwan’s diplomatic partners to blunt Beijing’s efforts to isolate Taipei.

But USAID’s support for Taiwan isn’t limited to economic assistance for Taipei’s allies. The Agency helps Taiwan with its civilian emergency response, from search and rescue training and improving disaster management systems to optimizing Taiwan’s interagency crisis response. This work is not publicized, but it is crucial for building Taiwan’s resiliency in the face of Beijing’s belligerence.

As Trump works to align U.S. foreign aid with America’s national interests, his administration can save time and effort by protecting and preserving what’s already working. During his first administration, Trump had the clarity to recognize that it’s good for America to degrade the CCP’s advantages in telecommunications, infrastructure, and public diplomacy. What some in Trump’s administration may not appreciate is the moral authority the United States garners from these initiatives. Leveraging American money to protect vulnerable nations from Beijing’s predations builds trust and bolsters Washington’s leadership abroad. It would be a severe moral failure if, in its efforts to “de-wokify” U.S. foreign policy, DOGE were to nix the very programs keeping Americans safe.

Michael Sobolik is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute where he specializes in United States–China relations and great power competition with a focus on geopolitics, net assessments, and competitive strategies. He is also the author of Countering China’s Great Game: A Strategy for American Dominance (Naval Institute Press, 2024), as well as a contributing editor of Providence: A Journal of Christianity and American Foreign Policy. Mr. Sobolik was previously a senior fellow in Indo-Pacific studies at the American Foreign Policy Council, as well as a legislative assistant to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) in the United States Senate.

Providence is the only publication devoted to Christian Realism in American foreign policy and is entirely funded by donor contributions. There are no advertisements, sponsorships, or paid posts to support the work of Providence, just readers who generously partner with Providence to keep our magazine running. If you would care to make a donation it would be highly appreciated to help Providence in advancing the Christian realist perspective in 2024. Thank you!

providencemag.com · by James Diddams · February 5, 2025

24. Sen. Joni Ernst warns of ‘willful sabotage’ at USAID, cites millions in funding for Wuhan lab, terrorists and more

If the allegations are true this needs to be investigated and the wrongs righted. But the question that should be asked is why has it taken DOGE to expose these issues? What has congressional oversight been up to for the last few years?

I also hope they take the time to inventory the good that USAID has done for US national security as well.

But I think Congress has to answer for this as well.

Sen. Joni Ernst warns of ‘willful sabotage’ at USAID, cites millions in funding for Wuhan lab, terrorists and more

New York Post · by Ryan King · February 5, 2025

The embattled US Agency for International Development has engaged in “willful sabotage of congressional oversight” over recent years while doling out taxpayer dollars to groups that overbilled the US and possibly gave funds to terrorists, Sen. Joni Ernst alleged.

The Republican Hawkeye State senator and Senate DOGE Caucus chair, listed a slew of examples on social media this week on why “USAID is one of the worst offenders of waste in Washington.”

This includes $2 million in funding related to Moroccan pottery classes, some $2 million backing trips to Lebanon, over $1 million to fund research in the Wuhan lab, $20 million to make a Sesame Street in Iraq and $9 million in humanitarian aid that “ended up in the hands of violent terrorists.”

The White House has similarly outlined “waste and abuse” in USAID as the Trump administration eyes a dramatic overhaul of the agency and has explored folding it into the State Department.

The administration pointed to USAID spending $2 million to fund LBTQ activism and sex changes in Guatemala, $6 million for tourism in Egypt, $32,000 on a “transgender comic book” in Peru, $2.5 million backing electric vehicles in Vietnam, money that backed “personalized” contraceptives in developing countries and more.

Sen. Joni Ernst accused USAID of sabotaging congressional attempts at oversight. AP

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In a Wednesday letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Ernst (R-Iowa) cited her concerns about wasteful spending and recounted obstruction she faced from USAID.

In one example she highlighted, an inspector general discovered that Chemonics, a USAID contractor, overbilled the feds by “as much as $270 million through fiscal year 2019” and was caught “possibly offering kickbacks to terrorist groups.”

Chemonics had been heavily involved in a $9.5 billion USAID initiative to beef up global health supply chains, which ultimately ended in dozens of arrests and indictments over the resale of agency-funded products on the black market.

Democrats have engaged in protests seeking to restore USAID to its pre-Trump administration arrangement. AP

“Overbilling the United States taxpayer, while very serious, is not the most eyebrow-raising allegation Chemonics faces,” she added. “The firm is also alleged to have collaborated with a terrorist group and avowed enemy of the United States, bribing the Taliban while carrying out USAID- designated programs in Afghanistan.”

Last December, Chemonics agreed to pay $3.1 million in a settlement with the government over “fraudulent” billing.

But Ernst stressed that the Chemonics ordeal is part of a larger picture of USAID’s poor financial stewardship and slammed the agency for stonewalling oversight requests.

“Time and time again, the agency has been unwilling to provide accurate documents in response to my investigations into its frivolous expenditures,” Ernst groused to Rubio about USAID. “The agency has engaged in a demonstrated pattern of obstructionism.”

The Trump administration has moved to scale down USAID’s operations and fold it into the State Department. Getty Images

Ernst, who claims to have been threatened with legal action from USAID during her oversight efforts, alleged that the agency misled her staff at times.

Last September, she reached an agreement with USAID to parse through data on US funding to war-torn Ukraine. They insisted that her team look through the document in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, typically used for classified information.

But her staff quickly “discovered the documents were not classified.”

“In a desperate attempt to limit congressional oversight of public information, USAID demonstrated intentional abuse of a system designed to keep our nation’s secret information secure,” Ernst complained in her letter to Rubio.

She noted that her team also learned that over 5,000 Ukrainian businesses garnered taxpayer funds of up to $2 million each.

“Many of these initiatives … claim to enhance Ukraine’s wartime posture by increasing Ukrainian businesses’ sales in new markets,” she wrote. “Instead, the American people have funded extravagant trade missions and vacations for Ukrainian business owners to film festivals and fashion weeks across the glamorous [capitals] of Europe.”

Another example of her team being lied to by the USAID occurred three years ago when she reached out for data on the agency’s Negotiated Indirect Cost Rate Agreements (NICRAs) with grant recipients that permitted them to use funding on miscellaneous expenses.

“The agency responded to the request for information by claiming that, ‘USAID does not have a system to track or report on this data, as it is not possible to compare indirect costs between for-profit and nonprofit organizations at the rate level,'” Ernst recounted to Rubio.

In 2023, her staff flagged a publicly reported NICRA database, which USAID later acknowledged was really, but claimed it was “legally restricted from sharing an implementing partner’s proprietary information, including its NICRA.”

Elon Musk is spearheading the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on wasteful spending. Getty Images

USAID then later backpedaled and said that it is limited in its ability to share such information “outside the scope of a formal oversight request by a committee of jurisdiction.”

Eventually, the House Foreign Affairs Committee intervened and requested the NICRA data.

“In the wake of this series of significant misjudgments and oversight obstruction by USAID, it is of the utmost importance to conduct a full and independent analysis of the recipients of USAID assistance,” Ernst added.

“Americans deserve answers about how their tax dollars are being spent abroad.”

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) boss Elon Musk has taken aim at USAID in recent days, and Rubio announced this week that he has been named the agency’s acting director.

Rubio said he is delegating much of the day-to-day tasks of leading the USAID as the Trump administration continues to further explore its options. The secretary of state blasted USAID as “a completely unresponsive agency.”

The Post has reached out to USAID and Chemonics for comment.

New York Post · by Ryan King · February 5, 2025

25. The Collapse of USAID Is Already Fueling Human Trafficking and Slavery at Scammer Compounds

So many sides to these stories. What is misinformation? What is disinformation? What is acurrate reporting?

The Collapse of USAID Is Already Fueling Human Trafficking and Slavery at Scammer Compounds

Wired · by Matt Burgess · February 5, 2025

As Elon Musk’s DOGE team continues to rampage through United States federal agencies, Trump administration efforts to eliminate the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) seem to be furthest along. The impacts of the agency’s dismantling on humanitarian relief, public health, and human rights work, combined with the wider 90-day State Department pause on foreign aid payments, are already far-reaching and severe around the world. Sources tell WIRED that the situation is also impacting anti-human-trafficking work targeted at addressing forced labor compounds that fuel digital fraud like investment scams.

The funding cuts and pauses have immediately made it harder for people to safely escape scam compounds, according to half a dozen sources working to combat scams and trafficking. The cuts have also shrunk services that house and care for human trafficking victims and are limiting investigatory work into criminal groups. After just days of funding disruptions, sources say that the cuts have caused “chaos” for staff working to help survivors on a daily basis. Some organizations have already gone dark, and relief workers add that the withdrawal of services could embolden the criminal groups behind the fraud.

“It is a really, really bad situation,” says one person working in the anti-scam sector in Southeast Asia. The individual, as with several sources in this story, requested anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the work and ongoing changing situation. They say small grassroots organizations, which may have only a handful of staff each but help identify and work with trafficking victims, have been widely affected. “This pause will mean that organizations that essentially shifted their work from different forms of trafficking to looking at scamming compounds will cease to exist,” they say.

USAID and the US State Department did not immediately respond to questions from WIRED about the situation.

Got a tip?

Are you a current or former USAID or State Department employee or a worker familiar with anti-human-trafficking efforts? We’d like to hear from you. Using a nonwork phone or computer, contact Matt Burgess securely on Signal at mattburgess.20 and Lily Hay Newman at +1 (347) 722-1347.

Over the past five years, dozens of “scam compounds” have been constructed in Southeast Asia, particularly within Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia. Run by organized crime groups, which often have links to Chinese nationals, more than 200,000 people from 100-plus countries have been trafficked into the compounds—often under the pretense of getting a legitimate job. These people are often held captive, beaten and tortured, and forced to work long shifts running online scams targeting people around the world, including in the United States. While the compounds engage in a range of fraudulent activity, so-called pig butchering scams have been the predominant focus, with global losses estimated at $75 billion or more.

Law enforcement efforts in Southeast Asia to tackle scam compounds and the criminal organizations heavily profiting from them have sometimes made progress, but have also been widely criticized for corruption and failing to comprehensively deal with the problem. However, a patchwork of NGOs, charities, and anti-trafficking organizations have been attempting to fill the gaps, helping victims escape and get access to legal advice, health care, and other resources. A US State Department webpage details more than $272 million in funding provided to fight human trafficking around the world, with Southeast Asia programs that include investigative efforts, survivor protection, and more. And USAID directly funds humanitarian groups in the region.

Julia Macher, the CEO of Freedom Collaborative, a network that has been impacted by the freezes and works with grassroots groups fighting scam compounds, says the repercussions of the drastic changes at USAID have been “instantaneous.”

“Our partners say that for some survivors they are in touch with inside the scam centers, even if they can somehow manage to get out, they then have no place to put them. Then, the survivors have no money for a flight home and no place to go, so they get re-recruited into the centers, as they do not have any real alternative options,” Macher says. “Some survivors have injuries like broken bones from jumping out the window to escape, and now the organizations have no money to put them into the hospitals, and without medical care, the survivors could become paralyzed.”

Multiple sources tell WIRED that organizations that have relied on funding have had to stop or reduce work and lay off staffers. Macher, who has been running working groups with members of her network over the last week, says some survivors of scam compounds are being given assistance to return home; however, shelters that temporarily house them and provide care have been impacted. “Without a safe and dependable shelter to house them after their escape, some survivors opt to return to their exploitative work inside the scam centers despite knowing the risks,” Macher says.

“There are shelters in neighboring countries like Cambodia and Myanmar for people who’ve just been rescued, and there are helplines and so on that have now lost all of their funding overnight,” says Michael Brosowski, the founder of Blue Dragon, an impacted charity that has rescued more than 1,700 trafficking victims, including keeping people from being trafficked into brothels connected to online scamming.

Brosowski says Blue Dragon has been working to reduce the worst of the harm caused by the funding freezes. “We’ve been scrambling to work out what we can cut, how can we scale back, without losing the most direct work,” Brosowski says. For example, training programs for social workers who aid survivors of trafficking may have to be cut, Brosowski says.

Even if some funding does return—the State Department’s freeze is set to be in place for 90 days—organizations supporting victims may never be the same as staffers are forced to get other jobs or move away from the areas where they have been working locally with survivors. This loss of expertise will be extremely detrimental to the relief efforts, sources say.

“They’ve damaged relationships with local partners or authorities with whom they used to be working regularly to address these issues,” say two researchers at a global think tank who have had their work on policy recommendations on tackling scam compounds to the US government disrupted.

Aside from humanitarian efforts, the funding pauses are likely to allow, even temporarily, criminal organizations to further flourish. Some of the funding cuts impact programs designed to help identify potential criminals and assist local law enforcement efforts, according to one government affairs official at an international NGO with multiple US grants.

“Identifying criminal networks, identifying the bad actors, sending the information to the National Security Council. Everything that should be going on is stopped,” add the two global think tank researchers.

Ultimately, all of this means that trafficking victims will be trapped working in unimaginable conditions while more people in the US and around the world will be at risk of becoming victims in the ongoing fraud run from the compounds.

“These scam compounds, they scam people who are in the USA,” Brosowski, of Blue Dragon, says. “The US government might save hundreds of millions of dollars from cutting these sorts of programs, but the scammers are going to take billions.”

Wired · by Matt Burgess · February 5, 2025

26.

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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

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

Access NSS HERE

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About The Author

USAID Should Be Retooled, Not Destroyed - Providence

Sen. Joni Ernst warns of ‘willful sabotage’ at USAID, cites millions in funding for Wuhan lab, terrorists and more

Explore More

Transgender ‘recognition’ in Bangladesh, Kosovo, Guatemala — how one USAID employee shows what’s wrong with the embattled agency

Democrats’ path to recovery, end of the ‘diversity’ regime and other commentary

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The Collapse of USAID Is Already Fueling Human Trafficking and Slavery at Scammer Compounds