Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quote of the Day:

“Don't judge”

“Don’t put people in a box. You never know once you open the box for ’em what’s going to pop out. So give them a chance. Give them a chance to dream a little bit…I tell our coaches to this day, ‘You never know what a player is going to surprise you to be able to do.’ … Don’t box people in. We have a tendency to do that as humans—we kind of put people in these boxes…That’s the approach I’ve tried to take throughout—we’re not afraid to open the package.”

– Andy Reid

“You always own the option of having no opinion.”

– Marcus Aurelius

"Energy and persistence conquer all things."

– Benjamin Franklin

This video from CSM Waldo does not get old.

"Iron Sharpens Iron."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP_o6vcB_f8

1. When it comes to innovation, the Pentagon could use a little DOGE

2. How an ex-State Department official fueled Elon Musk’s attack on USAID

3. USAID Under the Trump Administration

4. What is NED? Elon Musk takes aim at agency founded by Reagan administration

5. Did Reagan’s Ideas Matter? (Book review)

6. It Didn’t Take Long – AI Leveraged to Support for State Interests

7. Resistance Lessons from Myanmar

8. US Marine, 3 contractors killed in Philippines plane crash

9. Philippines Says 135 Chinese Boats ‘Swarming’ Reef off Its Coast

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

11. Politico Draws DOGE’s Ire, Signaling a Shakeout for Media with Major Government Customers

12. China and Taiwan: Beware the Law of Unintended Consequences

13. Musk’s DOGE agents access sensitive personnel data, alarming security officials

14. It’s Russian Men Against Ukrainian Machines on the Battlefields in Ukraine

15. AI-Native Companies Are Growing Fast and Doing Things Differently

16. It’s Time to Overhaul Information Transfer in Army Training

17. What Google’s return to defense AI mean

18. Trump must keep arming Ukraine if he wants a good peace deal

19. Rolling Back Naval Forward Presence Will Strengthen American Deterrence

20. I Read Your Article (How the LTG (R) James M. Dubik Writing Fellows Program Transformed My View on Writing in the Profession of A)

21. Reconnaissance and Transformation in Large-Scale Combat Operations: Lessons from the Light Brigade Combat Team

22. Special Operations Memorial at MacDill Air Force Base Vandalized with Spray Paint

23. Does DOGE Pose a National Security Risk?

24. A Paradigm Shift for the Middle East

25. Xi Jinping swings his “assassin’s mace” of economic warfare

26. Some military institutions are literally speechless in face of Hegseth's DEI order

1. When it comes to innovation, the Pentagon could use a little DOGE

"Cost-cutting if you don’t care is relatively easy — it’s akin to vandalism." I think I will save that to my quote book.

Is Musk the "master of applying technology to solving old problems in new ways?"

Say what you want about DOGE and what is happening now, but Mr. Danzig is right that the tools for change are software and AI. Whether we like it or not, the future is algorithmic decision making (https://www.liberties.eu/en/stories/decision-making-algorithm/44109). Musk and his wiz kids are shaking things up, i.e., disrupting. BUt the key point of Mr. Danzig's quote is "if you don't care." In terms of America the "if you don't care" must be applied to the American founding principles and the US Constitution. Do all the disrupting you want but if you are about Making America Great Again the only again must be in accordance with the US Constitution.

Excerpts:

If we wish to be preeminent, that superiority must permeate the entire American establishment and the industrial base on which it depends. The Navy, for example, has systems of shipbuilding and ship repair, of maintenance at sea, and of building and buying munitions that commingle public and private entities largely mired in the 20th century.

The tools to change this — most notably software and artificial intelligence — lie at hand. Musk is the great master, not at inventing these technologies but at something equally important, and rarer: applying technology to solve old problems in new ways.

...

Our national security needs this kind of transformation. Effecting change in this arena will, however, require Musk and DOGE to prize these organizations’ effectiveness. Musk should particularly appreciate the work of Defense and NASA, as they were significant funders of SpaceX.

Cost-cutting if you don’t care is relatively easy — it’s akin to vandalism. When you do care — and who of us doesn’t care about our national security? — you have to be, well, careful. Your goal is to leave an organization stronger than you found it.

When it comes to innovation, the Pentagon could use a little DOGE

Defense is the department most burdened by old ways of doing business.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/02/06/doge-pentagon-tech-innovation/

February 6, 2025 at 6:45 a.m. ESTYesterday at 6:45 a.m. EST

5 min

167

The Pentagon last year. (Tom Brenner for The Washington Post)

By Richard Danzig

Richard Danzig, a consultant on technology and national security, was secretary of the Navy in the Clinton administration.

It’s hard to see amid the tumult surrounding the Department of Government Efficiency and its assaults on various government departments and agencies, but if Elon Musk and his team were to turn in a different direction and focus on a different priority, they could make a tremendous contribution to American well-being.

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That direction is toward the Pentagon. And not with a view to cutting costs. Yes, the Defense Department’s more than $800 billion budget can yield much richer opportunities for savings than the U.S. Agency for International Development’s $50 billion or the Department of Education’s $230 billion. But our first national security priority should not be to cut costs. It should be to increase effectiveness.

Technology is key to that. The federal government has made some progress in modernizing its processes, but that progress has been mostly at the margins. And Defense is the department most burdened by old ways of doing business. A striking example of the problem is what Kathleen Hicks, President Joe Biden’s deputy secretary of defense, did when she wanted to procure thousands of much-needed drones to modernize our military. Frustrated by bureaucratic inertia, she made a radical move and launched the Replicator program in the Defense Innovation Unit, a small entity that exists outside the Armed Services.

Following Opinions on the news

Following

Though praiseworthy, Hicks’s actions reveal a dismal truth about the Defense Department. When the Pentagon’s second most powerful official wanted to promote a new form of warfare based on 21st-century artificial intelligence and sensor technologies, she had to circumvent the bureaucracies she commanded. Like a rebel not strong enough to attack central cities, she sought to wage her fight from a base in the hills.

Even if this strategy works, it highlights our failures. Unmanned aircraft and ships are just a few instruments in an arsenal desperately in need of expansion and renewal. Modern technology derived from Detroit’s manufacturing industry drove American superiority in World War II. Technological superiority will — or won’t — drive American military superiority in the future.

If we wish to be preeminent, that superiority must permeate the entire American establishment and the industrial base on which it depends. The Navy, for example, has systems of shipbuilding and ship repair, of maintenance at sea, and of building and buying munitions that commingle public and private entities largely mired in the 20th century.

The tools to change this — most notably software and artificial intelligence — lie at hand. Musk is the great master, not at inventing these technologies but at something equally important, and rarer: applying technology to solve old problems in new ways.

Walter Isaacson’s biography “Elon Musk” offers a compelling portrait of Musk’s complex character. There are great challenges in making his personality, management practices and business interests mesh with the federal government. But the U.S. space enterprise and automobile industries were badly in need of reconstruction. It is amazing that Musk transformed either. It is astonishing that he transformed both — and at the same time.

How an ex-State Department official fueled Elon Musk’s attack on USAID

Mike Benz appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast in late December to discuss USAID, spurring Musk’s first mention of the agency

February 6, 2025 at 2:44 p.m. ESTYesterday at 2:44 p.m. EST

7 min

123

Elon Musk arrives outside the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in 2023. (Tom Brenner for The Washington Post)

By Clara Ence Morse and Sarah Ellison

When Elon Musk promised his followers over the weekend that he fed USAID “into the wood chipper,” he signaled an unusual antipathy to an obscure federal agency that the billionaire tech mogul only recently appears to have discovered.

The campaign against the U.S. Agency for International Development reached a crescendo Tuesday when the Trump administration, led by Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service, put many of the agency’s staff members on leave and notified all overseas employees that they would be recalled within a month.

Musk’s intense focus appears to have begun only late last year, when he began publicly criticizing the agency after conservative activist Mike Benz appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast to rail against it. According to a Washington Post analysis, Musk did not mention USAID on X until Dec. 10, when he began sharing commentary from Benz’s appearance on Rogan’s show the week before.

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“Your brain is being tricked when you see the phrase ‘USAID.’ It’s not an aid organization,” Benz told Rogan on Dec. 3. Instead, Benz asserted, it is a front for the CIA.

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“USAID is effectively a switch player to assist the Pentagon on the national security front, to assist the State Department on the national interest front, or to assist the intelligence community on a sort of clandestine operation front,” Benz, who served at the State Department during Trump’s first term, told Rogan.

Benz’s appearance on Rogan had garnered millions of views before Musk retweeted an X user’s summary of his appearance. “Mike Benz just revealed everything,” the post read. On the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, the post continued, Benz explained “why USAID is a tool for control, not aid.”

The mention was the first time the acronym “USAID” appeared in Musk’s X feed. From then on, his attacks on the agency only accelerated.

Some Republicans have criticized USAID for decades as part of a broader critique of foreign aid spending. More recently, the agency drew bipartisan scrutiny for money sent by subcontractors to the Wuhan Virology Lab, which was the subject of a critical Government Accountability Office report. Some Republicans have also gone after the agency’s humanitarian work in Ukraine. Others took aim at its work promoting diversity initiatives in select countries.

But several Republican members of Congress posted positively about the organization under Biden. In 2022, then-Sen. Rob Portman (Ohio) congratulated USAID on its “fantastic work” in Ukraine. Rep. Young Kim (California) wrote on Facebook in early 2024, “U.S. development assistance helps nations in need, supports our economic & security goals, & counters economic coercion by the People’s Republic of China.” Even Sen. Joni Ernst (Idaho), a DOGE co-chair, sought additional staffing for USAID in October 2022.

Those stances have shifted since Benz, who served in the State Department during Trump’s first term, started making unsubstantiated critiques — amplified many times over by Musk — about what Benz says is the group’s illegality and subterfuge.

“USAID is notorious for funding the darkest, most controversial, most horrifying projects known to all of mankind,” Benz told conservative journalist and podcaster John Solomon this week.

Benz’s critique of USAID influenced Musk, who has retweeted, replied to or mentioned Benz over 160 times in the past year, including over a dozen posts discussing USAID, according to a Washington Post analysis.

Elon Musk's influence

Musk’s DOGE is trying to access your data. You’re right to be paranoid.

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U.S. government officials privately warn Musk’s blitz appears illegal

Elon Musk is a ‘special government employee.’ What does that mean?

Trump, Musk wage two-front war as donor does president’s ‘dirty work’

Senior U.S. official exits after rift with Musk allies over payment system

Elon Musk’s business conflicts draw scrutiny amid White House role

Elon Musk and Giorgia Meloni’s power friendship stirs controversy in Italy

As Los Angeles burns, Elon Musk stokes partisan outrage

Musk, Ramaswamy put spotlight on proliferation of U.S. regulations

Who is Tommy Robinson, and why does Elon Musk want him freed?

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Sharing a post by Benz on Sunday, Musk wrote: “USAID was a viper’s nest of radical-left marxists who hate America.” Less than an hour later, he highlighted another Benz post, commenting: “USAID is a criminal organization.” At 1:54 a.m. the next day, he quoted Benz approvingly yet again, commenting: “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.”

Benz worked in the first Trump administration at the Department of Housing and Urban Development under then-Secretary Ben Carson and later at the State Department as deputy assistant secretary for international communications and information policy.

Before that, Benz was an alt-right influencer operating under the pseudonym Frame Game, where he often railed against social media moderation and extolled the value of White identity politics. Benz parlayed his outspoken critiques of social media moderation into the Foundation for Freedom Online, a group that serves largely to promote Benz’s views of what he calls the censorship industrial complex.

At least some of Musk’s claims about the agency are false, according to experts with deep knowledge of the agency’s work. A report from the Center for Global Development debunked one of Musk’s claims that only 10 percent of USAID money reaches its intended beneficiaries.

“That’s a total distortion of how USAID does business,” said Phil Brenner, professor emeritus at American University’s School of International Service. Brenner noted that USAID purchases its supplies from U.S. businesses and then distributes them to countries where its aid is required, which could explain the skewed statistics Musk is presenting.

A worker distributes portions of yellow lentils in Mekelle, Ethiopia, at an aid operation run by USAID, Catholic Relief Services and the Relief Society of Tigray in 2021. (Jemal Countess/Getty Images)

Rachel Bonnifield and Justin Sandefur of the Center for Global Development wrote that the 10 percent statistic presented by Musk was a “wildly incorrect and misleading interpretation of a different statistic — that 10 percent of USAID payments are made directly to organizations in the developing world,” the authors wrote. “The remaining 90 percent includes all the goods and services that USAID, American companies, and faith-based organizations deliver in kind, from HIV drugs to emergency food aid, malaria bed nets, and treatment for acute malnutrition,” they said in their analysis.

“And it is absolutely crucial to debunk this false claim because it is being used as part of the pretext to dissolve USAID in its entirety,” they wrote.

Katie Miller, a representative for DOGE, which is also known as the Department of Government Efficiency, did not respond to a call or text seeking comment. Benz did not respond to an email requesting an interview.

The Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan research arm of Congress, published a report on Monday declaring Trump does not have the “authority” to abolish USAID.

“Because Congress established USAID as an independent establishment … within the executive branch, the President does not have the authority to abolish it; congressional authorization would be required to abolish, move, or consolidate USAID,” wrote author Emily M. McCabe, a specialist in foreign assistance and foreign policy.

Elected Democrats immediately criticized the administration’s actions and sought to resist them. On Monday afternoon, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said he was placing a “blanket hold” on Trump’s nominees for the State Department in light of the situation.

USAID is the primary international humanitarian and development arm of the U.S. government, established in 1961 to implement the Foreign Assistance Act. It provides resources to strategically important countries and countries in conflict as well as aid to alleviate poverty, disease and humanitarian needs. It also supports developing countries’ economic growth and capacity to participate in world trade.

In fiscal year 2023 — the most recent year for which complete data is available — USAID managed more than $40 billion in combined appropriations, representing more than one-third of the funds provided in that year’s State Department, foreign operations and related programs appropriation and international food aid.

That is a fraction of the foreign aid spent by the U.S. government, which itself is less than 1 percent of the country’s budget.

How an ex-State Department official fueled Elon Musk’s attack on USAID

Mike Benz appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast in late December to discuss USAID, spurring Musk’s first mention of the agency

February 6, 2025 at 2:44 p.m. ESTYesterday at 2:44 p.m. EST

7 min

123

Elon Musk arrives outside the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in 2023. (Tom Brenner for The Washington Post)

By Clara Ence Morse and Sarah Ellison

Skip to end of carouselTrump presidency

Follow live updates on the Trump administration. We’re tracking Trump’s progress on campaign promises and his picks for key administration roles.

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“Your brain is being tricked when you see the phrase ‘USAID.’ It’s not an aid organization,” Benz told Rogan on Dec. 3. Instead, Benz asserted, it is a front for the CIA.

Follow Politics

The mention was the first time the acronym “USAID” appeared in Musk’s X feed. From then on, his attacks on the agency only accelerated.

“USAID is notorious for funding the darkest, most controversial, most horrifying projects known to all of mankind,” Benz told conservative journalist and podcaster John Solomon this week.

Elon Musk's influence

Musk’s DOGE is trying to access your data. You’re right to be paranoid.

How Elon Musk’s deputies took over the government’s most basic functions

U.S. government officials privately warn Musk’s blitz appears illegal

Elon Musk is a ‘special government employee.’ What does that mean?

Trump, Musk wage two-front war as donor does president’s ‘dirty work’

Senior U.S. official exits after rift with Musk allies over payment system

Elon Musk’s business conflicts draw scrutiny amid White House role

Elon Musk and Giorgia Meloni’s power friendship stirs controversy in Italy

As Los Angeles burns, Elon Musk stokes partisan outrage

Musk, Ramaswamy put spotlight on proliferation of U.S. regulations

Who is Tommy Robinson, and why does Elon Musk want him freed?

Musk’s dangerous, exaggerated conflation of social media and democracy

‘Co-president’ Elon Musk? Trump ally tests influence in spending fight

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Elon Musk put $277 million into the election. He’s $200 billion richer this...

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“And it is absolutely crucial to debunk this false claim because it is being used as part of the pretext to dissolve USAID in its entirety,” they wrote.

The Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan research arm of Congress, published a report on Monday declaring Trump does not have the “authority” to abolish USAID.

3. USAID Under the Trump Administration

This is authoritative research. No other organization's researchers can pack excellent research into 3 page reports like the Congressional Research Service (CRS)

Read the entire CRS report here: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN12500

USAID Under the Trump Administration

February 3, 2025

On Monday, February 3, 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that he would serve as the Acting Administrator of the U.S. Agency of International Development (USAID). Also on February 3, USAID staff were directed not to report to the agency’s Washington, DC, headquarters. Later that day, some Members of Congress seeking to enter the same offices were reportedly denied access.

These actions come on the heels of a January 20 executive order “pausing” nearly all foreign assistance for 90 days, reports about the dismissal of senior Civil- and Foreign-Service USAID leaders, and confusion among USAID contractors and implementing partners about what programs, if any, might continue. By the end of the day on February 1, USAID’s website was no longer operational, while a new page on the Department of State’s website launched, providing information on a portion of USAID’s work.

These developments raise numerous questions for Congress, which authorizes, funds, and oversees USAID and its programs. These include whether the President is authorized to abolish the agency, whether the President can restructure the agency, and what happens to USAID’s resources if such actions are implemented.

Can the President Abolish, Move, or Consolidate USAID?

Read the answer at this link: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN12500

4. What is NED? Elon Musk takes aim at agency founded by Reagan administration

Another organization with a Musk target on its back. Changes do need to be made to restore it to President Rargan's vision. (just as USAID requires changes to restore it to President Kennedy's vision).

Read about NED here: https://www.ned.org/

There needs to be improved vetting of organizations that receive NED grants (and there those that deserve grants that are denied them). Most importantly they all need to be judged as to whether they are in support of US national security objectives. That is the most important result of all the DOGE work - we should not provide aid or assistance unless it supports US National Security objectives or American values.

As an aside, the synergistic effects of NED, along with State's Bureau of Democracy Human Rights, and Labor (DRL), USAID's Democracy and Governance Bureau combined with US Special Operations Force could make tremendous contributions to US national security through foreign internal defense (FID) and unconventional warfare (UW). Combine the work of NED, DRL, USAID, and SOF and you could create powerful, substantive, and decisive effects in support of US national security (with the right leadership integrating all four organizations - maybe a Joint Interagency Task Force for FID and UW). Then we could live up to the allegations made in Joe Rogan's podcast by former State Department official Mike Benz. (I am only half sarcastic here).

Excerpt:

What Happens Next

Whether Musk's criticisms could lead to changes or dismantling of the NED remains to be seen.

What is NED? Elon Musk takes aim at agency founded by Reagan administration

Newsweek · by Khaleda Rahman · February 3, 2025

ByKhaleda Rahman is Newsweek's National Correspondent based in London, UK. Her focus is reporting on abortion rights, race, education, sexual abuse and capital punishment. Khaleda joined Newsweek in 2019 and had previously worked at the MailOnline in London, New York and Sydney. She is a graduate of University College London. Languages: English. You can get in touch with Khaleda by emailing k.rahman@newsweek.com

Writers Page

National Correspondent

Newsweek Is A Trust Project Member

news article

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.

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Billionaire Elon Musk has criticized the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a nonprofit organization established by the U.S. government during Republican Ronald Reagan's presidency.

"NED is a SCAM," Musk wrote on his social media platform X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday, in response to a user who used Musk's artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Grok to identify "red flags of corruption or concerns" with NED.

Newsweek has contacted the NED and Musk for further comment via email.

Why It Matters

Musk, the world's richest man and ally of President Donald Trump's, is running the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a Trump administration task force assigned to find ways to cut wasteful federal spending and "dismantle" government bureaucracy. Musk said in October that he could trim the federal budget by at least $2 trillion, but last month backtracked on that goal, saying there was a "good shot" of cutting it by half that amount.

Musk said early Monday that the U.S. Agency for International Aid Development (USAID), which oversees foreign assistance programs, including humanitarian aid, economic development and disaster relief, was being shut down, saying it was "beyond repair."

What Is NED?

The NED is an independent, nonprofit, non-governmental organization (NGO) dedicated to "strengthening democratic institutions and values" around the world, according to its website.

The organization says it provides more than 2,000 grants to support the projects of nongovernmental groups in more than 100 countries every year. It is primarily funded by the U.S. government, through annual appropriations from Congress.

It was established by the National Endowment for Democracy Act, which was signed into law by Reagan in 1983.

It was born from a 1982 speech to Britain's Parliament where Reagan called for a new initiative to "foster the infrastructure of democracy, the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities, which allows a people to choose their own way, to develop their own culture, to reconcile their own differences through peaceful means."

Elon Musk arrives for the Inauguration of Donald J. Trump in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on January 20 in Washington, D.C. Elon Musk arrives for the Inauguration of Donald J. Trump in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on January 20 in Washington, D.C. Kevin Lamarque/Pool-Getty Images

What To Know

In an earlier X post on Sunday, Musk wrote that NED was "RIFE with CORRUPTION" in response to a post that noted GOP Indiana Senator Todd Young, among the senators who could derail Tulsi Gabbard's confirmation as director of national intelligence, had recently joined the organization's board of directors.

Musk later wrote: "Just had an excellent conversation with @SenToddYoung. I stand corrected. Senator Young will be a great ally in restoring power to the people from the vast, unelected bureaucracy."

But he added in another post that "anyone with integrity needs to resign from NED. That evil organization needs to be dissolved."

What People Are Saying

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) said in a news release on Sunday that it "operates with a steadfast commitment to supporting freedom around the world, guided by a nonpartisan approach."

It added: "The need for NED's work is more urgent than ever, as authoritarian regimes threaten democracy, as well as global peace and stability. Countries with entrenched autocracies often engage in destabilizing activities, such as supporting terrorism, undermining regional security, and challenging global trade norms. By investing in NED, the United States strengthens its ability to counter these threats and safeguard the values of freedom."

President Ronald Reagan said in 1983 during the NED's inauguration: "The National Endowment for Democracy is, just as we've been told, more than bipartisan; it's a genuine partnership of Republicans and Democrats, of labor and business, conservatives and liberals, and of the executive and legislative branches of government. It's such a worthwhile, important initiative that I'm tempted to ask: Why hasn't it been done before? Well, we're doing it now..."

President Donald Trump told reporters on Sunday: "I think Elon's doing a good job. He's a big cost-cutter. 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."

What Happens Next

Whether Musk's criticisms could lead to changes or dismantling of the NED remains to be seen.

About the writer

Khaleda Rahman is Newsweek's National Correspondent based in London, UK. Her focus is reporting on abortion rights, race, education, sexual abuse and capital punishment. Khaleda joined Newsweek in 2019 and had previously worked at the MailOnline in London, New York and Sydney. She is a graduate of University College London. Languages: English. You can get in touch with Khaleda by emailing k.rahman@newsweek.com

Newsweek · by Khaleda Rahman · February 3, 2025

5. Did Reagan’s Ideas Matter? (Book review)

Yes.

A relatively negative review of Max Boot's book.

As an aside from the book review, a dream I have had is for a president who could synthesize the visions of Ronald Reagan and John F. Kenendy for US national security.

Excerpts:

Other Reagan biographers, even skeptical ones, have long since reassessed this early portrait (among others, see Lou Cannon, John Patrick Diggins, Richard Reeves, Iwan Morgan, H. W. Brands, and Sean Wilentz). While some are still reluctant to attribute Reagan’s success to conservative ideas, they acknowledge that Reagan was the conservative counterpoint to Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, the yin and yang of American politics in the 20th century.

The historian Andrew E. Busch gets it right. “Reagan was a practicing politician,” he writes, “but his politics were driven by a clear set of interlocking ideas, supported by an even more fundamental set of moral and religious convictions.” Reagan developed these ideas over time and documented them in thousands of handwritten letters, speeches, radio addresses, newspaper columns, memos, note cards on which he copied pithy passages by great statesmen and intellectuals, and speech cards written in shorthand that he shuffled from one talk to the next from the 1940s on. Even in his second term, Reagan wrote initial drafts of key speeches in his own hand on legal pads. When he left the stage in November 1994, he penned a farewell address to the American people that in prose and pace equaled his best compositions — and without a single scratch-out.

...

Boot has made an ambitious and noteworthy contribution to the continuing fascination with Ronald Reagan. Like all of us, however, he cannot avoid his biases. He was once an ardent supporter of Reagan but now sees unwelcome parallels between Reagan and Donald Trump, both primarily transactionalists. I served Reagan on the National Security Council in his first term and believe that he stands in a class of truly exceptional American presidents. What no biographer should claim, as Boot does, is that his or her accounts are “strictly factual.” As David Byrne, another Reagan biographer, suggests, “The writing of history is very personal, often revealing more about the writer than the subject.” Facts are always selective, because we cannot consider them all, and the facts we select are always subject to interpretation, because we are studying ourselves not the natural world. We learn most from additional facts and competing interpretations; and, if you give the people enough facts, as Thomas Jefferson and Reagan believed, they will usually do the right thing.

Did Reagan’s Ideas Matter?

National Review Online · by Henry R. NauAbout Henry R. Nau · January 23, 2025

(Bettmann, Ron Galella, Tony Korody, Shepard Sherbell/via Getty Images; Eric Sailer)

January 23, 2025 4:28 PM

Reagan: His Life and Legend , by Max Boot (Liveright, $45)

One week before the superpowers were due to meet in October 1986, in Reykjavik, Iceland, Mikhail Gorbachev assembled his Politburo and delivered the following warning:

Our goal is to prevent the next round of the arms race. If we do not accomplish it, the threat to us will only grow. We will be pulled into another round of the arms race that is beyond our capabilities, and we will lose it, because we are already at the limit of our capabilities. Moreover, we can expect that Japan and the FRG [West Germany] could very soon join the American potential. . . . If the new round begins, the pressure on our economy will be unbelievable.

Over the previous five years, Reagan had shifted the balance of power against Russia. NATO had deployed intermediate-range nuclear missiles to counter Soviet SS-20 missiles threatening Western Europe. The U.S. and other Western economies had recovered robustly from a deep recession. Western defense spending had surged. And Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative signaled a new space-based arms race that Gorbachev feared.

Gorbachev did not come to Reykjavik a free agent. He had to do something because the Soviet Union was on the verge of falling permanently behind the West.

This is solid evidence, at the very top of the Moscow food chain, that Ronald Reagan’s Cold War strategy of comprehensive military and economic pressure to close off Soviet options outside negotiations, and to end the Cold War through peaceful means inside negotiations, was paying off. Yet some journalists and historians continue to ignore this evidence and deny that the end of the Cold War had anything to do with Reagan’s policies.

That’s the case with Max Boot in his new book, Reagan: His Life and Legend. In his 800-plus-page work, impressively researched over ten years, Boot does not cite Gorbachev’s foreboding message to his Politburo colleagues. Instead, Boot argues that

Gorbachev was not driven to reform the Soviet system because he wanted to compete more effectively with the Reagan military buildup. Just the opposite. He was genuinely worried about the dangers of nuclear war, and he was appalled by how much money the Soviet Union was spending on the military-industrial complex. . . . This was not a reflection of a Reagan-induced crisis that threatened the bankruptcy of the Soviet Union but rather a product of his own humane instincts.

Gorbachev, Boot concludes, was a “true black swan” who emerged unanticipated to become the factor largely responsible for ending the Cold War.

Reagan, Boot insists, contributed mostly by compromising. “One theme that strongly emerged from my research, much to my surprise,” Boot writes, “was [Reagan’s] pragmatism.” Reagan was not the idea-driven leader that many assumed. He was in fact the ultimate pragmatist: “The Great Communicator was also the Great Compromiser. His entire life was characterized by a series of deals.”

Boot contends that on almost every issue — budgets, social issues, foreign policy, etc. — Reagan abandoned principles to make deals. As governor in California and as president in Washington, he raised, not lowered, taxes. On social issues, especially HIV/AIDS and abortion, he traded silence for conviction. On civil rights, he was a subtle racist, exploiting white bigotry for political gain. And on foreign policy, he talked tough on terrorism but traded arms for hostages and ultimately negotiated and compromised with the “evil” empire.

In chapter after chapter Boot cuts Reagan down to size. Reagan touts family values but is himself divorced and has completely dysfunctional relationships with his children. He hawks patriotism but never serves in combat. He champions moral clarity yet seldom goes to church. He identifies with the common man but makes “sweetheart deals” with wealthy elite friends to maintain his lifestyle. Reagan talks in congressional hearings about the right to dissent but acts as an informant for the FBI on communist violence in Hollywood.

Boot’s portrait of Reagan is nothing new. It is the old “instant history” version of Reagan purveyed by commentators during and immediately after his presidency. Reagan, the story goes, confused fact with fiction, was bored by details and manipulated by staff, employed ghostwriters for his presidential speeches, and succeeded largely because of his colossal charm and favorable circumstances such as Gorbachev’s leadership.

Other Reagan biographers, even skeptical ones, have long since reassessed this early portrait (among others, see Lou Cannon, John Patrick Diggins, Richard Reeves, Iwan Morgan, H. W. Brands, and Sean Wilentz). While some are still reluctant to attribute Reagan’s success to conservative ideas, they acknowledge that Reagan was the conservative counterpoint to Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, the yin and yang of American politics in the 20th century.

The historian Andrew E. Busch gets it right. “Reagan was a practicing politician,” he writes, “but his politics were driven by a clear set of interlocking ideas, supported by an even more fundamental set of moral and religious convictions.” Reagan developed these ideas over time and documented them in thousands of handwritten letters, speeches, radio addresses, newspaper columns, memos, note cards on which he copied pithy passages by great statesmen and intellectuals, and speech cards written in shorthand that he shuffled from one talk to the next from the 1940s on. Even in his second term, Reagan wrote initial drafts of key speeches in his own hand on legal pads. When he left the stage in November 1994, he penned a farewell address to the American people that in prose and pace equaled his best compositions — and without a single scratch-out.

Boot is preoccupied with the process of compromise, how deals get made, rather than with the content of compromise, how deals advance one set of ideas over another. Repeated compromise effectively eviscerated Gorbachev’s ideas about reforming communism. Even Boot concedes that Gorbachev did not know where he was going, “how radical a reformer he would turn out to be.” On the other hand, Reagan’s ideas in favor of free societies and market economies swept across the planet; after 1980, over 60 countries, including Russia for a while, became more democratic. To attribute this outcome primarily to Gorbachev is to ignore the overwhelming reality that communist ideas wound up on “the ash heap of history.”

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Next Gallery

Reagan and Gorbachev

President Ronald Reagan says goodbye to General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev after the last meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland, 1986.

Ronald Reagan Presidential Library/National Archives

In many ways Reagan is the gold standard for strategic consistency and timely intervention. The voluminous archival records now available clearly show the evolution of his major ideas. Musing on the Cold War in 1963 — yes, even before he entered public life — Reagan drafted the following memo, later published in the collection Reagan, in His Own Hand (2001):

If we truly believe that our way of life is best aren’t the Russians more likely to recognize that fact and modify their stand if we let their economy come unhinged so that the contrast is apparent? . . . The only sure way to avoid war is to surrender without fighting. But accommodation is based on wishing not thinking. . . . The other way is based on the belief . . . that in an all out race our system is stronger, and eventually the enemy gives up the race as a hopeless cause. Then a noble nation believing in peace extends the hand of friendship and says there is room in the world for both of us.

Twenty years later Reagan detailed this strategy in top-secret national security directives. One such directive, NSDD-32, issued in May 1982, called for sustained competition with the Soviet Union in “all international arenas to discourage Soviet adventurism.” In January 1983, NSDD-75 stressed the need “to promote, within the narrow limits available to us, the process of change in the Soviet Union toward a more pluralistic political and economic system in which the power of the privileged ruling elite is gradually reduced.”

Did Reagan’s memo and subsequent NSDDs make a difference? Boot says no because too many events intervened between those ideas and outcomes. But does that mean that ideas have no effect on outcomes? Did NSC-68, the 1950 U.S. strategy document that arguably initiated the Cold War, also have nothing to do with what followed? Boot is right that you can’t prove a “direct” connection between plans and outcomes. But, for the same reason, you can’t rule it out either. You have to keep doing research, to pursue truth without ever claiming to have found it.

In the same 1963 memo, Reagan mentioned a fictitious Soviet citizen, Ivan, who appeared again in a Reagan radio address in 1977 and eventually in his speech to the nation on January 16, 1984. That last speech, according to Boot, signaled Reagan’s conversion from a first-term hawk to a second-term compromiser. But, in fact, Reagan used the imagery of Ivan and his wife, Anya, as well as Jim and Sally, their American counterparts, to reflect on his long-standing moral objections to nuclear deterrence based on Mutual Assured Destruction. These couples and millions of citizens like them should not be held hostage to the threat of nuclear Armageddon. In a previous speech, Reagan had asked, “Wouldn’t it be better to save lives than to avenge them?” Wouldn’t it make more sense to develop a nonnuclear deterrent such as the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)?

Reagan showed similar foresight in a 1967 debate with Robert F. Kennedy. He called for tearing down the Berlin Wall:

We don’t want the Berlin Wall knocked down so that it is easier to get at the throat of the East Germans. We just think a wall that is put up to confine people, and keep them within their own country instead of allowing them the freedom of world travel, has to be somehow wrong.

These are typical examples of the crystallization and constancy of Reagan’s ideas over time. If ideas have any power in history, Reagan biographers, and biographers in general, have to pay more attention to this phenomenon.

Reagan was also adept at choosing the right moment to compromise. As Boot argues correctly, Reagan was ready to start negotiations with the Soviets already in April 1981. But he was not ready to make a deal. He rejected the “walk in the woods” deal in the summer of 1982 and said in February 1983 that the time to restart negotiations would be when NATO had deployed the Pershing missiles. In private meetings later that year, he exuded confidence that by 1984 the economic recovery and missile deployment would be in place to back up his negotiations. And if that didn’t happen, Reagan added, he’d be happy to go back to the ranch, acknowledging that he may not win reelection. This was clearly not a man doing anything to get a deal.

On all the major issues — tax cuts, inflation, defense spending, missile deployment, SDI, the evil empire, and “tear down this wall” — Reagan acted mostly alone against the opposition of his staff. And in every instance history proved him right. The novel question, then, is not why Reagan compromised but where he got the imagination to pursue unconventional ideas in the first place and the judgment to know when his leverage had peaked. What “inner man,” a term he used in letters to his son, was he consulting?

Other biographers tell us more about Reagan’s “inner man.” Paul Kengor studies his deep and abiding faith. Lee Edwards, Steven Hayward, Craig Shirley, Peter Schweizer, and Paul Lettow grasp the power of his ideas. Martin and Annelise Anderson and Kiron Skinner document his daily statesmanship. And William Inboden, who also scoured the archives for ten years, concludes that Reagan “saw the Cold War primarily as a battle of ideas,” not as a great-power competition or endless drama of diplomatic dealmaking.

Boot has made an ambitious and noteworthy contribution to the continuing fascination with Ronald Reagan. Like all of us, however, he cannot avoid his biases. He was once an ardent supporter of Reagan but now sees unwelcome parallels between Reagan and Donald Trump, both primarily transactionalists. I served Reagan on the National Security Council in his first term and believe that he stands in a class of truly exceptional American presidents. What no biographer should claim, as Boot does, is that his or her accounts are “strictly factual.” As David Byrne, another Reagan biographer, suggests, “The writing of history is very personal, often revealing more about the writer than the subject.” Facts are always selective, because we cannot consider them all, and the facts we select are always subject to interpretation, because we are studying ourselves not the natural world. We learn most from additional facts and competing interpretations; and, if you give the people enough facts, as Thomas Jefferson and Reagan believed, they will usually do the right thing.

Next ArticleThe Shock of Antietam

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Henry R. Nau is a professor emeritus at George Washington University and the author of Conservative Internationalism and The Myth of America’s Decline. He served on the National Security Council under President Reagan and is currently a distinguished scholar at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute in Washington, D.C.

6. It Didn’t Take Long – AI Leveraged to Support for State Interests

Conclusion:

A common thread for bolstering cybersecurity globally is international cooperation, sharing threat information, best practices, common standards adoption, and implementing adaptable regulations to address evolving cyber threat environment. This strategy has continued to be an ongoing process with varying amounts of success. Whether this can be applied to the AI space is a question mark. While what happens in cyberspace is fast, the speed with which AI implementation is already impacting the cyber landscape will challenge multinational efforts to find a way forward in a timely manner. Worse, debate of how to address the AI space is still relatively fresh and being contested by all public and private interests that think they know better. One thing seems certain: in the changing dynamics of great power competition, states find competing for dominance in this field a strategic imperative that will position them for future success. The race may be on, but it’s anyone’s game to win.

It Didn’t Take Long – AI Leveraged to Support for State Interests

Disruptive Technology

02/05/2025 | Written by: Emilio Iasiello

https://oodaloop.com/analysis/disruptive-technology/it-didnt-take-long-ai-leveraged-to-support-for-state-interests/

According to a recent report by Google, there were more than 50 threat actors tied to China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia that the company observed using artificial intelligence (AI) technology powered by Google’s Gemini to facilitate their nefarious cyber and information-enabled operations. These actors leveraged the technology to support different phases of the cyber attack cycle, and activities ranged from malicious coding to payload development, to information collection against targets, vulnerability research, and assisting threat actors evade detection after compromising a victim. Despite the worrisome aspects of these revelations, Google noted that many of these activities were still in experimentation mode with the actors not developing new capabilities. It appears that threat actors are still figuring out ways to maximize generative AI to their benefit, as most of the incidents related in the report revealed how generative AI facilitates faster more efficient operations rather than focusing on pure disruption. While this may offer temporary relief, this will undoubtedly change soon.

Per its report, Google observed Chinese threat actors using Gemini for target research and reconnaissance; vulnerability research; scripting and development; and translation and explanation. Particularly significant was that Chinese threat actors used Gemini to “work through scripting and development tasks,” with the intent to facilitate a more robust access into a victim network. Given China’s longstanding history of cyber espionage, and now interest in gaining and sustaining access into critical infrastructure networks, it appears that these actors are turning to generative AI to glean solutions to challenges they may have encountered in the past. While some attempts were unsuccessful (e.g., reverse engineering endpoint solution of a well-known vendor), they do reveal that the actors are looking to exploit generative AI capabilities in a variety of ways, new territory that is eagerly being explored.

The fact that state actors are looking to take advantage of generative AI is neither surprising nor unexpected. But China’s involvement is interesting to note given the fact that China has delivered its own brand of generative AI known as DeepSeek. The Chinese DeepSeek has quickly emerged as a top competitor to already established offerings by U.S. firms like OpenAI (ChatGPT) and Google (Gemini). Within a week of its launch, DeepSeek became the most downloaded free application in the United States as well as the world, a testament to the appetite for generative AI even with so many free alternatives available. One reason behind this may be the company’s claim that DeepSeek’s R1 model was developed at a fraction of the cost of other competing brands, though with the same results, and despite the United States curbing chip exports to China. A recent comparison of DeepSeek, ChatGPT, and Gemini found that DeepSeek outperformed the others standard tests used to test AI platforms, which was largely aided by the ability to implement “chain-of-thought” reasoning, which helped break down and manage multifaceted undertakings. While there are nuanced differences between them, one thing is clear: DeepSeek has made an immediate impact on the international market.

One question that stands out is if DeepSeek is as capable as some of the reviews of it have been, why do Chinese threat actors need to use alternatives? In at least one incident that Google tracked, Chinese actors tried to see if they could get Gemini to reveal details like “IP address, kernel version, and network configuration.” Certainly, such questions are disconcerting, especially given China’s alleged activities of compromising technology to facilitate cyber espionage practices. Granted, such information could be an attempt to help Chinese companies improve their own generative AI product, but it could also enable a threat actor in potential future exploitation attempts of the technology, further reinforcing the benefits of states harnessing AI capabilities.

And that has raised alarms of warning. Recently, U.S. President Trump called DeepSeek’s immediate success and subsequent impact on stock losses for the U.S. sector a “wake up” call, and several countries have already banned its use for various security reasons. Interestingly, in the midst of its rollout, at the end of January DeepSeek experienced a couple of cyber attacks against its infrastructure, according to China. One attack was a distributed denial of service intent on disrupting DeepSeek services with subsequent attacks were brute force in nature, trying to crack user IDs in an effort to perhaps understand how DeepSeek works. China blamed the U.S. hackers for the attack, though it stopped short pointing to government culpability. The fact that the threat actors purported to discover the workings of the DeepSeek platform is interesting in its own right and echoes the type of exploitation Chinese threat actors sought.

The nation state rush to use AI has been expected though how to address the challenges of adversary use of this advanced technology looks to largely rely on the very technology itself. According to a recent report, 41% of global technology and data leaders expect the volume of cyber threats to increase due to AI’s rapid adoption, and as of the end of 2024, an estimated 50% of businesses had implemented some measure of AI into their cybersecurity process. It remains to be seen whether attackers or defenders will have an advantage in this space, especially as attackers become more fully adept at maximizing generative AI to not just enhance current operations but create never seen before attacks.

Fortunately, the global community has taken notice. In September 2024, the United States, Europe, the United Kingdom, and several other countries signed a treaty to ensure that AI is “developed and decommissioned in ways that respect human rights, , support democratic institutions, and uphold the rule of law.” However, the treaty’s tenets apply to all AI systems save for those used for national security or defense, an interesting exemption when it comes to worrying about how states can use AI when it comes to their own self interests. It’s difficult enough for network defenders to adopt AI defenses at the same pace attackers– whether it be cybercriminals, hacktivists, or just run of the mill hackers – are deploying them. Now, when state actors are aggressively jumping into the fray, this exponentially makes things more taxing, especially if states are creating their own AI that they can weaponize. So, while the dual use aspect of AI can be used to support both sides of a state’s cyber program, there is always the fear that a state can better leverage AI for their own attack interests that may keep others from signing. Currently only 10 countries have signed it (no ratifications as of yet) not including the European Union, so many may wait and see how this unfolds before committing to the treaty.

A common thread for bolstering cybersecurity globally is international cooperation, sharing threat information, best practices, common standards adoption, and implementing adaptable regulations to address evolving cyber threat environment. This strategy has continued to be an ongoing process with varying amounts of success. Whether this can be applied to the AI space is a question mark. While what happens in cyberspace is fast, the speed with which AI implementation is already impacting the cyber landscape will challenge multinational efforts to find a way forward in a timely manner. Worse, debate of how to address the AI space is still relatively fresh and being contested by all public and private interests that think they know better. One thing seems certain: in the changing dynamics of great power competition, states find competing for dominance in this field a strategic imperative that will position them for future success. The race may be on, but it’s anyone’s game to win.

7. Resistance Lessons from Myanmar

Two points.

We overlook the strategic situation in Myanmar and its importance in the region and in strategic competition with China. We should be studying and understanding it not only for lessons learned but also for its impact.

Second, Rob Burrell is one of only a few leading scholars who deeply study resistance phenomena.

Conclusion:

Myanmar’s civil war, though unique, shares similarities with other present-day intrastate conflicts. Recognizing the four key lessons discussed above can better enable future foreign policy objectives, particularly in regions of strategic competition like Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the African Sahel. Intrastate conflict in these areas is increasing at a shocking rate and, as in the case of Yemen, can have vital strategic consequences. Some important lessons to take note of include (a) appreciating prevalent leftist politics in many intrastate conflicts, (b) considering nonviolent organizations as resistance centers of gravity, (c) identifying long-term support strategies which can bring about better reconciliation, and (d) possibly leveraging shadow economies for material support to resistance. In this regard, Myanmar offers some distinct lessons about the evolution of resistance and support for resistance, which may inform future activities in other regions globally.

Resistance Lessons from Myanmar

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/02/07/resistance-lessons-from-myanmar/

by Robert S. Burrell

02.07.2025 at 06:00am

Introduction

Ignoring localized security black spots can have global repercussions if left unchecked. Until 2024, for instance, the United States and its Western partners paid little attention to the Iranian-sponsored Houthis in Yemen…until this belligerent power disturbed global shipping patterns and completely shut down the Red Sea. Elsewhere, in North Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and the Sahel, a vast trend in rampant irregular warfare has emerged with global implications – largely unaddressed today by the West until they become a pressing and immediate crisis.

Like with the aforementioned regions, little international attention is being paid to Myanmar (Burma), which has been embroiled in a pervasive conflict since 2021. This is an important contest for regional states, including China, which have vested interests. While preparation for large-scale combat operations against a peer adversary remains critical for countries like Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, irregular warfare and proxy warfare along the periphery in fragile states remain the likely future battleground of competition.

Take one look at Figure 1 from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, which compares state-on-state conflict (dark blue) with intrastate conflict (teal) and intrastate conflict supported by external states in yellow. Instances of intrastate conflict (and states taking sides in intrastate conflict) is soaring, while occurrences of state-on-state conflict remains small. The picture that emerges shows that if the trend continues, then academic efforts within international security should prioritize the study and resolution of intra-state conflicts.

Figure 1: Armed Conflict by Type, 1946-2023 (Source: UCDP)

Recent intrastate struggles in Myanmar represent a needed area of study to advance the understanding of conflict. Support for popular resistance against Myanmar’s military force is evolving, and the distinctive lessons counter many of the prevailing lessons garnered from previous eras. For one, this case study demonstrates that contemporary resistance can coexist across a continuum, from nonviolent action through civil war simultaneously and symbiotic with one another. In Myanmar (as well as places like the Donbas in Ukraine) civil disobedience, partisan activities, and warfare have blended norms of nonviolent and violent resistance. This one fact stands in stark contrast to the academic consensus established by scholars, like Erica Chenoweth, who cautioned about the efficacy of nonviolent and violent resistance intermingling (Chenoweth, 147-148).

Western powers, and their special operations forces, should closely examine case studies like Myanmar to prepare for future conflict in the contemporary environment. Accordingly, this essay dives into four resistance lessons in Myanmar, which include: (a) understanding the politics in today’s fragile states, (b) finding the resistance center of gravity, (c) creating successful support strategies, and (d) leveraging shadow economies.

Background

Ongoing insurgencies have undermined the stability of Myanmar for nearly eight decades, but the recent conflict resembles more of a belligerency (as defined in international law)In late 2020, the National League for Democracy, the political party led by Aung San Suu Kyi (nickname Suu Kyi), won the democratic election. In 2021, the country’s military (Tatmadaw) under Min Aung Hlaing seized power instead. Hlaing then sentenced Suu Kyi to prison for 30 years, while her followers started a government-in-exile called the National Unity Government (NUG).

The NUG comprises both a government-in-exile and a shadow government, duplicating many of the functions of the military junta that ostensibly rules Myanmar from Yangon with the support of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). To fund its operations, the NUG has raised over $100 million, with many of the funds raised through Singapore and with strong support from the Burmese diaspora. The NUG has also fielded an armed wing, with several organizations cooperating under the umbrella term of People’s Defense Forces.

Perhaps out of necessity, the CCP continues to have direct dialog and maintains investments with the military junta. Chinese investments in health, energy, and governmental services in 2021 alone equaled $291 million USD to the Tatmadaw. Over the past three years, this support has continued, with China preparing in 2025 to contribute financial and technical assistance to the military junta for an additional 20 projects, equating to $138 million. Meanwhile, the CCP appears to be hedging its bets through informal dialog with influential resistance groups, and it may not be wedded to the idea of a future Tatmadaw government.

Resistance Continuum

Myanmar’s diverse landscape of ethnicities, cultures, and languages create many seams and fractures in the human terrain, and a myriad of factions have formed and shifted between cooperation and competition during decades of political instability. Since 2021, most resistance movements have tenuously agreed to support the claims of the NUG government-in-exile or at least have united in opposition to the military junta. There are twelve major organizations, which Figure 2 categorizes by their general resistance nature, from nonviolent legal protest, nonviolent illegal action, rebellion, insurgency, and belligerency.

Figure 2: Resistance Continuum in Myanmar, 2024 (source: Author)

Lessons

Lesson 1 – Understand the Prevalent Political Environment in Today’s Fragile States (it might not be like back home)

In Myanmar, some organizations have ethnic aspirations of independence, but many others have an unflinchingly leftist, antifascist, and antiimperialist political ideology. This is by no means unique to Myanmar and suggests that supporting resistance in these regions compels an understanding of left-wing ideology. Unlike the Cold War, leftist movements no longer need to represent the adversary to external support from the West. China overtly supports a totalitarian regime in the Tatmadaw, for example, while several of Myanmar’s leftist resistance groups are asking for assistance from the United States, which includes funding for drones, armored vehicles and radar jamming gear. This situation potentially places Western nations in support of popular leftist groups while the Chinese Communist Party supports an unpopular right-wing autocracy. In short, the politics in today’s resistance environment may be shifting in the direction of leftist social agendas but not necessarily opposing Western interests. Understanding these environments allows external supporters to build sustainable partnerships, like those in Myanmar, but also with possible applicability in Africa and Latin America.

Lesson 2 – Find the Resistance Center of Gravity (it might not be where you expect)

Because resistance frequently exists on a continuum, the center of gravity today does not always exist with armed groups – even in armed conflict. One might point to the National Unity Government (NUG) as the center of gravity for resistance in Myanmar. For instance, NUG has achieved a consensus-based leadership role between multiple groups and has garnered encouragement from outside groups, like the European Union. However, one might take a closer look at an alternative nonviolent resistance center of gravity – the All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU) with flag shown in Figure 3. Student protest movements in Myanmar have a long history, and ABFSU has much experience in organizing nonviolent action.

Figure 3: Official Flag of All Burma Federation of Student Unions (Source: Creative Commons)

It might be best to describe ABFSU as an elite front organization. It consists of multiple student organizations and a Union whose leadership constantly changes. Like birds in flight, members act on consensus-based decision-making and simply replace leaders with enthusiastic volunteers when required. ABFSU has frequent contact with Myanmar’s active insurgent groups and frequently coordinates with violent resistance while keeping its own activities nonviolent and officially non-aligned. ABFSU alumni also occupy positions of power and authority in many of the other movements, some of which engage in violent resistance, while these students form a broad basis of recruits that feed rank-and-file membership of insurgents. ABFSU has been active for decades and continues to be the most effective nonviolent resistance in the country. As a result, idealistic, smart, and educated young people (and increasingly women) play a prominent role in Myanmar’s resistance, both nonviolent and violent forms.

Lesson 3 – Plan for the Desired End State from the Beginning (arming, training, and equipping may be secondary)

It is typical for resistance environments to contain multiple and competing organizations with opposing goals, causing great complexity in planning the desired end state following victory. The French Resistance is but one example; the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan is another. While some of the major Myanmar resistance movements are currently united in opposition to the military junta, they also have varying and disparate objectives, with some animosities to each other going back generations.

If the military junta is eventually defeated, what happens next? That end state needs to drive the support provided to resistance activities. For example, if the desired end state in Myanmar is a transition to NUG authority, then the NUG is the logical centerpiece for external support. Is the NUG ready to transition to power in a way that increases the country’s stability and successfully addresses its endemic fragility (ethnic rivalries, corruption, and crime)? Scholars like Lumpy Lumbaca have argued that a continuation of civil war is likely the result of Tatmadaw defeat. If so, then the transition from resistance to effective and legitimate governance becomes perhaps the primary line of effort and overall objective from the very first stage of providing external support.

Lesson 4 – Utilize Existing Shadow Economies (get comfortable with irregular forms of sustainment)

Resistance movements and organized crime have a nexus around the globe, as seen in Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia. As part of the Golden Triangle, Myanmar possesses one of the largest shadow economies in the world and is home to one of the most powerful organized crime networks on earth. These types of transit routes and illicit activities are common in such resistance-rich conflict zones. The Akha people inhabiting northern Myanmar’s mountainous region embody but one example of a transnational actor utilizing underground routes. Meanwhile, perhaps the most powerful regional illicit organization is Red Wa, which has affiliations with United Wa State Army (UWSA) as shown in Figure 4. While embodying a resistance, UWSA has currently aligned itself with the Tatmadaw.

Figure 4: United Wa State Army, 2019 (source: Voice of America)

In today’s competitive environment, recognizing and leveraging nonstate entities, including those active in shadow economies, may prove pivotal. For instance, the UWSA and its Red Wa extension maintain strong ties with the Chinese Communist Party, indicating that China is strategically hedging its bets alongside the Tatmadaw by courting a nonstate actor with a powerful illicit network. One of the most effective ways to provide low-visibility material support to resistance is harnessing these existing markets. External states with interests in interstate conflict can leverage these networks by (1) ensuring governmental authorities exist to fund support to nonstate entities, (2) preparing the environment through persistent engagement which builds awareness of how these transnational networks operate, and (3) developing the necessary human relationships within shadow economies to facilitate use of them. These deliberate and concerted efforts can ensure timely support to partners in denied areas when such methods are deemed appropriate.

Conclusion

Myanmar’s civil war, though unique, shares similarities with other present-day intrastate conflicts. Recognizing the four key lessons discussed above can better enable future foreign policy objectives, particularly in regions of strategic competition like Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the African Sahel. Intrastate conflict in these areas is increasing at a shocking rate and, as in the case of Yemen, can have vital strategic consequences. Some important lessons to take note of include (a) appreciating prevalent leftist politics in many intrastate conflicts, (b) considering nonviolent organizations as resistance centers of gravity, (c) identifying long-term support strategies which can bring about better reconciliation, and (d) possibly leveraging shadow economies for material support to resistance. In this regard, Myanmar offers some distinct lessons about the evolution of resistance and support for resistance, which may inform future activities in other regions globally.

Tags: Myanmar, Resistance Movements, Supporting Resistance Movement

About The Author

Robert S. Burrell
Robert S. Burrell, PhD is a Senior Research Fellow at the Global and National Security Institute at the University of South Florida. He is also a 2025 Irregular Warfare Initiative Fellow, a 501(c)3 partnered with Princeton’s Empirical Studies of Conflict Project and the Modern War Institute at West Point. For more information, see https://www.robertburrell.com.

8. US Marine, 3 contractors killed in Philippines plane crash

Oh no...another tragedy. Americans doing important work for US national security that flies under the radar.

US Marine, 3 contractors killed in Philippines plane crash

militarytimes.com · by The Associated Press · February 6, 2025

Editor’s note: This story was updated Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025, to reflect that the U.S. service member killed in the crash is a U.S. Marine. The photo was also updated.

MANILA, Philippines — One U.S. Marine and three defense contractors were killed Thursday when a plane contracted by the U.S. military crashed in a rice field in the southern Philippines, U.S. defense officials said.

The aircraft was conducting a routine mission “providing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance support at the request of our Philippine allies,” U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement. It said the cause of the crash was under investigation.

The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines also confirmed the crash of a light plane in Maguindanao del Sur province. It did not immediately provide other details.

The bodies of the four people were retrieved from the wreckage in Ampatuan town, said Ameer Jehad Tim Ambolodto, a safety officer of Maguindanao del Sur. Indo-Pacific Command said the names of the crew were being withheld pending family notifications.

Windy Beaty, a provincial disaster-mitigation officer, told The Associated Press that she received reports that residents saw smoke coming from the plane and heard an explosion before the aircraft plummeted to the ground less than a kilometer (about half a mile) from a cluster of farmhouses.

Nobody was reported injured on or near the crash site, which was cordoned off by troops, Beaty said.

A water buffalo on the ground was killed as a result of the plane crash, local officials said.

U.S. forces have been deployed in a Philippine military camp in the country’s south for decades to advise and provide training to Filipino forces battling Muslim militants. The region is the homeland of minority Muslims in the largely Roman Catholic nation.

9. Philippines Says 135 Chinese Boats ‘Swarming’ Reef off Its Coast

Philippines Says 135 Chinese Boats ‘Swarming’ Reef off Its Coast

thedefensepost.com · by Staff Writer With AFP · December 4, 2023

The Philippines said Sunday more than 135 Chinese vessels were “swarming” a reef off its coast, describing the boats’ growing presence as “alarming.”

The Chinese boats were “dispersed and scattered” within the boomerang-shaped Whitsun Reef, which the Philippines calls Julian Felipe Reef, around 320 kilometers (200 miles) west of Palawan Island, the coast guard said.

Whitsun Reef is more than 1,000 kilometers from the nearest major Chinese landmass of Hainan Island.

The Philippines said it counted 111 “Chinese maritime militia vessels” (CMM) on November 13. When the coast guard deployed two patrol boats to the area on Saturday the number had increased to “more than 135,” the force said.

“No response was made to the radio challenges issued by the PCG (Philippine Coast Guard) to the CMM vessels which is now estimated to have grown to more than 135 vessels dispersed and scattered within Julian Felipe Reef,” Manila’s coast guard said, describing the boats’ presence as “alarming” and “illegal.”

The Chinese embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Beijing claims most of the South China Sea, including waters and islands close to the shores of its neighbors, and has ignored an international tribunal decision that its assertion has no legal basis.

It deploys vessels to patrol the waters and has built artificial islands and military installations to reinforce its stance.

The Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Vietnam have also staked claims to various islands and reefs in the sea, which is believed to have rich petroleum reserves deep beneath its waters.

The coast guard released images Sunday which it said showed Chinese vessels lined up in formation while others were scattered around the waters.

In 2021, a similar incident involving more than 200 Chinese vessels at the reef sparked a diplomatic row between Manila and Beijing.

At the time, Manila insisted their incursion into the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone was unlawful.

But China insisted they were fishing boats sheltering from bad weather and were allowed to be there.

The Philippines announced Friday that it was establishing a coast guard station on the largest island it holds in the South China Sea to improve the monitoring of Chinese vessels.

The coast guard station would be equipped with “advanced systems,” including radar, satellite communication, coastal cameras, and vessel traffic management, National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano said during a visit to Thitu Island.

The station has been built and is expected to be operational early next year.

thedefensepost.com · by Staff Writer With AFP · December 4, 2023

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

A fair and balanced overview without the hyperbole form eithe rMusk or its ardent defenders.

Key excerpt:

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

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

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

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/what-is-usaid-trump-doge-elon-musk-509ae5ae?st=Y8doSM&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

By Joseph Pisani

Follow, Betsy McKay

Follow and Joseph De Avila

Updated Feb. 6, 2025 8:25 pm ET

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

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

In less than two weeks, the administration has moved swiftly to dismantle the work of the 10,000-person, $40 billion foreign assistance agency and the thousands of people who work in nonprofits and other groups that partner with it. The move will drastically shrink the size of USAID, leaving about 290 employees, agency officials said. Around 800 awards and contracts will also be cut. But because so much is in flux, another USAID official said it’s possible the final number of personnel could be 600. Critics say suspending congressionally authorized and funded programs is illegal, as USAID’s existence and authorities are codified in federal law.

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

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

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

On Tuesday, all of USAID’s Washington facilities were closed, as the agency prepared to put nearly all of its remaining 1,400 staffers on administrative leave, two officials said.

The big announcement came later that night: Nearly all USAID staff would be put on paid administrative leave starting Saturday morning, with aides working around the world ordered to come home within 30 days, barring special circumstances.

Here’s what to know about USAID:

What is USAID?

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

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

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

Can Musk shut down USAID?

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

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

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

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

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

What Is USAID and Why Do Elon Musk and Trump Want It Shut Down?

Why are Trump and Musk targeting USAID?

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

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

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

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

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

How big is USAID?

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

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

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

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

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

Why is the White House attacking Politico in relation to USAID?

The entire U.S. government paid $8.2 million over the past 12 months to Politico for subscriptions to its news products, according to USAspending.gov. It is common for federal government agencies to subscribe to newspapers and other media outlets. The U.S. federal government spent $6.75 trillion in the most recent fiscal year ended Sept. 30, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Of that $8.2 million total, USAID paid $24,000 to subscribe to Politico’s news products. Politico offers a professional subscription service called Politico Pro, which includes exclusive analysis and a tool to track legislation.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency would be canceling the government’s subscriptions to Politico.

Trump echoed remarks from some conservative commentators in a social-media post Thursday, claiming without evidence that payments made by USAID to Politico and other media outlets were to create “good stories about the Democrats.”

Politico CEO Goli Sheikholeslami and global editor-in-chief John Harris sent a memo to staffers saying they welcomed a discussion of the value of the company’s subscription products. They said Politico has never received government subsidies or have been a beneficiary of government programs. Most subscribers to Politico Pro come from the private sector, they said.

This explanatory article may be updated periodically.

Alex Ward contributed to this article.

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

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

11. Politico Draws DOGE’s Ire, Signaling a Shakeout for Media with Major Government Customers

Every public affairs organization in the US government should subscribe to the most important media organizations. Should media organizations provide their products to the US government for free? Let's examine what other services the US government pays for and compare it to the costs for information from the fourth estate. Compare what we spend in contracts with consulting firms for "strategic communications." News subscriptions are budget dust but the breathless hyperbole surrounding news subscriptions makes for good news (some irony here).

Politico Draws DOGE’s Ire, Signaling a Shakeout for Media with Major Government Customers

Elon Musk’s cost-cutting project flags more than $8 million in spending on the political publication

https://www.wsj.com/business/media/politico-draws-doges-ire-signaling-a-shakeout-for-media-with-major-government-customers-8b4db480?mod=latest_headlines

By Alexandra Bruell

Feb. 6, 2025 9:05 pm ET

Elon Musk arriving at President Trump’s inauguration in January. Photo: Shawn Thew/Press Pool

An inside-the-Beltway must-read media outlet has quickly become a flashpoint in President Trump’s pursuit of federal government-spending cuts.

Politico, launched nearly 20 years ago to provide insight into government goings-on and Capitol Hill haggling, built a lucrative business selling news and, increasingly, targeted products to federal agencies and the lobbyists and consultants who serve them. It developed sophisticated policy-analysis and tracking tools, in addition to exclusive news and newsletters.

Complaints about excessive government spending on news organizations began swirling earlier this week, after Semafor reported on a technical error that impacted Politico’s payroll. Conservatives on social media latched onto the news, falsely tying the pay glitch to the recent cutoff in funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Elon Musk, who runs DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, shared a post about tallies of government payments to Politico on X, which he owns, calling them a “wasteful expenditure.” Others escalated the furor throughout the day. Thursday morning, Trump said on his social-media platform Truth Social that funds going to news organizations were a “payoff” for “writing positive stories about Democrats.”

Many federal agencies subscribe to publications from Politico, the Associated Press, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal parent Dow Jones, as well as to specialized newsletters and data products such as Bloomberg’s financial terminals. Some of these subscriptions can cost tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on how many people use them and the contract length.

Individual members of Congress and committees often subscribe, too. Federal records show some spent thousands of dollars on such products between July and September 2024, the latest period available.

A spending crackdown could have far reaching implications for publications that count on the government as a customer. It also may be a harbinger of what’s to come for businesses in other sectors, like consulting, that have enjoyed steady revenue by tailoring their offerings to the federal workforce.

USAID paid $24,000 to Politico in fiscal 2024, according to USASpending.gov, and the federal government paid a total of $8.1 million in that time. That is about 3% of Politico’s 2024 revenue, according to people familiar with the matter.

Federal agencies classify their spending on various media products in a number of ways, making it difficult to tally for some companies. The government spent tens of millions of dollars on newspapers, scientific journals, legal publications and oil-price databases in recent years.

Elizabeth Warren Urges Protestors to Fight Back Against Musk's DOGE Efforts

Musk’s DOGE agents access sensitive personnel data, alarming security officials

The highly restricted data includes personally identifiable information for millions of federal employees maintained by the Office of Personnel Management.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/02/06/elon-musk-doge-access-personnel-data-opm-security/

February 6, 2025 at 7:52 a.m. ESTYesterday at 7:52 a.m. EST

The headquarters of the Office of Personnel Management in D.C. on Monday. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

By Isaac Stanley-Becker, Greg Miller, Hannah Natanson and Joseph Menn

Agents of billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have gained access to highly restricted government records on millions of federal employees — including Treasury and State Department officials in sensitive security positions — as part of a broader effort to take control over the government’s main personnel agency, according to four U.S. officials with knowledge of the developments.

The officials, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, expressed alarm about potential breaches or abuses of such records by members of an administration whose senior-most officials, including President Donald Trump, have threatened to retaliate against federal workers accused of disloyalty.

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The records maintained by the Office of Personnel Management, or OPM, amount to a repository of sensitive information about employees of most federal agencies — including addresses, demographic profiles, salary details and disciplinary histories. The moves at the OPM by members of Musk’s pseudo-governmental DOGE have coincided with similar efforts to gain access to sensitive systems at other agencies, including a Treasury Department system responsible for processing trillions of dollars in U.S. government payments — a development reported last week by The Washington Post.

Records obtained by The Post show that several members of Musk’s DOGE team — some of whom are in their early 20s and come from positions at his private companies — were given “administrative” access to OPM computer systems within days of Trump’s inauguration last month. That gives them sweeping authority to install and modify software on government-supplied equipment and, according to two OPM officials, to alter internal documentation of their own activities.

The DOGE team’s demand for access to OPM files and networks came as Musk deputies arrived at the agency promising to wipe out 70 percent of its staff, officials said. A senior OPM official, during a team meeting Wednesday, said that core units focused on modernizing the agency’s network and improving accountability are “likely to go away,” according to a recording of the session obtained by The Post. Those who have been reassigned at the agency include the chief information officer and the chief financial officer.

Meanwhile, morale has plummeted, said three OPM officials, as DOGE agents have clashed with senior career personnel. One official recalled a recent meeting in which a young DOGE team member began screaming at senior developers and calling them “idiots.”

A halt to IT upgrades — along with fresh access by outsiders with the power to install new programs — could create novel vulnerabilities at an agency that has been repeatedly hacked by foreign intelligence services. The worst came in 2014, when China is believed to have obtained the background investigations of more than 20 million people seeking security clearances.

“It’s like you’re defending some medieval castle and someone comes in and starts firing all the archers who are positioned to defend it,” a former U.S. intelligence official said. “You let your defenses down. It’s a perfect time to strike.”

A DOGE representative did not address questions about data access and other permissions. Emailed questions to the OPM went unanswered. A U.S. official maintained that everyone with access to sensitive systems is a government employee with the appropriate clearances.

The Trump administration has suggested that members of the DOGE team have the authority to review sensitive government files but has refused to provide details about whether security clearances have been issued. The speed with which any clearances would have been supplied suggests they may have skipped customary precautions, including FBI background checks, U.S. officials said.

Trump issued an executive order last month that bypasses the normal procedure for White House staff security checks, though DOGE went unmentioned.

At least six DOGE agents were given broad access to all personnel systems at the OPM on the afternoon of Jan. 20, the day of Trump’s inauguration, according to two agency officials. Three more gained access about a week later, they said.

The data that the DOGE team can access includes a massive trove of personal information for millions of federal employees, included in systems called Enterprise Human Resources Integration and Electronic Official Personnel Folder. It also includes personal information for anyone who applied to a federal job through the site USAJobs, the people said. Last year alone, the people said, there were 24.5 million such applicants.

The two OPM officials said the level of access granted to DOGE agents means they could copy the Social Security numbers, phone numbers and personnel files for millions of federal employees.

“They could put a new file in someone’s record; they could modify an existing record,” one said. “They could delete that record out of the database. They could export all that data about people who are currently or formerly employed by the government, they could export it to some nongovernment server, or to their own PC, or to a Google Drive. Or to a foreign country.”

It’s Russian Men Against Ukrainian Machines on the Battlefields in Ukraine

Desperately short of infantry, Kyiv is using aerial drones to pick off Russian infantry. It’s slowing, but not stopping, the Russian advance.

By Ian LovettFollow

and Nikita Nikolaienko | Photographs by Serhii Korovayny for WSJ

Updated Feb. 7, 2025 12:06 am ET

POKROVSK, Ukraine—In the flat farmland and shattered mining towns surrounding this eastern Ukrainian city, the war has become mainly a contest between Russian foot soldiers and Ukrainian explosive drones.

After nearly three years of fighting, Ukraine is desperately short on infantry to man the trenches. They are outnumbered at least 5-to-1 along most of the eastern front, and the men they have are mostly older, recently conscripted, and lacking motivation and experience in battle, Ukrainian officers said.

What Kyiv’s forces have in abundance are drones—which Ukraine is now relying on to compensate for the lack of infantry.

Surveillance drones police the 600-mile front line, having all but entirely replaced human reconnaissance. When Russian soldiers advance toward Ukrainian positions, explosive aerial drones are dispatched to pick them off, while larger drones drop bomblets onto them. Infantry fire their weapons only when the occasional Russian soldier manages to slip past the phalanx of unmanned aerial vehicles.

The strategy has worked, up to a point. In nearly a year since Moscow began marching on Pokrovsk, Russian troops have failed to capture the city, despite huge advantages in manpower and artillery ammunition.

Watch: Inside Ukraine’s Pokrovsk as Russia Intensifies Attacks

AI-Native Companies Are Growing Fast and Doing Things Differently

Unlike established companies, these startups take AI as the starting point

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ai-native-companies-are-growing-fast-and-doing-things-differently-97af5e56?mod=latest_headlines

By Steven Rosenbush

Feb. 7, 2025 5:00 am ET

AI-native companies are born with a capacity to dynamically change and learn from customer data and workflows, potentially becoming as good as a custom app that a client might have commissioned. Illustration: Thomas R. Lechleiter/WSJ

Most companies necessarily approach generative AI as an innovation to integrate, but a handful of startups have sprung up with artificial intelligence as their starting point.

Like the digital-native companies that disrupted their elders at the dawn of the internet era, these AI natives don’t need to reimagine their products, infrastructure or workflow, much less retrain or cut employees as a result of the new tech. They are testing boundaries in sectors from finance to software development and advertising and marketing. And in some cases they are overturning ideas about what’s possible, especially when it comes to growth.

It isn’t clear how many will succeed. But established companies should keep them on their radar, as a potential source of new competition, fresh ideas to be adopted and mistakes to be avoided.

“Microsoft, or some other company that’s a going concern today, has a way of doing things, and they are like, ‘Can I do this more efficiently?’ ” Jared Spataro, chief marketing officer of Microsoft’s AI at Work group, told me. “But we are starting to see the upswing, the creation, of AI native companies. These are companies who say ‘I don’t care how it was.’ ”

Spataro, who leads nearly 300 employees under the Modern Work and Business Applications umbrella, said that AI-native companies provide a glimpse into the future of work. All companies should learn from them as they move toward becoming what Spataro calls “AI first.”

AI native companies have a wide range of characteristics, but they all tend to see AI as more than a tool to increase productivity or drive a particular return on investment. It is a way for them to replace structured processes, which have been at the heart of the corporation throughout the industrial era, with fast, powerful, artificial intelligence and reasoning.

Cancel the ‘fire drill’

Advertising veterans John Elder and Michael Barrett sold their agency, Heat, to Deloitte in 2016, and left in 2021 to create something of their own. Deloitte has a sponsorship agreement with Dow Jones, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal.

That year, Elder and Barrett developed Supernatural AI, a holding company that includes their new agency Supergood. The company said it plans to make Supercharger, its AI-based software-as-a-service platform, widely available for marketers and agencies to license this spring.

The big problem they see in advertising is that prices are falling and compensation costs are rising. “The only answer is technology,” said Barrett, the chief strategy officer. While technology has been applied aggressively in many parts of the ad industry, it has lagged in branding, where Supernatural focuses.

Supernatural’s Supercharger platform brings together multiple data sources, proprietary prompts, and AI models that help the firm with tasks including understanding the competitive landscape, defining and communicating with audiences to uncover insights, building marketing strategies and developing campaign assets for its clients, according to Barrett. The goal is to strip away processes and bring in artificial intelligence and reasoning, delivering outcomes faster and better, he said.

Elder, Supernatural’s CEO, says the company has twice the revenue and half as many people as Heat did at a comparable stage of development.

The way this works in practice was apparent recently when Supergood received a request for proposal from a large prospective client in need of a branding campaign. Supergood had one weekend to formulate its plan.

“Normally that would be a fire drill, right? You would have had a whole process that you were going to execute,” Barrett said. “I would have had to pull two people out of this, and two people out of that and assemble a team and slam something together.”

Instead he spent a Sunday morning feeding relevant documents and information into reasoning models available on the Supercharger platform, then working with the models to quickly pull a proposal together.

Supergood, which came out of stealth last February, has worked with a number of clients including U.S. Bank Chief Marketing Officer Michael Lacorazza. “It accelerated the development process so instead of being in market [with a brand campaign] in six months we were in market in three and a half months,” Lacorazza said on The CMO Podcast in December. “We made human decisions at the end of day for the work. We’re accountable for it,” he said.

Compounding advantage

AI native companies tend to build deeper competitive moats, according to Guru Chahal, a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. “Where I sit, the most important thing is, are you the kind of founding team that can build compounding advantage into your platform? The more it’s used the better it gets, the harder it gets for a competitor to rip it up,” he said.

That’s because traditional SaaS software is quite rigid, even after AI is added onto it, while AI-native apps are more malleable. They have a capacity to dynamically change and learn from customer data and workflows, becoming as good as a custom app that a client might have commissioned, according to Chahal. It’s like a streaming-music playlist that constantly adapts to the user’s tastes: The longer one uses it, the harder it gets to move to another service.

And for the AI-native provider, the experience it accumulates quickly becomes valuable not just to that client, but across its entire industry, Chahal said.

As a result, some AI native companies are gaining scale with remarkable velocity.

StackBlitz hit $20 million in annual recurring revenue eight weeks after it released Bolt.new, a text-to-app product targeting marketing, product and development teams, according to Saam Motamedi, a partner at venture-capital firm Greylock, which invested in StackBlitz.

“Traditionally if we wanted to launch a product, and we could do like a million this year, five million next year and $20 million the next year—so let’s say three years—we would be viewed as a best-in-class company,” Motamedi said. “I’m picking an extreme example. I don’t think that there are many companies that went to $20 million in eight weeks. But these examples now exist.”

Write to Steven Rosenbush at steven.rosenbush@wsj.com

16. It’s Time to Overhaul Information Transfer in Army Training

Excerpts:

Closing the Knowledge Gap

As Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Randy George, commander of Training and Doctrine Command Gen. Gary Brito, and Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Weimer have said, “Successful armies are learning organizations that quickly adapt imaginative solutions.” The fact is, however, that soldiers have too few tools available to them to understand a world packed with major change —including tactics, techniques, and procedures, as well as technology. Soldiers need new ways to receive and access high-fidelity information and experts who understand these changes, so they can learn, generate solutions, and iterate on them in training. This is in line with the Army Learning Concept for 2030-2040, which states that soldiers need “experts and authoritative sources for learners at the point of need” that includes “operational force reach to proponent subject matter experts in support of [multi-domain operational] requirements.”

By integrating commercial entities, foreign veterans, and international advisors, the Army could create a responsive and agile knowledge transfer ecosystem. This approach not only enhances operational readiness but also ensures that the Army remains capable of adapting to the unpredictable nature of contemporary conflicts.

Just as the defense industry needs to reform its production pipelines to remain viable in modern warfare, the Army must reimagine its methods of transferring knowledge from the battlefield to the training environment.

Failure to adapt risks creating a force unprepared for the realities of current and future conflicts. By embracing these transformative pathways, the Army could close the knowledge gap and cultivate a culture of continuous improvement. In an era of rapid technological advancements and evolving threats, this approach represents a critical step toward ensuring the Army’s long-term effectiveness and success. Through collaboration, adaptability, and innovation, the Army can secure its position as a global leader in military operations and preparedness.

It’s Time to Overhaul Information Transfer in Army Training - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Daniel Vazquez · February 6, 2025

In the fast-paced world of modern warfare, the U.S. Army faces an urgent challenge: effectively translating battlefield insights into actionable processes and operational strategies. The gap between observing emerging threats and integrating those lessons into command structures and decision-making protocols reflects a systemic vulnerability in military preparedness. Bureaucratic inertia delays critical knowledge transfer — leaving operational units ill-prepared for rapidly evolving combat environments. The result is a significant lag between identifying and implementing new tactics — making the Army vulnerable to outdated strategies.

Advancements in technology and the increased complexity of modern battlefields have magnified this issue. Adversaries continue to develop innovative tactics and deploy cutting-edge technologies, often at a pace that exceeds the military’s ability to adapt. Addressing this gap is imperative to ensure the U.S. Army remains agile, informed, and capable of responding effectively to emerging threats. The Army could enhance operational efficiency and maintain a decisive edge in contemporary warfare by fostering a streamlined process for translating data into action.

Parallels can be drawn here to the defense industry’s struggle to produce and replenish munitions and equipment at speeds relevant to modern warfare. As slow production pipelines hinder operational readiness, the current knowledge transfer methods are equally lagging. This delay in transferring battlefield insights to the training environment fails to “produce” soldiers with up-to-date knowledge of challenges, tactics, techniques, and procedures critical to modern conflict. Addressing these deficiencies requires a comprehensive reformation of the information transfer processes — mirroring the reforms urgently needed within the defense manufacturing sector.

Become a Member

Gaps in Current Systems

While the Center for Army Lessons Learned and Training and Doctrine Command’s Directorate of Intelligence G-2 initiatives play vital roles in gathering and disseminating battlefield insights, they face limitations that hinder their effectiveness in rapidly evolving conflict scenarios. The Center for Army Lessons Learned often relies on post-operational debriefs, which, while comprehensive, delay the integration of new intelligence into actionable strategies. Similarly, Training and Doctrine Command’s G-2 initiatives are constrained by hierarchical structures and bureaucratic bottlenecks that rely on both the intelligence community and the combatant command’s intelligence and analysis, making them ill-suited for addressing time-sensitive challenges.

For instance, during conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the slow adoption of strategies countering improvised explosive devices exemplified how delays in knowledge transfer could hinder operational effectiveness. These systems struggled to process and disseminate emerging adversary tactics quickly enough to adapt to the changing battlefield environment by delaying official doctrine. By integrating real-time commercial feedback loops and leveraging transformation in contact brigades as pilot units, these gaps could be bridged effectively — allowing for faster adoption of innovative strategies.

Complementary Pathways for Knowledge Transfer

To address these gaps, three interconnected approaches — commercial entities, foreign veterans, and international military advisors — could enhance the Army’s ability to process and disseminate critical information. Each pathway offers unique strengths to build a more effective and adaptive knowledge transfer ecosystem. These solutions, when integrated, create a robust system designed to overcome the inherent inertia of traditional military structures, ensuring that lessons learned on the battlefield are rapidly and effectively utilized across the force.

Commercial Entities: Enhancing Real-Time Adaptation

Commercial entities provide a dynamic solution to improving information transfer processes. Unburdened by traditional military bureaucracy, these teams could swiftly analyze emerging threats, develop adversary profiles, and simulate scenarios for Army leadership. Their ability to integrate real-time insights into decision-making frameworks ensures that lessons learned on the battlefield are quickly translated into actionable intelligence or form a red team for training scenarios where the commercial entities could replicate evolving battlefield threats in training environments ranging from home station training to larger combat training center rotations.

For example, while traditional military units may struggle to replicate new electronic warfare tactics, commercial entities could rapidly identify and simulate these innovations — allowing leadership to test countermeasures and refine strategies. Companies like Top Aces, Coastal Defense, and RAVN have already demonstrated the effectiveness of this model by enhancing situational awareness and operational readiness in other branches of the military. By operating independently of rigid command hierarchies, these entities provide flexibility and agility in addressing complex challenges.

By leveraging the expertise of commercial entities, the Army could create a continuous feedback loop between intelligence gathering, training, and operational planning. This collaboration could begin with the issuance of requests for proposals by key stakeholders, such as Training and Doctrine Command and Forces Command, to identify innovative solutions for replicating emerging threats and tactics in training environments. These requests for proposals would serve as a mechanism for engaging commercial providers to develop targeted capabilities and integrate cutting-edge technologies into Army training systems.

This process ensures commanders have the most up-to-date information available, enabling them to make informed decisions under rapidly changing conditions in both training and operational environments. Additionally, commercial providers could pilot emerging technologies and methodologies as part of a red team approach, offering critical insights into their practical applications before broader adoption. This ensures that new tools and strategies are validated in real-world conditions, minimizing the risks associated with untested innovations.

Veterans of Recent Wars: Experiential Knowledge Carriers

Americans and citizens from NATO member states who have volunteered in conflicts such as the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War could bring invaluable firsthand experience to improve the Army’s information processes. They possess practical knowledge that is often absent in doctrinal training material, as well as recent on-the-ground knowledge of evolving threats, tactics, and strategies.

For example, their understanding of adversary behavior and the application of emerging technologies could inform intelligence processes and confirm or deny assumptions about enemy tactics, techniques, and procedures, enhancing the accuracy and relevance of actionable insights. Veterans also bridge the gap between tactical and strategic domains — providing a holistic understanding of battlefield dynamics.

These veterans also offer a critical opportunity to bridge the gap between tactical units and strategic command. By participating in post-operation debriefs and intelligence reviews, they could provide direct feedback on the effectiveness of current protocols and suggest improvements. This iterative process ensures that lessons from the field are quickly incorporated into broader operational strategies. Furthermore, such veterans could serve as mentors and trainers, imparting their knowledge to newer generations of soldiers while fostering a culture of adaptability and innovation within the force.

International Military Advisors: Global Perspectives

Foreign military advisors from nations actively engaged in high-intensity conflicts could provide critical insights to enhance the Army’s processes. Their understanding of how adversaries adapt to modern combat conditions enables U.S. forces to anticipate challenges and refine operational approaches. Advisors from allied nations, such as NATO partners, offer unique perspectives shaped by their regional expertise and firsthand experience in combating near-peer adversaries.

International advisors could contribute to improving processes through direct collaboration with Army leadership. By participating in intelligence briefings and operational planning sessions, they could highlight areas where existing protocols may fall short. Their real-time knowledge ensures that the Army’s framework remains responsive to the dynamic nature of modern warfare. Advisors’ insights often extend beyond tactical considerations, encompassing strategic and political dimensions that influence military operations. This broader perspective ensures that decision-makers are better equipped to address multifaceted challenges.

Furthermore, international advisors foster a culture of collaboration — strengthening ties between allied forces on top of efforts already made via American support to partners with the security force assistance brigades. This exchange of knowledge not only enhances the Army’s strategic outlook but also ensures interoperability in multinational operations. By leveraging the expertise of international partners, the Army could develop more nuanced and comprehensive strategies. These partnerships also build trust and cohesion among allied nations — reinforcing collective security objectives and enhancing the effectiveness of joint operations.

Integrated Knowledge Transfer: A Holistic Approach

The most effective solution is not to choose one pathway but to integrate all three. By combining commercial entities, foreign veterans, and international advisors, the Army could create an adaptive ecosystem that accelerates knowledge transfer. This integrated approach ensures that lessons from the field are quickly analyzed, disseminated, and applied across the chain of command. The collaboration among these pathways amplifies their benefits — creating a cohesive system that prioritizes continuous learning and improvement.

For example, insights from foreign advisors could inform commercial provider simulations, while the experiences of foreign veterans could provide additional context for refining operational protocols. This interaction enhances the Army’s decision-making processes — ensuring that strategies remain aligned with the realities of modern combat. By fostering collaboration among these diverse contributors, the Army could cultivate a more resilient and adaptable force capable of addressing complex challenges.

Implementation Through Transformation in Contact Brigades

The transformation in contact brigades presents an ideal framework for piloting this integrated approach. These brigades are uniquely suited to adopt a phased implementation strategy designed to accelerate knowledge transfer. The phased approach would include three distinct phases over 18 months:

Setup Phase (6 months)

The Army could establish an Other Transactions Authority at Training and Doctrine Command or Forces Command to serve as a rapid acquisition funding stream, enabling the prototyping of these new processes. Once established, the Army could designate transformation-in-contact brigades as testbeds, form partnerships with key stakeholders such as commercial entities and international advisors, and implement analytics tools to collect baseline data.

Execution Phase (12 months)

The Army could then implement updated training methodologies, tactics, and tools while collecting real-time feedback from training and operational environments.

Evaluation Phase

The Army could then analyze outcomes to refine processes, identify the best practices, and develop scalable solutions for broader Army adoption via transition from a prototype other transaction authority to a production other transaction authority or a standard federal acquisition regulation-based acquisition.

These brigades serve as incubators for innovation, allowing the Army to experiment with innovative technologies and see how recent lessons learned pair with new technologies to influence tactics and techniques before scaling them across the broader force.

Through focused experimentation, the transformation in contact brigades could identify best practices for improving information transfer and operational efficiency. These lessons could then be scaled across the broader force — ensuring that the entire Army benefits from enhanced decision-making frameworks and adaptive strategies. By aligning these efforts with ongoing modernization initiatives, the Army could create a seamless integration of new capabilities and operational processes — ensuring that soldiers are equipped to succeed in diverse and dynamic environments.

Closing the Knowledge Gap

As Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Randy George, commander of Training and Doctrine Command Gen. Gary Brito, and Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Weimer have said, “Successful armies are learning organizations that quickly adapt imaginative solutions.” The fact is, however, that soldiers have too few tools available to them to understand a world packed with major change —including tactics, techniques, and procedures, as well as technology. Soldiers need new ways to receive and access high-fidelity information and experts who understand these changes, so they can learn, generate solutions, and iterate on them in training. This is in line with the Army Learning Concept for 2030-2040, which states that soldiers need “experts and authoritative sources for learners at the point of need” that includes “operational force reach to proponent subject matter experts in support of [multi-domain operational] requirements.”

By integrating commercial entities, foreign veterans, and international advisors, the Army could create a responsive and agile knowledge transfer ecosystem. This approach not only enhances operational readiness but also ensures that the Army remains capable of adapting to the unpredictable nature of contemporary conflicts.

Just as the defense industry needs to reform its production pipelines to remain viable in modern warfare, the Army must reimagine its methods of transferring knowledge from the battlefield to the training environment.

Failure to adapt risks creating a force unprepared for the realities of current and future conflicts. By embracing these transformative pathways, the Army could close the knowledge gap and cultivate a culture of continuous improvement. In an era of rapid technological advancements and evolving threats, this approach represents a critical step toward ensuring the Army’s long-term effectiveness and success. Through collaboration, adaptability, and innovation, the Army can secure its position as a global leader in military operations and preparedness.

Become a Member

Daniel Vazquez is a U.S. Army officer and a 2013 graduate of Norwich University’s Corps of Cadets. Commissioned as an infantry officer, he has served in Stryker, Light Infantry, and Security Force Assistance formations and most recently as an Innovation Officer for XVIII Airborne Corps at Fort Liberty, NC. The views and opinions described in the paper are his and do not reflect the official position of XVIII Airborne Corps, the U.S. Army, or any part of the U.S. government.

Image: Lara Poirrier via DVIDS.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Daniel Vazquez · February 6, 2025

17. What Google’s return to defense AI mean

Excerpts:

“The primary driver of this decision was to ensure Google remains a leading voice in responsible AI. The technology frontier and business landscape is totally altered since 2018, so it was time to turn the page on Maven once-and-for-all,” the person said.

Not everyone is pleased, including some Google employees and human-rights groups.

But Greg Allen, director of the Wadhwani AI Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Defense One, “This is a fabulous decision and one that Google should have made years ago. Helping to protect America is ethical.”

What Google’s return to defense AI means

More competition in a hot market—and the plain fact that only the Pentagon will set boundaries.

By Patrick Tucker

Science & Technology Editor

February 6, 2025 04:10 PM ET

defenseone.com · by Patrick Tucker

Google has discarded its self-imposed ban on using AI in weapons, a step that simultaneously drew praise and criticism, marked a new entrant in a hot field, and underscored how the Pentagon—not any single company—must act as the primary regulator on how the U.S. military uses AI in combat.

On Tuesday, Google defended its decision to strip its AI-ethics principles of a 2018 prohibition against using AI in ways that might cause harm.

“There’s a global competition taking place for AI leadership within an increasingly complex geopolitical landscape. We believe democracies should lead in AI development, guided by core values like freedom, equality, and respect for human rights,” it reads.

The move is a long-overdue correction to an overcorrection, one person familiar with the company’s decision-making process told Defense One.

That “overcorrection” was Google’s 2018 decision not to renew its contract to work on the AIr Force’s Maven project. At the time, Maven was the Pentagon’s flagship AI effort: a tool that vastly reduced the time needed to find useful intelligence in hours and hours of drone-video footage. Within defense circles, the program wasn’t controversial at all. Military officials describing the program always said Maven’s primary purpose was to enable human operators, especially in performing time-sensitive tasks under enormous cognitive burdens to understand large data volumes. Many praised the effort as pointing the way toward other AI-powered decision aids.

But Google was less than perfectly transparent about its involvement in the project, particularly with its workforce, which, in part, led to an employee revolt in the form of mass resignations and protests. The company soon dropped the contract—but at the cost of competing for other important Pentagon IT contracts.

The episode catalyzed the 2019 drafting of the Defense Department’s own AI ethics principles, which were far more comprehensive than those of most Silicon Valley companies. They aimed to reassure the American tech community and international partners that the Pentagon could lead in the ethical use of AI in combat.

The person familiar with the decision-making process at Google said that this week’s announcement was driven by the rapidly shifting landscape around military use of AI.

“The primary driver of this decision was to ensure Google remains a leading voice in responsible AI. The technology frontier and business landscape is totally altered since 2018, so it was time to turn the page on Maven once-and-for-all,” the person said.

Not everyone is pleased, including some Google employees and human-rights groups.

But Greg Allen, director of the Wadhwani AI Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Defense One, “This is a fabulous decision and one that Google should have made years ago. Helping to protect America is ethical.”

Google is joining a crowded field of AI-focused firms that are increasingly collaborating to shape Pentagon AI use. But Google brings with it unique cloud and AI capabilities, which are part of the reason it was chosen for Project Maven in the first place. Google’s decision, and the emergence of other rival players in the AI defense space, shows how much sentiment in Silicon Valley has changed to allow collaboration with the military.

Syracuse University professor Johannes Himmelreich, who researches the ethics of artificial intelligence and political philosophy and co-edits the Oxford Handbook of AI Governance, said in an email, “Military and surveillance tech aren’t bad or unethical as such. Instead, supporting national security and doing so in the right way is incredibly important. And supporting national security is, in fact, arguably the ethical thing to do."

Google’s original ban was “probably was overly zealous to begin with,” Himmelreich said.

But Google’s decision also highlights the importance of the Defense Department as the ultimate monitor of how it uses AI in warfare. Whether that means changes to the AI ethics principals under the new administration, or as China and Russia rapidly advance their own capabilities, is an open question.

One AI entrepreneur suggested that China was already ahead.

“We don't really have industrial policy,” Noosheen Hashemi, CEO of health-app maker January AI, said Thursday at the Globsec Transatlantic Forum. “And, of course, [China’s] AI is all in the military. They have an AI military doctrine and they already have incorporated AI into at least 300 different programs in their military. And we don't have an AI military doctrine, which is really unfortunate because, you know, we have a lot of bureaucracy, slow approval cycles, but we have insisted on having a human on the loop, and they have not insisted on that. So they have set themselves up for autonomous warfare, which will be faster.”

defenseone.com · by Patrick Tucker

18. Trump must keep arming Ukraine if he wants a good peace deal

Excerpts:

To help Ukraine stabilize its lines and to show Russia it can’t outlast U.S. resolve, Trump should publicly commit to continue providing Kyiv with military assistance. Much of this, especially in the near term, simply comes down to delivering materiel promised under Biden. Trump should also ask Congress to pass a “Ukraine leverage” bill that ensures his aid authority and funding won’t run out. This assistance could be funded in creative ways that shift the burden off the American taxpayer, such as loans or utilizing frozen Russian assets.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials should continue pushing Kyiv to mobilize younger men to address its manpower shortage. And Washington and its allies also need to work out plans for credible security guarantees for Ukraine to prevent a follow-on war.

As Trump has correctly observed, the “only way” to get a good deal “is not to abandon” Ukraine. He’s made clear he wants the killing to stop. So does Ukraine. Now the trick is to convince Putin that fighting on won’t get him anywhere.

Trump must keep arming Ukraine if he wants a good peace deal

Europe must do its fair share, but it cannot carry the burden alone.

By Mark Montgomery and John Hardie

February 7, 2025 02:37 AM ET

defenseone.com · by Mark Montgomery

The Trump White House briefly halted and then quietly resumed arms shipments to Ukraine amid internal disagreement over U.S. assistance for Kyiv. The administration landed on the right move, but it has remained ambiguous about whether aid will continue. If President Donald Trump wants to get a peace deal that preserves American interests, he should focus on gaining leverage over Russia. This will require not only tougher economic sanctions but also continued military support for Ukraine.

Cutting arms supplies, perhaps as part of some ill-conceived effort to strong-arm Kyiv, would make little sense. Ukraine isn’t the obstacle to peace. As Trump said, the Ukrainian government has clearly demonstrated it’s “ready to negotiate a deal.”

The problem, rather, is Vladimir Putin. As much as the Russian leader might try to sweet-talk Trump about his readiness to negotiate, he really means he’s ready to accept Ukraine’s capitulation. For Putin, this war isn’t just about grabbing more territory in eastern Ukraine. It’s about his longstanding goal of making Ukraine a vassal state, a core issue in his broader confrontation with the West. Fortunately, Russia has been unable to realize this goal through military efforts. But Putin will strive to exploit potential peace talks to achieve his ambitions.

The Kremlin’s demands are brazen. It insists that Kyiv cede territory, abandon hope of joining NATO, and swallow other constraints on its sovereignty, including limits on Ukraine’s military. Moscow even seems to hold out hope of replacing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with a more pliable alternative. Hence its contention that his electoral mandate has expired and Ukraine requires new elections to legitimize any final peace deal—a ruse that U.S. officials shouldn’t fall for. Russia also insists a peace deal must be part of a broader framework that redresses the conflict’s supposed “root causes,” including by limiting NATO’s military presence in Eastern Europe.

Russia’s terms wouldn’t just hurt Ukraine; they’d also jeopardize important U.S. interests. Leaving Ukraine vulnerable to further Russian aggression would raise the likelihood of a follow-on war, already a strong possibility. If Putin believes he’s prevailed in a contest of wills over Ukraine despite everything the West has thrown at him, that would hardly strengthen NATO deterrence. Observing this American weakness, China might similarly grow more inclined toward aggression against Taiwan.

To maximize chances for a good deal, Trump needs leverage. He’s smartly threatened economic punishment if Russia remains obstinate. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s Russia-Ukraine envoy, has suggested lowering the G7 price cap on Russian oil exports, while Trump says he wants to work with Saudi Arabia to lower oil prices. These good ideas should be paired with, inter alia, tougher sanctions on vessels and entities helping Russia circumvent the G7 mechanism. Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” should be forced to stay at anchor.

Trump should consider tightening sanctions on Russian oil revenue now rather than waiting for Putin to play hardball. Russia’s economic woes are growing, but at the current pace the war may not become economically unsustainable until 2026 or later. Tougher sanctions enforced immediately could shorten that timeline and promote a quicker deal.

Still, economic tools alone won’t be enough. Current battlefield trends, along with uncertainty over future U.S. aid, bolster Moscow’s bargaining power and incentivize Putin to keep pressing his advantage.

Ukrainian forces remain on the back foot as Russia continues to make slow but steady gains, primarily because Ukrainian units are short on infantry. While Russia’s creeping advance comes with heavy losses of men and materiel, which Moscow eventually won’t be able to sustain, the risk is that Ukraine’s defensive capabilities could deteriorate faster. This risk would grow if Washington halted military aid.

Europe must do its fair share, but it cannot carry the burden alone, especially in munitions production. Without consistent infusions of U.S. artillery ammunition, for example, Russia could regain firepower superiority and Ukraine’s overstretched infantry would suffer higher casualty rates. This is precisely what happened during the previous aid cutoff in early 2024. Likewise, absent American support, Ukraine would struggle to protect its critical infrastructure from Russian missiles.

To help Ukraine stabilize its lines and to show Russia it can’t outlast U.S. resolve, Trump should publicly commit to continue providing Kyiv with military assistance. Much of this, especially in the near term, simply comes down to delivering materiel promised under Biden. Trump should also ask Congress to pass a “Ukraine leverage” bill that ensures his aid authority and funding won’t run out. This assistance could be funded in creative ways that shift the burden off the American taxpayer, such as loans or utilizing frozen Russian assets.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials should continue pushing Kyiv to mobilize younger men to address its manpower shortage. And Washington and its allies also need to work out plans for credible security guarantees for Ukraine to prevent a follow-on war.

As Trump has correctly observed, the “only way” to get a good deal “is not to abandon” Ukraine. He’s made clear he wants the killing to stop. So does Ukraine. Now the trick is to convince Putin that fighting on won’t get him anywhere.

defenseone.com · by Mark Montgomery

19. Rolling Back Naval Forward Presence Will Strengthen American Deterrence

Excerpts:

In sum, everyone’s favorite solution to the mismatch between operational demands and ship supply — increased shipbuilding — will not work on its own. Operational demands should fall in tandem, to buy time to increase the fleet’s size and restore the structural readiness of the existing force. The stigma around questioning naval forward presence should end. Global policing, and the reflexive elevation of near-term goals over long-term risk, no longer works.

Paring back naval forward presence will be hard. The United States will have to communicate to allies and partners that a new era has arrived. But in the end, that hard truth is as important for them as it is for the United States. Because if deterrence fails, and the United States goes to war with China — by the time the smoke clears, the U.S. Navy won’t have enough ships left for presence anyway.

Rolling Back Naval Forward Presence Will Strengthen American Deterrence - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Jonathan Panter · February 7, 2025

Decades of global policing and crisis response have taken a toll on the U.S. Navy. If the United States wishes to deter China, Beijing must believe Washington can fight a sustained, brutal war, one in which the U.S. Navy can take major losses and still fight on. Today, that is not the case, and the concept of “naval forward presence” bears much of the blame.

Naval forward presence remains popular with foreign policy elites and the military brass, but the election of President Donald Trump provides a chance to break its hold on conventional wisdom. Trump arrives with a mandate to reshape American foreign policy. His new team, having learned from his first term, is more determined to enact revolutionary change.

Naval forward presence — the practice of maintaining combat-credible naval forces worldwide to deter adversaries, reassure allies, respond to crises, and perform constabulary functions for the global commons — has dominated U.S. foreign policy since the 1990s. Few critics dare question it. The concept’s supporters — under the illusion that “credibility anywhere is credibility everywhere” — darkly warn that rolling back presence operations will embolden America’s adversaries.

The opposite is true. A navy tasked to do all these things cannot do them all well. Rolling back presence will strengthen, not weaken, deterrence. For too long, short-term thinking has taken priority over managing long-term risk. It’s time to flip the script. Readiness for great-power conflict — peace through strength rather than global policing — should once again be America’s primary grand-strategic aim.

Become a Member

Too Busy, and Too Small

Few Americans appreciate just how busy their navy is. At any time, over one-third of U.S. Navy ships are deployed — the greatest proportion in history. Sometimes these ships are training with allies and partners, buttressing American power. Sometimes they are responding to crises where legitimate American interests are at stake and force may be necessary. But many of the Navy’s overseas duties are unrelated to coercion or deterrence, including humanitarian operations, freedom of navigation transits, “maritime security” patrols in far-flung regions, or various missions under the nebulous banner of norms enforcement.

As my research has shown, these operations come at a cost: They have shrunk and weakened the U.S. Navy’s surface fleet to a shadow of its former self. The reasons lie in politics, poor strategic foresight, and bureaucracy. While critics usually describe the problem as a mismatch between operational “demand” and the “supply” of ships, this mismatch is itself a symptom of an underlying national confusion about the purpose of the Navy itself. The hard truth is that stale ideas about America’s proper role in the world have outlived the geopolitical circumstances in which they germinated.

After the Soviet Union dissolved, U.S. policymakers saw a new world marked by brush-fire conflicts, civil wars, and economic dislocation due to globalization. Global policing, albeit under more the palatable terms like “engagement” or “liberal internationalism,” became the dominant foreign policy consensus. To offer flexibility for these brush fires, the Navy designed its fleet around carrier strike groups and amphibious readiness groups. The Navy made this case — that an uncertain world required presence, and presence required carriers, amphibious ships, and supporting multi-mission combatants — in its own planning documents, and led a public relations campaign to this effect. The 1993 Bottom-Up Review (the Department of Defense’s seminal assessment of required force structure for the post-Cold War era), under a section entitled “naval presence,” explicitly stated that naval forward presence would require more large-deck ships than the Navy would need if it used the same force-planning metric as the other services (the two “major regional contingency” standard). In other words, “presence” as an idea was good for the Navy’s bottom line — at first.

Circumstances soon changed. First, the large, exquisite ships that carrier strike groups and amphibious readiness groups required were expensive. Over time, this drove up customer costs and lifecycle costs, and inhibited alternative force structures and platform choices, because the coalition of contractors and policymakers benefiting from the presence-oriented force structure objected to changes. Accordingly, with time, the Navy purchased fewer vessels overall, and the fleet began to shrink.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military’s geographic combatant commanders — empowered a few years earlier under the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act — began demanding surface ships for nearly every crisis that arose in their theaters. Policymakers, too, grew accustomed to “showing the flag.” Sending a carrier strike group to a hot zone was appealing, as it avoided the political risk and financial cost of overseas basing and was an easy way to ratchet diplomatic pressure up and down.

In essence, the Navy did its job too well: It designed a fleet and promoted a concept for operating it that policymakers and combatant commanders found addictive. So, throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s, the surface fleet got busier and busier while becoming smaller and smaller.

Like a car, a ship can only be run so hard until it becomes too expensive to maintain. As the Navy overused its ships, they retired early. Other ships picked up their slack and were then overused themselves. To support the rising tempo of operations, the Navy repeatedly delayed maintenance on ships. America’s shipyards, which required predictable contracts to remain economically viable, bled skilled laborers, driving up costs in an endless cycle.

The result was that the surface fleet shrank from over 400 ships in 1994 to an all-time-low of 272 vessels during the Obama administration (today, it sits at around 300). Even with an ongoing multi-decade, multi-billion-dollar investment in the nation’s public shipyards, the U.S. Navy will not clear its maintenance backlogs until at least 2040. Even the chief of naval operations recently acknowledged that the fleet will not grow any time soon. Wargames indicate that, were the United States to fight China, the U.S. Navy might eke out a nominal win, but one that blurs the line between victory and defeat, setting back American military power for a generation.

The Readiness Trade-Off

How was all this allowed to happen?

Everyone, from the combatant commanders to the Navy, lost sight of the trade-off between operational and structural readiness. “Operational” readiness refers to the ability of existing military units to fight tonight. “Structural” readiness refers to a military’s ability to generate sufficient mass for multiple rounds in a prolonged fight, including factors like the health of the defense-industrial base. In basic terms, an extremely high level of operational readiness is required for global policing duties; whereas if the goal is fighting a long war against a peer competitor, structural readiness is more important. If resources are finite (which they always are), the two trade off.

In brief, for three decades, the U.S. Navy traded its structural readiness (for great-power conflict) for operational readiness (to support naval forward presence). It burned through its ships, and debilitated its shipyards, to make sure it could respond to whatever policymakers wanted, whenever they wanted it, no matter how irrelevant it was to deterrence and warfighting.

This was not a problem in the 1990s, when the same fleet busy with presence operations could still fight off any foreseeable challenger. But by 2015, given the rise of China, the Navy, oversight agencies, contracted research organizations, and think tanks were all sounding alarms. Navy leaders begged Congress, time and again, to reduce the frequency with which Navy ships were deployed, so that the force could recoup its readiness.

Then came the collisions. In 2017, two U.S. Navy destroyers, in separate incidents, crashed into commercial ships, and 17 American sailors lost their lives. Two investigations — Secretary of the Navy Richard V. Spencer’s Strategic Readiness Review and Chief of Naval Operations John M. Richardson’s Comprehensive Review — offered recommendations to restore the Navy’s readiness. The Navy’s highest-level investigation even recommended “condition[ing] congressional and executive branch leaders to accept that the higher cost and time to achieve established readiness standards will mean less Navy presence worldwide.” This never happened, because Congress continued to assume the Navy could balance both operational and structural readiness, as my research delineating the hearings after the accidents has shown.

Legislation passed after the collisions resolved none of the Navy’s presence-induced headaches. Congress enacted reforms to restore operational readiness but ignored the Navy’s proposed reforms to improve its structural readiness. The Strategic Readiness Review had proposed changes to the Navy’s readiness commands (such as eliminating the so-called “Inouye Amendment”) and changes to the adjudication of combatant commanders’ requests for forces. Instead, what the Navy got was a little more officer training here, some sleep requirements for officers there. After dipping for one year after the collisions, the Navy’s operational tempo continued its inexorable annual rise that began in the 1990s. Presence was simply too popular an idea.

Shipbuilding is Not Enough

The U.S. Navy’s readiness for sustained combat — and hence its ability to deter China — is in a catastrophic state. The Trump administration should give the U.S. Navy a fighting chance to rebuild itself.

It can start with the unfinished business of 2017, reforming the global force management process (the process by which the Department of Defense adjudicates combatant commanders’ requests for military forces) to prioritize structural readiness over emergent demands. In this process, the service chiefs and the joint staff consider combatant commander needs in their theaters and recommend service assets that can be made available to them. Should a combatant commander need forces in excess of this established allocation (an “emergent requirement”), he or she can submit a “request for forces.” The idea that the services should “just say no” to such requests is aspirational, but difficult. Why? Because — as the Strategic Readiness Review noted — the Navy has developed a culture of meeting non-stop (presence-driven) operational demands.

As the review also points out, the multiple overlapping authorities and the adverse growth of staffs within the Navy has made tracking the long-term effects of operations on structural readiness a nightmare. In addition, the staff of the chief of naval operations, located in the Pentagon, appears biased towards operational demands and can lose sight of long-term readiness. The problem is not that the Navy lacks input in global force management, but that the Navy still does not “say no” enough. To resolve this, the review recommended establishing the initial force availability as the “maximum supportable peacetime force,” such that any further combatant commander requests for forces can only be met with forces moved from other theaters. This is, in essence, a hard cap on what the Navy can do, ensuring that unready units are never sent to meet the latest and greatest combatant commander request.

But emergent demands aside, Navy operational tempo will still remain too high to restore structural readiness. The Trump administration should therefore reevaluate the idea of naval forward presence itself: the notion that America’s Navy is foremost a provider of global goods, and a global policeman, rather than the preeminent warfighting force of a maritime power whose primary goals ought to be deterring — and if necessary, winning — a great-power conflict.

First, allied navies and coast guards should do more. The U.S. Navy should not be in the business of sanctions enforcement in the Middle East, for example, if NATO and regional partners have the means to handle it — which they will, if they step up their defense spending. Second, naval power need not be the default diplomatic tool it has become. The Navy can reduce freedom of navigation operations, for example, if the United States wields economic sanctions, tariffs, and issue linkages to pressure regional actors to play their part in enforcing this norm, or to punish China (and others) for excessive and illegal maritime claims, resource extraction, and other violations. This is the moment to seize the initiative. The second election of Trump has shocked allies and partners, who realize that America’s skepticism of liberal internationalism is no passing phase. The president’s national security appointments, as they emerge, are beginning to reflect this emphasis on restraint and realpolitik.

Congress, for its part, can immediately pass the SHIPS for America Act, which provides financial incentives for restoring the nation’s domestic shipbuilding capacity — an important complement to the ongoing Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program, focused on America’s public shipyards. But building traditional (manned) ships, while a worthy aim, will take time: Even the Navy’s most optimistic shipbuilding projections suggest that presence demands will exceed the fleet’s capacity well into the 2050s. Meanwhile, the gap between China’s industrial and manufacturing capacity and that of the United States remains enormous. While novel initiatives like purchasing ships from allies (which Trump supports) will help bridge the gap, it will not be resolved overnight.

And that is before considering cost overruns, rising deficits, the growing share of mandatory spending in the budget, and Congress’ unfortunate overreliance on continuing resolutions (which disrupt shipbuilding). Equally sobering are the Navy’s unfortunate systemic problems, reflected in several recent shipbuilding design fiascoes. While freeing shipbuilding from the tyranny of ballooning requirements is a separate issue (one also on the president’s radar), this is yet another challenge to ramping up ship production.

In sum, everyone’s favorite solution to the mismatch between operational demands and ship supply — increased shipbuilding — will not work on its own. Operational demands should fall in tandem, to buy time to increase the fleet’s size and restore the structural readiness of the existing force. The stigma around questioning naval forward presence should end. Global policing, and the reflexive elevation of near-term goals over long-term risk, no longer works.

Paring back naval forward presence will be hard. The United States will have to communicate to allies and partners that a new era has arrived. But in the end, that hard truth is as important for them as it is for the United States. Because if deterrence fails, and the United States goes to war with China — by the time the smoke clears, the U.S. Navy won’t have enough ships left for presence anyway.

Become a Member

Jonathan Panter, Ph.D., is a Stanton nuclear security fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and an American conservatism and governing fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. He previously served as a surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy.

Image: Chief Petty Officer Mark D. Faram via Department of Defense

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Jonathan Panter · February 7, 2025

20. I Read Your Article (How the LTG (R) James M. Dubik Writing Fellows Program Transformed My View on Writing in the Profession of A)

Why you should write.

LTG Dubik is a great American.

I Read Your Article

How the LTG (R) James M. Dubik Writing Fellows Program Transformed My View on Writing in the Profession of Arms

https://www.hardingproject.com/p/our-stories-matter

Melissa Czarnogursky

Feb 06, 2025

This guest post highlights the brand new LTG (R) James M. Dubik Writing Fellows Program. Applications are due 15 February 2025. Please send your submissions here.

I submitted my first article in 2023 to MOPs and MOEs. That piece captured the chronology of how our team leveraged the Health and Holistic Fitness program to maintain health and fitness during high operational times. I sought to break the cycle of organizational compromise between operations and fitness/health. We found a way and I wanted to get the word out for others to feel encouraged to try creative solutions, using our model as a proof of concept.

Shortly after, I wrote about two validation exercises, planned and executed for two maintenance teams, that I had the privilege of leading in two different units. The article, published with From the Green Notebook, focused on prioritizing tactical and operational training for maintainers.

A few weeks after publication, I was approached by a maintenance chief warrant officer in a foreign country while deployed. I did not know him, but he recognized my nametape. He shared that he recognized me as the author of an article he read and how much he resonated with the message and call to action. He said he printed it immediately and distributed it to his team.

Within a few days, I received emails from the Chief of Ordnance, a foreign liaison officer in the Combined Arms Support Command (CASCOM), the CASCOM Commanding General, and a senior Ordnance Chief Warrant Officer. One of those emails said, “Keep sharing your story with our Army teammates.” The article reached our community, and people were thinking about and discussing the message.

“Am I Too Junior?”

I uttered these words to a close mentor as the call for applications circulated digital platforms for the brand new LTG (R) James M. Dubik Writing Fellows Program (submissions can be made here). The program seeks to revitalize professional writing and discourse across the military and national security community. While not new to the Army, having served as an active duty enlisted noncommissioned officer prior to commissioning, I assumed I had nothing of value to contribute to this conversation. Frankly, I assumed they wanted to hear from a multi-degreed senior officer. I was wrong, and that’s why I have mentors.

Encouraged to apply, I took a leap of faith and submitted my application. After selection to the program, our cohort held meetings, communicated across email chains and networking sessions, and engaged with leaders and editors across the branch journals and publication outlets. It has been an incredible space to engage with diverse professionals who all share the same passion for using writing to reach our communities. I felt challenged, inspired, and stimulated by these warrior-scholars. Additionally, as a non-resident program, it fit well with my busy schedule, allowing me to continue full-time service and personal life.

Share Your Story

The best part of being a writing fellow is talking to service members about writing. The last few years of my career took me across 10 countries in multiple theaters. There is no better place to meet hundreds of service members across different units and components. I recently sat down with an Army Reserve noncommissioned officer who wanted to share her observations about utilization of her sustainment function in a deployed environment. I smiled and said, “you should write about this, the Army needs to hear your story.” The following night we poured over doctrine and past articles, leveraging the new Line of Departure website to find what has been written about the topic. I coached her through where to start in consolidating her ideas, lessons learned, and recommendations. There is no rank, time in service requirement, or background required to having an idea worth writing about it. As this leader is living the environment daily, at ground-level, her message is important to our Army.

Subscribed

To adapt to the changing environments, we must leverage the on-ground assessments, lessons learned, and new ideas across our formations. Writing and reading is one way for us to reach our service members quickly and engage decision makers, practitioners, and stakeholders. Our stories matter, and they will continue to matter. I am thankful for the renewed focus on writing in our profession and programs and initiatives like the Harding Project and the LTG (R) James M. Dubik Writing Fellows Program. It is more important now than ever that we write.

First Lieutenant Melissa A. Czarnogursky is a LTG (R) James M. Dubik Writing Fellow. She currently serves in the CENTCOM DDOC/ CCJ4 (forward deployed). Her previous assignments include Assistant Brigade Mobility Officer for 108th Air Defense Artillery Brigade, Company Executive Officer for Echo Maintenance Company 1-7 ADA, the Battalion Maintenance Officer for 8A HHBN, a platoon leader for various sustainment formations, and is a prior enlisted Field Artillery Sergeant. Her operational experience includes service and deployments in AFRICOM, CENTCOM, and PACOM.

21. Reconnaissance and Transformation in Large-Scale Combat Operations: Lessons from the Light Brigade Combat Team

Excerpts:

Reconnaissance is the cornerstone of the LBCT’s operational effectiveness, contributing disproportionately to the intelligence collection necessary for navigating complex and hostile environments. Through initiatives like transformation in contact and the integration of advanced technologies, the Army is reshaping how reconnaissance is conducted, ensuring that light units remain agile, informed, and effective.

The LBCT’s unique vulnerabilities demand a tailored approach to reconnaissance, emphasizing speed, adaptability, and risk mitigation. By leveraging human-machine integration, decentralized teams, and innovative tools, the Army can enhance the LBCT’s capabilities, ensuring its viability in large-scale combat operations. As military technology and tactics continue to evolve, the importance of accurate and timely reconnaissance will only grow, cementing its role as a critical enabler of mission success.

Reconnaissance and Transformation in Large-Scale Combat Operations: Lessons from the Light Brigade Combat Team - Modern War Institute

Garrett S. O'Keefe and Donald W. Castelow | 02.06.25

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Garrett S. O'Keefe · February 6, 2025

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Modern large-scale combat operations demand a new level of precision and adaptability from military forces. Among the emerging units tailored to meet these demands is the light brigade combat team (LBCT). Designed for rapid deployment and high mobility, the LBCT capitalizes on speed and flexibility—but faces vulnerabilities stemming from its light armor and limited firepower. Reconnaissance, therefore, is not merely a tactical asset but a fundamental requirement for the LBCT’s survival and operational success.

The LBCT’s unique characteristics require tailored reconnaissance support, and implementing effective reconnaissance in resource-constrained environments will pose new challenges for units like the LBCT. This means that innovative methods must be employed to overcome these challenges. In large-scale combat operations, reconnaissance is a critical enabler for maneuver forces, and through initiatives like transformation in contact, we can identify the best way to deliver reconnaissance capabilities to units like the LBCT, ensuring they remain agile and informed in complex combat scenarios.

Reconnaissance: The Foundation of LBCT Operations

Reconnaissance is the systematic collection and analysis of information about enemy forces, terrain, and potential threats. It enables commanders to anticipate challenges, make informed decisions, and execute operations with precision. For the LBCT, reconnaissance is particularly vital. Unlike heavily armored units, the LBCT relies on speed and adaptability, attributes that can leave it vulnerable to ambushes, improvised explosive devices, and sustained enemy fire. Reconnaissance mitigates these risks by providing real-time information, enabling the LBCT to avoid threats and exploit opportunities.

The LBCT’s operational model hinges on its ability to maneuver swiftly through diverse terrains while maintaining a high operational tempo. This requires an exceptional degree of situational awareness, achievable only through effective reconnaissance. By integrating reconnaissance assets into its structure, the LBCT ensures that it can navigate the battlefield with precision, maintaining its speed and reducing its exposure to unnecessary risks.

Transformation in Contact and Reconnaissance Integration

The Army’s transformation in contact initiative exemplifies the evolution of reconnaissance in modern warfare. Transformation in contact focuses on adapting capabilities in real-time, leveraging technological advancements and human-machine integration to enhance operational effectiveness. Units such as the 101st Airborne Division and the 25th Infantry Division have pioneered the use of transformation in contact concepts, integrating tools like short-range reconnaissance drones, medium-range reconnaissance systems, long-range reconnaissance platforms, and low-altitude stalking and strike ordnance (LASSO).

These technologies significantly enhance the LBCT’s reconnaissance capabilities. For example, short-range reconnaissance drones provide immediate situational awareness, allowing commanders to identify threats and opportunities in real time. Medium- and long-range reconnaissance systems extend the operational reach of reconnaissance efforts, providing indicators of enemy movements and information about terrain over a broader area. LASSO systems further augment these capabilities by delivering precision-strike options against high-value targets identified during reconnaissance missions.

Human-machine integration formations represent a key component of transformation in contact, blending human judgment with the efficiency and precision of unmanned systems. By employing robotic assets as the first line of reconnaissance, the Army reduces risk to personnel while ensuring that decision-making remains under human control. This approach is particularly well suited to the LBCT, allowing it to leverage its mobility and adaptability while compensating for its lack of heavy armor.

Reconnaissance Enhancements for the LBCT

While reconnaissance is a critical enabler for all maneuver units, the LBCT’s unique characteristics mean that reconnaissance enhances its capability in three especially important ways.

1. Situational Awareness

The LBCT’s reliance on speed and adaptability makes situational awareness essential. Reconnaissance provides detailed information on enemy troop locations, terrain, and potential threats, enabling the LBCT to anticipate challenges and plan accordingly. Real-time updates allow commanders to make rapid decisions, maintaining the initiative and avoiding unnecessary risks.

2. Tactical Positioning

Reconnaissance enables the LBCT to exploit terrain advantages, such as high ground, chokepoints, and covered approaches. By understanding the operational environment, the LBCT can achieve tactical superiority, striking with precision and withdrawing swiftly. Effective positioning minimizes casualties, maximizes operational tempo, and ensures that the LBCT can maintain its momentum in dynamic combat scenarios.

3. Risk Mitigation

Reconnaissance reduces the LBCT’s exposure to ambushes, improvised explosive devices, and drone attacks. By identifying threats early, the LBCT can avoid direct confrontations, conserve resources, and maintain the safety of its personnel and equipment. Tools such as drones and electronic warfare systems provide additional layers of protection, allowing the LBCT to operate effectively in high-risk environments.

Challenges in Implementing Reconnaissance

Despite its importance, effective reconnaissance presents significant challenges, particularly for resource-constrained units like the LBCT. Advanced technologies such as drones, satellite imagery, and signals intelligence require specialized training, logistical support, and substantial investment. These dependencies can limit the LBCT’s ability to operate independently in austere environments.

The integration of reconnaissance data into actionable strategies is another obstacle. Delays in processing or disseminating information can undermine operational effectiveness, particularly in fast-paced combat scenarios. To address these challenges, the Army has explored decentralized approaches, such as the creation of multifunctional reconnaissance teams and cross-domain and effects companies. These units combine diverse capabilities, including electronic warfare, short-range reconnaissance, and LASSO, into cohesive teams that can adapt to dynamic combat environments.

The LBCT must also overcome logistical constraints, such as the high battery consumption of reconnaissance systems and the limited availability of charging infrastructure in the field. Innovative solutions, such as using drones to establish stationary surveillance points, have shown promise in addressing these issues. By landing drones on high vantage points, units can maintain situational awareness while conserving resources and reducing their operational footprints.

Operational Innovations: Lessons from the Field

Recent field exercises have highlighted the potential of innovative reconnaissance methods in enhancing LBCT operations. During Operation Nakoa Fleek, a cross-domain and effects company demonstrated the effectiveness of decentralized reconnaissance. By integrating scouts, snipers, and unmanned systems, the company provided real-time information that shaped battalion-level maneuvers. This approach minimized friction, streamlined communication, and allowed for rapid adjustments to emerging threats.

Similarly, the brigade reconnaissance and strike company, developed during a Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center rotation, showcased the effectiveness of multifunctional reconnaissance teams. These teams employed advanced reconnaissance tools to gather information leading to actionable intelligence without direct engagement, enhancing operational tempo and enabling commanders to exploit enemy vulnerabilities. For example, multifunctional reconnaissance teams used short-range reconnaissance systems to identify counterattacks and electronic warfare capabilities to detect enemy movements, ensuring that the LBCT maintained the initiative.

Enhancing Reconnaissance Capabilities

To fully realize the potential of the LBCT, the Army must invest in training, technology, and doctrine. Soldiers must develop expertise in reconnaissance techniques, augmented by human intelligence and signals intelligence, to complement technological assets. Portable reconnaissance equipment and field service representatives can bridge capability gaps, ensuring that the LBCT can operate autonomously in austere environments.

As the LBCT continues to transform, the need to innovate and apply out of the box thinking is critical. The ability to use new technologies as something more than they were intended will be vital to units’ reconnaissance success. An example is to use a drone as a stationary video feed, similarly to a trail camera used by hunters.

Emphasizing reconnaissance training at the company and battalion levels can further enhance the LBCT’s capabilities. Soldiers must develop the skills to conduct reconnaissance on foot, ensuring that they can operate effectively in environments where advanced technologies are unavailable or compromised. The LBCT’s inherent mobility makes it well suited for deep reconnaissance missions, enabling it to gather information in enemy-controlled areas with minimal risk of detection.

Reconnaissance is the cornerstone of the LBCT’s operational effectiveness, contributing disproportionately to the intelligence collection necessary for navigating complex and hostile environments. Through initiatives like transformation in contact and the integration of advanced technologies, the Army is reshaping how reconnaissance is conducted, ensuring that light units remain agile, informed, and effective.

The LBCT’s unique vulnerabilities demand a tailored approach to reconnaissance, emphasizing speed, adaptability, and risk mitigation. By leveraging human-machine integration, decentralized teams, and innovative tools, the Army can enhance the LBCT’s capabilities, ensuring its viability in large-scale combat operations. As military technology and tactics continue to evolve, the importance of accurate and timely reconnaissance will only grow, cementing its role as a critical enabler of mission success.

Command Sgt. Maj. Garret S. O’Keefe is currently the 2nd Light Brigade command sergeant major in the 25th Infantry Division. He was recently selected as the next XVIII Airborne Corps sergeant major.

First Sgt. Donald W. Castelow is currently the first sergeant for HHC 2nd Light Brigade Combat Team. His previous position was the recon and strike company first sergeant and the cross-domain effects company first sergeant.

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

Image credit: Sgt. 1st Class Ryele Bertoch, US Army

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mwi.westpoint.edu · by Garrett S. O'Keefe · February 6, 2025

22. Special Operations Memorial at MacDill Air Force Base Vandalized with Spray Paint

What the ....???

Excerpts:

To see the memorial, a patron would have to have approved base access, such as a service member, dependent, civilian employee or retiree with proper identification or be escorted by someone who was cleared to enter the installation.

The Special Operations Memorial has several walls inscribed with the names of fallen service members as well as benches for patrons to read, observe and reflect on their sacrifice. The wall of names was not vandalized, Daland said.

Special Operations Memorial at MacDill Air Force Base Vandalized with Spray Paint

military.com · by Thomas Novelly · February 7, 2025

A memorial to fallen special operations service members located inside MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, has been vandalized with pink spray paint and is temporarily closed off to installation patrons as expensive cleanup efforts are underway.

The Special Operations Memorial, which is inside MacDill's gates, was likely vandalized sometime Tuesday evening, Troy Daland, the president of the memorial foundation's board of directors, told Mlitary.com.

Images of the scene Thursday provided to Military.com showed a working dog statue covered in pink spray paint and the main statue of a service member was covered in a blue tarp. Since-deleted pictures of the scene shared briefly on social media showed a giant pink-colored, spray-painted X on the pavers of the memorial, as well as seemingly pink confetti and paper sprinkled around the memorial. It was covered with police tape on Thursday.

"It's tragic," Daland, a retired senior master sergeant who was a former Air Force Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape specialist, told Military.com in an interview Thursday. "This is not government funded. This is all private citizens donating to this memorial."

Daland said cleaning the memorial will likely cost upward of $10,000, and restoration efforts have already started. MacDill Air Force Base has been home to U.S. Special Operations Command, otherwise known as SOCOM, since 1987.

"At the end of the day, it is frustrating, because a lot of people use that as a place of reflection for their teammates or their families, from the Gold Star families," Daland said. "It's kind of our sacred area for special operations."

Col. Allie Weiskopf, a SOCOM spokesperson, said the base's security forces were looking into the incident and did not have other details to provide.

To see the memorial, a patron would have to have approved base access, such as a service member, dependent, civilian employee or retiree with proper identification or be escorted by someone who was cleared to enter the installation.

The Special Operations Memorial has several walls inscribed with the names of fallen service members as well as benches for patrons to read, observe and reflect on their sacrifice. The wall of names was not vandalized, Daland said.

The main statue of the memorial has been at the location since 1996, he said. It has been expanded significantly in the years following the post-9/11 wars to include more names of special operators.

"We've already taken steps to clean it up, so we'll get it clean," retired Navy Vice Adm. Sean Pybus, the chairman of the memorial's board of directors, told Military.com on Thursday. "I think there's a better than average chance of figuring out who the perpetrators were."

military.com · by Thomas Novelly · February 7, 2025

23. Does DOGE Pose a National Security Risk?

A lucrative target for malign actors?

Excerpts:

American allies and partners work with the United States because they trust that the systems and people behind its foreign policy have been vetted and act on behalf of the United States rather than a private entity. Adversaries may not like the United States, but until now they have known how to reach Washington when necessary, how to conduct business with the U.S. government, and how far they can push U.S. systems and people.

These elements of trust are part of the invisible bedrock of U.S. foreign policy. Allies in particular will be reluctant to share sensitive intelligence information if they fear that individuals with no government experience and who have not been vetted through typical security protocols will gain access to that intelligence. Musk and his team have found their way to the most closely guarded private federal data, and they will make the United States an object of mistrust to those who interact with the invisible machinery of U.S. national security.

Does DOGE Pose a National Security Risk?

Foreign Affairs · by More by James Goldgeier · February 7, 2025

Uncertainty About Access and Authority Will Worry Allies and Tempt Adversaries

James Goldgeier and Elizabeth N. Saunders

February 7, 2025

Elon Musk at U.S. President Donald Trump’s inauguration, Washington, D.C., January 2025 Shawn Thew / Reuters

JAMES GOLDGEIER is a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Professor of International Relations at American University, and a Research Affiliate at Stanford University.

ELIZABETH N. SAUNDERS is Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and the author of The Insiders’ Game: How Elites Make War and Peace.

More by Elizabeth N. Saunders

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Just a few weeks ago, the greatest threat to U.S. government computer systems seemed to be that hostile foreign powers could break into them and steal data. In late December, Treasury Department officials sent a letter to members of Congress reporting that a Chinese group had hacked their systems and stolen unclassified documents. The department said that it was working with the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI to assess the damage.

But in recent days, a much more urgent threat has emerged, one that is homegrown: the billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk and his team of engineers from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency have claimed wide-ranging access to vital systems that handle sensitive and classified information at several government agencies. Perhaps by design, the scope and details of Musk’s actions are difficult to pin down. In a hearing before a federal judge this week, lawyers for the Trump administration maintained that Musk had not personally accessed sensitive Treasury Department data and agreed that the “special government employees” affiliated with DOGE would have “read-only” access to the information and would not share it with other people working with DOGE.

But even setting aside the legality of DOGE’s moves, some of which appear unlawful and unconstitutional on their face, and the dangerous privacy risks to Americans from the breach of sensitive data, there is another cause for alarm: Musk’s activities present a national security nightmare. Consider what the intelligence agencies of U.S. allies and adversaries see when the American president grants sweeping access to the basic systems that make the U.S. government run to a team of young people who have no government experience, who may not have been put through standard personnel vetting processes, and who work for an unelected figure with extensive personal financial interests in national security spending.

American adversaries surely see an espionage and blackmail bonanza. Less obviously but just as crucially, U.S. allies, accustomed to doing business and sharing information with the United States on a day-to-day basis, are likely to take a hard look at their typical routines. Will they be willing to continue operating as usual? Even if Musk has not yet reached into the major national security agencies’ systems, there is now a very real possibility that he might do so, and foreign governments, friends and foes alike, are surely paying close attention.

The putative purpose of DOGE is to identify and eliminate wasteful spending. To be sure, elements of the federal bureaucracy would benefit from reform. No one denies there is waste, fraud, and abuse in the executive branch. And it is normal for most of the federal employees who traditionally have access to these systems to be unknown to the public. What is not normal is for such access to be granted to people who are unknown to the security agencies that vet government employees, untrained in government systems, and taking direction from a person such as Musk, who has no legal authority to make decisions relating to the federal budget and federal personnel and has immense potential conflicts of interest.

Although unions representing federal workers have filed legal challenges to Musk’s decision-making authority and access to these systems, and 13 state attorneys general have announced their intention to sue over these issues, court cases will take time to resolve; meanwhile, the damage to security will already be done. Institutional trust and clarity about who has access to sensitive information and authority within institutions are critical to U.S. security. By undermining systems meant to safeguard the public, the Trump administration has not only dramatically reduced the chance for genuine reform but also put the country at risk. Trump and Musk’s actions amount to throwing a grenade into the center of the national security apparatus; eventually that grenade will go off, and there will be nowhere for the United States to dive for cover.

TRUST BOMB

Good foreign policy is invisible—it is routine, boring, and full of everyday interactions that hardly anyone notices but that are essential for preventing bad outcomes and mitigating those that do occur. Allies and partners share intelligence, consult, and plan; in times of crisis, the United States can turn to them for help. The foundation of this system is trust. This trust is highest with the country’s friends and allies—whose willingness to work with the United States is already being undermined by Trump’s tariff threats and other types of bullying behavior. But some level of trust even underpins relationships with adversaries, with whom the United States regularly communicates through official and unofficial channels to avert dangerous miscalculations and misunderstandings.

Musk’s recent initiatives target two pillars of this foundation. The first is what the political scientists Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman have called the “plumbing” of the international system. A crucial part of that plumbing are the systems that Musk and his team have accessed, which contain highly sensitive information, including the personal data of any American who receives U.S. government payments such as Social Security, tax refunds, and veterans’ benefits. According to reporting from Wired, in addition to the members of Musk’s team who have read-only access to these systems, one engineer who has worked for Musk had “many administrator-level privileges” and “the ability not just to read but to write code” at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service. (That engineer resigned on February 6, after The Wall Street Journal linked him to a now-deleted X account that contained racist posts, but the damage to secure systems—and the damage to confidence in them—may have already been done.)

The Treasury Department is a significant foreign policy actor in its own right, playing an important role in sanctions policy, for example. If Musk’s team has access to and can rewrite the code directing U.S. government payments, the cybersecurity and privacy risks would be massive. Hostile intelligence services are likely already at work trying to assess which Musk team members might be sloppy with their digital devices or vulnerable to entrapment or coercion. And Treasury Department officials are likely worried that untested code might cause the payments system to crash.

Musk’s DOGE employees also demanded access to classified systems for which they had no authorization. According to Bloomberg News, members of the DOGE team showed up on January 27 at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which the Trump administration seems intent on dismantling as an independent government agency, without consulting Congress. On February 1, DOGE employees demanded access to USAID’s sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF), a type of secure room used throughout the executive branch to handle classified information. After being stopped by a security official, “one of the DOGE employees made a call to Musk, who informed the agency’s security officials that he would involve the U.S. Marshals Service if his team wasn’t given access to even sensitive information.” According to The Guardian, the security official was shortly after “placed on administrative leave and the DOGE staffers entered the SCIF.”

Musk’s activities present a national security nightmare.

Sharing and protecting secrets is an essential part of international cooperation for the United States and its closest allies: countries need to trust that sensitive information will be treated as such. As the political scientists Allison Carnegie and Austin Carson have demonstrated, “effective confidentiality systems” are crucial to international cooperation because countries fear that their intelligence collection, including sources and methods, will fall into the wrong hands, making it harder to gather intelligence in the future.

It’s not clear why Musk wanted access to the SCIF at USAID. But classified information is compartmentalized within the government for a reason—to limit the number of people who can see it to those who really need to know and to keep the risk of inadvertent or malicious disclosure to a minimum. Even if Musk’s team goes no further, the threat that DOGE might try anything that would undermine the government’s secrecy systems will erode the confidence of U.S. allies that they can share sensitive intelligence information with the United States.

The second pillar of trust is based on the people who work in the agencies. To be sure, in normal times, many people at the Treasury Department whose names the general public does not know have access to the payments system and all the sensitive personal data that Musk can now see. But those are career, apolitical bureaucrats who serve presidents of both parties and whose job is to execute payments, not make decisions about who gets what. They are vetted, asked to declare and resolve any potential conflicts of interest, and, once given the appropriate clearances (if they pass), trained on the systems.

It is not clear how thoroughly, if at all, members of the DOGE team have gone through those processes. On his first day in office, Trump issued an order enabling individuals to receive temporary high-level clearances and to be “immediately granted access to the facilities and technology necessary to perform the duties of the office to which they have been hired.” On February 3, The New York Times reported that “Musk’s allies who were given access to the payment system were made Treasury employees, passed government background checks and obtained the necessary security clearances, according to two people familiar with the situation.” But background checks for those types of clearances typically take many months, if not longer, so it remains unclear just how thoroughly members of Musk’s team have been vetted. According to TheWall Street Journal, SpaceX lawyers “began analyzing the risks of seeking a higher security clearance for Musk after the Journal reported in June [2023] about Musk’s use of ketamine,” and they “concluded that if SpaceX sought a higher security clearance [for Musk], it would risk Musk being turned down, or worse, losing the top-secret clearance he already has.”

Then there is the risk of corruption and conflicts of interest that affect national security. As the sociologist Elizabeth Popp Berman has explained, giving direct control of the federal funding spigot to the president and his agents is deeply undemocratic because it gives them the ability to deprive funds that have been allocated by law by Congress to anyone viewed as a political opponent while routing money to reward political allies—all without congressional oversight or approval. This risk of corruption applies to Musk, as well, who can now view and potentially stop government payments to business competitors and could try to engineer U.S. government systems in ways that benefit his own private financial interests.

INSIDER THREAT

American allies and partners work with the United States because they trust that the systems and people behind its foreign policy have been vetted and act on behalf of the United States rather than a private entity. Adversaries may not like the United States, but until now they have known how to reach Washington when necessary, how to conduct business with the U.S. government, and how far they can push U.S. systems and people.

These elements of trust are part of the invisible bedrock of U.S. foreign policy. Allies in particular will be reluctant to share sensitive intelligence information if they fear that individuals with no government experience and who have not been vetted through typical security protocols will gain access to that intelligence. Musk and his team have found their way to the most closely guarded private federal data, and they will make the United States an object of mistrust to those who interact with the invisible machinery of U.S. national security.

JAMES GOLDGEIER is a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Professor of International Relations at American University, and a Research Affiliate at Stanford University.

Foreign Affairs · by More by James Goldgeier · February 7, 2025

24. A Paradigm Shift for the Middle East

Excerpts:

The United States now has a chance to keep Iran and its allies off balance. Because the only true solution to the problem of the Islamic Republic is its demise, the United States and allies should mount a pressure campaign on behalf of the Iranian people—who wish for the regime’s end more fervently than any foreigner. These efforts should include exposing the regime’s repression and human rights abuses and carrying out political warfare on the regime: constant criticism of its economic failings and brutality, support for Iran’s neighbors if Iran threatens them, and aid (overt and covert) for efforts by Iranians to protest a regime most of them clearly loathe.

President Ronald Reagan’s relations with the Soviet Union are a reminder that it is possible to engage in practical negotiations with an enemy state without losing the sharp edge of ideological combat. An American president can talk to an authoritarian adversary without sacrificing moral clarity and without dropping support for people yearning to be free of a repressive regime and often demonstrating in the streets, despite the risks.

The United States should always view such negotiations as a tactic in the long struggle for a peaceful Middle East—a goal that cannot be reached until the Islamic Republic is replaced by a government that is legitimate in the eyes of the Iranian people and that abandons its terrorist proxies, its hatred of the United States and of Israel, and its desire to dominate other countries in the region. Until that day, the military presence of the United States must not diminish. To hasten the arrival of such a day, Trump should maximally exploit Washington’s advantages, which were created in good part by Israeli action. In four years, Trump could leave behind a Middle East where Washington’s friends are far stronger and its enemies far weaker than ever before.

A Paradigm Shift for the Middle East

Foreign Affairs · by More by Elliott Abrams · February 7, 2025

How Trump Can Build on Israel’s Success and Keep Iran Off Balance

Elliott Abrams

February 7, 2025

U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking to press in Washington, February 2025 Leah Millis / Reuters

ELLIOTT ABRAMS is Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He served in senior positions on the National Security Council and in the State Department during the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations and as Special Representative for Iran and Venezuela in the first Trump administration.

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The Middle East that U.S. President Donald Trump faces today features dangers and opportunities that were not present when he first took office, eight years ago. The greatest dangers are Iran’s advances toward nuclear weapons and the close relationships that the Islamic Republic has forged with Russia and China. The best opportunities have emerged from Israel’s decimation of Hezbollah and Hamas, its successful attacks on Iran, and the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria.

The dangers are unquestionably grave. But on balance, the potential upsides outweigh the possible downsides. Indeed, it has been a long time since the Middle East has offered an environment so favorable to American interests.

A year and a half ago, Iran’s foreign policy could possibly have been considered enormously successful. The country’s nuclear weapons program was steadily producing enriched uranium; by 2024, it had enough for several bombs. Washington was largely not enforcing its sanctions on Iran. China was purchasing about 90 percent of Iran’s oil, greatly improving the regime’s finances. Political and military relations with China and Russia were growing closer; Iran had secured their protection against action in the UN Security Council and had earned money and gratitude from weapons shipments to Moscow. And the “ring of fire” of Iranian proxies and allies—Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria, and the Houthis in Yemen—seemed to be a problem Israel could not solve.

But since then, Israel has turned the tables. Hamas has survived the invasion of Gaza that Israel carried out after the group’s attacks in October 2023, and Hamas remains dominant there. But it will never again pose a serious military threat to Israel. The Israelis have wiped out Hezbollah’s leadership and given Lebanon a chance to reclaim its sovereignty. Assad’s regime is gone, and the weapons highway that has long run from Iran through Syria to Lebanon—and to terrorist groups and their supporters in Gaza, Jordan, and the West Bank—appears to be closing.

Trump can take advantage of the situation, but only if his administration is willing to abandon Washington’s habitual goal in the Middle East—“stability”—and presses instead for dramatic changes that will benefit the security of the United States and its allies. For two decades, what American policymakers have called “stability” has meant the preservation of the situation in which Gaza was entirely under Hamas control, Hezbollah dominated Lebanon, and Iran’s nuclear program advanced. A better term for that situation would have been “erosion,” as U.S. influence steadily slipped away and Washington’s allies became less secure. Now, the United States has a chance to stop that process and aim instead for “reinforcement”: bolstering its interests and allies and actively weakening its adversaries. The result would be a region where threats diminish and U.S. alliances grow stronger.

THE TEHRAN TRAP

The main obstacle to the emergence of a better Middle East is Iran’s quest for a nuclear weapon. Trump has now stated flatly that the United States will not permit Iran to succeed. Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, is now 85. As he contemplates the next four years, he will be tempted (and advised) to rush forward to a bomb as the only way to ensure his regime’s survival after he is gone. Trump has made it clear that such a move is precisely what would threaten the regime most gravely, because it would elicit not only more isolation but also, if necessary, a U.S. military attack. To make this threat more credible than it has been recently, Washington should begin visibly planning, preparing for, and practicing for such an attack, in coordination with Israel.

Trump has always favored a negotiated solution to the U.S.-Iranian standoff and still does; the objective of his “maximum pressure” campaign in 2019–20 was not regime change but a new and comprehensive deal to replace the flawed one that President Barack Obama made in 2015. Earlier this week, Trump wrote on his Truth Social account that instead of a U.S.-Israeli attack to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, he would “much prefer a Verified Nuclear Peace Agreement which will let Iran peacefully grow and prosper.”

Trump clearly remains open to the possibility (however small) that an aging Khamenei, after witnessing the collapse of the “ring of fire” strategy, mulling the possibility of brutal economic sanctions, and being fully aware of the restiveness of his own population, would accept an agreement that stops the nuclear weapons program and halts payments and arms shipments to Iran’s proxies. But Trump should be equally aware of the trap Khamenei might be setting for him: a phony new negotiation meant to ensnare Washington in talks for years, with Tehran’s negotiators leading Trump on with the mirage of a successful deal and a Nobel Peace Prize at the end of the road while the Iranian nuclear weapons program grows in the shadows.

The United States is not alone in its confrontation with Iran.

To avoid that trap, Trump has correctly restored severe U.S. economic sanctions that will deprive Iran of resources. He must also push the International Atomic Energy Agency to demand tough inspections of Iran’s facilities. Trump should insist that Iran take immediate and concrete steps to show that it has abandoned its nuclear goal: for example, by beginning to export uranium enriched to 60 percent (or “downblending” it into lower enrichment levels) and by agreeing to allow inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency at military sites that Iran has so far refused to open to the agency. If Tehran refuses to take those steps by this summer, Trump should urge France and the United Kingdom to invoke the UN Security Council “snapback” mechanism that reimposes all the UN sanctions Iran faced before it entered the 2015 nuclear deal—a mechanism created by that agreement, to which the British and French are still parties.

Iran will claim that the snapback would end the possibility of negotiations, but Trump should not be dissuaded by that ploy. It would still be possible to lift UN and U.S. sanctions later if the regime truly turned away from developing nuclear weapons. The fact that no country has ever enriched uranium to 60 percent, as Iran has, without building nuclear weapons is a reminder that getting Iran to abandon this path will be difficult. It will require the credible threat of military action—and may, in the end, require Washington to act on that threat.

But the United States is not alone in its confrontation with Iran—and Israel is not its only partner in this fight. American allies in the region all suffer from Iranian subversion and aggression. The willingness of Washington’s Arab friends to resist Iran has varied and depends on their estimation of U.S. reliability. The Saudi negotiations with Iran that China fostered in March 2023, for example, did not reflect a fundamental reorientation of Saudi foreign policy but a sensible defense mechanism at a moment of apparent U.S. weakness. The Saudi move reflected not only doubts about the Biden administration’s Iran policy but also the failure of the Trump administration to react when Iran attacked Saudi Arabia’s key oil facility at Abqaiq in September 2019. If Saudi Arabia and other Arab states judge that the United States has now decided to stop the Iranian nuclear weapons program and to continue to damage and weaken Iran’s proxies, they will adjust their policies accordingly. And it would become easier for Washington to repeat the kind of collaboration that occurred when Iran fired hundreds of missiles at Israel in April 2024—an attack that failed in part because a number of Arab states helped Israel and the United States repel it.

TIME FOR A RETHINK

There are limits, however, to what Trump can expect from the Saudis and other Arab states. It remains unclear, for example, whether Saudi Arabia can be fully included in the Abraham Accords, which Trump brokered in his first term, normalizing relations among Israel and a number of Arab countries. During the Gaza war, the Saudi government (and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman himself) moved from making ambiguous statements about Palestinian self-government to making clear demands for Palestinian statehood.

But turning over the West Bank to sovereign Palestinian rule is a losing proposition in the eyes of most Israelis, who believe that the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 created the conditions that allowed Hamas to grow stronger and eventually carry out its massive attack on October 7, 2023. When it comes to the Palestinian question, it will be extremely difficult to bridge the gap between what the Saudis say they need and what Israeli politicians are willing to offer.

The prize the Saudis truly seek for normalizing relations with Israel, however, has nothing to do with the Palestinians: what Riyadh wants more than anything are defense agreements with the United States that would genuinely enhance Saudi security. Because an Israeli-Saudi accommodation would change not only the Middle East but Israel’s relations with the entire Muslim world, the Trump administration should see how far it can get. It should work with members of both American political parties to explore which forms of U.S.-Saudi defense arrangements might win congressional approval. A NATO-like treaty is one possibility. Another option would be a lesser guarantee of defense assistance, including making the kingdom a major non-NATO ally and guaranteeing it eligibility for advanced weapons systems.

Meanwhile, without embracing the demand for a Palestinian state as a time-bound and inevitable goal, Washington must find ways to make the idea of Palestinian self-government less threatening to Israel—at least in the West Bank. The corruption, incompetence, and unpopularity of the Palestinian Authority and the influence and popularity of Hamas understandably make Israelis view any increase in Palestinian self-rule as a danger. But in any scenario other than a complete Israeli annexation of the West Bank in a “one-state solution,” which most Israelis oppose, there must be some legitimate and competent Palestinian governing entity—albeit not necessarily the Palestinian Authority that was established by the Oslo Accords.

Israeli military forces in northern Israel, January 2025 Shir Torem / Reuters

The participation of Hamas in Palestinian self-government is unacceptable to Israel and the United States. The Biden administration spoke often of a “reformed Palestinian Authority” as the best option but did nothing to usher such a thing into existence. Twenty years ago, the George W. Bush administration (in which I served) successfully demanded real reforms from the PA. The United States pushed hard for the appointment of officials of integrity and competence (including Salam Fayyad, who served as the PA’s prime minister from 2007 to 2013), the adoption of financial management standards, and the dismissal of a number of the most corrupt officials from the PA’s dominant Fatah faction. Today, the United States and key Arab countries should demand similar changes from the PA’s president, Mahmoud Abbas. Such pressure could once again produce a better PA. The Trump administration should insist that Washington’s Arab allies use their leverage over the PA and that the Authority accede to their demands as a precondition of continued U.S. support.

Whether one favors moves toward a Palestinian state in the coming years or believes that full Palestinian statehood would present insuperable dangers to Jordan, Israel, and Palestinians alike, all parties should support the goal of better government for Palestinians. But any increase in Palestinian self-rule will require immediate changes to the status quo. UNRWA, the UN agency that has provided international aid to Palestinians, has been hopelessly compromised by its ties to Hamas, and the agency’s definition of “Palestinian refugees” as a population that endlessly grows with each successive generation is fundamentally at odds with the acceptance of Israel’s status as a Jewish state. The Trump administration, which has ended U.S. funding for UNRWA, should insist that it be replaced by the collaborative efforts of effective UN agencies such as the World Food Program, UNICEF, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Israel’s contribution to this effort should be to enforce its laws against settlers who engage in criminal activity against Palestinians, whether it is the destruction of crops or acts of violence against individuals. And it should prevent settler groups from declaring land in the West Bank to be Israeli territory without any legal backing or formal government decisions.

Trump’s proposal that the United States “take over” and rebuild Gaza while its residents live elsewhere has added a new wrinkle to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. As a concrete proposal, it is unworkable. But it might better be seen as a reflection of the fact that no realistic plan for Gaza exists. Since 2005, when the Israelis withdrew settlements and military forces from Gaza, Israel, the United States, and the United Nations have tried to buy off Hamas while working with corrupt PA officials. That approach has produced zero progress—and indeed culminated in the October 7 attacks. Despite the outlandishness of Trump’s idea, its sheer iconoclasm might lead to a healthy rethinking of U.S. strategy and perhaps of Arab and Israeli policies as well.

A NEW LEVANT?

To Israel’s north, the weakening of Hezbollah should be seen not as a completed achievement but as a first step toward a very different Levant. The next step should be for Trump to include Lebanon in the Abraham Accords. For decades, U.S. policy has accepted weak and corrupt Lebanese institutions as normal and inevitable. Washington has also accepted a twisted form of Lebanese nationalism that cast Israel as the enemy but celebrated Iran and Syria’s subjugation and domination of Lebanon. Trump should demand that the Lebanese armed forces prevent an armed Hezbollah presence in the south and guard Lebanon’s borders to prevent Iranian arms supplies from entering. If it fails to fully deploy in southern Lebanon and does not begin the process of disarming Hezbollah, Washington should suspend its considerable aid to the Lebanese military.

Critics will contend that cutting off the Lebanese armed forces will weaken their position. But just as endlessly funding the PA with few strings attached did not produce success, so, too, did unconditional support for the hapless Lebanese military, which wasted a fortune while Hezbollah only grew stronger. Trump should also insist that Lebanon negotiate with Israel to address onshore and offshore border disputes. Put simply, U.S. diplomatic, political, and financial support for Lebanon should depend on that country’s efforts to regain its sovereignty. The more pressure that can be applied, including through U.S. cooperation with Gulf states and with France, the more likely it is that Lebanese leaders who want to build a responsive, sovereign government can succeed.

Across the border in Syria, it is too soon to know what form of government will emerge in the wake of the Assad regime’s collapse. But it is not too soon to know what the U.S. goal there should be: the evolution of a legitimate government based on popular consent that ceases Syrian interference in Lebanon and seeks peace with all its neighbors, including Israel. U.S. support for any new Syrian government should depend on the government’s actions, not on President Ahmed al-Shaara’s speeches or his new, Western-style wardrobe. Does Syria end or severely limit the size and nature of the Russian presence at what were Moscow’s two key bases in Syria, the Khmeimim Air Base and the naval base in Tartus? How does Shaara’s government treat minorities, especially the Kurds and the Syrian Democratic Forces militia the United States has long supported? Does it try to stop Iran from supplying money and weapons to Hezbollah through Syria? Trump’s approach should be informed by the answers to those questions.

In the meantime, it would be immensely foolish for Trump to withdraw the roughly 2,000 U.S. troops stationed in Syria because they are there to fight the Islamic State terrorist group (also known as ISIS) and to keep tens of thousands of former ISIS fighters and their families in detention. It should also be U.S. policy to maintain Washington’s partnership with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces until the militia’s status (whether as an independent force or as a semiautonomous part of the Syrian army) and future safety are secured.

Israel has successfully decimated (though not eliminated) Hamas and Hezbollah. But the Houthis, another Iranian proxy, still threaten international shipping and U.S. Navy vessels in the Red Sea—with Iranian weapons. The Houthis have claimed to act in support of the Palestinians, but it’s unclear whether their recent decision to suspend most of their attacks reflects the cease-fire in Gaza alone or also their fear of a stronger U.S. response under Trump. Either way, Trump should make it clear to Iran that if any U.S. Navy ship is damaged or any American hurt or killed by these weapons, there will be an immediate U.S. military response against Iran. And he should tell the Houthis that should they recommence their attacks on international shipping, U.S. forces will attack their facilities and interdict all weapons-supply shipments intended for them.

THE FALSE PROMISE OF STABILITY

U.S. relations with Israel saw high points during the Biden years but also some low ones. While supporting Israel’s war on Hamas, President Joe Biden also sought to appease critics of Israel on the left (and even inside his own State Department and White House) by continually complaining about how Israel was conducting the war, delaying the supply of some U.S. military assistance (including armored bulldozers and certain munitions), and sanctioning dozens of Israeli settler groups and individuals. Trump quickly released the withheld shipments and removed the sanctions, signaling that the Trump administration is highly unlikely ever to withhold or deliberately slow military aid to Israel. Israel’s military strength, after all, is a multiplier of American power and advances U.S. interests.

But Trump should go beyond announcing full support of Israel and opposition to an Iranian nuclear weapon. For decades, conventional wisdom held that Arab-Israeli rapprochement was impossible until the Palestinian issue was resolved, but Trump’s Abraham Accords proved that wrong. Today, he should seek not the false stability of an endless deadlock with Iran but a transformation of the region—reinforcing the changes that Israel has already achieved by weakening Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, demonstrating Iran’s military vulnerability, and setting the stage for the overthrow of the Assad regime.

The United States now has a chance to keep Iran and its allies off balance. Because the only true solution to the problem of the Islamic Republic is its demise, the United States and allies should mount a pressure campaign on behalf of the Iranian people—who wish for the regime’s end more fervently than any foreigner. These efforts should include exposing the regime’s repression and human rights abuses and carrying out political warfare on the regime: constant criticism of its economic failings and brutality, support for Iran’s neighbors if Iran threatens them, and aid (overt and covert) for efforts by Iranians to protest a regime most of them clearly loathe.

President Ronald Reagan’s relations with the Soviet Union are a reminder that it is possible to engage in practical negotiations with an enemy state without losing the sharp edge of ideological combat. An American president can talk to an authoritarian adversary without sacrificing moral clarity and without dropping support for people yearning to be free of a repressive regime and often demonstrating in the streets, despite the risks.

The United States should always view such negotiations as a tactic in the long struggle for a peaceful Middle East—a goal that cannot be reached until the Islamic Republic is replaced by a government that is legitimate in the eyes of the Iranian people and that abandons its terrorist proxies, its hatred of the United States and of Israel, and its desire to dominate other countries in the region. Until that day, the military presence of the United States must not diminish. To hasten the arrival of such a day, Trump should maximally exploit Washington’s advantages, which were created in good part by Israeli action. In four years, Trump could leave behind a Middle East where Washington’s friends are far stronger and its enemies far weaker than ever before.

Foreign Affairs · by More by Elliott Abrams · February 7, 2025

25. Xi Jinping swings his “assassin’s mace” of economic warfare

Excerpts:

America has been able to punish people, companies and countries by shutting off their access to international payment systems. For instance, it has booted some Russian banks off SWIFT, the messaging system used by more than 11,000 financial institutions for cross-border payments. But in doing so, it has pushed China, Russia and others to develop alternative payment systems. Last year Russia presented efforts to persuade the BRICS group of countries to create such a system as a way of sanctions-proofing themselves.

The West’s use of financial sanctions offers other lessons, too. In theory these hit hard and quickly, and ought to be easy to police. In the real world, however, groups ranging from Hamas to drug gangs have been able to dodge them by funnelling money through cryptocurrency markets or lightly regulated banking systems.

China’s ability to enforce export controls abroad may face similar problems. It will require officials to keep track of more than 700 products and producers, their customers and the customers of those customers. America has struggled to stop its high-end chips from being smuggled into China, or dual-use materials making their way to Russian defence firms. It will be harder for China to track critical minerals shipped in small quantities.

Western governments cannot rely on smuggling metals, or on suppliers in third countries turning a blind eye. Instead many are keen to diversify their supply of critical minerals. Throughout 2022-24, dozens of countries signed agreements to share information, including sensitive trade secrets, and encourage private investment for alternative supplies of inputs critical to their economies. Last autumn officials from 14 countries in the Indo-Pacific, led by South Korea, huddled in Washington to map their shared vulnerability to supply-chain shocks and to war-game responses. The countries included Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Fiji as well as the major Western allies.

They can draw some comfort that China would face the same dilemma that the West has long faced: the more powerful the sanctions and the bigger your enemy, the mightier the blowback

Xi Jinping swings his “assassin’s mace” of economic warfare

China is weaponising its supply chains, but risks blowback if it goes too far

https://www.economist.com/international/2025/02/06/xi-jinping-swings-his-assassins-mace-of-economic-warfare?utm

Illustration: Mikel Jaso

Feb 6th 2025

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he ink had barely dried on Donald Trump’s order to impose a 10% tariff on imports from China before its leader, Xi Jinping, was reaching for his “assassin’s mace” to strike back. On February 4th, in addition to new tariffs, the Chinese government listed several rare metals as controlled exports, giving Mr Xi the power to ban shipments to America at a moment’s notice. The riposte underscores an essential difference between American and Chinese power: Mr Trump’s ability to coerce comes largely from what America buys and its dominance of international finance, while Mr Xi’s far more nascent coercive strength is based on what China sells.

The weapon he is wielding is newly forged and based on tough export-control rules enacted just over two months ago, on December 1st, which expanded on far more tentative restrictions imposed since 2023. The new regime had its first real test two days later, when China banned shipments to America of gallium, germanium and antimony—rare metals needed to make advanced chips, weapons and munitions—as well as some “superhard” materials with defence applications. Prices of some key minerals jumped after the bans (see chart 1).

Chart: The Economist

In its most recent move this month, China imposed controls on five additional metals, including tungsten, used in armour-piercing bullets, and molybdenum powder, used to make missiles. This salvo appears to have been a warning shot rather than the start of a full-scale trade war: China gave itself the ability to ban exports of the five metals, but has not done so yet.

Nevertheless, China’s growing embrace of export restrictions and bans signals its intent to use its economic power to weaponise supply chains and punish foreign firms and countries. As such, the move has alarmed policymakers and analysts in America, who worry it could harm their strategic industries. “In terms of strengthening military preparedness, China is operating in a wartime posture while the United States is operating in a peacetime posture,” noted Gracelin Baskaran and Meredith Schwartz of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a think-tank in Washington. “Bans on vital mineral inputs will only further allow China to outpace the United States.”

It is also causing consternation among governments from Europe to East Asia, who fret that the same economic weapons may be turned on them. Some have been running war games to see how they might fare if a critical input were to be choked off, and unlikely constellations of countries are clubbing together in new trade pacts to shield themselves.

China’s new export-control regime ostensibly tracks items that are “dual-use”, meaning they have both civilian and military applications. Chinese exporters of listed products must now tell the state who their customers are and what they are likely to use the goods for. But Mr Xi’s sanctions go far beyond non-proliferation, and seem to be aimed at entrenching China’s economic domination of key technologies, materials and industries. In doing so he is deepening other countries’ dependence on China in areas such as solar panels and the batteries used in electric cars. He has called the world’s reliance on China for these advanced technologies his “assassin’s mace”, or trump card, that will give China “deterrent capabilities based on artificially cutting off supply to foreigners” should they impose sanctions.

Chart: The Economist

If successful this would add to a growing one-way dependency of Western economies on China. Canada’s producers, for example, are ten times more reliant on the use of Chinese inputs than Chinese producers are on inputs from Canada. Similarly stark asymmetries show up in countries from the EU (see chart 2).

This has allowed Mr Xi to take aim at a vulnerability in Western economies, and to exploit one of China’s key strengths. A wide range of electronics, from radars and smartphone chargers to the computer chips that will be used to train artificial intelligence, rely on a small number of rare minerals dominated by China. One of these is gallium, which America has not produced since 1987. Although America imported less than $150m worth of the stuff last year, its impact is far bigger because it is used in high-value products. A full embargo would trim some $3.1bn a year from America’s output.

Gallium is not the only critical mineral that China now dominates. Although many rare metals are found in places such as Australia, Brazil, Greenland and South Africa, about 90% of the world’s capacity for refining them is in China. China produces almost all of the world’s germanium and manganese, three-quarters of its lithium and natural graphite and half its antimony. Often few good substitutes for such metals exist. When it comes to the magnets used in wind turbines, for example, only neodymium will do. Alternatives are either more expensive or not as good.

Worryingly, the West’s reliance on Chinese-made inputs for its own industries goes far beyond rare minerals and is greater than meets the eye. Most economists or strategists look simply at how much Western countries import from China when assessing vulnerabilities. But when you also include imports from third countries that contain Chinese inputs, the figure jumps sharply, according to Richard Baldwin of IMD Business School and co-authors. Looked at this way, America’s dependence on China is four times greater than indicated by bilateral trade statistics.

When it is not being used to punish, China’s exercise of economic power and of its new export-control tool follows a clear commercial logic. Its officials stop the flow of inputs and intellectual property into foreign products that may challenge Chinese national champions, says Rebecca Arcesati of MERICS, a European think-tank. Take, for example, high-end medical equipment. On February 4th, as part of its response to Mr Trump’s tariffs, China’s commerce ministry added an American genomic-sequencing giant, Illumina, to its new “unreliable entities list”, potentially cutting it off from its Chinese patients and manufacturing facility. China’s own sequencing champion, BGI, is in a bitter battle with Illumina for global market share.

Beyond stemming the flow of raw inputs, China’s bureaucrats are also keen to slow the efforts of other countries to build supply chains that bypass it. In recent years, both Chinese and Western firms have moved production to third countries to skirt tariffs and avoid being cut off in a conflict. This transformation, known as “China Plus One”, challenges the Communist Party’s grip on an increasing number of global supply chains and has spurred economic planners to issue tighter controls on the sharing of intellectual property. In January China proposed controlling the export of know-how for the extraction and processing of rare metals, specifically gallium and lithium.

China clearly sees some parallels between the power America has to impose financial sanctions from its position at the centre of global finance, and its own power to punish adversaries from its position at the heart of global manufacturing, through its dominance of critical minerals. But America’s use of financial sanctions also offers a cautionary lesson on the geopolitical paradox that China faces: the more successful it is in creating monopolies and dependencies, and using them to bend countries to its will, the more it will push those countries to diversify their exposure.

America has been able to punish people, companies and countries by shutting off their access to international payment systems. For instance, it has booted some Russian banks off SWIFT, the messaging system used by more than 11,000 financial institutions for cross-border payments. But in doing so, it has pushed China, Russia and others to develop alternative payment systems. Last year Russia presented efforts to persuade the BRICS group of countries to create such a system as a way of sanctions-proofing themselves.

The West’s use of financial sanctions offers other lessons, too. In theory these hit hard and quickly, and ought to be easy to police. In the real world, however, groups ranging from Hamas to drug gangs have been able to dodge them by funnelling money through cryptocurrency markets or lightly regulated banking systems.

China’s ability to enforce export controls abroad may face similar problems. It will require officials to keep track of more than 700 products and producers, their customers and the customers of those customers. America has struggled to stop its high-end chips from being smuggled into China, or dual-use materials making their way to Russian defence firms. It will be harder for China to track critical minerals shipped in small quantities.

Western governments cannot rely on smuggling metals, or on suppliers in third countries turning a blind eye. Instead many are keen to diversify their supply of critical minerals. Throughout 2022-24, dozens of countries signed agreements to share information, including sensitive trade secrets, and encourage private investment for alternative supplies of inputs critical to their economies. Last autumn officials from 14 countries in the Indo-Pacific, led by South Korea, huddled in Washington to map their shared vulnerability to supply-chain shocks and to war-game responses. The countries included Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Fiji as well as the major Western allies.

They can draw some comfort that China would face the same dilemma that the West has long faced: the more powerful the sanctions and the bigger your enemy, the mightier the blowback. ■

Explore more

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “Xi Jinping swings his “assassin’s mace””

26. Some military institutions are literally speechless in face of Hegseth's DEI order

DEI is radioactive in the military.

Some military institutions are literally speechless in face of Hegseth's DEI order

The San Antonio Express-News surveyed leading military commands and service academies to learn what they're doing to banish DEI as ordered by Hegseth. The response: dead silence or vague generalities.

By Sig Christenson,

Staff writer

Feb 5, 2025

https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/dei-hegseth-miltiary-command-afraid-to-speak-20147402.php?utm

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth arrives at the Pentagon on Jan. 27. He has launched an all-out effort to purge diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives — including Black History Month — from the armed forces.

Kevin Wolf/Associated Press

Leaders of the armed forces say they're obeying without hesitation Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s orders to stamp out diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

But exactly what they're doing — what programs their killing, what policies they're adjusting, which training materials they're revising or scrapping — remains largely a mystery.

The reason? They won’t talk about it, except in the vaguest generalities.

It’s as if a communications blackout had descended on the nation’s leading military organizations.

The San Antonio Express-News reached out repeatedly to major commands and four service academies this week to ask how they were adapting to Hegseth’s anti-DEI directives.

The U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. responded with silence. So did the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., and the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn.

The Army Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kan., answered the paper's inquiries, but with studied vagueness.

“The Army has taken immediate steps to comply with all executive orders related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) personnel, programs, and policies,” a spokeswoman said. “The Army will continue to review its personnel, policies and programs to ensure it remains in compliance with law and presidential orders.”

What those “immediate steps” were, she would not say. What the review of “personnel policies and programs” had discovered likewise was off-limits.

Pressed for detail, the spokeswoman replied, “Please use the provided statement.”

The U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command in Fort Eustis, Va., issued an identical statement.

Military leaders and their public information officers typically are not voluble, and they tend to speak in jargon. But in normal circumstances, they do communicate with the media.

What changed?

"People don’t want to touch it," said a former high-level defense official, referring to anything DEI-related. He asked not to be identified because he still has relationships in the Pentagon.

"It’s such a lightning rod right now," the former official said. "People are concerned about their jobs."

"Most of DoD is churning and spinning" as officials try to follow orders from Hegseth and President Donald Trump "and do it in a way that’s in line with the president’s intent and not cause chaos," he said.

What can be gleaned from official statements and occasional leaks is that anything perceived as DEI-related is being stripped from military training curriculums, and even inoffensive-seeming diversity efforts are being prohibited.

For instance, a "guidance" issued by Hegseth on Jan. 31 barred the use of government resources to recognize or celebrate Black History Month, Women's History Month, Pride Month, National Hispanic Heritage Month and similar cultural awareness events.

Such celebrations have been held at military bases worldwide for decades. Hegseth, however, said they "divide the force ... erode camaraderie and threaten mission execution." His guidance came down the day before the start of Black History Month on Feb. 1.

Earlier, the Trump administration ordered military commands to strip DEI references from public-facing websites and informational materials and to cancel all DEI-related trainings and contracts.

The U.S. Military Academy is disbanding a dozen cadet affinity groups, including its Society of Black Engineers, the Asian-Pacific Forum Club and the Latin Cultural Club, Time reported. Also shuttered were a social club for LGBTQ cadets and local chapters of the Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers and the Society of Women Engineers.

Time said it asked West Point leaders for comment and got no reply.

At Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, the hub of Air Force basic training, the anti-DEI campaign led service officials to shut down a lesson block for recruits that included three potentially objectionable videos: two about the all-Black Tuskegee Airmen, renowned for their skill and bravery during World War II, and one about a pioneering group of female aviators from the same era.

On Jan. 24, the San Antonio Express-News was first to report on the withdrawal of the videos, which sparked heated criticism from some elected officials and retired military luminaries. Two days later, Hegseth countermanded the decision, declaring on social media, "This will not stand."

Air Force officials said two of the videos had been restored to the classroom, while a third was under review.

As the Express-News later reported, that third video, "Breaking Barriers: The Race Barrier," was the only one to use the term "diversity," and unlike the other two films, it explicitly made the case that racial and gender diversity leads to greater innovation and strengthens the national defense.

Over the past week, the Express-News repeatedly asked the Air Education and Training Command at JBSA why "Breaking Barriers" had been pulled from the lesson block and whether it had been, or ever would be, restored.

After a few days of silence, an Air Force spokeswoman said by email Tuesday night that the video had been removed for good. She did not say why.

Of the military organizations contacted by the Express-News, only one — the Medical Education and Training Campus at San Antonio’s Fort Sam Houston — gave a substantive response when asked how it was complying with the Trump administration's overall campaign to eradicate DEI.

“No materials or videos were pulled from our curricula,” spokeswoman Lisa Braun said by email.

Braun's statement stood out for several reasons. It was responsive to the question posed, it was easily understandable and she was willing to be quoted by name speaking on behalf of the institution she represents.

Such things used to be commonplace. Not lately.

It's seen as a dangerous time for people in the armed forces to talk to the press, the former defense official said.

"If people had a real strong reason or felt really strongly, they might step out on it, but I think right now there's a whole lot of wait and see going on," he said.

Feb 5, 2025

Sig Christenson

Investigative Reporter

Sig Christenson is a senior reporter for the Express-News covering the military and has been with the news organization since 1997. He can be reached at sigc@express-news.net.

He embedded with the 3rd Infantry Division during the Iraq invasion, and reported from Baghdad and Afghanistan seven times since. A University of Houston graduate, he covered the Branch Davidian siege, the 2003 space shuttle breakup, the 2009 Fort Hood shooting and its subsequent legal proceedings, as well as hurricanes, tropical storms and floods.

He's won awards from Hearst Newspapers and the Associated Press, was named "Reporter of the Year" by his peers in 2004 and is a co-founder and former president and board member of Military Reporters & Editors, established in 2002.

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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