Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

“Beijing and Moscow pledged to defend their illiberal politics – which they, of course, termed, “democracies” – against Western impositions. They condemned U.S. alliance blocs in Europe and Asia as Cold War relics; the touted Sino – Russian cooperation with “no limits,” and” no forbidden areas.” The text was dense, yet the meaning was clear: the two Eurasian powers were, as Xi had said, fighting “back-to-back” against the oppressive hegemony of the liberal world. It wasn't quite Molotov – Ribbentrop or the Tripartite Pact. But it was another call for a radically new system with an illiberal Eurasia at its core.”

– Hal Brands, The Eurasian Century: Hot Wars, Cold Wars, and the Making of the Modern World

"Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is."

- Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

“We should measure the prosperity of a nation, not by the number of millionaires, but by the absence of poverty, the prevalence of health, the efficiency of the public schools, and the number of people who can and do read worthwhile books.”

– W.E.B. Du Bois.

1. 2025 William J. Donovan Award (OSS)

2. US shunned by European allies for top security summit

3. How NATO without US stacks up against Russia

4. How the Navy SEALs Conquered Congress — And Became the Shock Troops of the MAGA Revolution

5. Pentagon abruptly ends all funding for social science research

6. Cryptic Trump post hints use of special forces against Hamas

7. Doge and American Military Power – There’s a Tsunami Coming

8. China Is Mapping the Seabed to Unlock a New Edge in Warfare

9. U.S. to Restore Military Support to Ukraine After It Agrees to Cease-Fire

10. EU Hits Back as U.S. Steel and Aluminum Tariffs Take Effect

11. Trump’s Economic Messaging Is Spooking Some of His Own Advisers

12. Ignore the Loose Talk About Recession

13. Trump to Wall Street: Brace for Impact

14. Erick Erickson: MAGA’s Tariff Talking Points Are Bound to Backfire

15. Michael Lind: Why Tariffs Are Good

16. Fight Club: Are Israel and Ukraine’s Wars the Same—or Worlds Apart?

17. Finding Adversaries Hiding in the Defense Department’s Supply Chains

18. WPS and the Shifting Strategic Landscape: Why Women, Peace, and Security Must Be Central to US National Security

19. An Anchor in the Tumultuous Seas of US Latin America Policy: Assessing SOUTHCOM’s 2025 Posture Statement

20. In Brief: Asian Allies Adjust Security Policies in Response to Trump Administration

21. What’s so special about Ukraine’s minerals? A geologist explains

22. Irregular Warfare Initiative: Intro Letter from the New Editorial Director

23. Captain of Ship That Hit North Sea Tanker Is Russian, Company Says

24. Ex-Philippine leader Duterte bound for Hague over ICC drug war case

25. Forceful Taiwan Reunification: China's Targeted Military and Civilian-Military Measures

26. No, The First Island Chain Isn’t Lost

27. Military medical system unprepared for future conflict, experts say

28. North Sea tanker collision - what we know so far

1. 2025 William J. Donovan Award (OSS)

Congratulations to General Fenton.

2025 William J. Donovan Award (OSS)

by SWJED

03.12.2025 at 01:21am

Congratulations to General Fenton.

William J. Donovan Award®

Admiral Louis Mountbatten, upon receiving the William J. Donovan Award® in 1966, said: “William Donovan wasn’t just a great American. He was a great international citizen, a man of enormous courage, leadership, and vision. I doubt whether any one person contributed more to the ultimate victory of the Allies than Bill Donovan.”

Ambassador David K.E. Bruce said that “judged by any standard, Donovan was a remarkable personality. If I could sum up my impression of him, I would say that he was a universal man in the sense that nothing human was alien to him.”

The OSS Society presents the William J. Donovan Award® to an individual who has rendered distinguished service to the United States of America. The purpose of the award is to recognize someone who has exemplified the distinguishing features that characterized General Donovan’s lifetime of public service to the United of States of America as a citizen and a soldier. General Donovan is the only person to receive our nation’s four highest decorations: the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, the Distinguished Service Medal, and the National Security Medal.

He served as an Assistant United States Attorney General, as the United States Attorney for the Western District of New York, as a candidate for governor of New York, as a personal advisor to President Roosevelt before and during World War II, as an assistant to the chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, as ambassador to Thailand, and as the founder and director of the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency and U.S. Special Operations Forces.

General Donovan’s statue stands today at the entrance to the Central Intelligence Agency alongside a book containing the names of OSS personnel killed during World War II. The U.S Special Operations Command wears the OSS spearhead as its insignia. General Donovan’s “glorious amateurs”® – the term he used to describe OSS personnel – have become today’s “quiet professionals.”

Upon learning of General Donovan’s death in 1959, President Eisenhower said: “What a man! We have lost the last hero.”

William J. Donovan Award® Recipients

1961 The Honorable Allen W. Dulles

1963 The Honorable John J. McCloy

1964 Lt. Gen. William W. Quinn, USA

1965 President Dwight D. Eisenhower

1966 The Earl Mountbatten of Burma

1967 The Honorable Everett McKinley Dirksen

1969 J. Russell Forgan

1970 The Astronauts of Apollo 11

1971 Ambassador David K.E. Bruce

1974 The Honorable William J. Casey

1977 Ambassador Robert D. Murphy

1979 His Excellency Jacques Chaban-Delmas

1981 The Right Honorourable Margaret Thatcher

1982 The Honorable John A. McCone

1983 The Honorable Richard Helms

1983 Sir William Stephenson

1986 President Ronald W. Reagan

1991 President George H.W. Bush

1993 Dr. Carl F. Eifler

1995 The Honorable William E. Colby

2004 Dr. Ralph J. Bunche

2005 Judge William H. Webster

2009 General David H. Petraeus, USA

2010 H. Ross Perot

2011 Adm. Eric T. Olson, USN (Ret.)

2012 The Honorable Robert M. Gates

2013 Adm. William H. McRaven, USN

2014 The Honorable Leon E. Panetta

2015 Ambassador Hugh Montgomery

2016 Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, USAF (Ret.)

2017 The Honorable Michael G. Vickers

2018 The Honorable Gina C. Haspel

2019 The Honorable James N. Mattis

2022 The Honorable George J. Tenet

2023 The Honorable William J. Burns

2024 LTG Patrick M. Hughes, USA (Ret.)

https://www.osssociety.org/award.html

Honorary Chairs

John D. Bennett

Gen. Bryan D. Brown, USA (Ret.)

Lt. Gen. Charles T. Cleveland, USA (Ret.)

The Hon. Robert M. Gates

The Hon. Porter J. Goss

The Hon. Gina C. Haspel

The Hon. Ronald D. Johnson

Maj. Gen. Paul E. Lefebvre, USMC (Ret.)

The Hon. James N. Mattis

The Hon. Ellen E. McCarthy

Adm. William H. McRaven, USN, (Ret.)

Adm. Eric T. Olson, USN (Ret.)

The Hon. Leon E. Panetta

Gen. David H. Petraeus, USA (Ret.)

Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, USAF (Ret.)

Gen. Joseph L. Votel, USA (Ret.)

Judge William H. Webster

Amb. R. James Woolsey Jr.

Maj. Gen. Daniel Yoo, USMC (Ret.)

Chair

The Hon. Michael G. Vickers

President

Charles T. Pinck

Secretary

Aloysia Pietsch Hamalainen

Treasurer

Paula A. Doyle

Board of Directors

James E. Campbell

David Cohen

Paula A. Doyle

Aloysia P. Hamalainen

Tom Higgins

Dana W. Hudson

RADM Brian L. Losey, USN (Ret.)

Col. David S. Maxwell, USA (Ret.)

Patrick K. O’Donnell

Charles T. Pinck

Mark F. Pretzat

LCDR Chris Randolph, USCG (Ret.)

The Hon. Michael G. Vickers

The OSS Society

220 Spring Street STE 220

Herndon, VA 20170-6205

Phone: 703-356-6667

Email: oss@osssociety.org

https://www.osssociety.org/leadership.html

2. US shunned by European allies for top security summit

Are we getting kicked out of the club or just shunned?

Or will this be a "you can't fire me, I will quit first."

US shunned by European allies for top security summit

Newsweek · by Maya Mehrara · March 11, 2025

The U.S. has been shunned by European allies after it was not invited to a top security summit that more than 30 nations are attending in France on Tuesday, an unidentified French official told the Associated Press.

Newsweek reached out to the Pentagon for comment via email.

Why It Matters

The security summit in Europe comes as concerns have risen regarding President Donald Trump's alienation of European allies because of rising tensions with Ukraine over peace negotiations with Russia.

The lack of a U.S. invitation could suggest that Europe and other Ukrainian allies no longer have confidence that Washington can effectively mediate negotiations and achieve peace between Moscow and Kyiv.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meets with French President Emmanuel Macron on the sidelines of the European Council to discuss continued support for Ukraine and European defense, in Brussels on March 6, 2025. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meets with French President Emmanuel Macron on the sidelines of the European Council to discuss continued support for Ukraine and European defense, in Brussels on March 6, 2025. Ludovic Marin/Associated Press

What To Know

Military officials from nearly all of the 32 NATO member nations will convene in France to discuss creating an international security force for Ukraine on March 11, with the exception of the U.S.

The international security force for Ukraine would be instituted to dissuade Russia from launching another offensive after a ceasefire has been achieved. The idea for the creation of the force came from France and the U.K., which have been spearheading the provision of military and financial aid for Ukraine since tensions have worsened with the U.S.

The anonymous French official said Paris and London are working together on plans for the force meant to be a coalition of nations "able and willing" to be part of an effort to safeguard Ukraine, and the force could include heavy weaponry and weapons stockpiles that could be rushed within hours or days to aid in Kyiv's defense in the event of a Russian attack that violates any ceasefire agreement.

The French official also said that the talks in Paris will consist of two parts—the first a presentation of France and the U.K.'s blueprint for the coalition, and the second focused on "more precise and concrete" discussions in which nations will be invited to say whether and how their militaries might be able to contribute.

The unidentified French official said that U.S. was not invited because "European nations want to demonstrate that they can take responsibility for a large part of the post-ceasefire security framework for Ukraine."

Nations with representatives attending include Ireland, Cyprus, Austria, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Ukraine and more.

The summit comes after tensions between the U.S. and Ukraine rose because of Washington's peace talks with Russia, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's volatile meeting with Trump at the White House.

The U.S. and Russia held peace talks without Ukraine in Saudi Arabia on February 18 and received heavy criticism from Kyiv and European allies who accused Washington of sidelining Ukraine and alleging that it had made concessions to Russian President Vladimir Putin before the talks began.

Tensions between Washington and Kyiv worsened when Trump and Zelensky began verbally sparring, as the American president called for Ukraine to hold elections and called Zelensky a "dictator without elections."

Zelensky and Trump then met in the Oval Office on February 28 to discuss a possible ceasefire and security guarantees for Ukraine. The leaders, with Vice President JD Vance, engaged in a heated argument in which Trump called Zelensky "disrespectful" and the Ukrainian president was asked to leave and only return when he is "ready for peace."

European allies criticized Trump's conduct during the meeting with Zelensky and reiterated their support for Ukraine on social media.

Following the meeting, Trump halted the provision of all military aid and the sharing of U.S.-generated intelligence with Ukraine.

What People Are Saying

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, on X, formerly Twitter: "New defense packages, strengthened air defense, and even more investments in our defense industry. Over the past few weeks, European countries have made dozens of decisions to increase support for Ukraine. Strong positions on the frontline and strong diplomacy must work together to achieve a just and lasting peace. Under U.S. leadership and in cooperation with all of Europe, this is absolutely achievable. Peace is our shared goal. We are grateful to all partners who, together with Ukraine, bring peace closer for all our people every day!"

Marci Shore, a history professor at Yale University, wrote about the security summit on X: "The United States was not invited--and appropriately so."

Gunnar Hökmark, a former member of the European Parliament, on X: "If US really is siding with Russia in order to force Ukraine capitulate, Europe has to recognise that Trump is siding with Russia regarding European security, threatening us instead of putting pressure on Putin, that's a new world order."

What Happens Next

In addition to leading the summit, France and the U.K. have been working on a ceasefire plan to present to the U.S.

Washington and Kyiv have begun a meeting Tuesday in Saudi Arabia to discuss ending the war and achieving peace.

About the writer

Maya Mehrara is a News Reporter at Newsweek based in London, U.K.. Her focus is reporting on international news. She has covered Ukraine, Russia, immigration issues, and the revolution in Iran. Maya joined Newsweek in 2024 from the Londoners and had previously written for MyLondon, the Camden New Journal, BUST Magazine, and Washington Square News. She is a graduate of New York University and obtained her NCTJ at News Associates. Languages: English. You can get in touch with Maya by emailing m.mehrara@newsweek.com.

3. How NATO without US stacks up against Russia

How NATO without US stacks up against Russia

Newsweek · by Ellie Cook · March 11, 2025

Germany's likely next leader, Friedrich Merz, didn't mince words when he said it was his "absolute priority" to "achieve independence" for Europe from the United States.

The remarks, which stunned many last month, were one of the clearest demonstrations of the shock reverberating through NATO's European members and Canada as U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration turned on their heel, striding away from the continent America has propped up for decades.

Europe and America's northern neighbor are now scrambling to work out how vulnerable the rest of NATO really is, and whether it can take on Russia without the steadfast support the U.S. has always provided to its fellow member states.

The White House has publicly said it is refocusing its attention on the Indo-Pacific, but it has also steered toward a rapprochement with Russia that has left many in NATO horrified.

"On paper, the military strength of European NATO matches up quite well with the Russians across domains, but this on-paper strength is deceptive," said William Freer, research fellow in national security at the United Kingdom-based Council on Geostrategy.

There are increasing concerns over how NATO would fare against Russia if the U.S. fails to provide the support it has offered for decades. There are increasing concerns over how NATO would fare against Russia if the U.S. fails to provide the support it has offered for decades. Photo Illustration by Newsweek/Getty Images

European fighting strategy within NATO hinges on enablers, which the U.S. has long provided for the continent, Freer told Newsweek. "Enablers" refers to capabilities like reconnaissance, intelligence, air-to-air refueling and logistics.

NATO states on the continent have scant exposure to operating without the U.S., Freer added, not to mention they are likely to have trouble quickly get forces in place wherever needed, and to replenish losses in a combat scenario. Canada, while an integral part of America's air defense umbrella, is still one of the increasingly few NATO nations to not have met the 2 percent GDP target for defense spending.

In the Air

One of Europe's strongest suits is airpower. "You don't have the land or naval forces to do this," a U.S. military official told Newsweek, referring to a possible confrontation with Russia. But "you have the air forces, at least."

Subtracting American airpower does leave a real dent in NATO's air forces, but they are still "more advanced, more capable [and] better trained" than Russia's, said retired Air Marshal Greg Bagwell, former senior commander in the U.K.'s Royal Air Force.

"So it isn't just a numbers game," he told Newsweek. Western air forces without the U.S. are broadly able to hold their own, Bagwell added.

European NATO states operate various models of advanced fighter jets, including French-made Rafale jets, Swedish Gripens and the Eurofighter Typhoon. They are generally seen as interoperable, able to quite easily work together. Canada's air force is small but "capable," Bagwell said.

But the U.S. accounts for "over half" of all of NATO's fighter jets and ground-attack aircraft, noted Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace with the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a prominent British think tank, in a recent commentary. Roughly half the aircraft remaining, he said, are American-made.

American F-16s had been dominant in Europe but have been phased out in many countries in favor of the U.S. defense giant's F-35 stealth fighter. Twenty countries have committed to flying the fifth-generation F-35s, 12 of which are European NATO members, although several have not yet received the advanced jets.

The U.K.'s Royal Air Force at the moment has 159 fighter and ground-attack aircraft, including 32 Lockheed Martin-made F-35Bs, according to the IISS Military Balance 2025, a comprehensive count of the world's military forces.

Italy's air force already operates 195 combat-capable aircraft, including 24 F-35As and two F-35Bs, according to the IISS, while the Netherlands has 40 combat-capable fighter aircraft, all of which are F-35As. Canada has 89 ground-attack aircraft to contribute.

The U.S.-made aircraft "are backed up with substantial numbers of air-to-air and air-to-surface weapons," Barrie said.

There are deep concerns over whether European NATO states have enough air-launched weapons, and how quickly Europe-based defense companies can fill in empty spaces in a wartime scenario, he said.

"Europe on its own would struggle to win air superiority against Russian forces," which have very strong ground-based air defense systems to threaten NATO aircraft, Justin Bronk, airpower expert from the London-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank, evaluated in August 2024.

The U.S. is dominant in providing ground-based air defense systems like the vaunted Patriot, which has been in short supply in Europe. "Europe's going to have to step up quite quickly and find things that can plug some of those gaps," Bagwell said.

"The problem is not that solutions are not available, but rather that no European member states have yet invested in the necessary combination of suitable aircraft, weapons, specialist training and enablers, although some are making progress in this area," Bronk said.

Europe's NATO members have "far fewer" tankers to provide air-to-air refueling capabilities than the U.S. Air Force, Barrie said.

Europe has long-term programs like the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP), a joint venture between the U.K., Italy and Japan to deliver sixth-generation fighter jets due to come into service in 10 years' time. There is some debate over the future of program, not least as the U.K. nears the end of its Strategic Defence Review.

But "there are no other real alternatives outside America that provide that level of stealth" afforded by the fifth-generation F-35s in the meantime, Bagwell said. While stealth is "less and less important these days," he said, there are limited options for non-American fifth-generation capabilities.

The rest of NATO could use fourth-generation aircraft long in service "and still be more than a match for Russia through a variety of different techniques," Bagwell commented, should commitment to F-35s waver.

Russia's air force does bear the scars of more than three years of war in Ukraine, and its combat aircraft have long been prized targets for Kyiv's air defenses. But Moscow's air power has emerged relatively unscathed from its invasion, because "most of the tactical air force has not been committed to this fight" in Ukraine, U.S. Army General Christopher Cavoli, head of the U.S. European Command, told the Atlantic Council in October.

Although generally painted as having underperformed in Ukraine, Russia's air force would still be formidable. Russia has 449 fighter and ground-attack aircraft, including the Su-34s that have been used extensively against Ukraine and a handful of Su-57 stealth jets, which have been largely kept away from the war. Moscow also has another 220 fighter aircraft and 262 attack jets, according to the IISS.

On Land

The war in Ukraine has hit Russia's land forces hard. The IISS said last month it believed Moscow had lost 1,400 of its main battle tanks in 2024, plus more than 3,700 other armored vehicles.

In total, the think tank said, Russia has lost roughly 14,000 tanks and armored vehicles since February 2022 in what it described as "staggering numbers." Dutch investigative outlet Oryx, which catalogs visually verified losses, said that Moscow had lost at least 3,786 tanks.

Russia has relied on Soviet-era equipment, pulling old tanks from storage and even from museums and tweaking the vehicles wherever possible. The IISS said Russia refurbished and built more than 1,500 main battle tanks, and 2,800 armored vehicles in 2024. But the Cold War stocks are finite, slowly being exhausted.

"The remaining equipment in store could allow Russia to sustain the current rate of loss in the short term, but a significant number of these platforms would require deep and costly refurbishment," the IISS said. But even once it burns through its old stocks, the think tank argued, Russia would likely still be able to build back its numbers in the medium and long term.

Estimates from the U.K. government in early 2024 suggested Russia was able to pump out around 100 new tanks each year. Russian President Vladimir Putin said in February 2024 that domestic tank production had grown fivefold in two years, although Western experts cast doubt over whether the tanks rolling off these production lines are up to scratch.

According to the IISS figures, Russia has 2,730 main battle tanks, from the old T-55s to the updated T-80s, although the oldest models are likely to be in storage. It also has nearly 3,000 more in various stages of readiness in stocks, the think tank said.

The U.K., France, Italy and Germany combined have fewer than 900 main battle tanks of various types, the IISS data indicates. Poland, which has stormed ahead with its defense spending, has more than 660 main battle tanks, while Greece's stockpiles approach 1,400. Romania, which shares chunks of border with Ukraine, has roughly 377 main battle tanks. Canada has just 74 main battle tanks, according to the IISS numbers.

Europe has pledged many of its existing tanks to Kyiv's war effort. Germany's government has said Berlin has delivered to Ukraine 140 of its Marder infantry fighting vehicles, 66 armored personnel carriers and more than 100 Leopard 1 tanks as part of a joint project with Denmark. Germany has also sent a handful of the more modern Leopard 2 tanks.

The European Union appears committed to yanking up defense spending and investment in continental NATO's industry, rather than relying on the U.S. powerhouse military-industrial complex. Ursula von der Leyen, head of the European Commission, unveiled earlier this month a plan she called "rearm Europe," crafted to funnel into defense across the bloc.

Also thrown into the mix are problems, particularly in Western Europe and the U.K., in keeping the numbers of its personnel up.

Naval Power

Russia's navy is huge, made up of four major fleets plus its Caspian Sea Flotilla. Only one, the Black Sea Fleet, has been significantly impacted by the Ukraine war.

Moscow has access, largely through the Northern Fleet, to an estimated 51 submarines, including 12 ballistic missile submarines and 10 guided missile submarines. While Russia's surface fleet of ships is less impressive and counts just one currently nonoperational aircraft carrier among its ships, the Kremlin wields a daunting undersea fleet.

"Russia's main asset is its nuclear submarine force," said Frederik Mertens, a strategic analyst at Dutch research organization TNO. Although few, Moscow's new Yasen-class guided-missile submarines "are very dangerous boats," Mertens told Newsweek.

"They are quiet, fast, well-armed, and will be manned by the cream of the Russian fleet," Mertens said. "Luckily, there are only a few of them, and most of Russia's submarine fleet consists of ever more outmoded Cold War-era boats."

Russia also historically built many of its Soviet-era ships in Ukraine and has not pieced back together the navy infrastructure it had under the USSR—although, again, the nuclear submarine fleet stands apart, Mertens said.

America's navy, while stretched, has a global footprint and 65 submarines of various classes, all of which are nuclear-powered, plus 11 aircraft carriers.

"America can turn out a lot more ships than any one European nation," Bagwell said, although concerns have been raised about America's own ability to churn out and maintain ships and submarines.

Europe combined, however, may find a way to drum up the necessary capabilities, Bagwell suggested.

European NATO states typically have a handful of submarines of differing types—Germany and Norway have six apiece; Greece has 10; Italy has eight; Poland has one; Sweden has four; and the Netherlands has three. Canada has four submarines. There are several different types of submarines that fulfill different roles.

There are also unanswered questions about how naval aviation and ground-based missile systems close to a shoreline would impact any possible battle, particularly if they're fought in the seas surrounding Europe and away from Russian soil.

It's not clear how quickly and easily Russia would be able to get its submarines and surface ships to a given location to square off against hypothetical NATO forces.

The U.K. and France are the only NATO members outside of the U.S. with nuclear weapons, most of which are submarine-launched. France's navy has four ballistic missile submarines that carry nuclear warheads, and the U.K. has 10 submarines, four of which carry nuclear-armed missiles.

London is developing the Dreadnought class of submarines, to replace the Vanguard subs at the moment tasked with the country's nuclear deterrent, in the early 2030s. But there are "longstanding concerns over maintenance and availability of the [British] submarine fleet, along with manpower and skills shortages in the submarine service," a U.K. parliamentary research document noted earlier this year.

"Just as the U.K. cannot operate all its warships at the same time, as reparations, upgrades, maintenance, and training all demand time, the Russians face the same issue," Mertens said.

"With the USA focusing on the Pacific, it will be up to Europe to keep its neighbouring seas under control," Mertens added. "And with the naval strength we have today, that will be a very difficult task indeed."

Nuclear

Russia has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, just outstripping the U.S. Collectively, Moscow and Washington control roughly 90 percent of global nuclear weapons, split around strategic and tactical nuclear weapons.

British and French nuclear weapons amount to a fraction of Russia's stockpile at under 300 warheads each. It is also not clear under which circumstances London and Paris would use their nuclear weapons to defend NATO's Article 5, as Washington's nuclear weapons have historically acted as the main deterrent.

"Ultimately, the most powerful capability available to European NATO is the nuclear arsenal of the UK; this provides an incredibly powerful deterrent to Russian aggression towards any European NATO member," Freer said.

The British government touts its nuclear deterrent, a long-debated program dubbed Trident, as entirely independent.

"Britain likes to call its nuclear posture independent, but it, of course, is absolutely not," Hans Kristensen, from U.S. think tank Federation of American Scientists, told British newspaper The Guardian in recent days. "It may be that Britain can fire weapons independently of the US, but below that, the entire infrastructure covering missile compartments on submarines, the missiles themselves, all are supplied by the Americans," Kristensen added.

French President Emmanuel Macron has floated extending the protection of Paris' nuclear weapons to the rest of Europe, a prospect welcomed by Poland and NATO's Baltic States but slammed by the Kremlin as "extremely confrontational."

Germany's Merz, speaking to German media on Sunday, said the "sharing of nuclear weapons is an issue we need to talk about," but the rest of NATO should not lose America's nuclear protection.

"The changed global security situation now necessitates that we Europeans discuss this matter together," Merz added.

Update 3/11/25, 12:41 p.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Frederik Mertens and additional information.

Newsweek · by Ellie Cook · March 11, 2025

4. How the Navy SEALs Conquered Congress — And Became the Shock Troops of the MAGA Revolution

How the Navy SEALs Conquered Congress — And Became the Shock Troops of the MAGA Revolution

Politico

There’s a record number of ex-SEALs on Capitol Hill. Is politics at odds with the special forces’ ethos of working in the shadows?

Illustration by Danielle Del Plato for POLITICO

By Ian Ward

03/10/2025 05:55 AM EDT

Updated: 03/10/2025 12:26 PM EDT

Ian Ward is a reporter at POLITICO.

When Ryan Zinke entered the House of Representatives in 2014 as the junior member from Montana, he was something of an anomaly. A three-decade veteran of the U.S. Navy SEALs, Zinke was the first member of the elite special force unit to serve in the House and only the second ever to serve in Congress. His arrival on Capitol Hill became the source of some intrigue among his colleagues, Zinke says: At the time, the SEALs were experiencing an intense period of public celebrity thanks to SEAL Team Six’s role in the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden, which had cemented the public mythology of the SEALs as a lethal band of expert killers. Zinke, a former offensive lineman for the University of Oregon football team, seemed perfectly constructed to bring that mythology to life.

“You don’t have to be six-foot-three, 225 pounds and be able to bench 400 pounds,” Zinke joked, “but it helps.”

Since their founding in the early 1960s, the Navy SEALs have made their presence felt in every corner of the globe, executing some of the most dangerous and celebrated missions in U.S. military history. But now, a decade after Zinke came to Washington, the elite unit has infiltrated a different kind of hostile territory: Congress.

When the 119th Congress was gaveled into session in January, Zinke counted six former SEALs as his colleagues, the most ever: Reps. Eli Crane of Arizona, Morgan Luttrell and Dan Crenshaw of Texas, Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin, John McGuire of Virginia and freshman Sen. Tim Sheehy of Montana. All are Republicans who have aligned themselves, in varying fashions, with Donald Trump and the MAGA movement.

It’s a small number overall, but — with ex-SEALs making up over 1 percent of Congress — markedly disproportionate to the SEAL population at large. And the consequences of the growing numbers of SEALs-turned-lawmakers on Capitol Hill have been quiet but significant. According to interviews with five of the current ex-SEALs in Congress, the swelling in their ranks has coincided with — and, in many respects, aided — a marked shift in the style of Republican politics on Capitol Hill.

In the second half of the 20th century, the generation of Republican lawmakers who entered politics after serving in World War II, Korea and Vietnam helped define a style of consensus-based conservatism that flourished until the Republican Revolution of the 1990s. By contrast, the current generation of ex-SEALs, who mostly came of fighting age during the Gulf War and the war on terror, have eagerly embraced a more combative style of politics — one that favors partisan warfare, legislative brinkmanship and an open embrace of Trump.

This style takes its cues in part from the MAGA movement more broadly, but it draws on the combativeness at the heart of what several of the members called the SEALs’ “warrior mentality”: the sense the SEALs will do whatever it takes — short of opposing Trump outright — to achieve their objective, even if it means bucking Republican leadership or breaking congressional norms. This background, several of the former SEALs told me, has made them particularly effective proponents of the new style of Republican politics ushered in by the Trump revolution. As the MAGA revolution has remade Washington in its own image, the former Navy SEALs have dutifully served as its shock troops on Capitol Hill.

“From the tea party movement through the Trump movement, people are looking for aggressive and kind of independent anti-establishment voices, and [the SEALs] are a brand that people recognize as brash,” said John Byrnes, strategic director of the right-leaning advocacy group Concerned Veterans for America and a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. “They recognize [them] as fighters.”

At the same time, that “warrior mentality” has not resulted in a particularly effective legislative strategy. Despite their “mission-focused” rhetoric, none of the former SEALs are especially prolific lawmakers. Their martial attitude manifests in an especially enthusiastic embrace of Trump’s bare-knuckled political style, which is more concerned with breaking existing political institutions than working within them.

Within the GOP, the SEAL brand has become a kind of shorthand for this attitude: In campaign ads, campaign speeches and fundraising emails, many of the ex-SEALs brandish the SEAL trident as evidence they, like the MAGA movement more broadly, see themselves as insurgents battling a corrupt establishment made up of Democrats and moderate Republicans alike.

“I don’t see the Republican Party as my chain of command,” said Crane, a member of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus who launched his first campaign in 2021 with an ad featuring him discussing his SEAL background while getting “We the People” tattooed into his right bicep. “I see the Republican Party, in many ways, as a big part of the problem.”

The rise in the number of former SEALs in Congress comes at a time when the overall number of military veterans serving on Capitol Hill has been declining. Between 1965 and 1975, at least 70 percent of members in both the House and the Senate had prior military experience, reflecting the high rates of military participation among the generations that came of age during World War II and the Korean War. The shared experience of military service served as a basis for a degree of bipartisan cooperation throughout the Cold War, but no longer: In the current Congress, less than 19 percent of all members are veterans, a consequence of the diminished rates of military service following the end of the draft in 1973 and the rise of an all-volunteer force. The shrinking proportion of veterans has coincided with a shift in the partisan valence of military service: Of the 100 members in the 119th Congress with military backgrounds, 72 are Republicans and 28 are Democrats.

Yet the rising number of ex-SEALs on the Hill is, in another respect, not entirely surprising. Practically since the creation of the force, the SEALs have occupied an outsize place in America’s popular imagination, buoyed by a steady stream of best-selling books and Hollywood films showcasing their heroics. (The first former SEAL ever elected to Congress, Democratic Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, was elected in 1988 after serving as a SEAL in Vietnam.)

Over time, the rise of the SEALs as a household brand has allowed a powerful political cachet to attach itself to former SEALs — one that Republicans have been quicker to take advantage of than Democrats. A significant amount of credit for that strategy belongs to Zinke, who, while running for the first time in 2014, founded a Republican-aligned independent political action committee called SEAL PAC dedicated to recruiting and supporting the campaigns of special ops veterans.

“There’s a perception of the SEAL as being the very best and capable warriors, and that perception is easily transferred to a candidate that is running for political office,” said Zinke, who returned to Congress in 2023 after a tumultuous term as secretary of the Interior during Trump’s first term. “Americans want to be represented by a winner.”

At the same time, the politicization of the SEAL brand — and its growing association with the conservative wing of the Republican Party — has sparked tensions within the greater SEAL community, where a tradition of “quiet professionalism” and non-political sacrifice still holds some sway. Unsurprisingly, not all the former SEALs on the Hill share that commitment.

Luttrell, who represents Texas’ 8th congressional district, was in the middle of a 2-mile open-ocean swim at SEAL training camp when a plane hit the north tower of the World Trade Center on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. By the time he got back to dry land, a second plane had hit the south tower. “All the instructors were trying to get out of training details and get back to a team,” he told me. “They knew, ‘Hey, this is it — we’re going to war.’”

Luttrell’s path to the SEALs was typical of the post-Vietnam era, when a majority of new military recruits came from families with preexisting military ties. He was raised in a military family on a horse ranch in Willis, Texas — both his father and his grandfather had served in the armed forces — and service was “part of our bone marrow,” he told me. He and his twin brother, Marcus, resolved to become SEALs after watching a Discovery Channel documentary about the special operations forces.

On joining the Navy, Luttrell enrolled directly in SEAL boot camp, where one of his instructors in Basic Underwater Demolition/SEALs — known as “BUD/S,” the most strenuous parts of SEAL training — was Zinke. “He was an animal — I mean, really terrifying,” Luttrell recalled, laughing.

In 2004, after completing his training, Luttrell deployed to Afghanistan, where he was tasked with “precision-driven missions” going after high-value targets. (“That’s all I can say to answer that question,” he chortled when I asked him to elaborate.)

Luttrell’s path to politics began with his twin, Marcus. In July of 2005, Marcus was part of a team of four SEALs who were ambushed by Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, with everyone on the mission dying save for Marcus. Two years later, Marcus published an account of the attack in a book, Lone Survivor, which went on to become a New York Times best-seller and the basis for a Hollywood film starring Mark Wahlberg. The precise details of Marcus’ account have since been disputed, but the book swiftly transformed him into a national war hero, earning him — and, by extension, Morgan — public notoriety and high-profile political connections in Texas. In 2015, when Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced his presidential campaign, the Luttrell brothers stood on either side of him.

By that point, Morgan was medically retired from the military, having suffered a severe spinal cord injury and a traumatic brain injury during a training incident in 2009, and he was looking for his next chapter. During the Trump administration, he took a job as a senior adviser to Perry at the Department of Energy, where he reconnected with Zinke, who was then leading the Department of the Interior.

In 2021, Luttrell called up Zinke about running to fill a vacant House seat. Zinke’s first piece of advice was half-joking “Don’t do it!” Luttrell recalled — but after Luttrell made up his mind, Zinke threw his and SEAL PAC’s support behind Luttrell’s campaign, as did then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and the Congressional Leadership Fund. In the same election cycle, two other former SEALs — Crane and Van Orden — won election for the first time, and Zinke won reelection, bringing their total number up to five.

The influx of former SEALs into Congress has fed a slow-simmering debate within the SEAL community about the relative benefits and drawbacks of the organization’s post-2011 visibility. Since their founding in the early 1960s, SEAL teams have been, at least in theory, expected to respect the special operations’ motto of “quiet professionalism”: “I do not advertise the nature of my work, nor seek recognition for my action,” reads a line in the official SEAL ethos. But in practice, the SEALs have become the most public-facing — and publicity-seeking — of all the special operations forces. Especially after the 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden, the SEAL appetite for self-promotion has reached the point where even some former SEALs regard the “quiet professional” mantra as a kind of cultural atavism.

Yet not all SEALs felt as cavalier about abandoning the ethos of the quiet professional. In 2015, a SEAL lieutenant commander named Forrest Crowell published a master’s thesis at the Naval Postgraduate School decrying the “emergence of a SEAL counterculture characterized by an increasingly commodified and public persona.” He specifically called out former SEALs like Zinke for trading on their association with the force for partisan political purposes: “It is difficult to find a picture of him in which there is not a Trident pinned somewhere to his suit,” Crowell wrote of Zinke. The dual commodification and politicization of the SEALs, Crowell concluded, had done serious harm to the force’s integrity, having “eroded organizational effectiveness, damaged national security, and undermined healthy civil-military relations.”

The paper landed like a bombshell within the ex-SEAL community. For the group at large, it prompted what many saw as an overdue debate about the organization’s trajectory in a post-war on terror world. (In 2020, Crowell was hired as a top aide to the SEALs’ new commander as part of a broader overhaul of the organization. He did not respond to requests for comment for this article.) For the emerging generation of ex-SEAL lawmakers, meanwhile, it has continued to raise questions about the proper way to balance obligations to the SEAL community against the requirements of serving as an elected official.

“You have to find entertainment value in [the SEALs], since my brother wrote a book about it,” said Luttrell with a laugh. Yet at a more personal level, he said, he tries not to be overly ostentatious about his SEAL background, and he goes out of his way not to display SEAL memorabilia in his offices. “That chapter in my life was quiet,” he told me. “It’s supposed to be quiet.”

Sheehy, who recently became the second-ever Navy SEAL to join the Senate, said that embracing the SEAL moniker is an inescapable fact of political life, even if ex-SEALs looking to enter politics might wish otherwise.

“If someone reads about you on the internet and they see that you are a small business owner, a pilot, a father, a farmer, a rancher and a Navy SEAL, the two words they pull out that whole resume are ‘Navy SEAL,’” said Sheehy, who defeated Democrat Jon Tester in one of the most expensive Senate races of the 2024 cycle. “Whether we like it or not, and whether we were SEALs for two years or for 20 years, that title really becomes what you’re known as.”

From their inception, the SEALs stood apart from the rest of the Navy for their air of machismo-infused independence. The first SEAL teams were officially created in 1962 as a response to the military’s gradual recognition that the nature of military conflict was rapidly evolving — and the U.S. was ill-suited to meet the tactical necessities of the Cold War. In an era of nuclear bombs and long-range weapon systems, the Pentagon realized, fewer conflicts would play out on conventional battlefields. Existing chains of command and military bureaucracy could be cumbersome and counterproductive to the success of operations. Direct troop engagements, when they did happen, would need to be targeted, stealthy and flexible.

This mentality, baked into the SEALs from their founding, has evolved over time into a sense that the SEALs enjoy a greater degree of operational autonomy than the average unit — that, when necessary, a SEAL team can go at it alone.

As ex-SEALs have migrated to Capitol Hill, they’ve brought some of this spirit with them. In terms of partisan alignment, that sense of independence has prompted almost all of them to align themselves with Trump’s MAGA insurgency and against the old Republican establishment. In practice, it has led some of them to adopt an openly adversarial relationship with Republican leadership.

“It’s up to each individual [to decide] who they actually think their chain of command is,” said Crane, who was one of the conservative Republicans who bucked McCarthy’s speakership bid in 2023. “I see my chain of command as the voters from Arizona’s second congressional district, so that’s why I’m much more willing to buck the system and take a stand against my own party.”

To the extent that it drives their legislative strategy, this attitude has not allowed the ex-SEALs on the Hill to become especially effective lawmakers. Of the 23 bills that Crane has sponsored during his two terms in the House, three have passed the House, and none has become law. Luttrell, meanwhile, has had three bills pass the House and one signed into law. The relatively most effective ex-SEAL legislator, measured by number of sponsored bills to pass the House, is Crenshaw, a more moderate conservative, who has sponsored five bills that have passed the chamber during his four terms in office.

Yet at least for the more hard-line conservative members like Crane, it’s clear that they see the objective of their mission as tearing down an irreparably broken system rather than working within that system to pass bills. Judged by this metric, the former SEALs have been diligent foot soldiers in the MAGA movement, especially insofar as they have green-lit the Trump administration’s more aggressive efforts to extend his authority over independent agencies created by Congress and concentrate policymaking power in the executive branch.

“I do think it resonates with guys like me who want to change the system,” Crane said of Trump’s early moves. “People feel like it’s broken and are willing to take hard stands on things.”

The apotheosis of this emerging SEAL-MAGA synthesis is Sheehy, who with his broad shoulders and neatly coiffed blonde hair seems plucked out of the Hollywood films that made the SEALs famous. On the campaign trail, Sheehy aligned himself with Trump both substantively — by hammering Democrats on the border, abortion and anti-“wokeness” in education — and stylistically. When media reports emerged challenging Sheehy’s claim that he suffered a gunshot wound in his arm while serving with the SEALs in Afghanistan, Sheehy responded by accusing his doubters of being “never Trumpers.” (In 2015, Sheehy told a National Park Service ranger that he had accidentally shot himself in the arm, though he has since said that story was a lie.)

If Sheehy embodies the most MAGA-fied version of the SEAL brand, Crenshaw represents the least. First elected in 2019 and seen by some at the time as a younger and more palatable conservative alternative to Trump, Crenshaw has continued to support Trump publicly, though he has gone on the record criticizing Republicans who challenged the validity of the 2020 election and freely lampoons the more outlandish members of the MAGA coalition in the House.

If there are tensions among this group of ex-SEALs, they haven’t burst into the open. The members I spoke with told me that a kind of solidarity still holds sway among the cohort, even as individual members disagree with each other on policy and strategy. (Crenshaw and Van Orden’s offices did not respond to interview requests.)

“There’s always accountability from that pin that we wear on our chests, the training we went through and the wars that we fought together,” Luttrell told me. “I can be like, ‘Hey, bro, I need you to shoot straight on this,’ and the answer is, ‘No problem.’”

McGuire, the latest ex-SEAL to join Congress as a new member elected last year from Virginia, told me the other members have eased his transition into the chamber. “We call, text, ask advice, give advice,” he said. “I’m friends with all of them.”

When I spoke with Luttrell, I asked him if his service on the Hill scratched the same itch as his service in the SEALs — if, as he had suggested earlier, political skirmishes offered something of the same thrill as actual warfare.

“It’s just a different kind,” he said. “But there is success in it.” Just the day before, he told me, he had called a young female constituent to tell her that she had been accepted into the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. “It was the greatest day of her life.”

It was a touching story, I said, but I’d imagine not quite the same thrill as repelling onto a moving boat out of a helicopter.

“Well, no one has shot at me,” he said. “Not so far.”

Politico

5. Pentagon abruptly ends all funding for social science research

Baby and bathwater?

Are we going to deliberately make ourselves dumb?

Pentagon abruptly ends all funding for social science research

More than 90 studies on threats such as climate change, extremism, and disinformation are halted

science.org · by Share on X

The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) is ending all of its funding for social science research, stopping 91 ongoing studies related to threats such as climate change, extremism, and disinformation. In a press release issued late on Friday, the department wrote that it would “focus on the most impactful technologies” and that research it funds “must address pressing needs to develop and field advanced military capabilities.”

“[DOD] does not do climate change crap,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote on X on Sunday. “We do training and war fighting.”

The cuts include the entire Minerva Research Initiative, a landmark project established in 2008 “to help DOD better understand and prepare for future challenges.” (ScienceInsider first reported on cuts to Minerva on 2 March.) The initiative’s website, including reports on finished and ongoing projects, has since gone dark.

“The Pentagon’s decision to scrap its social science research portfolio … is short-sighted and harmful to U.S. national security,” says Jason Lyall, a political scientist at Dartmouth College. Many of the canceled projects focused on how new technologies such as artificial intelligence are shaping modern battlefields, Lyall notes. “How do you know what’s ‘impactful’ if you don’t do the research? How do you anticipate countermeasures and consequences of their use?” he asks. “I’m worried that without this portfolio, we lose a critical source of impartial evidence about national security, leaving the Pentagon more susceptible to companies selling ‘revolutionary’ but unproven technologies.”

The move “suggests they don’t care about better understanding threats the U.S. faces,” says Josh Busby, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin and a senior adviser for climate at DOD in 2021–22. Busby had a small grant to study the U.S. dependence on critical minerals from China for the clean energy transition, a project scheduled to wrap up this summer after a tabletop exercise at the U.S. Naval War College. That is now unlikely to happen, Busby says. “It’s baffling that our project was terminated early since the focus on critical minerals and dependence on China is what they say they care about.”

DOD has said cutting the research projects will save more than $30 million in the first year, but that’s “a rounding error in the Pentagon’s massive budget,” Lyall says. “Any savings will be outweighed by new gaps and blind spots in our knowledge about current and emerging threats.”

science.org · by Share on X

6. Cryptic Trump post hints use of special forces against Hamas

Hmmm....

Cryptic Trump post hints use of special forces against Hamas

israelhayom.com · by Erez Linn · March 10, 2025

President Donald Trump shared on Trut Social an article written by a former US general claiming his ultimatum to Hamas demanding the release of all remaining hostages could result with intervention by American special forces.

"He's very serious with his ultimatum for Hamas to release all of the remaining hostages, and if that doesn't happen, they might get to meet certain members of our very special forces," retired US Air Force Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt told Newsmax's Sunday Report. According to Holt, Trump "is not putting up bluffs or anything like that in the background."

The United States is working to strengthen its military relationship with Israel, Holt said . "The United States is repairing and reintegrating its relationship and its alliance with the IDF and they're ready to go. They've had time to recuperate and develop intelligence, which is very important," he said.

Holt criticized Egypt's proposals for Gaza's future, giving them "failing grades" in the interview with Newsmax. On Saturday, foreign ministers from France, Germany, Italy, and Britain supported Egypt's plan, which aims to avoid displacing Palestinians from Gaza and would create a committee of Palestinian technocrats to govern Gaza after the war ends between Israel and Hamas. This committee would operate under the supervision of the Palestinian Authority.

US President Donald Trump holds a press conference called in response to the fatal collision of a passenger airplane and a US military helicopter in February (EPA / Will Oliver)

"Last year at this time, they were lining up tanks aimed at Israel," Holt noted about Egypt. "They're going to keep coming up with proposals because President Trump's leadership is getting Egypt very nervous about taking Palestinian refugees."

Despite these concerns, Holt expressed optimism about future developments, though he cautioned that military action might precede any positive outcomes. "I think we're going to see some good things going ahead. But we could see some military action first," he said.

The Trump administration is advocating for a demilitarized private sector solution for Gaza, which Holt suggested could become a "model of what can happen after a devastating conflict." He revealed that discussions are already taking place among Arab nations regarding displaced Palestinians. "The Arab states, quietly in the background, and it's not reported on the media, are already talking about how to take the displaced in," Holt said during the Newsmax interview.

Holt questioned what certain nations truly want for Gaza's future. "Destroyed buildings, sewer pipes used as rocket launchers, and more war? That's nonsense," he argued. He advocated for reconstruction and economic development as crucial elements for peace.

"The right answer is, we have got to put this all back together, and these people have to thrive economically. When somebody has an economic stake and it puts food in their kids' bellies, they tend not to like war a whole bunch," Holt concluded in his interview with Newsmax.

israelhayom.com · by Erez Linn · March 10, 2025

7. Doge and American Military Power – There’s a Tsunami Coming

And probably a tornado and hurricane as well.

Doge and American Military Power – There’s a Tsunami Coming

By Michael Shoebridge

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/03/11/doge_and_american_military_power__theres_a_tsunami_coming_1096786.html?utm

Elon Musk has the goal of saving $1 trillion dollars from the U.S. Federal Government’s expenditure by 30 September 2025. He has to find cuts of $4 billion every day until then. The sheer numbers mean Pentagon and U.S. military power will be in the frame along with everything else.

At the remarkable February Musk-Trump Cabinet meeting, President Trump told Musk to be more aggressive – because it was running about $15 billion behind at that time.

So, we’re only at the beginning for what lies ahead to September.

The raw numbers of the U.S. budget are $7.028 trillion in spending, with $5.163 trillion in revenue, leaving a $1.865 trillion deficit. Musk’s $1 trillion savings goal Musk is 15% of U.S. government spending.

That scale of cuts can’t be found in diversity programs or ending salaries of dead civil servants still on payrolls – two poster children for the MAGA crowd. Closing whole agencies like the Education Department also won’t be enough – they’re blips in $7 trillion. DOGE will have to go to all big spend areas in the budget and get that chainsaw out that Musk frolicked with at a recent conservative convention. That means social security ($1.5 trillion) and health, Medicare and Medicaid (at $1.8 trillion) and Defense (at $859 billion).

Musk is bringing his corporate approach from his corporate world to the cuts – last seen at Twitter. A core thing here is to ‘delete any part or process you can’, as Musk says “You may add them back later. In fact if you do not end up adding back at least 10% of the cuts, you didn’t delete enough”. And move very fast, accelerating everything.

At DOGE this has cut things that turned out to be more than just important – like staff keeping America’s nuclear weapons secure, people in America’s air safety outfit, the FAA, and Ebola prevention at the Center for Disease Control (he’s said he reversed the Ebola cut immediately – but that’s not accurate).

As the search for cuts accelerates, there will be plenty more own goals like this. In other cases, the nasty knock on consequences of the cuts will take time to emerge. Many will be beyond his window of September this year — probably after he’s declared “Mission Accomplished” like G.W. Bush did about Iraq on the USS Abraham Lincoln in 2003 just as Iraq descended into violence and chaos.

So, Musk may have ridden off with his chainsaw and MAGA cap to other quests before the real consequences of his work dawn on the American people and America’s friends in the wider world (although America’s rivals are already seeing opportunities open up).

An analogy that helps think through what is happening could be this: the U.S. Government is obese, living an unhealthy life beyond its means, spending $1.9 trillion every year it just doesn’t have. But Trump’s war on the ‘woke’ and ‘deep state’ enemies within his own government, together with the DOGE chainsaw, are like treating an obesity problem with a combination of chemotherapy and amputation. Yes, the patient ends up losing plenty of weight, but they’re sick with key organs or limbs missing when you’re done.

Looking at the Pentagon part alone, it fits that description of an obese patient in need of some difficult interventions — as does our own Defence organisation here in Australia.

The new Pentagon chief, Pete Hegseth, is trying to get ahead of the DOGE wave by running his own efficiency program. Donald Trump has exempted military personnel from cuts imposed on the wider Federal workforce, although the Pentagon’s 950,000 civilian workforce is in the frame just like everywhere else.

As DOGE approaches, Hegseth is also trying to redirect 8 per cent of the Pentagon’s budget – about $50 billion – towards his own priorities, using a pretty traditional internal offsets approach. He’s talked about cutting ‘so-called climate change,’ ‘excessive bureaucracy’ and ending ‘woke’ programs, but he must know the dollars there won’t touch $50 billion. Hegseth’s plan is almost certain to be run over by the DOGE freight train, adding more chaos into the organisation.

Exempting U.S. military personnel from cuts makes everything harder, because at around $180 billion they’re about 20 per cent of the budget. Bigger cuts will have to be made elsewhere – to things like acquisition and maintenance.

We know that other Trump administration figures, like National Security Adviser Mike Walz see waste and fraud in the Pentagon’s ship and submarine building programs – including the Virginia-class submarines Australia wants under AUKUS. The U.S. Navy’s is in very bad shape, with unaffordable plans and growing costs pressures both to build ships and submarines and to maintain and operate them. That’s a rich target area for DOGE.

But shipbuilding is only around 4% of the Pentagon’s budget— so spending needs to be better managed but increase to match China’s rapidly growing maritime power.

Moreover, unlike here where most defence maintenance and services have been outsourced, many of those 950,000 civilian employees are on the tools. The U.S. Navy’s submarine maintenance yards are government run and staffed facilities. The Navy is already facing a huge maintenance backlog, so the easy option of cutting civilians may lead to another of those unintended consequences— with serious consequences for Australia’s AUKUS ambitions if U.S. submarine availability falls even further.

We can hold onto the hope that Musk and tech bros like Anduril’s Palmer Luckey will transform the U.S. military and Pentagon into a glittering Swiss watch of autonomous weaponry and AI, but U.S. power now exists in a functioning Cold War institution running large weapons systems based over the globe. It’s not a small outfit dependent on data servers, code and a relatively tiny number of people like Twitter was and still is. Similarities to Space X and Tesla exist but they’re outweighed by the differences. It’s unlikely that Pete Hegseth’s career so far has equipped him to manage the contradictions – and no one is able to ‘manage’ Elon Musk, or Donald Trump.

The combined effect of DOGE, the Hegseth funding shift and parallel pressures for workforce reduction are going to rock the U.S. military and affect everything about how it operates. Even if some of the savings make sense, the disruption and damage will be broad and deep and last for years.

Right now, the world is full of emboldened, well-armed autocrats and two active wars. It’s not clear what the actual plan is for American power as these cuts and changes loom.

That’s bad news for those interested in American military power being reliable and present in a dangerous time.

This article was first published in The Australian.

Michael is Director of Strategic Analysis Australia. From 2018 until September 2022, he was the Director of the Defence, Strategy and National Security Program at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) in Canberra. Before the think tank world, Michael was a deputy in two Australian intelligence agencies – the Australian Signals Directorate and the Defence Intelligence Organisation.

8. China Is Mapping the Seabed to Unlock a New Edge in Warfare

Haven't we been doing this for decades?

China Is Mapping the Seabed to Unlock a New Edge in Warfare

Beijing’s exploration of distant waters bring security fears and complaints

https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/china-is-mapping-the-seabed-to-unlock-a-new-edge-in-warfare-c8ac5180?mod=wknd_pos1

A Chinese research and survey vessel at Hambantota port, Sri Lanka, in 2022. Photo: ishara s. kodikara/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

By Austin RamzyFollow

Updated March 12, 2025 12:33 am ET

HONG KONG—China is rapidly expanding ocean exploration in waters far beyond its shores, sending out a fleet of vessels whose research offers Beijing valuable military intelligence as it expands its naval reach and menaces U.S. allies.

China’s fleet has triggered protests from Japan, India and others, but that hasn’t stopped Beijing from launching long missions to map the sea floor. The data they obtain has numerous applications, from science to the emerging industry of deep-sea mining, but it is the Chinese government’s commandeering of civilian research for military use that threatens American allies.

“If that data may have some value to the Chinese military and they want access to it, they’re going to get it,” said Matthew Funaiole, senior fellow in the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “There’s no firewall in place.”

India’s navy drove a Chinese research ship away in 2019, but more have returned. In recent weeks, two of China’s most advanced research vessels, the Xiang Yang Hong 01 and the newer Dong Fang Hong 3 have conducted lawnmower-style sweeps across vast stretches of the eastern Indian Ocean.

China Surveys the Ocean

Beijing is sending ships such as these to systematically map areas surrounding other nations' exclusive economic zones (EEZs).

CHINA

INDIA

MYANMAR

(BURMA)

Xiang Yang Hong 01

left China’s Hainan province around Jan. 26.

THAILAND

Bay of Bengal

South

China Sea

INDIAN EEZ

(Andaman and

Nicobar Islands)

The ships entered India’s eastern EEZ around

Feb. 6 and Feb. 28.

INDIAN EEZ

SRI

LANKA

SRI LANKAN EEZ

MALAYSIA

Dong Fang Hong 3 left Qingdao in Northeast China

in mid-February.

INDONESIA

INDIAN OCEAN

Sources: MarineTraffic (ship positions); Flanders Marine Institute (EEZs)

Emma Brown/WSJ

Chinese civilian vessels are pursuing expeditions around the world—there are as many as a dozen or so active at any given time. The data they gather, including on currents, temperature and salinity, can have an array of applications. Detailed scanning of the seabed, for instance, can provide information about the visibility of naval mines and the accuracy of sonar.

The surveys can also help determine what minerals could be extracted. Beijing is already dominating the race to obtain the minerals critical for defense, electric vehicles and other technologies, and it is keeping ahead of Western commercial efforts to catch up.

In a study of 64 research and survey vessels operated by Chinese agencies, law enforcement, universities and state-owned enterprises, CSIS found more than 80% had links or showed behavior—such as visiting military ports—that suggested they were involved in “advancing Beijing’s geopolitical agenda.”

Recent missions have spurred complaints by at least half a dozen governments. China says its marine research activities fully comply with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the international treaty that established the legal regime for the world’s oceans.

New demand for hidden data

Understanding the sea floor and how sound travels through water at different depths is critical to whether submarines can be found or stay hidden.

“Sound will travel in different ways in different parts of the ocean, so understanding the contours of the ocean itself is important to understanding the acoustics,” said Peter Dutton, a senior research scholar at the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale University.

The U.S. Navy also carries out maritime surveys for military purposes, although analysts say those efforts are more clearly separated from scientific research. Under the U.N. convention, coastal states have jurisdiction over research in their exclusive economic zones, which extend 200 miles from the coast. The U.S., which recognizes but hasn’t ratified the convention, argues that military surveys are exempt and U.S. Navy oceanographic ships regularly conduct studies near China.

China appears to be moving closer to the American stance, “as they’re doing more oceanographic research without the permission of coastal states,” Dutton said.

A Chinese research ship in Qingdao, China. The country’s fleet has triggered protests from countries around Asia. Photo: Cfoto/Zuma Press

The Indian Ocean is again a flashpoint, after a Sri Lankan moratorium on visits by foreign research ships, prompted by India’s complaints, expired at the end of 2024. In January, the Xiang Yang Hong 01 left its home port of Qingdao, sailing south on what is expected to be a 10-week, 11,000-nautical-mile research voyage collecting “diversified on-site observation data and high-quality samples,” according to a Chinese state media report.

The ship sailed on Feb. 6 into the exclusive economic zone that surrounds India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands, on its way to waters southeast of Sri Lanka, according to data from MarineTraffic, a ship-tracking and maritime-analytics service.

When the ship, which is owned by China’s Ministry of Natural Resources, was launched in 2016, a newspaper run by the State Oceanic Administration said its missions would include “comprehensive observation in the field of military oceanography,” according to research by Dutton and Ryan Martinson, a scholar at the Naval War College in Rhode Island. The ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.

In 2020, the ship carried out weeks of surveys near Christmas Island, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean northwest of Australia. An Australian military official said at the time that the ship was mapping an area frequently used by Australian submarines heading to and from the South China Sea, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported. The Australian military said it monitored the ship, which it said was operating legally in international waters.

The ship entered the Bay of Bengal last year just before India launched tests in the area of a new ballistic missile. Three other Chinese research ships—including one operated by China’s military for tracking launches and satellites—were operating in the Indian Ocean at the time.

Such vessels have raised concerns in India over their long stays in the region and their use of equipment, including unmanned underwater vehicles, to collect data with potential military applications, said Anushka Saxena, a research analyst with the Takshashila Institution, an Indian think tank.

“How the hydrological data is collected, combined with the blurred lines of civilian and military in China, comes together to concern India, which was why India was so vocal to support the Sri Lanka moratorium,” she said.

Chinese submariners in Qingdao, China. Understanding the sea floor and how sound travels is critical to whether submarines can be found or stay hidden. Photo: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

Exploring for minerals

Alarms went off again last month when China and the Cook Islands said they had entered a comprehensive partnership that includes an agreement to cooperate on oceanographic research.

The Cook Islands, a country of 15,000 people whose exclusive economic zone covers over 700,000 square miles of the South Pacific, is one of the few nations to have issued permits for deep-sea mineral exploration—a first step toward extracting minerals from the seabed.

Rules on governing the nascent industry, which has security and commercial applications, are being worked on by the U.N.-affiliated International Seabed Authority. Some nations, including China, have already begun surveys with the authority’s permission.

Deep-sea mining focuses on small rocks on the ocean floor that contain vital metals such as cobalt, copper, manganese and nickel. The Cook Islands, a former British protectorate that relies on New Zealand for its defense, is believed to have an extensive supply of nodules rich in cobalt in its exclusive economic zone.

A Chinese submersible preparing to explore the Yap Trench in the Pacific Ocean in 2017. Photo: Liu Shiping/Xinhua/Zuma Press

New Zealand, which has opposed deep-sea mining, complained last month that the islands had secured the partnership with China behind its back.

Less than two weeks later, New Zealand again voiced concerns—this time over Chinese naval drills in neighboring waters. The country’s defense minister called the drills a wake-up call.

Detailed mapping of the sea floor, even if it is for prospective deep-sea mining, could increase New Zealand’s vulnerability, analysts say.

“The idea of massive Chinese ships coming into Pacific waters and digging up the sea bed, there is a security component,” said Graeme Smith, a senior fellow in the Pacific Affairs department at Australian National University. “To do this mining, you need to have a really good map of what’s under the water.”

Write to Austin Ramzy at austin.ramzy@wsj.com

9. U.S. to Restore Military Support to Ukraine After It Agrees to Cease-Fire

Deals over doctrine. Unconventional diplomacy.

U.S. to Restore Military Support to Ukraine After It Agrees to Cease-Fire

The 30-day truce, which is contingent on Russian acceptance, envisions the start of talks between Kyiv and Moscow on halting the war

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/marco-rubio-says-talks-in-saudi-arabia-key-to-resuming-military-support-for-ukraine-cb34b5a5?mod=hp_lead_pos6

By Michael R. Gordon

and Isabel Coles

Updated March 11, 2025 5:36 pm ET

EU Hits Back as U.S. Steel and Aluminum Tariffs Take Effect

The 25% global levy imposed by the Trump administration comes after the U.S. and Canada backed off additional measures

https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/trump-tariffs-steel-no-exemptions-6ed95f5b?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1

By Gavin Bade

and Paul Vieira

Updated March 12, 2025 3:06 am ET

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Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he came to the decision after speaking with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Photo: Alex Brandon/Associated Press; Kyaw Soe Oo/Reuters

The Trump administration imposed 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports, after the U.S. and Canada backed off threats to impose additional measures Tuesday, capping a roller-coaster day on Wall Street with investors rattled by uncertainty in trade policy.

The European Union announced retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. early Wednesday. Its levies will take effect at the beginning of April and target a range of U.S. products including bourbon whiskey, boats and motorcycles, the EU said. A second set is due in mid-April and will come after the bloc has consulted with EU countries and stakeholders.

The countermeasures could affect U.S. exports valued at about $28 billion, the bloc said, matching the value of EU exports affected by U.S. metals tariffs.

President Trump announced the U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs last month.

“Pursuant to his previous executive orders, a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum with no exceptions or exemptions will go into effect for Canada and all of our other trading partners at midnight, March 12th,” said White House spokesperson Kush Desai.

Early Tuesday, Trump threatened to double the tariff on the Canadian metals from 25% to 50% in response to the decision by the province of Ontario to impose a 25% export tax on electricity—itself a retaliation to earlier tariffs levied by Trump on Canada. Canada is the U.S.’s top supplier of foreign steel and aluminum.

But by the afternoon Ontario Premier Doug Ford held a call with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, during which they agreed to scrap the electricity surcharge in exchange for a relaxation of the steel and aluminum tariffs.

Additionally, Ford said he secured a meeting on Thursday with Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer to discuss a path toward a renewed U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade pact ahead of Trump’s April 2 deadline to impose reciprocal tariffs on trading partners.

“I’m not out to hurt the American people,” Ford, the leader of Canada’s most-populous province, told reporters in Toronto. “Sometimes you have to play your cards, and this is one of the cards we played, and hopefully we’re going to have a very good constructive conversation.”

Earlier Tuesday Trump had vowed to take further steps to target Canada’s economy if it didn’t back down. “If other egregious, long time Tariffs are not likewise dropped by Canada, I will substantially increase, on April 2nd, the Tariffs on Cars coming into the U.S. which will, essentially, permanently shut down the automobile manufacturing business in Canada,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Those cars can easily be made in the USA!”

President Trump’s team has said there will be no exceptions or exemptions to the latest global steel and aluminum tariffs. Photo: wolfgang rattay/Reuters

When Trump took office in January, he almost immediately targeted Canada with tariffs that threatened the economic model that lifted growth in Canada for decades—duty-free access to the U.S. market. Trump’s suggestions about annexing Canada and turning it into the 51st state have also alarmed Canadian officials, who say they take Trump at his word that he is prepared to crush Canada’s economy and force it to give up its sovereignty.

Canada’s prime minister-designate, Mark Carney, called Trump’s move to raise tariffs a direct attack on the country’s households and businesses. “My government will keep our tariffs on until the Americans show us respect and make credible, reliable commitments to free and fair trade,” he said. Earlier Tuesday, Ford said he would consider cutting off electricity shipped from his province to New York, Michigan and Minnesota, affecting 1.5 million households and businesses, if Trump continued the escalation.

Uncertainty over Trump’s economic policies, including tariffs, has weighed on U.S. stocks, which fell sharply at the start of the week on growing recession fears. The latest round of U.S.-Canada exchanges triggered fresh losses Tuesday, sending the three major indexes lower. Stocks regained some ground after reports that Ontario would ax its surcharge.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.1%, the S&P 500 lost 0.8% and the Nasdaq Composite declined 0.2%. All three indexes notched their worst two-day drop since August.

“We are in a period of economic transition,” White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said at a briefing on Tuesday. “We are in a period of transition from the mess that was created under Joe Biden and the previous administration.”

Trump’s team has said repeatedly there would be no exceptions or exemptions to the latest global steel and aluminum tariffs. In internal discussions and conversations with industry and labor groups, the administration appears to be sticking to that line, at least for now, say people familiar with conversations.

“I’ve seen him do steel and aluminum tariffs before, so I have no reason to not expect that will take place,” said Sen. Bill Hagerty (R., Tenn.), a close Trump ally who served as ambassador to Japan during his first term.

Trump imposed 25% tariffs on steel and 10% tariffs on aluminum in 2018. During his first term, and subsequently under the Biden administration, the U.S. negotiated exclusions and duty-free quotas for allied nations—including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Ukraine, the EU, and the U.K.—as well as a litany of individual companies that received exemptions for specific products.

Last month, Trump issued a proclamation increasing the aluminum tariffs from 10% to 25%. He directed the Commerce secretary to end all exemptions to the steel and aluminum levies on that date, and prohibited new ones. He also ordered the Commerce Department to widen the scope of steel and aluminum products covered by the tariffs.

Many nations—including Japan, Australia and EU members—have lobbied for their exemptions to continue despite the administration’s insistence that none would be granted. Mexico also sent a delegation Monday to Washington for meetings on the tariffs, and Canada has been discussing the issue with Trump’s team.

A White House spokeswoman said Tuesday that Trump hadn’t yet spoken to Carney, a former central banker in Canada and the U.K., who will formally succeed Justin Trudeau as prime minister in the coming days.

The EU has said repeatedly in recent weeks that it hoped to do a deal with the U.S. that could avert tariffs. It said Wednesday that the retaliatory measures could still be reversed if an agreement were reached.

Automakers and metals companies like Alcoa with footprints in several countries have also sought carve-outs or delays from the Trump administration, according to people with knowledge of the requests. But the administration has been steadfast that it won’t allow for any carve-outs this time. Tariff exemptions, the White House wrote in its proclamation, “inadvertently created loopholes” that allowed Chinese-made steel to flow through those countries and into the U.S. duty-free.

Still, Trump has left himself some wiggle room for carve-outs. In early February, the president told reporters he would consider exempting Australia from the metals tariffs after a call with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, though people with knowledge of policy planning say a carve-out is now unlikely.

Albanese said Wednesday that Australia won’t impose reciprocal tariffs on the U.S. He called the decision not to grant the U.S. ally an exemption concerning and entirely unjustified, and said Australian officials will continue to press for relief from the 25% tariffs.

The Trump administration’s recent one-month reprieve for some Canada and Mexico tariffs—exempting goods compliant with the North American free trade deal two days after imposing the tariffs—is also leaving some room for skepticism on Capitol Hill about what the ultimate policy will be.

“The White House has shown itself to be adaptable on this tariff issue,” said Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.), “so, there may well be some sort of [exemption] process. I don’t know, so let’s just see.”

Write to Gavin Bade at gavin.bade@wsj.com and Paul Vieira at Paul.Vieira@wsj.com

11. Trump’s Economic Messaging Is Spooking Some of His Own Advisers

Is our economic house in order?

Trump’s Economic Messaging Is Spooking Some of His Own Advisers

President’s team receives flood of calls from business executives concerned about the mixed messaging on tariffs

https://www.wsj.com/politics/trump-economy-comments-tariffs-recession-team-reaction-f5c24248?mod=hp_lead_pos1

By Brian Schwartz

, Gavin Bade

and Josh Dawsey

March 11, 2025 9:05 pm ET

Ignore the Loose Talk About Recession

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/12/opinion/trump-recession.html

March 12, 2025, 5:02 a.m. ET

Credit...Daniel Ribar for The New York Times

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By Justin Wolfers

Dr. Wolfers is a professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan.

The air is thick with recession talk, and stocks are cratering. But it just may be a mirage, a refraction of partisan distortions.

So where did this recession talk come from? It started with a projection from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta that the economy is on pace to shrink in the first quarter. You could almost hear people on the left squeal with delight that the data were confirming their concerns about the Trump presidency. Those squeals led to equally absurd counterclaims from the right.

But this projection — which the Atlanta Fed affectionately calls GDPNow — is not a typical economic forecast, and it doesn’t actually tell us much. It’s a mechanical tool used to hoover up economic numbers as they become available, to try to squeeze out underlying signals about the country’s economic health.

It usually works quite well. But in certain circumstances, it can misfire.

That’s what appears to be happening now. The problem is that the GDPNow calculator has been fed the worrying data about a bump in imports, as people bought imported goods in anticipation of a price rise, but it hasn’t yet been fed other, more reassuring data on personal consumption and business investment, which will also get a boost from this surge in import spending. When it does, the calculator will start to give more reliable signals.

This glitch was pretty obvious to many economists, and indeed, late last week, an economist at the Atlanta Fed owned up to it, suggesting — in a somewhat indirect, central-bankerly way — that much of the bump was actually gold imports, and that most people may be better off ignoring this measure for now.

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But news like this is too hot to be ignored in a polarized environment. For possibly the first time ever, the @AtlantaFed X account went viral. Many critics of President Trump jumped on its forecast; Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan added a recession warning in the speech she gave as a Democratic rebuttal to Mr. Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress last Tuesday. The “Trumpcession” was born. Of course, that’s not where the story ends.

Elon Musk seems to have convinced himself that this recession sighting was actually caused by the Department of Government Efficiency, the initiative he leads, cutting so much government spending. The reality is that Mr. Musk’s role in the economy is far smaller than he imagines it to be. The $30 billion in “receipts” claimed by DOGE as cost savings (a number that may be far overstated) is only 0.1 percent of U.S. annual output.

Other pro-Trump forces then pinned the blame for the recession that isn’t yet happening on former President Joe Biden. Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, recently falsely claimed to have inherited a private sector in recession. (It’s been growing just as healthily as the public sector.) On Fox Business, instead of celebrating a healthy jobs report, the host Maria Bartiromo instead wondered if it was a sign of “Biden’s recession.”

All of this is happening against the backdrop of Mr. Trump imposing tariffs and tanking the markets, then pausing them, then repeating the cycle.

Obviously, this is no way to run an economy. Perhaps a downturn has started to feel inevitable, as the White House began to describe a recession as necessary medicine. In his address to the joint session of Congress, Mr. Trump dismissed concerns about the impact of tariffs as “a little disturbance.” Mr. Bessent declared the economy would go through a “detox period.” On Sunday, Mr. Trump predicted “a period of transition” and, when asked whether he expected a recession, refused to rule one out, responding, “I hate to predict things like that.”

The uncertainty alone is alarming. But let me share two simple reasons for optimism.

It’s almost impossible to believe the economy is in recession, given that 151,000 jobs were created in February.

That simple formula helped me see through a similar mirage in 2022, when a drumbeat of commentary insisted a recession was just around the corner, even as the economic data were much more upbeat. Bloomberg Economics projected a 100 percent chance of a recession — the one that never arrived.

Finding Adversaries Hiding in the Defense Department’s Supply Chains - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Christine Michienzi · March 12, 2025

Could the Chinese Communist Party “page” U.S. servicemembers, the way the Mossad did to Hizballah on Sept. 17, 2024, in one of the most daring deception operations in living memory? It is possible.

The Department of Defense does not fully understand the breadth and depth of its supply chain. Former Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante revealed how difficult this problem had become for the U.S. military services and the defense industry that supports it. An industry executive first “thought he had 300 suppliers,” LaPlante reported in a September 2022 press briefing, “then he discovered no, when he counted all of his suppliers, he probably had 3,000.”

Today’s supply chains are increasingly sprawling and complex, with critical materials and components often sourced from adversarial or single-source entities. While there are some restrictions on sourcing from China, the limitations do not apply to all Defense Department systems, so pervasive risk remains: An adversarial source could tamper with a small, unassuming part to a weapon system or platform, as Israeli intelligence did by booby trapping Hizballah pagers.

While the government and the defense industrial base have made some strides in learning about the origins of their suppliers, current efforts amount to little more than reverse engineering — trying to piece together supply chains after they’re built instead of as they’re being built. It would be easier to capture supplier information while systems are being developed and fielded, and while those suppliers are brought into the fold.

Moreover, current efforts aim to have a central repository of all supply chain data. While this approach has benefits — such as visibility of shared suppliers across multiple systems — it risks proprietary supplier data and intellectual property being shared inappropriately, or worse, exposing vulnerabilities in Department of Defense supply chains to U.S. adversaries through cyber operations.

To address these shortcomings, the department should adopt a system that uses distributed ledger and blockchain technology where only data owners (suppliers) can grant access, controlling those who can see data about their parts and materials. This would enable the department to conduct the supply chain analysis it requires, while simultaneously protecting supplier information from unnecessary exposure and reducing the risk of creating vulnerabilities with dependence on foreign, particularly adversarial, sources.

It’s time for the Defense Department to have the necessary visibility into the materials and components its warfighters rely on to protect the nation — everything from aircraft to critical munitions. The department can only achieve this if data is captured up front when suppliers are being identified and brought into the supply chains for the products and programs under development. Until then, there is constant danger of supply chain disruptions to critical defense operations, including component tampering that could lead to malfunctions of systems and platforms. This is an unacceptable risk.

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A Legacy of Supply Chain Opacity

Decades of globalization led to many of the Defense Department’s critical supply chains moving off-shore — often to unfriendly countries. In September 2018, the department issued the report Assessing and Strengthening the Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States in response to Executive Order 13806, which, directed the secretary of defense to lead a government-wide effort to assess risk, identify impacts, and propose recommendations to improve the manufacturing and defense industrial base. The report shone a light on a growing problem: As sourcing issues and chronic obsolescence problems mounted, it became clear that industry did not know enough about its suppliers.

To help address this opacity, an industry of supply chain “illumination” companies has emerged in recent years. Using AI and machine learning tools, these companies promise to map the entities, companies, and products involved in a program’s supply chain. While innovative and capable of providing a starting point in the absence of any supply chain data, illumination uses data inputs that are incomplete and unverified.

Supply chain illumination typically relies on publicly available data — news articles, social media posts, and government contracting and financial data — augmented by AI and machine learning to digest these inputs, attempting to find or establish linkages between suppliers and programs. For example, Avionics International reported that the Air Force had awarded General Atomics and Anduril contracts for their collaborative combat aircraft, so the supply chain illumination software would link those companies as suppliers to the program.

But this approach is like shining a flashlight down a dark hole: You only get a narrow view. Information obtained from this method does not come from the suppliers themselves and is usually not verified. Although data on supplier financial health and foreign ownership can be discerned, which is helpful in assessing some aspects of supply chain risk, no information is available for some critical metrics the Department of Defense needs when performing supply chain analysis. This includes a supplier’s minimum sustaining rate, maximum capacity, and surge capability, or the other programs that the company is a supplier for. In addition, the data is typically “time stamped,” meaning it is only accurate in that moment in time. Since the defense industrial base is constantly shifting, with suppliers coming in and out and moving between programs, a linkage that might exist one day may not the next.

Additionally, there is also a risk of “false positives” in identifying entities in a supply chain. Indeed, the article about the collaborative combat aircraft highlighted that Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman did not win an award for the program. However, the supply chain illumination software may incorrectly link these companies as suppliers to it anyway. Some illumination companies have been able to obtain partial supplier data, either from industry directly or from the programs. But most have not, and even when they do, it is usually only for the first few tiers of a supply chain, not the entire list of parts, materials, and suppliers. Major information gaps persist.

Illumination Is Big Business, But Not the Panacea for Supply Chain Risk Management

Primes on any contract depend on their sub-tier suppliers (“subs”) for information about the supply chains the subs use. But for the subs, that information is sometimes fiercely guarded and considered proprietary — it’s the “secret sauce” that makes them competitive, and they don’t want to share that information for fear that either it won’t be protected or may be misused. There is also concern with protecting intellectual property. The resultant lack of supply chain transparency has made illumination big business, with these companies jockeying to portray themselves as the panacea that can solve the Defense Department’s supply chain risk management problems.

In addition, these efforts are costing taxpayers a lot of money as each successive program pays the illumination company to develop and implement an analysis for their particular system. In 2019, the Navy paid the data analytics firm Govini $400 million “to deliver data, analysis and insights into DoD spending, supply chain and acquisition using a database it continues to compile.” What Govini found was deeply concerning: Over 40 percent of the semiconductors used in the Defense Department’s weapons systems and associated infrastructure were sourced from China. As troubling, from 2005 to 2020, the number of Chinese suppliers within the defense industrial supply chain had quadrupled. Unfortunately, these findings are not surprising to anyone who has any knowledge of the department’s supply chains.

At present, there are numerous illumination companies analyzing multiple programs and gathering multiple sets of data, but there is no central authority to cross-reference all the data, and no ability to track instances where companies supply multiple defense programs. Put simply, no one sees the complete picture. This problem becomes critical when there is an obsolescence issue, as the Defense Department needs to understand the total impact, or when it wants to increase production, as these suppliers can become major bottlenecks. In my experience, such obstacles have impeded the flow of U.S. defense materials and components to Ukraine.

For its part, the Department of Defense has tried to gather some supply chain data on its own and by working with interagency partners. While well-intended, these efforts have not provided what the department needs. For example, the Defense Contract Management Agency performs supply chain analysis, including through collecting supply chain, capability, and capacity data through surveys of defense industry companies. Yet, the surveys are voluntary and inevitably some companies don’t respond. The agency does, however, maintain a supply chain database that is cross-referenced to establish which entities supply multiple defense programs. The Department of Commerce conducts mandatory industry surveys, but they can take years to complete. This is simply too slow for the Defense Department, which requires real-time supplier data to understand and mitigate supply chain risks. In 2023, while I was serving in the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Industrial Base Policy office, there was an effort that sent a mandatory supply chain survey to the service program offices for 110 weapons systems, which the program offices then had to enlist industry’s help in answering. The survey asked for data down to “tier three” companies — ones that are three levels below the prime contractor. However, many problems such as insufficient capacity and obsolescence occur at even lower tier suppliers.

The biggest challenge with all these existing supply chain illumination methods, whether government or commercial, is that they seek to reverse engineer the problem. They aim to piece together the supply chains after they’re built rather than as they’re being built. Instead, the individual military service program offices, the prime contractors, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense should work together to build complete supply chain maps. This should occur during the program development phase, using accurate data that doesn’t have to be pieced together after the fact and propped up by assumptions based on unverified information.

All government programs should be able to access this information, so they can understand the potential impacts of obsolescence and shared suppliers. For her part, former Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks tried to start a data repository in the existing Advana data platform for advanced analytics, but the program has been paused and is being recompeted.

As an alternative to a repository — in which intellectual property and proprietary data could either be shared inappropriately, or worse, infiltrated by adversarial cyber threats — the Defense Department should adopt a system that uses distributed ledger and blockchain technology. Such systems have multiple attributes which make them ideal for supply chain identification and analysis: advanced encryption to authenticate and protect data exchange; verifiable credentials and secure identity protection that allow suppliers to share sensitive information solely with authorized parties; smart contracts to automate the enforcement of agreements and compliance with regulations; and assurance that suppliers retain ownership and control over their data, including managing consent, data access rights, and the revocation of these rights. These attributes could help address the main objection that suppliers have for participating in data illumination efforts by guaranteeing data ownership rights and providing a secure platform for the exchange of sensitive data, thus allowing for greater data protection.

While industry would only have access to the specific data needed from its suppliers to ensure they meet the government’s requirements, the Defense Department would gain greater access to information. So, for instance, a prime contractor may require their first-tier supplier’s component to meet a specific level of performance. That first-tier supplier can provide performance test data showing it meets the requirement but is not required to show who their sub-tier suppliers are, or the materials used to build the component. However, the Defense Department, which is bound by the Trade Secrets Act not to reveal industry’s proprietary information, would be able to have additional access to that granular piece of information. The department would not download and store the information into a repository, but a select group of supply chain analysts and managers who have received permission from the data owners could use AI to do queries of all systems to find commonalities such as shared suppliers and materials, as well as other risk areas such as adversarial and sole/single source suppliers, allowing for proactive mitigation.

Blockchain is already being used in many industries. For instance, food companies use it for supply chain management to track the path and safety of food throughout the farm-to-consumer journey. This becomes important when there is an outbreak of E. coli or salmonella, for instance, and the companies need to track food through each step it’s taken back to its origin. Historically, it has taken weeks to find the source of these outbreaks, but using blockchain enables discovery much faster, potentially saving lives. The Department of Defense could benefit from the same approach.

In September 2022, the Defense Department temporarily halted deliveries of F-35 fighters following the discovery that an engine component had been made with cobalt and samarium alloy that came from China. The use of blockchain could have enabled the earlier detection of these raw materials in a critical defense platform and allowed the department to identify which other systems used the same materials.

The Department of Defense will probably still need to incentivize industry to participate in supply chain illumination efforts. Such incentives could involve financial, contractual (contract requirements and/or preferences), and informational benefits (suppliers will gain insight into issues within their supply chains they may not have had visibility of before). Congressional language in Section 849 of the latest version of the Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act may assist with the effort to induce compliance. It requires the secretary of defense to develop and implement ways to incentivize defense contractors to assess and monitor the entire supply chain of goods and services provided to the department to identify potential vulnerabilities and noncompliance risks.

Financial incentives might pay for themselves in cost savings realized from greater supply chain visibility. The costs of production stoppages, system redesigns, and “lifetime buys” resulting from part and material obsolescence alone can be immense. When a component or material becomes unavailable due to other circumstances — for example, China banning the export of germanium, gallium, and antimony, critical minerals necessary for many defense systems — the economic cost can be even higher, as China is the major or sole supplier of many of the raw materials the Defense Department currently uses. In these cases, the department should provide funding to establish new suppliers and then run tests to ensure the new material performs the same — and that is only if there is enough time to do so before a supply shut-off.

Get Access to All the Data

The current practice of reverse engineering the Defense Department’s supply chain to identify risks and vulnerabilities doesn’t work. Because the information is unverified, and due to the lack of cross-program visibility into shared suppliers, it exposes the department — and, by extension U.S. national security — to potential hazards, from disruptions of adequate supplies of materials to cyberattacks and sabotage by adversaries.

To address this problem, the department and the defense industrial base should build out supply chain data while defense systems are under development and maintain databases as systems are upgraded. All data should be made available to any Defense Department program to eliminate duplication of effort and to minimize cost. Data should be accessed through a distributed ledger and blockchain system to ensure that all programs can use and cross-reference it. Only then can the Department of Defense be assured that U.S. adversaries are not hiding in the department’s supply chains.

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Dr. Christine Michienzi is a former senior defense official and is now the owner of MMR Defense Solutions LLC, as well as a nonresident senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Image: Toiete Jackson via DVIDS.

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Christine Michienzi · March 12, 2025

18. WPS and the Shifting Strategic Landscape: Why Women, Peace, and Security Must Be Central to US National Security

This will fall on deaf ears. Probably hostile ears because this will only be read through the lens of DEI and will likely not be assessed objectively.

Note:

The Women, Peace, and Security Act of 2017, signed into law by President Trump, has its origin in the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325.

WPS and the Shifting Strategic Landscape: Why Women, Peace, and Security Must Be Central to US National Security - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Jane Stokes · March 12, 2025

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In his 2025 inaugural remarks, President Donald Trump emphasized the importance of selecting individuals for positions of influence based on merit, rather than adhering to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Days earlier, during his confirmation hearing as the secretary of defense nominee, Pete Hegseth pledged to review the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) law currently on the books, continuing implementation as long as it fit within the framework of the new administration’s policy priorities. While DEI policies are clearly not in line with the president’s objectives, it is essential to understand not only that WPS and DEI are not the same thing, but also that WPS’s continued implementation should be central to US national security efforts. The WPS framework advances the very principles of meritocracy essential to US national security. Adopting and implementing WPS as a cornerstone of national security increases partner and ally engagement, strengthens US global leadership, improves conflict resolution outcomes, and promotes sustainable peace.

The Women, Peace, and Security Act of 2017, signed into law by President Trump, has its origin in the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325. This landmark resolution and the US law that draws on it recognize the importance of including women in peace and security, while the United States’ WPS Strategy—also released by the first Trump administration, in 2019—acknowledges that this inclusion is not a political human rights or social justice agenda, but a framework that advances US competitive advantage, allowing it to achieve national security objectives through harnessing women’s distinctive aptitudes, diversity of thought, and unique access to areas where women have specific roles in certain societies. The inclusion of a women’s perspectives promotes a whole-of-society approach in achieving our strategic goals. WPS harnesses tools of national power to deter adversarial countries from a path toward conflict. This enhancement of the US national security talent pool is one of the important principal effects of a WPS framework.

A second important effect is WPS’s enhancement of our understanding of other societies. To continue enjoying its supremacy as global leader and partner of choice, employing WPS as an instrument of national power during by, with, and through military engagements, for example, gives the United States an edge against competitors such as China and Russia in an era of renewed strategic competition. Outcomes include building greater trust and expanding the defense networks in regions of concern. Countries around the world are increasingly recruiting more women in the defense sector as part of workforce development to expand the talent pool and acquire diverse skill sets enabling them to both adapt to the changing character of modern warfare and address recruitment shortfalls. Assuming that diversity and meritocracy are mutually exclusive leaves women behind in the US military and will ultimately hurt the advantage the United States currently has against its adversaries. Restrictions on women’s advancement in the defense sector will discourage the most talented women from joining the military. This will undermine recruitment efforts and our readiness as a nation. Imagine if the United States goes to war with China over Taiwan sometime in the not-too-distant future. Will we be ready if we don’t adapt our force to choose the best people to confront the complex security challenges that are ahead?

What is WPS?

Building a better understanding of society through the engagement of all people, including women, helps US decision-makers and military leaders understand the environment in which they operate. WPS seeks to do this. WPS is an outcomes-based operational program that asks policymakers to approach national security issues by building a framework that considers all perspectives in a whole-of-society approach. This is integral for understanding security environments, given that norms surrounding the role of women differ in societies around the world. Critics of the DEI initiatives should not mistake WPS as the same just because WPS references women. DEI is a human resources program focused on amplifying the benefits of demographic diversity to promote organizational competencies through equitable policies. WPS, by contrast, is a framework that facilitates and understanding of the nuanced roles that women play in different sectors of society. It is a framework that helps US security professionals communicate and cooperate through a multifaceted approach. Understanding all the facets of a society—whether ally, partner, competitor, or adversary—is a hallmark of an effective national strategy. For example, Somali women may play an important role in community development, peacebuilding, and finance. Without direct participation of influential Somali women in conflict management, achieving sustainable peace in this region may be impossible. Considering the decades of US involvement in Somalia’s internecine conflicts, the stakes are real. Thus, WPS does not dilute standards; rather, it enhances our understanding of the human dimension of the global operational environment and increases our pool of human resources to help solve complex problems.

National Security Implications

The inclusion of women in national security discussions at all levels provides a diversity of perspective that improves decision-making, community engagement, and long-term peacebuilding. Research shows that women-inclusive approaches lead to more effective conflict prevention and resolution. When women are included in peace processes, for example, from top-tier negotiating roles to the grassroots level, enduring peace agreements are more likely. This is because women consider aspects of society where men are not present. These sectors are often the source of the grievances that started the conflict in the first place. Women’s participation in peace processes is so integral that their involvement alone increases the likelihood of a sustained peace agreement past the fifteen-year mark by 35 percent. An example of women’s success as peace negotiators can be seen in the Philippines, where forty years of conflict could not be quelled until a landmark peace agreement in 2014 brought an end to fighting the government and a major rebel group. This chief peace negotiator was Miriam Coronel-Ferrer, who also brought a team of female delegates to serve as advisors that were able to forge trust and communication between the government and rebels in a way that wasn’t achieved before.

Similarly, there are many examples of militaries effectively integrating women to provide enhanced operational effectiveness, greater adaptability, and improved decision-making—all attributes of a merit-based system. As a former Marine and warfighter, my own experiences in combat operations in Iraq and working with Middle Eastern partners in operations and exercises highlighted how women can foster cooperation and cohesion through approaching warfighting from a difference perspective. This increased collaborative approach allowed me to help shape the security environment to enhance the lethality of operations, boosting trust and sharing with partners and enabling us to work in partnership to enhance security outcomes. We aren’t alone in this approach: international militaries such as the Israel Defense Forces and Norway’s military forces are outpacing us in their use of women to enhance the lethality and readiness of their forces.

Alignment with US Interests

WPS supports the United States’ enduring interests, as well as the policy priorities of the current administration. WPS acknowledges the unique roles that women play in global societies and can empower American women to be liaisons to these communities across the globe. By bolstering these partnerships, women can strengthen economies and contribute to improved security outcomes in fragile and failed states. This will ultimately open opportunities to engage local populations in conflicts zones, where women are disproportionately the victims but disproportionately underrepresented in issues of security. Countless examples exist in conflict hotspots from Afghanistan, South Sudan, and Syria to Gaza, Ukraine, and Yemen, where bringing women liaisons to the forefront of security decision-making would strengthen US foreign policy objectives of stabilizing conflict zones. As seen with women’s inclusion in the form of US military female engagement teams, women’s ability to work in these fragile environments can improve intelligence collection, forge relationships of trust, and enhance regional stability. In my own experience working as a foreign area officer in the Middle East, cooperation with partner nations deepened because of engendered trust between my partners and me because I could go to break bread at their homes and engage in discussions with their wives and family in a way that would have been taboo for a male colleague to do.

Current Gaps and a Way Forward

WPS increases the potential for effective US policy implementation. The lack of women’s involvement in fragile environments such as Gaza, Syria, and Yemen has likely resulted in prolonging conflicts that have devastating effects on regional stability. Adapting and implementing WPS across the whole of US national security efforts can have a marked impact on how America pursues its foreign policy objectives. The Trump administration can be a role model for promoting global security by recognizing women’s unique roles in societies as important arbiters of conflict resolution efforts and empowering women to strengthen foreign partnerships, reducing overreliance on the military to solve all foreign policy objectives. For WPS to truly be effective, it needs to be operationalized across the entirety of the government apparatus and used as a framework for how America implements its foreign policy. This approach, if executed fully, would provide the essential competitive advantage that America needs to achieve its strategic competition goals in today’s complex global security environment. WPS offers a framework to place the most essential individuals in the right places, based on their abilities, and to solve America’s greatest challenges. This is the essence of a meritocracy.

Jane Stokes is an associate professor at the Naval War College and the author of Hesitation Kills: A Female Marine Officer’s Combat Experience in Iraq. A retired Marine Corps officer, Jane holds an MA from the US Naval War College, has appeared on numerous national media outlets, and teaches and lectures about WPS issues, military operations, and the Middle East.

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

Image credit: Sgt. Angela Wilcox, US Marine Corps

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mwi.westpoint.edu · by Jane Stokes · March 12, 2025

19. An Anchor in the Tumultuous Seas of US Latin America Policy: Assessing SOUTHCOM’s 2025 Posture Statement

Excerpt:

SOUTHCOM may not be the loudest voice on inter-American affairs or define the direction of all US foreign policy in the region. However, the command remains an important player in regional relations—so much so that Rubio stopped at SOUTHCOM on his return from Central America. The command’s leadership can be a steadying force in an otherwise chaotic period of regional affairs. SOUTHCOM’s posture toward the region remains focused on partnership and addressing the array of challenges facing the Americas—a view that hints at a potential degree of continuity in the US approach toward the region.

An Anchor in the Tumultuous Seas of US Latin America Policy: Assessing SOUTHCOM’s 2025 Posture Statement - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Adam Ratzlaff · March 12, 2025

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Latin America and the Caribbean have often been an afterthought in US foreign policy. However, the new administration of President Donald Trump has placed a new focus on the region—with the possibility of major changes in its approach. From threats of retaking the Panama Canal to Secretary of State Marco Rubio making his first international visit to Central America, it is clear that the administration has—at least for now—made inter-American affairs a policy priority. Uncertainty about the US approach to the region has left at least some Latin American leaders looking for alternatives and explanations.

While foreign policy is rarely guided by the US military combatant commands, US-Latin American relations have been increasingly influenced by US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM). While some of this is due to the “benign neglect” of the region as US foreign policy has focused its attention elsewhere, SOUTHCOM has been instrumental in shaping US-Latin American relations and signaling US priorities in the region. Each year, like other combatant commands, SOUTHCOM presents its annual posture statement to Congress. With each yearly release, observers are offered an opportunity to understand how the command views and prioritizes issues and partners in the region. That opportunity is particularly important this year, as the new administration’s foreign policy takes shape. Despite uncertainty about how the Trump administration might shift US policy vis-a-vis Latin American and Caribbean affairs, the 2025 posture statement—the first issued since Admiral Alvin Holsey assumed command of SOUTHCOM—presented a striking degree of continuity.

The Threat of Extra-Hemispheric Actors

The increased focus on Latin America and the Caribbean by the Trump administration has highlighted differences in how various members of the administration view the region and where there are opportunities for the United States to work with different countries. While Rubio has written about the need for strong neighbors and identified potential partners, Trump has lashed out at several countries in the region—including threats of taking back the Panama Canal from one of the countries that Rubio identified as a partner. In defending Trump’s position, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz noted that this approach was a “Monroe Doctrine 2.0”—an update of a nineteenth-century mainstay of US-Latin American foreign policy that is typically associated with US intervention and imperialism in the Americas. The historical comparison is not entirely new: when the Monroe Doctrine was referenced during the first Trump administration, it ruffled feathers in the region.

Those that call for a “Monroe Doctrine 2.0” typically view the need for such a policy as a response to growing Chinese influence in the Americas. Over the past decade, SOUTHCOM has been the leading voice sounding alarm bells about China and the combined threat of other extra-Hemispheric actors—particularly Russia and Iran. In the latest posture statement Holsey emphasized the role of these extra-Hemispheric actors in the region. In his statement he underscored the success of US adversaries’ soft power in addition to traditional military support. China’s economic influence through trade and the Belt and Road Initiative, Russia’s focus on influence and information operations, and Iran’s efforts to build political and military ties with Venezuela, Nicaragua, and now Bolivia were major security concerns raised by Holsey in his statement to Congress. Holsey’s emphasis on these actors followed trends from recent years. While last year’s posture statement saw references to China peak, this year’s returned to normal levels. References to Russia stayed consistent and there was a slight uptick in references to Iran.

SOUTHCOM posture statement references to extra-hemispheric rivals, 2004–2025 (source: authors’ rendering)

In addition to direct engagement from China, Russia, and Iran, Holsey emphasized concerns over the growing efforts of multilateral organizations such as BRICS—Russia and China are founding members of the bloc, while Iran joined last year—contributing to anti-American sentiments in the region. These efforts are part of these nations’ strategy to win hearts and minds in Latin American and Caribbean nations.

Partners in an “Americas First” Foreign Policy?

While the growing presence of US adversaries in the region is concerning and should be a top security concern for the new administration, Holsey’s approach—at least thus far—represents a continuation on the part of SOUTHCOM. Holsey’s testimony highlighted that SOUTHCOM continues to center partnership within its strategy and operations. Indeed, Holsey noted that SOUTHCOM could address many of the challenges facing the region—including the growing presence of China and Russia, democratic erosion, and threats from criminal organizations—by “standing shoulder-to-shoulder with our Allies and Partners” and “meet[ing] presence with presence.” Across his posture statement, he highlighted the need to cooperate with countries in the region and strengthen not only the partnerships themselves, but the capabilities and resources available to countries in the region.

SOUTHCOM posture statement references to partnership and neighborhood, 2004–2025 (source: authors’ rendering)

Despite continuing to center partnership within his posture statement, there was a slight decline in the number of times that Holsey used this term relative to his predecessor General Laura Richardson’s 2024 posture statement. While the decline was small, it may signal a shift in line with Trump’s view of the region. During the first Trump administration, there was a marked decline in SOUTHCOM’s framing of the region as one of partners after over a decade of steadily increasing this perspective. While too early to determine how this will impact SOUTHCOM’s position in the region, it may be an early sign of SOUTHCOM beginning to realign priorities to be more in line with the rhetoric used by the administration.

Economic Multipliers

In recent years, SOUTHCOM has increasingly voiced support for US initiatives that promote economic stability and integration across the Americas. Richardson frequently emphasized the idea that “economic security is national security” in her public appearances and in her 2024 posture statement presentation to Congress noted the importance of supporting regional financial institutions. Richardson did not only speak about the importance of economic engagement, but also traveled to the region with US Commerce Secretary Gina M. Raimondo to highlight the connections between security and economic concerns in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility.

Here Holsey also continued to voice SOUTHCOM’s support for nonmilitary operations to bolster economic security in Latin America and the Caribbean. Holsey highlighted the need to showcase that US economic support is different from the quid pro quo of economic support seen from antidemocratic actors. This framing is particularly important given frequent critiques of Chinese aid being tied to economic or geopolitical concessions. This positioning of US economic support stands in stark contrast to the Trump administration’s efforts to tie many US foreign policy efforts directly to US interests. However, while US efforts to curb Chinese influence may be a driving factor for US engagement with the region, Holsey’s efforts to highlight that US engagement is not purely interest based would make it a more effective foreign policy tool for the United States.

Holsey further noted that the United States and its allies have several important tools that could be leveraged to strengthen economic ties with the region—including the US Export-Import Bank and the Development Finance Corporation—and highlighted the need to collaborate with regional financial institutions, such as the Inter-American Development Bank. These tools will be particularly important given the Trump administration’s recent efforts to dismantle USAID. Here, SOUTHCOM may find a valuable ally in Trump’s special envoy for Latin America, Mauricio Claver-Carone—who in a summer 2024 article on Trump’s Latin America foreign policy also pushed for leaning into these mechanisms and collaborating with regional financial institutions.

Can SOUTHCOM Anchor US Foreign Policy?

The Trump administration appears set to change the playbook on US-Latin American affairs by refocusing on the region, doubling down on pressure-based approaches, and seeing China and immigration as the most pressing issues in the relationship with governments in the region. The approach hinted at in SOUTHCOM’s posture statement, however, signals the possibility of more continuity than we are hearing from those in Washington. While SOUTHCOM has been among the most vocal in identifying concerns about Chinese engagement in the region, the posture statement balances the threat of China with other critical issues—including crime, corruption, and democratic backsliding. At the same time, while the administration takes firm positions and even issues threats against regional partners, SOUTHCOM’s leadership continues to call for collaboration and partnership with countries across the Western Hemisphere.

SOUTHCOM may not be the loudest voice on inter-American affairs or define the direction of all US foreign policy in the region. However, the command remains an important player in regional relations—so much so that Rubio stopped at SOUTHCOM on his return from Central America. The command’s leadership can be a steadying force in an otherwise chaotic period of regional affairs. SOUTHCOM’s posture toward the region remains focused on partnership and addressing the array of challenges facing the Americas—a view that hints at a potential degree of continuity in the US approach toward the region.

Adam Ratzlaff is a specialist and consultant in inter-American affairs as well as a member of Diplomatic Courier’s World in 2050 Brain Trust. He has previously worked with the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and Global Americans, among other organizations.

Emma Woods is the chair of the Young Professionals in Foreign Policy’s Latin America discussion group. She holds a BA from the University of Virginia in Spanish and global studies and is currently pursuing her master’s at Johns Hopkins SAIS.

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: The Freedom-class littoral combat ship USS Detroit transits the Panama Canal, October 13, 2020. (Credit: Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Nathan T. Beard, US Navy)

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mwi.westpoint.edu · by Adam Ratzlaff · March 12, 2025

20. In Brief: Asian Allies Adjust Security Policies in Response to Trump Administration

In Brief: Asian Allies Adjust Security Policies in Response to Trump Administration - War on the Rocks

Lauren Dickey, Benjamin Charlton, Jenny Town, and Gregory Poling

https://warontherocks.com/2025/03/in-brief-asian-allies-adjust-security-policies-in-response-to-trump-administration/

March 11, 2025

Members

A lot happens every day. Alliances shift, leaders change, and conflicts erupt. With In Brief, we’ll help you make sense of it all. Each week, experts will dig deep on a single issue happening in the world to help you better understand it.

***

As America’s allies in Europe rush to adjust to the Trump administration’s foreign policy shifts, allies in Asia are also watching and considering how President Donald Trump will approach China and other security concerns in the Pacific. We asked four experts to explain how Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines are adjusting their strategies and defense spending in response to new leadership in Washington.

What’s so special about Ukraine’s minerals? A geologist explains

theconversation.com · by Munira Raji

Author

Munira Raji
Research Fellow of Geology, University of Plymouth

Disclosure statement

Munira Raji does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Ukraine’s minerals have become central to global geopolitics, with the US president, Donald Trump, seeking a deal with Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky to access them. But what are these minerals exactly and why are they so sought after?

Ukraine is often recognised for its vast agricultural lands and industrial heritage, but beneath its surface lies one of the world’s most remarkable geological formations, the “Ukrainian Shield”.

This massive, exposed crystalline rock formed over 2.5 billion years ago, stretches across much of Ukraine. It represents one of Earth’s oldest and most stable continental blocks. The formation has undergone multiple episodes of mountain building, the formation and movement of magma and other change throughout time.

These geological processes created favourable geological conditions for forming several mineral deposits including lithium, graphite, manganese, titanium and rare earth elements. All these are now critical for modern industries and the global green energy transition.

Ukraine has deposits containing 22 of 34 critical minerals identified by the European Union as essential for energy security. This positions Ukraine among the world’s most resource-rich nations.

International race

As the world races to decarbonise, demand for critical minerals is skyrocketing. Electric vehicles, wind turbines, solar panels and energy storage systems all require lithium, cobalt and rare Earth elements which Ukraine has in abundance.

The price of lithium has surged from US$1,500 (£1,164) per ton in the 1990s to around $20,000 per ton in recent years. Demand is expected to increase nearly 40-fold by 2040.

According to the International Energy Agency, the number of electric vehicles is projected to exceed 125 million by 2030. Similar growth is expected for other battery metals. Each electric vehicle requires significantly more lithium than conventional electronics. For example, a Tesla Model S battery requires approximately 63kg of high-purity lithium.

Ukraine has three major lithium deposits. These include Shevchenkivske in the Donetsk region as well as Polokhivske and Stankuvatske in the centrally located Kirovograd region – all within the Ukrainian Shield. Despite the significant mineral potential, many of Ukraine’s mineral deposits have remained largely unexplored due to the war with Russia, which has disrupted mining operations and damaged infrastructure.

The Shevchenkivske lithium deposit contains high concentrations of spodumene — the primary lithium-bearing mineral used in battery production. Its reserve is estimated as 13.8 million tonnes of lithium ores. That said, extracting it requires an estimated US$10–20 million in exploration investment before mining can begin.

Meanwhile, the Polokhivske deposit at is approximately 270 thousand tons of lithium is considered one of the best lithium sites in Europe. That’s because of its favourable geological conditions, making extraction more economically viable.

But lithium represents just one element of Ukraine’s mineral resources. According to the US geological survey, Ukraine ranks globally as the third-largest producer of the mineral rutile – making up 15.7% of world’s total output. It is the sixth-largest producer of iron ore (3.2% of total output) and titanium (5.8%), as well as the seventh-largest producer of manganese ore (3.1%).

Ukraine is already a large producer of several minerals. Joaquin Corbalan P/Shutterstock

Ukraine also has Europe’s largest uranium reserves, crucial for nuclear power and weapons. It boasts significant deposits of rare earth elements, including neodymium and dysprosium, which are needed for manufacturing everything from smartphones to wind turbines and electric motors.

In addition, Ukraine is home to the world’s largest proven reserves of manganese ores. There’s approximately 2.4 billion tonnes of it concentrated primarily in the Nikopol Basin on the southern slope of the Ukrainian Shield.

The strategic significance of Ukraine’s minerals has gained recognition in international diplomacy. Recent bilateral negotiations between Ukraine and the US highlight the geopolitical importance of these resources.

Where Ukraine’s minerals are and how much is in areas occupied by Russia. Conflict and Environment Observatory: www.ceobs.org

A proposed minerals deal would involve Ukraine contributing 50% of future proceeds from state-owned mineral resources, oil and gas and other extractable materials to a reconstruction investment fund for Ukraine’s post-war rebuilding. The fund would be jointly managed by Kyiv and Washington.

What about US’s own minerals?

The US’s interest in Ukrainian minerals reflects a broader geopolitical concern over increasing demand, volatile price movements and supply chain vulnerabilities.

While the US has many of the same critical minerals as Ukraine, it has historically outsourced mining and refining due to environmental regulations, high labour costs and more attractive foreign markets.

This has led to a reliance on imports, particularly from China, which dominates critical mineral production and processing. Getting access to Ukraine’s minerals in exchange for military protection means the US can avoid having to buy these minerals from China.

The US federal strategy in fact states it will prioritise diversification through mineral security partnerships aiming to establish a more stable and resilient supply chain.

The US’s critical minerals are distributed across various geological provinces including the Appalachian Mountains, the Cordilleran Belt and the Precambrian Shield exposed in parts of the midwest.

While the US has developed substantial lithium resources, particularly in Nevada’s Clayton Valley and North Carolina’s Kings Mountain, much of its current lithium production comes from “brine operations”. This is the extraction from salt solutions, such as seawater or saline lakes, which can be more expensive than hard-rock mining.

The global shift toward green energy and electric transportation is accelerating, and minerals are at the heart of this transition. Around 80% of the lithium produced globally is used for battery production. Major automakers are investing billions in electric vehicle production, driving unprecedented demand for the minerals that power this technology.

Ukraine’s mineral wealth positions it as a potential leader in the clean energy revolution. Once stability returns, Ukraine will have a golden opportunity to reshape the global supply chain for critical minerals. Even with a 50% allocation to the US, Ukraine would still be able to fund domestic infrastructure, industry growth, jobs and economic recovery.

theconversation.com · by Munira Raji

22. Irregular Warfare Initiative: Intro Letter from the New Editorial Director

Intro Letter from the New Editorial Director

irregularwarfare.org · by Kevin Bilms · March 12, 2025

In its most recent newsletter, IWI announced that I was rejoining the organization as its Editorial Director. I am replacing Tobias Switzer, who led IWI’s publications through its four-year anniversary and continued IWI’s remarkable growth since 2020. Kate Espinosa has served admirably as Acting Director and graciously offered to remain as our Deputy Director. I am pleased to also welcome LTC (Ret.) Steve Ferenzi and Eric Robinson, two thought leaders on irregular warfare (IW) in their own right, who will be helping me and Kate with strategic planning and quality assurance as Senior Advisors for our team.

Personally, I am thrilled to be back with IWI in a formal capacity. I first partnered with IWI during its previous affiliation with the Modern War Institute, working to amplify the public release of the Irregular Warfare Annex to the 2018 National Defense Strategy. It was a privilege to then be part of IWI’s first cohort of non-resident fellows in 2022, and to support Lisa Munde with launching Project Maritime the following year. Now returned to IWI, I’m excited to work toward IWI’s longstanding vision of making irregular warfare widely understood for its importance to national security. That mission starts with our readers and contributors, and the wide range of experiences we bring from our respective backgrounds.

In addition to our Call for Articles and IWI’s publishing guidelines, I’d like to offer additional principles to guide writers seeking to publish with IWI:

Maintain Excellence: IWI has provided years of thought leadership through innovative recommendations, showcasing academic research, and offering non-partisan insight into breaking events. Our continued success will come through crisp writing that allows for irregular warfare and the author’s argument to rise to the fore.
No Word Fights: To the fullest extent possible, we will limit publication of articles that take issue with the term “irregular warfare,” its theoretical base and various definitions, or activities within. Several years ago, I encouraged reimagining irregular warfare to elevate IW’s value proposition above the endless terminology battle. We will continue to welcome publications that advance irregular warfare study and practice but will prioritize substantive analysis over debates focused primarily on terminology.
Be Disciplined: We must remain focused on the art and science of irregular warfare. If we treat everything as IW, then nothing is. For authors submitting a piece where the IW connection is not apparent, I will ask the Editorial team to work with writers addressing broader issues of statecraft to identify a clear linkage to IW or help them find another outlet for publication. I will also work closely with our six special projects directors to ensure clarity of vision for irregular warfare across all IWI publications.
Avoid Aphorisms: There are many of these phrases floating around: “Irregular warfare is as important as traditional warfare;” “Irregular warfare is vital for competition;” “Special Operations Forces have a strategic role;” “We need a whole-of-government approach.” All of these statements are based in truth and have been for years. We will prioritize article submissions that move beyond restating consensus in their arguments and instead look for publications that challenge conventional logic or drive toward new insights and actionable solutions that incorporate, implement, and institutionalize IW – all of which will advance IWI’s vision.
Learn from History and Literature: Historical case studies and book reviews that uncover lessons for the practice of irregular warfare today deserve a premium. As Mark Twain is credited with saying, history may not repeat, but it often rhymes. While the IW community assiduously prepares for all future scenarios, we should remain mindful that there are valuable lessons from the past – both the recent past, and farther back. In addition to our submission guidelines that referenced my publication on the Cod Wars, other helpful case study exemplars include Iskander Rehman’s case study on the fall of Crete, Christopher Booth’s analysis on the Shetland Bus, Jonathan Hackett’s on counterterrorism in Syria, and Steve Ferenzi’s review of the Tibet insurgency during the Cold War.
More Writing Contests: I hope to introduce periodic writing contests much like the Strategy Bridge had previously done semi-regularly around specific prompts. We will aim to partner IWI’s proposed topics with a range of civilian and Professional Military Education (PME) institutions to continue bridging across our individual siloes of excellence. The goal will be to develop short arguments (close to our lower-limit word count of 600 words) that sprout seeds for others to begin exploring policy, operational, or academic offshoots. While our core submissions and special projects remain the IWI editorial team’s primary endeavors, these contests will introduce new ideas at the ground floor for future exploration in longer formats.

It is a privilege to rejoin IWI in its fifth year. The future is bright for IWI due to its dedicated volunteers and the thousands who contribute to and enjoy our podcasts and written content. But it is also bright due to the continued and growing need for irregular warfare to provide value and help address the main security challenges of the day. I look forward to continuing the dialogue as Editorial Director and as a part of this community.

Kevin Bilms is Editorial Director of the Irregular Warfare Initiative and a term member with the Council on Foreign Relations.

Image credit: freepik.com

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irregularwarfare.org · by Kevin Bilms · March 12, 2025

23. Captain of Ship That Hit North Sea Tanker Is Russian, Company Says

Some coincidences here? Or should we not believe in coincidences and instead believe in new generation warfare.

Captain of Ship That Hit North Sea Tanker Is Russian, Company Says

The police in Britain detained the ship’s captain on suspicion of gross negligence after it crashed into an oil tanker that was being operated by the U.S. Navy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/12/world/europe/oil-tanker-crash-north-sea-ship-captain-russian.html?smtyp=cur&smid=bsky-nytimes

Smoke billowing from the Solong container ship in the North Sea on Tuesday.Credit...Pool photo by Dan Kitwood

By Megan Specia

Reporting from London

March 12, 2025, 6:48 a.m. ET

The captain of a container ship that struck an oil tanker transporting fuel for the U.S. military on Monday was a Russian citizen, the company that owns that ship said on Wednesday.

The man was arrested in northern England on Tuesday on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter. One crew member is missing and presumed dead after the crash, which forced both crews to abandon ship.

There was no immediate indication that the captain’s nationality played a role in the crash. Russians make up about 10 percent of international seafarers, according to the International Chamber of Shipping. British lawmakers said on Tuesday that they had no evidence to suggest foul play.

Ernst Russ, the company that owns the container ship, named the Solong, said in a statement that the vessel’s captain was a Russian citizen, while the rest of the crew members were Russian and Filipino.

“Ernst Russ can confirm that the master of the containership Solong has been detained by Humberside police in the U.K.,” the company added in a separate update. “The master and our entire team are actively assisting with the investigations.”

The crash on Monday morning, about 13 nautical miles off the northeastern coast of England, set off a series of explosions and a fire onboard both vessels that sent plumes of black smoke rising into the air. Given that the Solong plowed into the tanker, called the Stena Immaculate, in daylight hours while the tanker was stationary, experts have raised questions about why radar and alert systems did not prevent the crash.

One member of the Solong’s crew was presumed dead after an extensive search was called off late on Monday, though all other crew members escaped unharmed.

On Tuesday, the Humberside Police, the force responsible for the area, said that a 59-year-old man had been arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter in connection with the crash. As is typical practice under British law, the police declined to provide further details about his identity.

The Stena Immaculate was carrying jet fuel and was being operated by the U.S. Navy at the time of the crash, according to Britain’s transportation minister, Mike Kane, who briefed Parliament about the episode on Tuesday. Mr. Kane was also asked about whether the crash appeared to be intentional.

“Whether there was foul play is, I think, speculation; there is no evidence to suggest that at the moment,” Mr. Kane said, adding that the British government was in touch with its American and Portuguese counterparts. Still, he added, “something did go terribly wrong” to cause the crash.

The Stena Immaculate is owned by Crowley, a Florida-based logistics company, and had been chartered on a short-term basis to serve U.S. government operations.

Megan Specia reports on Britain, Ireland and the Ukraine war for The Times. She is based in London. More about Megan Specia

24. Ex-Philippine leader Duterte bound for Hague over ICC drug war case

Historic and unprecedented I think.

Ex-Philippine leader Duterte bound for Hague over ICC drug war case

12 Mar 2025 04:43AM

(Updated: 12 Mar 2025 06:09PM)

channelnewsasia.com

THE HAGUE: Lawyers for former Filipino president Rodrigo Duterte, believed headed for The Hague to face the International Criminal Court over his deadly crackdown on drugs, filed a petition on Wednesday (Mar 12) demanding his return to Manila.

The plane taking the 79-year-old to the Netherlands resumed its journey after a stopover of several hours in Dubai on Wednesday, a flight tracking site said.

It was not possible to confirm if Duterte was still on the privately owned aircraft.

Duterte faces a charge of "the crime against humanity of murder", according to the ICC, for a crackdown that rights groups estimate killed tens of thousands of mostly poor men, often without proof they were linked to drugs.

On Wednesday morning, his lawyers filed a Supreme Court petition - on behalf of his youngest daughter Veronica - accusing the government of "kidnapping" Duterte and demanding it "bring him back".

"The ICC can only exercise its jurisdiction if a country's national legal system is not functioning," lawyer Salvador Paolo Panelo Jr told reporters outside the court, insisting the Philippines' judicial system was "working properly".

But presidential palace press officer Claire Castro said cooperating with Interpol was the government's prerogative.

"This is not just surrendering a Filipino citizen, this is surrendering a Filipino citizen who is accused of crimes against humanity, specifically murder," she said.

"BLOODY WAR"

At a church in the capital, some of those whose family members were killed in the "drug war" discussed the arrest.

"Duterte is fortunate, there's due process for him," Emily Soriano said of her son Angelito, at a press briefing organised by a local rights group.

"There was no due process for my son. He will be lying down on a good bed, my son is already rotting at the cemetery."

Duterte was arrested on Tuesday morning after "Interpol Manila received the official copy of the warrant of the arrest from the ICC", the presidential palace said.

An ICC spokesman later confirmed the warrant and said an initial appearance hearing would be scheduled when Duterte was in the court's custody.

President Ferdinand Marcos announced his predecessor's departure on Tuesday evening.

"The plane is en route to The Hague in the Netherlands, allowing the former president to face charges of crimes against humanity in relation to his bloody war on drugs," Marcos said.

Before her father's departure, Vice President Sara Duterte said he was being "forcibly taken to The Hague", labelling the transfer "oppression and persecution".

Her office issued a statement on Wednesday saying she had flown to Amsterdam, without offering further details.

On Tuesday night, the former president said he believed the Philippine Supreme Court would prevent his transfer.

"We do not have an extradition treaty," Duterte said on an Instagram broadcast shortly before leaving Manila. But no reprieve materialised.

While supporters dubbed his arrest "unlawful", those who opposed Duterte's drug war were jubilant.

"The mothers whose husbands and children were killed because of the drug war are very happy," said Rubilyn Litao of Rise Up for Life and for Rights, a group supporting mothers of those killed in the crackdown.

"They have been waiting for this for a very long time."

A LONG ROAD

The Philippines quit the ICC in 2019 on Duterte's instructions.

But the tribunal maintained it had jurisdiction over killings up to then, including ones in the southern city of Davao when Duterte was mayor.

It launched a formal inquiry in September 2021, only to suspend it two months later after Manila said it was re-examining several hundred drug operations that led to deaths.

The probe resumed in July 2023 after a five-judge panel rejected the Philippines' objection that the court lacked jurisdiction.

Following that decision, the Marcos government repeatedly said it would not cooperate with the investigation - but recently reversed course, saying it would be "obliged to follow" should Interpol ask for assistance.

A one-time alliance between Marcos and the Duterte family has exploded spectacularly since the 2022 presidential election, when Sara Duterte run as vice president on his ticket.

The vice president is currently facing a Senate trial on a number of charges, including corruption and an alleged assassination plot against Marcos.

Listen:

channelnewsasia.com

25. Forceful Taiwan Reunification: China's Targeted Military and Civilian-Military Measures

Conclusion:

It is a political decision to pursue the reunification campaign. Western scholars dismiss such arguments on the basis of the PLA’s perceived lack of military preparedness and the significant economic costs China would incur during and after a reunification attempt. However, as this essay highlights, China is keenly aware of these considerations and is taking proactive steps to limit the fallout, if not eliminate it.

This essay doesn’t argue whether China would attempt a forceful unification campaign or the cost of its campaign. Instead, it argues that through a combination of military and civilian measures, an effort has been made to address the possible critical vulnerabilities in military and economic sectors. The question remains about the PLA’s ability to execute and sustain complex cross-strait operations, especially after targeted military purges in 2023 and 2024. Every measure mentioned here can be seen in isolation and not as a part of a complex puzzle that indicates that the PLA is preparing to invade Taiwan. However, these measures involve systemic integration with military logistics, enabling rapid deployment and sustainability when required. A steady accumulation of capabilities indicates deliberate preparation for eventualities that may align with China’s political-military objectives across the Taiwan Strait.

Forceful Taiwan Reunification

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/03/12/forceful_taiwan_reunification_1096977.html?mc_cid=c4600051cd

By Suyash Desai

Forceful Taiwan Reunification: China's Targeted Military and Civilian-Military Measures

Bottom Line

China is systematically preparing for a forceful reunification campaign by redesigning and intensifying military and civilian-military measures such as military mobilization, amphibious capabilities, standardization of operations, and resource stockpiling.
The People’s Liberation Army’s expanded and improved military exercises around Taiwan since August 2022 have been shifting toward more coercive and multi-domain operations to assert control over the region.
These systematic and incremental military and civilian-military measures might provide China with the tools to successfully conduct a potential forceful reunification with Taiwan in the near future.

For nearly a century, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Taiwan have largely avoided direct military confrontations across the Taiwan Strait. However, there have been four notable exceptions: the Taiwan Strait crises of 1954–55, 1958, 1995–96, and most recently, 2022–23. In the first three instances, the status quo was primarily restored following the crisis. However, recent events suggest worrying trends highlighting that Beijing is preparing for a forceful reunification with Taiwan.

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping has already made reunification with Taiwan a part of his signature China Dream, announced during the 19^thParty Congress meeting in 2017. However, this was not the first time Taiwan was featured prominently in speeches by top Chinese leaders. As political scientist Ketian Zhang highlights in her book China’s Gambit: The Calculus of Coercion, annexing Taiwan is considered a core interest of China, with official references to its significance appearing regularly since 2003. The most recent instance was Xi Jinping’s New Year’s speech on December 31, 2024, where he declared, “No one can stop the historical trend of reunification of the motherland” (誰也不能充實祖國統一的歷史大勢).

But beyond rhetoric and political posturing, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has taken concrete measures over the past decade to advance Beijing’s reunification agenda. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, these measures have intensified, reinforcing China’s willingness to use force. This article highlights the PLA’s systematic and incremental military and civilian-military measures—capabilities that might provide China with the tools to successfully conduct a potential forceful reunification with Taiwan in the near future. These measures include changing the institutions and patterns of PLA mobilization, constructing and using civilian infrastructure in military exercises, and establishing a new status quo through increasingly coercive military exercises around Taiwan. They also include standardization of the PLA for greater efficiency, effectiveness, combat readiness, stockpiling resources, and re-enlisting veterans with specific skills. This article builds upon Oriana Skylar Mastro’s arguments in her piece “The Taiwan Temptation,” which contends that China’s expanding military capabilities and rising nationalism could drive Beijing to contemplate using force for reunification with Taiwan. It identifies granular military details, especially post-2020, but it doesn’t venture into arguments about the timing of the reunification, potential diplomatic backlash, or economic costs of the invasion.

Recent Military-Civilian Measures

Since 2015, the PRC has undertaken significant organizational, legal, and structural reforms to enhance the National Defense Mobilization System (NDMS) (國防動員系統). As China scholar Devin Thorne highlights in his recent testimony to the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, NDMS enables the PRC to harness its political, economic, technological, cultural, social, and other civilian resources from peacetime to wartime. This helps China to address a wide range of threats, such as escalations on its border, domestic instabilities, natural disasters, and other crises. It also bolsters China’s military logistics. As Thorne highlights, the key developments include the enactment of the National Defense Transportation Law in 2017, the introduction of updated auditing and surveying data on natural resources protocols in 2018 and 2021, the establishment of new NDMS offices beginning in December 2022, the creation of a new type of highly trained and professional local militia force since 2021, and the enhancement of cross-militia training initiatives starting in 2024.

The PLA can mobilize private and civilian resources through the NDMS during national emergencies. It highlights China’s determination to prepare for potential contingencies, including escalation activities on its borders with India, the Taiwan Strait, and the South China Sea. Lessons from the Russian-Ukrainian War and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have further shaped these efforts. Once operational, the NDMS would ultimately allow the PRC to mobilize society and harness civilian and military resources more systematically and institutionally in case of a potential forceful reunification attempt with Taiwan.

However, mobilizing resources and force is insufficient, as China would need to reach the other side of the Taiwan Strait during a potential escalation. Some scholars dismiss the idea that the PLA remains incapable of conducting amphibious operations at the scale needed to take control of Taiwan. Amphibious operations (landing assault) are one of the five most important campaigns (alongside anti-landing, island blockade, border area counter-attack, and counter–air-raid campaigns) discussed at length in the PLA’s first written doctrine on joint operations, Joint Campaign Outline, as operational requirements to take over Taiwan by force. Taiwan has 169,000 active military personnel, backed by 1.66 million reservists. As career naval officer Harlan Ullman explains, using the traditional three-to-one ratio of attackers to defenders taught at war colleges, the PLA would need to mobilize at least 507,000 soldiers. By extension, to cross the 106-kilometer-wide Taiwan Strait to conduct landing operations, China would need thousands of ships—far more than the current PLA Navy capabilities of 234 operating warships. However, China has long been working to mobilize its civilian infrastructure to support its military campaign. For instance, the PRC has emphasized the construction of roll-on/roll-off (RO-RO) (滾裝船) ships, which can use their power to set up ramps on docks or beaches to transport vehicles. Each RO–RO ship is estimated to carry at least three hundred vehicles and about fifteen hundred passengers. Since establishing the “strategic projection support ship fleets” in China’s major ship-building companies in 2012, the PLA has actively cooperated with local shipping companies to improve maritime “strategic delivery” capabilities by prioritizing the production of RO-RO ferries. According to naval strategist J. Michael Dahm, in January 2023, China had around thirty-one RO-RO ferries in operation. However, the Center for Strategic and International Studies pointed out that the mainland shipyards would deliver up to two hundred RO-RO ships in the four years from 2023 to 2026.

Furthermore, the PLA has used these ferries in military exercises in the Taiwan Strait since 2019. For instance, the first fifteen-thousand-ton ferry, Bang Chui Dao RO-RO ship (棒槌島滾裝船), participated in an amphibious assault exercise in 2019. Since then, the PLA has conducted such military exercises regularly. In July 2020, the PLA experimented with launching amphibious assault craft from civilian ferries toward the beach rather than port facilities, and it conducted day and night exercises off the coast of Guangdong Province. August 2021 was the first time the PLA used a ten-thousand-ton–class civilian ferry ship to land military exercises. Furthermore, in August 2022, after then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, six of these RO-RO ships, which are operated by the Bo Hai Ferry Group Company (渤海輪渡集團公司) and are affiliated with the PLA Maritime Militia 8th Transport Brigade (海上民兵第8運輸旅), headed south toward Xiamen—the closest point to Taiwan. The RO-RO ferries were used more frequently in cross-transportation military exercises in July and September 2023. Furthermore, it was also discovered in January 2025 that China is building at least five landing barges at the Guangzhou shipyard with unusually long road bridges that extend from the bow of the ship, which makes them relevant to amphibious landing operations. Although these vessels and barges are extremely susceptible to attacks from Taiwanese F-16s, warships, and submarines, they would be supported by the PLA Navy, PLA Air Force, and PLA Rocket Force.

The Changing Nature of Coercion and Military Exercises around Taiwan

On September 17, 2020, the Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense published its first real-time military update, documenting PLA incursions into Taiwan’s de facto air defense identification zone (ADIZ). As meticulously recorded by Ben Lewis and Gerald C. Brown, by January 2025, there had been approximately eight thousand PLA violations of the ADIZ, including multiple crossings of the median line. Notably, Chinese warplanes crossed the median line in 2019 for the first time since 1999. However, Nancy Pelosi’s August 2022 visit to Taiwan provided the PLA with a pretext to escalate its activities, culminating in multiple advanced military exercises conducted around Taiwan from all sides.

Since August 2022, the PLA has conducted five large-scale military exercises around Taiwan. Most of them coincided with significant political events. For instance, the first military exercise in August 2022 followed Pelosi’s visit. This was succeeded by the inaugural PLA Joint Sword exercises in April 2023, coinciding with former Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s visit to the United States and her meeting with then-Speaker of the US House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy. Subsequent exercises included Joint Sword A in May 2024 and Joint Sword B in October 2024. These exercises aligned with the inauguration of President Lai Ching-te’s tenure and his National Day speech. The most recent military exercises, conducted in December 2024, were held shortly after President Lai Ching-te’s travels through the United States. Notably, President Lai did not engage with any major US leaders during his transit. However, the recent exercises display the opportunistic Chinese behavior of leveraging situations to establish a new normal through increasingly coercive activities in the Taiwan Strait.

The Joint Sword A and B exercises and the December 2024 drills are particularly significant for understanding the evolution of China’s coercion pattern and the difference between China’s military posturing and its intentions in the Taiwan Strait. While the Joint Sword A and B drills were declared in advance and focused on anti-intervention and amphibious assault near Taiwan, recent December 2024 exercises intended to perform blockade, strategic deterrence, and anti-interventionism exercises. The latest exercises occurred across expanded locations like Fujian, Zhejiang, and the Western Pacific. Significantly, the December 2024 exercise, for the first time, witnessed all three of the PLA’s sea-facing theater commands—North, East, and South—jointly participating in an operation in the eastern waters of China, a key demand by the leadership to achieve multi-domain joint operations capabilities.

Notably, these instances reveal that the Chinese leadership is keenly aware of the PLA’s pre-existing weaknesses, like amphibious assaults and anti-intervention operations, and has been pushing the PLA to address this gap gradually. They also leveraged elements of strategic deterrence and surprise while adhering to steps toward joint combat operations, a prerequisite for a forceful reunification. Geographically, these exercises extended beyond the Taiwan Strait to cover broader areas, including Fujian, Zhejiang, Shanghai, and the Western Pacific, indicating a shift toward controlling key maritime zones in the First Island Chain. Thus, with active participation from all major PLA services and the three sea-facing theater commands, and indulgence in numerous aspects of warfare targeted toward the PLA’s primary strategic direction—Taiwan—these exercises signalled a more nuanced and multi-layered operational focus.

Multiple Standardizations within the PLA

Over the past seven years, particularly in the post-pandemic period, China has prioritized comprehensive standardization of procedures with the PLA and its auxiliary support systems—non-combat systems and components that support and sustain military operations. PLA leadership has issued numerous directives to achieve uniformity across various domains, such as the construction of barracks, military equipment procurement, and the establishment of standardized military training grounds. These efforts are extended to standardizing resource allocation, engineering procurement, equipment support, logistical operations, medical services, communication infrastructure, cybersecurity systems, and intelligence gathering and analysis mechanisms.

These initiatives highlight China’s attempt to enable standardization within the PLA’s military operations to enhance its overall efficiency, effectiveness, and combat readiness. Streamlining key processes, including operational logistics, equipment maintenance, and strategic communication networks, would help the PLA to accelerate achieving capabilities to perform multi-domain integrated joint operations. Standardization facilitates interoperability across services, theaters, and arms, resulting in seamless coordination among ground, naval, air, space, and cyber units. Developing these capabilities is a prerequisite for conducting multi-domain integrated joint operations, a requirement for forceful Taiwan reunification. They are also indicative of the PLA’s steps toward achieving operational readiness. It is particularly relevant in regional and near-regional escalations, such as those in the South China Sea and the Western Pacific Ocean, which could be possibilities during the Taiwan reunification campaign.

Resource Stockpiling

Resource stockpiling is an important indicator of a nation’s preparedness for a potential conflict. It involves the systematic accumulation of critical materials, energy reserves, food supplies, and industrial inputs essential during wartime. Such activities are often undertaken to ensure self-sufficiency, mitigate vulnerabilities, and maintain resilience in the face of potential embargoes, trade disruptions, or blockades.

Agricultural economist Gustavo F.C. Ferreira highlights in his testimony to the US-China Economy and Security Review Commission that China has been significantly increasing its energy resource reserves, particularly coal, crude oil, and natural gas. The country has built an extensive storage capacity for crude oil, estimated to exceed 1.8 billion barrels, including strategic petroleum reserves and underground storage facilities. Additionally, he points out that China’s coal production has ramped up aggressively, with approval of expansion projects equivalent to the European Union’s annual coal production in just one year. He notes that beyond energy resources, the stockpiling extends to other critical areas such as food (grains and protein sources), strategic metals (rare earth, copper, and lithium), and technological components (semiconductors). These measures are supported by state policies to reduce China’s reliance on global markets and ensure continued operation during a conflict or escalation.

Similarly, there are reports about China’s record 105.03-million-metric-ton import of soybeans in 2024. This marks a 6.5 percent increase from 2023. This surge is possibly due to China’s efforts to prepare for a contingency, particularly in anticipation of intensified trade tensions with the United States. Researcher Zongyuan Zoe Liu’s work highlights China’s strategies to shield its economy from potential Western sanctions by drawing lessons from sanctions imposed on Russia. She notes China’s attempt to increase economic and technological self-sufficiencies by immunizing its economy against sanctions and building financial resilience against potential sanctions by the United States.

Re-enlistment of Veterans

Since 2017, the PLA has notified several enlistment orders for veterans with specific skill sets. A key focus has been the integration of veterans into civil-military roles. This is supported by policies to re-enlist them in specialized units adhering to Xi’s stated and revealed military goals for the PLA. For instance, in the case of Taiwan-focused operations, the PLA’s re-enlistment efforts focus on operational readiness by re-enlisting veterans skilled in amphibious operations, cyber warfare, and missile systems. Since 2022, there has been an emphasis on integrating these veterans into critical roles, such as reserve forces, militia coordination, and rapid mobilization units.

Beyond these six measures, several other developments—China’s heavy investment in dual-use infrastructure such as ports and airfields on the east coast, development of amphibious and airborne military capabilities like the large Type 075 landing ships and Y-20 aircraft, investment in offensive intelligence and cyber capabilities, deployment of strategic missile systems like the DF-15 and DF-21, training of the maritime militia with the PLA and their expansion to support the armed forces whenever required, and the integration of real-time battlefield awareness via the BeiDou navigation system—are additional factors to conclusively determine the PLA’s intention and readiness for a potential reunification campaign with Taiwan.

Conclusion

It is a political decision to pursue the reunification campaign. Western scholars dismiss such arguments on the basis of the PLA’s perceived lack of military preparedness and the significant economic costs China would incur during and after a reunification attempt. However, as this essay highlights, China is keenly aware of these considerations and is taking proactive steps to limit the fallout, if not eliminate it.

This essay doesn’t argue whether China would attempt a forceful unification campaign or the cost of its campaign. Instead, it argues that through a combination of military and civilian measures, an effort has been made to address the possible critical vulnerabilities in military and economic sectors. The question remains about the PLA’s ability to execute and sustain complex cross-strait operations, especially after targeted military purges in 2023 and 2024. Every measure mentioned here can be seen in isolation and not as a part of a complex puzzle that indicates that the PLA is preparing to invade Taiwan. However, these measures involve systemic integration with military logistics, enabling rapid deployment and sustainability when required. A steady accumulation of capabilities indicates deliberate preparation for eventualities that may align with China’s political-military objectives across the Taiwan Strait.

Suyash Desai is a Non-Resident Fellow in the Asia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) and a political scientist specializing in China's defense, foreign policies, and nuclear strategy.

This article appeared originally at Foreign Policy Research Institute.

26. No, The First Island Chain Isn’t Lost

Conclusion:

What we’re seeing is a reversion back to what warfare traditionally looked like, where localized and temporary periods of battlespace dominance were the best a commander could hope for. The United States expanding its Second Island Chain operations isn’t conceding the field, it’s complicating and expanding the field.

No, The First Island Chain Isn’t Lost

March 10, 2025

By: Eric Lies

The National Interest · · March 10, 2025

Topic: Security

Blog Brand: The Buzz

Region: Asia

Tags: China, First Island Chain, Taiwan, The Pacific, and U.S. Navy

March 10, 2025

By: Eric Lies

The United States isn’t conceding the field of competition in the First Island Chain; it’s expanding it.

Denial does not equate to dominance. In Brandon Weichert’s recent article in this publication, he argues that the United States has potentially “already lost the First Island Chain” due to China’s growing anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities. He follows that up with the argument that U.S. actions in the Second Island Chain are essentially a tacit acknowledgement of Chinese control of the Taiwan Strait. While the challenges he identified in his piece are very real, his conclusion represents a logical leap that misses the mark.

If we had the unfortunate opportunity to see a cross-strait war, what we would see would be more akin to a bloody game of hide-and-seek as commanders take advantage of localized dominance and openings.

There are three primary issues with these arguments. First, the sheer size of the potential conflict area precludes complete dominance. Second, the development of Second Island Chain basing enables improved distributed lethality and survivability. Third, by decreasing the efficacy of a Chinese surprise attack, the likelihood of deterrence holding increases.

Even if combat was limited to the area immediately around Taiwan, the sheer scope of ocean and airspace that would need to be monitored is immense, not to mention the need to monitor Taiwan itself. While improving, the Chinese ability to collect weapons guidance quality data wouldn’t cover the entire battle space at all times.

Even assuming perfect coverage, there’s still the question of personnel training and their ability to track multiple contacts across the region in a high-stress and fast-tempo environment. Given these constraints, Chinese A2/AD efforts would enable localized control for short periods of time. Still, they would leave gaps for U.S. and allied forces to maneuver and engage or support ground operations on Taiwan itself.

By developing military bases and staging throughout the Second Island Chain, the United States capitalizes on two distinct benefits: distributed lethality and increasing the number of threat axes. This compounds the difficulty of monitoring and engaging any military response taken by the U.S. and allied forces. The Chinese are still assessed to have only modest capabilities to operate outside of the First Island Chain, meaning they would be reliant on longer range missiles to engage.

With the ability to send bombers from multiple directions, the Chinese intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance efforts will be spread across the entire Pacific, as opposed to being able to focus on a few U.S. bases. Therefore, responses to individual sorties or airfields would have a smaller impact on the overall balance of forces. This does mean that it would take longer to bring force to bear in a cross-strait conflict and complicate allied responses. There are some other confounding factors at play.

Varied threat axes would also force the Chinese forces to distribute defenses more broadly if they were to adequately protect their high value units, such as amphibious assault ships or carriers. This opens the door to tactical surprise, where allied forces suddenly converge on weaker points in the Chinese defenses. This is not to say that the U.S. and allied forces would be able to have their way with hostile forces. There are opportunities and vulnerabilities at each point of conflict. Still, by being able to choose more readily where, when, and how to engage, the U.S. and allied forces would gain some tactical advantage.

Finally, by distributing forces and having the option to surge units throughout the region, the effectiveness of a surprise first strike by the Chinese is limited. Any engagement they embark upon has a greater risk of becoming a protracted, attritional conflict, which in turn would increase the risk of the conflict expanding in scope. This in turn increases the likelihood of deterrence holding as articulated by Professor John Mearsheimer.

While Weichert is correct in asserting the Chinese could attempt to impose a blockade right now with the military assets available to them, a blockade is far from a swift surgical strike, which complicates the risk calculus for the Chinese military and CCP immensely. This would also give Taiwan and the rest of the world plenty of advanced notice as it would require mobilizing across all of China prior to commencing.

It would also be remiss not to bring up the fact that the people of Taiwan have a voice in all of this. If fighting were to break out, the Taiwanese military would play a pivotal role in the conflict. Taiwan has been focusing on building its resilience and the geography of the island is a nightmare for attacking forces. Aside from the need to conduct highly complex amphibious assaults, Taiwan is incredibly mountainous with shallow waters extending far off their Western coasts. A determined resistance by the Taiwanese will make all the difference.

Arguing that Taiwan and, by extension, the First Island Chain is lost due to robust Chinese A2/AD capabilities mischaracterizes the situation on the ground. What’s worse, is that it confuses the ability to make operations difficult with the ability to preclude operations entirely.

What we’re seeing is a reversion back to what warfare traditionally looked like, where localized and temporary periods of battlespace dominance were the best a commander could hope for. The United States expanding its Second Island Chain operations isn’t conceding the field, it’s complicating and expanding the field.

Eric Lies is an analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Washington, D.C. office, specializing in security strategy and military affairs. He previously served in the U.S. Navy as a nuclear-trained surface warfare officer. He holds a bachelor’s of science with a major in international affairs from the U.S. Naval Academy and a master’s in international service from American University.

Image: Shutterstock

The National Interest · · March 10, 2025

27. Military medical system unprepared for future conflict, experts say

Remember when it was our military surgeons coming back from the battlefields that were teaching civilian trauma surgeons innovative techniques. (Dr. Lee in Arizona saved Congresswoman Giffords after his tour in Afghanistan and credited his military experience).

Perhaps we need a civilian trauma surgeon equivalent to the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF). Oh yes, that would be doctors serving in the Reserve component.

My wife and I get all our medical care at DOD facilities and we have had multiple surgeries performed by military doctors though thankfully none have been trauma surgeries. (hip replacement, cataract surgery, broken bones repaired, skin cancer and tumors removed).

Excerpts:

“We’ve de-scoped our facilities to the point where they take care of low-acuity community hospital patients, not trauma patients,” said retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Paul A. Friedrichs, the former Joint Staff Surgeon. “We need our key hospitals to be Level 1 trauma centers in partnership with the American College of Surgeons in the communities where they’re located.” To do so, there must be adequate funding, he said.

...

“We need our military medics taking care of sick patients,” Friedrichs said. There’s a comparison, for example, between taking care of a bladder cancer patient who needs to have their bladder removed, and someone with a gunshot wound to the abdomen who needs to have the bladder reconstructed, he explained.

...

Friedrichs noted there is $10 billion of unfunded facility needs in DOD and $100 billion in VA. There are opportunities to bring patients with acute care needs from the VA into DOD facilities, or bring DOD medical personnel into VA medical facilities, he said, “so that we are not wasting money on duplicative buildings and instead focusing our resources on the patients who need our care.”

It’s critical, Friedrichs added, that medics are clearly defined as being part of the joint military. “As long as we preserve this false narrative that the Military Health System is separate and not covered by the same expectation of jointness as the rest of the military, we’re going to continue to have these fruitless bureaucratic buffoonery actions that distract us from taking care of patients,” he said.

A root problem, Cannon said, is that no one within the DOD truly owns combat casualty care. He recommended that Congress establish clear leadership on that front.

Military medical system unprepared for future conflict, experts say

marinecorpstimes.com · by Karen Jowers · March 11, 2025

When it comes to combat casualty care, “without urgent intervention, the Military Health System will continue to slide into medical obsolescence,” a retired Air Force trauma surgeon told senators Tuesday.

The consequence of a military medical system that’s unprepared to handle a high volume of casualties in any future major conflict is that “many will have survivable injuries, yet one in four will die at the hands of an unprepared system,” said Dr. Jeremy W. Cannon, a professor of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine and a surgeon in the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Only about 10% of military general surgeons experience the patient volume, level of acute cases and variety of cases needed to remain designated as combat ready. According to Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, the percentage of military general surgeons meeting the necessary readiness standards dropped from 17% in 2015 to 10% in 2019.

“We’re actively falling into the trap of the peacetime effect,” Cannon, a retired Air Force colonel, told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

That 10% is caused by “grossly inadequate patient volume,” Cannon said. “They’re not doing the cases, not doing the procedures. They’re not doing what they were trained to do. That’s because they don’t have the patients in the facilities.”

He and two other military retirees who rose to high-ranking positions in the military medical establishment testified Tuesday about ways to prepare the military’s surge capacity, including the need to invest in Level 1 trauma centers for military medical facilities.

“We’ve de-scoped our facilities to the point where they take care of low-acuity community hospital patients, not trauma patients,” said retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Paul A. Friedrichs, the former Joint Staff Surgeon. “We need our key hospitals to be Level 1 trauma centers in partnership with the American College of Surgeons in the communities where they’re located.” To do so, there must be adequate funding, he said.

There’s no way to fix the problems without adequate funding, the witnesses said. It’s a mistake to think military medical care could be provided at a lower cost than in the civilian sector and still be ready for conflict, Friedrichs added.

Costs of medical care nationwide have risen about 5.1% per year, on average, since 1938, Friedrichs said. But since 2015, the budget for military hospitals has decreased by nearly 12%, according to Wicker, the committee chair.

The military medical system has been working to attract patients back to the military treatment facilities after forcing many military beneficiaries to seek care in the private sector.

Pentagon plans to fix ‘chronically understaffed’ medical facilities

Will bringing more medical providers — and patients — into military medical facilities help problems with access to care?

“We need our military medics taking care of sick patients,” Friedrichs said. There’s a comparison, for example, between taking care of a bladder cancer patient who needs to have their bladder removed, and someone with a gunshot wound to the abdomen who needs to have the bladder reconstructed, he explained.

Meanwhile, military facilities must be fully staffed, said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Douglas J. F, who served as the first director of the Defense Health Agency. That includes the full spectrum of support for critical care hospitals. Robb suggested the military also work more with Veterans Affairs and civilian medical facilities, so military surgeons could work more cases that would bolster their combat readiness.

Instead of duplicating efforts, the Military Health System needs to work with Veterans Affairs facilities, said Friedrichs, who commanded a DOD-VA joint venture in Anchorage, Alaska. There, he said patients “were taken care of by a joint team. It was far more efficient than building duplicative adjacent facilities. Instead, we built integrated adjacent facilities.”

Friedrichs noted there is $10 billion of unfunded facility needs in DOD and $100 billion in VA. There are opportunities to bring patients with acute care needs from the VA into DOD facilities, or bring DOD medical personnel into VA medical facilities, he said, “so that we are not wasting money on duplicative buildings and instead focusing our resources on the patients who need our care.”

It’s critical, Friedrichs added, that medics are clearly defined as being part of the joint military. “As long as we preserve this false narrative that the Military Health System is separate and not covered by the same expectation of jointness as the rest of the military, we’re going to continue to have these fruitless bureaucratic buffoonery actions that distract us from taking care of patients,” he said.

A root problem, Cannon said, is that no one within the DOD truly owns combat casualty care. He recommended that Congress establish clear leadership on that front.

Wicker acknowledged the importance to troops of there being enough combat-ready surgeons.

“We know that troops in combat are more comfortable taking the risks necessary to accomplish their mission if they have confidence in military doctors,” Wicker said.

About Karen Jowers

Karen has covered military families, quality of life and consumer issues for Military Times for more than 30 years, and is co-author of a chapter on media coverage of military families in the book "A Battle Plan for Supporting Military Families." She previously worked for newspapers in Guam, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fla., and Athens, Ga.

28. North Sea tanker collision - what we know so far

Graphics at the link https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62z9ee68y6o

North Sea tanker collision - what we know so far

2 hours ago

George Wright

BBC News

BBC Verify breaks down moments before cargo ship, tanker collision

One crew member is missing, presumed dead, while more than 30 people have been rescued after a cargo ship, the Solong, struck an oil tanker, the Stena Immaculate, in the North Sea off the east coast of England on Monday.

It is unclear how much fuel has been released into the sea but early assessments suggest the impact is limited with some fuel having burned off and evaporated.

The Solong was still on fire on Tuesday while the fire on the Stena Immaculate was "greatly diminished" and despite initial fears of potentially devastating environmental damage, air quality tests have registered no toxins so far.

A 59-year-old Russian national - who, according to the ship's owners, is the captain of the Solong - was arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter on Tuesday.

How did the crash happen?

The Portuguese-flagged Solong struck the larger oil tanker in waters off Hull just before 10:00 on Monday.

The Stena Immaculate had been anchored there after making its way to Hull from a Greek port. The US-flagged ship had been transporting jet fuel for the US military.

The Solong container ship had been making its way south to the Netherlands from Grangemouth in Scotland.

An American sailor from the Stena Immaculate described the point of collision to the BBC's US partner CBS.

He said "a massive ship came from out of the blue" and those on board only had seconds to react. He did not give his name as crew are not currently allowed to speak to the media.

The sailor said flames immediately began erupting from the vessel following the crash.

One of the men who was on the Stena Immaculate told the BBC the Solong collided with the anchored Stena Immaculate at 16 knots (around 18mph).

Data from tracking site MarineTraffic appears to indicate that one ship was moving and the other was nearly stationary when the collision happened.

It is still unclear what caused the cargo ship to strike the oil tanker.

Martyn Boyers, the chief executive of the port of Grimsby East, told Sky News the area had been "very foggy" on Monday morning, which may have contributed to visibility issues.

Meanwhile a rescuer told The Times the fog was so thick during the initial search that crews could "not see a thing".

What is the current situation?

As of Tuesday evening, fires were continuing to burn on the Solong, the Coastguard said.

A tow line had been attached to the ship so a tug could hold it in a "safer position", and a salvage plan was being developed, the emergency service said.

The fire onboard the Stena Immaculate was described as being "greatly reduced" with no flames visible. It is anchored in place and not drifting.

The UK's transport secretary has said the Maritime Accident Investigation Branch has begun a preliminary assessment of the crash, and that early indications suggested both vessels were not expected to sink.

Earlier, an exclusion zone of 1km radius was put in place around both vessels.

What about the crew?

One of the 14 Solong crew members is still missing and presumed dead, with the search called off on Monday night after "an extensive search", said the coastguard. They have not yet been identified.

Whitehall sources have told BBC News there were Russians and Filipinos among the Solong's crew.

Ernst Russ, the German owners of the Solong, said their "first thoughts" were with the family of the missing crew member "at this uncertain and distressing time".

They confirmed the captain of the ship had been arrested and said that he, along with the rest of the crew, were assisting the investigation.

Humberside Police's senior investigating officer Detective Chief Supt Craig Nicholson said specialist officers have been tasked with making contact with the missing sailor's family and supporting them.

It is thought that all 23 crew on board the Stenna Immaculate were Americans who are currently in Grimsby and are likely to be repatriated in due course.

The entire crew managed to evacuate safely during the disaster.

The Stena sailor said after the Solong crashed into them, the crew on board the tanker had tried to fight the fires, but they realised it was futile - so they made the decision to abandon ship.

Crew members grabbed their essential belongings from their cabins - and after everyone was accounted for- boarded the lifeboat together.

Their captain was the last person to leave the ship, the sailor said. He described flames licking at the crew as they headed for the lifeboats. Some even had their hair singed.

The whole process took about 30 minutes, he told CBS.

A total of 36 crew members from both vessels were brought back to shore. One person was taken to hospital.

Where did it take place?

The collision took place about 13 miles (20km) off the East Yorkshire coast, near Hull and Grimsby, in a busy shipping area.

The Stena Immaculate was anchored and drifting at a speed of 0.1 knots at 09:48 GMT on Monday, according to ship tracking site MarineTraffic.

The tanker had been anchored there since Sunday evening, while the the Solong had been approaching from the north after setting off from Grangemouth in Scotland on the same night.

What do we know about the ships and what were they carrying?

The vessels are the oil tanker MV Stena Immaculate and a cargo ship called Solong. Here is a graphic to show how they compare:

The Stena Immaculate is a US-flagged ship that was transporting jet fuel for the US military.

Crowley, the firm which manages the ship, said it was unclear how much fuel might have been released but the tanker had been carrying 220,000 barrels of jet fuel when it was struck.

The Solong had been making its way south from the Scottish port of Grangemouth to Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

Operator Ernst Russ said on Tuesday the ship had not been carrying containers of sodium cyanide - which had been previously reported.

What is the environmental risk?

The Stena Immaculate's owner confirmed at least one fuel tank had ruptured on the tanker. But it's unknown how much jet fuel has entered the water.

Jet fuel is toxic and if ingested can kill marine organisms, which can then become harmful to seabirds that feed on them.

Some of the fuel has been burnt off, but jet fuel has a high boiling point, so evaporates slowly.

Crowley said an initial review showed impacts on the sea had been "limited due to exposure to the fire and evaporation" of the fuel.

They did not say that the fire on board had been put out.

Experts say the extent of the risk will depend on how much fuel has leaked out and the speed at which authorities contain the spill. It also depends on natural conditions, such as how quickly bacteria can break down the liquid.

Local wildlife trusts have warned of a potentially "devastating" impact on local habitats and species including threatened seabird colonies, grey seals, harbour porpoises, fish and minke whales.

Solong's owners said they had a team "actively engaged" with local authorities and would work with clean-up teams to "mitigate further impacts on the marine environment".

On Tuesday evening, the Coastguard said it was continuing to "make preparations for any pollution that may occur" but that concern about the potential for tanks on the Solong to leak had "reduced".

A statement continued: "Air quality sampling onshore has shown no toxins and modelling from the Met Office indicates no threat to the public."

What could be done?

The clean-up needs to start "as quickly as possible", said Dr Paul Johnson at the University of Exeter's Greenpeace laboratories.

He told the BBC it would be "very difficult, very time consuming" and require "considerable investment in heavy equipment".

The operation is still focused on containment of the ships. But animal charities have said they are on standby to treat any injured birds and marine life that wash ashore.

The UK is responsible for responding to marine pollution up to 200 nautical miles from land, with a specialist coastguard team expected to lead the effort.

After finding the source of the spill, teams will work to stop the fuel from spreading using a variety of methods.

Options include deploying inflatable tubes called booms, which are hundreds of metres in length and laid on the water's surface to stop the oil from spreading.

Teams could also use mechanical devices called skimmers, which are designed to float on the surface and pump contained oil into waste storage units.

Chemical dispersion could also be used. This involves spraying a specially formulated dispersant from modified aircraft or boats which breaks the oil into smaller droplets that sink.

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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

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

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North Sea tanker collision - what we know so far

How did the crash happen?

What is the current situation?

What about the crew?

Where did it take place?

What do we know about the ships and what were they carrying?

What is the environmental risk?

What could be done?