Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice, and lying and greed.”

– William Faulkner.

"An arrogant person considers himself perfect. This is the chief harm of arrogance. It interferes with a person's main task in life-- becoming a better person."

– Leo Tolstoy

"Don't gain the world and lose your soul; wisdom is better than silver or gold."

– Bob Marley

1. The Painting That Explains Trump’s Foreign Policy

2. Will the US collapse like the Soviet Union did?

3. Trump nominates Anduril executive, former special operations officer to be Army undersecretary

4. Exclusive -- Hegseth Orders Review of Fitness, Grooming

5. America Turns to Ukraine to Build Better Drones

6. How Europe’s Military Stacks Up Against Russia Without U.S. Support

7. The Epic Dynastic Feud Behind the Arrest of the Former Philippine President

8. Chinese Volt Typhoon Hackers Infiltrated US Electric Grid for Nearly a Year

9. Both Left and Right Are Wrong About Mahmoud Khalil

10. Trump, pushing for new military leader, submits nomination of Dan ‘Razin’ Caine to the Senate

11. US agencies face Thursday deadline to submit mass layoff plans

12. The Army wants to get the load soldiers carry down to 55 pounds

13. Military Paradigm Swinging Away from Wokeism Toward Meritocracy

14. Green Berets Looking For FPV Drones To Help Them Clear Hostile Cave Complexes

15. There's a New War Game for 'Nerds with a Drive for Violence.' It's Spreading Across the Marine Corps.

16. China’s expanding footprint in geostationary orbit raises security concerns

17. Four-Legged Green Berets: The Canine Operators of Army Special Forces

18. UPDATE: Controversial Intelligence Pick Dropped

19. The U.S. Just Handed Ukraine a Clear Advantage

20. Deciphering French Strategy in the Indo-Pacific

21. The U.S. Should Cut Defense Spending. Here’s How

22. If You're Taking JCIDS, Grab CAPE While You're at it

23. Frontline Innovation and Domestic Production: The Keys to Ukraine’s Journey Toward Defense Self-Reliance

24. How to Toughen Up Taiwan

25. Japan Appoints First Chief of New Joint Operations Command

26. Harding Project: Writing for Impact – Sneaking professional writing into our routine military activities isn’t hard.

27. Will Trump defend Taiwan? U.S. defense perimeter appears to shrink

28. The Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria

1. The Painting That Explains Trump’s Foreign Policy

Very interesting. I had no idea of the influence of Polk on POTUS. An interesting thesis by the authors. But it is not the 19th Century anymore.

The Painting That Explains Trump’s Foreign Policy

James K. Polk expanded the U.S. more than any other president. Now his portrait hangs in the Oval Office, a signal that President Trump’s ambition to take over Canada, Greenland and other territory is more than just talk.

https://www.wsj.com/politics/the-painting-that-explains-trumps-foreign-policy-c387323a?mod=latest_headlines

President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance in the Oval Office, where the portrait of James K. Polk now hangs, March 12.

By Josh DawseyFollow, Vera BergengruenFollow and Alexander WardFollow

March 13, 2025 5:00 am ET

President Trump called Speaker Mike Johnson with a proposed deal last month: I’ll give you one of the White House’s portraits of Thomas Jefferson if you give me the one of James Polk hanging in the U.S. Capitol.

Johnson agreed, and a painting of the 11th president, who oversaw the largest expansion of U.S. territory in history, was moved across Washington and now hangs in the Oval Office, people familiar with the matter said.

Trump told others in the White House that he admired Polk, a champion of “manifest destiny” who through annexation and war acquired the Oregon Territory, Texas, California and much of the American Southwest. “He got a lot of land,” Trump said to White House visitors soon after the painting—featuring a steely-eyed Polk against a dark red background—was hung in late February.

The portrait of James K. Polk was painted in 1911 by Rebecca Polk, a distant relative, based on images made during his lifetime. Photo: Rebecca Polk/Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives

One of the most striking features of Trump’s second term has been his thirst for expanding American territory. Since taking office, he has said that Canada is fleecing Americans on trade and should be made the 51^st state; that the U.S. should retake control of the Panama Canal to ward off Chinese influence; and that the war in Gaza should be ended by the U.S. taking over the territory and rebuilding it. Trump has also talked about acquiring Greenland from Denmark.

The actual inhabitants of all these places have loudly rejected Trump’s claims, but he has persisted in making them, even as they threaten to derail other American priorities on trade and security. Expanding U.S. territory is part of the vision of a new “Golden Age” Trump has promised for his second term, which he says will restore American dominance abroad and usher in a new period of prosperity at home.

The predecessor who now inspires Trump in vivid oil paint served only one term, dying shortly after he left office in 1849. But in four years Polk nearly doubled the territory of the U.S. On the northern border, Polk’s supporters rallied around the expansionist slogan “54°40’ or Fight,” demanding the U.S. take over the entire Pacific Northwest up to that latitude, then the southern boundary of Russian Alaska, even if it meant going to war with Britain. Instead, in 1846 Polk negotiated a treaty that established the U.S.’s northern border at the 49^thparallel.

In the Southwest, Polk annexed Texas and fought the Mexican-American War, which ended in Mexico ceding more than 500,000 square miles to the U.S., including all of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming, in exchange for $15 million.

It was “one of the largest land grabs in world history,” said historian Hampton Sides, who wrote about Polk in his book “Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West.” “He wanted it all, and he got it all in one term, which was kind of extraordinary if you think about it.

In terms of personality, Polk and Trump have little in common, Sides said. Despite his aggressive foreign policy, Polk “was not this blustering, loud, bully of a person. He was morose, a kind of dark guy.” Polk was also known “for being quite honest…He wasn’t this erratic, crazy person who was constantly throwing people off guard. He was almost predictable in his actions.”

Trump began his second term invoking similar rhetoric, renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” and vowing to “pursue our manifest destiny into the stars.” In his address to Congress last week, he recalled earlier generations of Americans of who “carved their fortunes from the rock and soil of a perilous and very dangerous frontier.”

And Trump generated some support among his “America First” base for ideas that would have once seemed preposterous. The President’s fundraising website now sells $35 “Make Greenland Great Again” T-shirts, and Etsy stores are promoting fan art of Trump battling a polar bear over a “For Sale” sign. At inaugural events in Washington, D.C. in January, Trump-supporting attendees sported “Maple Syrup MAGA” and “Make Canada Great Again” gear.

The flag of Greenland flies in its capital, Nuuk, on March 12. President Trump has said he wants to acquire the island, a self-ruling Danish territory, for the U.S. Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Some of Trump’s allies in Congress have also eagerly rallied behind these proposals, introducing legislation with names like the “Make Greenland Great Again Act,” which aims to authorize the U.S. government to acquire Greenland, and the “Red, White, and Blueland Act,” which seeks to rename Greenland and facilitate its acquisition.

Other Republicans have privately derided Trump’s expansionist ambitions. Sen. Lindsey Graham, for example, told him that if Canada were a state it would likely elect Democratic senators. But Trump remains serious about growing the country during his time in the White House. He views it as a part of his legacy, five people who have spoken to him say.

“President Trump is unafraid to propose new, bold ideas in his effort to put America first, and everything he says is true—Greenland is superbly strategically located in the Arctic; the Panama Canal should no longer be run by the Chinese Communist Party; and Canada has been ripping off American farmers and workers for decades. Where’s the lie?” said Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary.

Negative reactions have only emboldened Trump. He has kept his eyes on the Gaza Strip partially because so many people have mocked the idea, one person close to him said. In recent weeks he has also bragged that he forced Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau to resign, and White House officials say he plans to keep mockingly referring to the country as a state.

The Canadians, who first dismissed Trump’s talk of annexation as a joke or a negotiating tactic, have come to see it as a serious threat. Canadian officials have discussed with Trump advisers what they can do to get him to stop talking about it.

Tractor trailers cross the Canada-U.S. border in Fort Erie, Ontario, March 4. Canadian officials first dismissed Trump’s talk of annexation as a joke, but have come to see it as a serious threat. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna/Bloomberg News

A ship in the Panama Canal, Jan. 9. Despite Panamanian concessions, President Trump still wants the canal returned to U.S. control. Photo: Fred Ramos for WSJ

Other foreign leaders have similarly struggled to find on an effective response. A person familiar with Panama’s strategy said the country is trying to appease the president “at all costs” while keeping Panamanian sovereignty over the canal. In response to Trump’s complaints about Chinese influence, Panama announced it would not renew an infrastructure deal with China and that a U.S. firm would take control of two major ports on the canal after acquiring them from a Hong Kong-based company. Trump White House officials are pleased with the concessions, but Trump still wants the canal returned to the U.S., the person said.

Trump has also threatened Denmark with tariffs if it doesn’t agree to sell Greenland to the U.S., prompting the country to look for a Washington lobbyist, people familiar with the matter said. Denmark has quietly proposed allowing more U.S. forces on the island and granting favorable mining contracts to American firms.

Trump administration officials said they are open to those ideas, but noted that the president is serious about wanting Greenland and refuses to rule out military options to acquire it. Discussions are ongoing in the White House about how to secure Greenland, a senior administration official said. “One way or the other, we’re going to get it,” Trump told a joint session of Congress last week.

That determination makes it natural for Trump to admire Polk, said historian John Pinheiro, director of research at the conservative Acton Institute. “Polk had a vision of a bicoastal nation with commerce with Europe on one coast and Asia on the other,” Pinheiro said. “If [Trump] and Polk have anything in common…it’s looking next door.”

2. Will the US collapse like the Soviet Union did?

The subtitle to this essay makes me shudder with distress.

Will the US collapse like the Soviet Union did? - Asia Times

The Constitution — America’s master signifier — has lost its ability to unite citizens around a shared sense of meaningfulness

asiatimes.com · by James Krapfl · March 12, 2025

“You’re next,” said a Russian historian I interviewed in 1993 about the Soviet Union’s collapse in late 1991. I was an American student in St Petersburg, and he was referring to the United States.

His argument was informed by a pseudo-scientific demographic theory that would eventually find favour in the Kremlin, but more remarkable to me then was the hopefulness with which he spoke.

If this man is still alive, he must be feeling vindicated. America’s current retreat from its engagements around the world — from gutting USAID to abandoning European allies — constitutes a surrender of power comparable in living memory only to Mikhail Gorbachev’s unilateral withdrawals from Afghanistan, Eastern Europe and elsewhere between 1988 and 1991 — right before the Soviet Union’s collapse.

Accompanying both foreign policy about-faces, we can’t miss profound shifts in the two states’ ideological foundations.

Destabilizing master signifiers

Gorbachev justified his “restructuring” or perestroika by invoking the Soviet Union’s founding father, Vladimir Lenin. He did so, however, by observing that the historical Lenin had pragmatically modified policies according to circumstances. That called into question the mythological Lenin — an infallible hero whose virtues could not be questioned.

The Russian-born American anthropologist Alexei Yurchak argues that Lenin was the Soviet system’s “master signifier.”

As long as his sacredness remained unquestioned, referring to Lenin could legitimize a range of policies and actions. Viewing Lenin through a historical lens, however, called his sacredness into question. It consequently became impossible for Soviet citizens to agree on what policies and actions were legitimate. This crisis of meaning allowed chronic political, economic and social problems to suddenly become devastating.

America’s master signifier is its Constitution, reverentially enshrined in Washington, DC, rather like Lenin’s body is in Moscow. Under President Donald Trump, however, violations of the Constitution have become routine, and the federal government’s legislative branch has shown little will to guard its powers from executive encroachment.

Like Lenin under Gorbachev, it seems that the sacred center of America’s political system has become destabilized. As a written contract, a constitution is easier to interpret than the thoughts of a dead man. Lenin’s advantage, however, was that he could embody traits considered virtuous in the Soviet system.

Where could Americans look for that same type of guiding light? For most of American history, it was George Washington — the first president who swore to uphold the Constitution.

George Washington’s America

As a hero of the Revolutionary War, Washington could have become king.

Army officers, frustrated at the central government’s weakness after the war under the Articles of Confederation, considered a coup d’état. Washington — the army’s commander in chief — could have led the overthrow (as Oliver Cromwell had or Napoleon Bonaparte would).

Washington refused, and after British capitulation in 1783, he relinquished his command to Congress.

In 1789, after the Constitution was ratified as a legal solution to the problems of confederation, Washington was unanimously elected president. After two terms, however, he rejected suggestions that he stand for a third.

He frequently stressed the importance of habit in human affairs and reasoned that, if he clung to power, Americans might not get accustomed to peaceful and regular rotation of office. By retiring, he transferred much of the reverence that had accrued to him onto the Constitution.

George Washington, depicted crossing the Delaware River in 1776 in this painting by Emmanuel Leutze, was victorious not only against the British Army, but also against his despair. Image: Metropolitan Museum of Art, CC BY

Remembering Washington

Washington’s birthday falls on February 22, and Americans began observing it while he was still alive. In 1879, US Congress made the day a federal holiday, an occasion for celebrating the example of selfless public service and respect for the rule of law that “the father of his country” had embodied.

So it remained until 1971. In that year, the Monday Holiday Act went into effect. Adopted in 1968 at the behest of the business lobby, which saw in three-day weekends an opportunity for sales, the act moved Washington’s birthday commemoration to the third Monday in February.

Since many states also celebrated Abraham Lincoln’s birthday and the new date fell between his and Washington’s, some began calling it “Presidents’ Day.” When nationwide advertisers and calendar-makers adopted the term in the 1980s, it came to seem official.

The name change, of course, eroded the holiday’s connection to Washington, and insofar as it remained more than a shopping day, it came to be associated with all the presidents, effectively cheapening it.

Though the federal holiday officially remains “Washington’s Birthday,” few Americans know that.

The dangers of mythologizing

The shift happened to coincide with a wave of revisionist historiography that pointed out Washington — a slave-owner — was not perfect.

All historiography is revisionist in the sense that historians revise existing interpretations on the basis of new evidence. For those who wanted an untainted idol, however, it appeared either that Washington could no longer fit the bill or that historical facts had to be massaged.

Ever since, historical assessments have tended to get lost in culture wars, where neither side can accept a real person with both reprehensible and admirable traits.

Sign up for one of our free newsletters

In the Soviet Union, however, most citizens found it difficult to think historically about Lenin because, under the conditions of dictatorship, open public debate based on factual information about him had been impossible.

Dictatorship depends on mythological thinking that worships heroes and does not expose contradictions between official pronouncements and reality. In the early 1990s, Russians failed to establish the rule of law for a similar reason: they could not overcome the habit of mythologizing, which made them prioritize personality over policy.

The personality they chose as independent Russia’s first president — Boris Yeltsin — lacked Washington’s respect for the rule of law.

Losing sight of Washington

Thanks to Washington, the US got off to a better start. But by abandoning the widespread commemoration of his historically exceptional deference to the rule of law, Americans have lost an opportunity to practice historical thinking in the public sphere.

Not only has mythological thinking encroached, but it is now even possible for a president to style himself as a monarch and to emulate Napoleon, as Donald Trump has.

The Constitution — America’s master signifier — has lost its ability to unite citizens around a shared sense of meaningfulness. Will Washington’s country be next?

James Krapfl is associate professor of history, McGill University

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

Thank you for registering!

An account was already registered with this email. Please check your inbox for an authentication link.

asiatimes.com · by James Krapfl · March 12, 2025

3. Trump nominates Anduril executive, former special operations officer to be Army undersecretary

Trump nominates Anduril executive, former special operations officer to be Army undersecretary

If confirmed, Michael Obadal would serve as the Army's No. 2 civilian official.

defensescoop.com · by Jon Harper · March 11, 2025

President Donald Trump submitted a nomination to the Senate for Michael Obadal to serve as the Army’s No. 2 official, the White House announced on Tuesday.

In that role, Obadal would be the Army’s chief management officer, helping oversee a budget of more than $185 billion and the manning, training and equipping of the force.

Obadal, a retired Army colonel, is currently a senior director at defense technology company Anduril, according to his LinkedIn profile. The firm has been racking up major contract awards from the Defense Department and working on key Army modernization initiatives, such as drones, IVAS and more.

Before joining Anduril, Obadal — a Virginia Military Institute graduate — served for more than 27 years in the Army, including as an attack helicopter officer and a unit and task force leader for Army Special Operations Command and Joint Special Operations Command, according to his bio on the Special Operations Warrior Foundation website.

If confirmed, Obadal would work under Daniel Driscoll, the new secretary of the Army, who’s looking to shake up the service’s acquisition enterprise.

“[W]e must reinvigorate our industrial base and revolutionize our procurement processes. We are not ready for large-scale conflict with a peer adversary. But we must be. Together, we will forge stronger partnerships with the defense industry to ensure you have the firepower to dominate our enemies. No contract, company, or bureaucratic obstacle will stand in the way of this goal. The status quo is unacceptable. When our nation calls, we will not send you into a fair fight — we will ensure you have overwhelming superiority,” Driscoll wrote in a message to the force after being sworn in last month.

Modernization initiatives currently in the works for the Army include artificial intelligence tools, next-generation network capabilities, robotic combat vehicles and optionally manned fighting vehicles, air defense systems, directed energy weapons, new aircraft and drones, information technology, hypersonic missiles and hypervelocity projectiles, and augmented reality goggles, among others.

DefenseScoop reached out to Anduril spokespeople seeking comment from Obadal and more information about his role at the company.

Obadal’s nomination was submitted to the Senate along with a slew of other nominations for senior positions in the Trump administration and at the Pentagon, including Hung Cao to be undersecretary of the Navy; Daniel Zimmerman to be assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs; Sean O’Keefe to be deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness; Michael Cadenazzi to be assistant secretary of defense for industrial base policy; and Richard Anderson to be assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs.

Written by Jon Harper

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

In This Story

defensescoop.com · by Jon Harper · March 11, 2025

4. Exclusive -- Hegseth Orders Review of Fitness, Grooming

Exclusive -- Hegseth Orders Review of Fitness, Grooming

Breitbart · by Kristina Wong · March 12, 2025

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday ordered a department-wide review of existing standards for each military branch on physical fitness, body composition, and grooming — including on beards, Breitbart News has exclusively learned.

“We must remain vigilant in maintaining the standards that enable the men and women of our military to protect the American people and our homeland as the world’s most lethal and effective fighting force,” Hegseth said in a March 12, 2025, memorandum ordering the review.

“Our adversaries are not growing weaker, and our tasks are not growing less challenging. This review will illuminate how the Department has maintained the level of standards required over the recent past and the trajectory of any change in those standards,” he added.

Pentagon Press Secretary John Ullyot added in a statement to Breitbart News:

Unfortunately, the U.S. military’s high standards on body composition and other metrics eroded in recent years, particularly during the tenure of former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley, who set a bad example from the top through his own personal corpulence. Secretary Hegseth is committed to restoring high standards, and this review is the first step in doing so.

Hegseth directed the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness (USD(P&R)) to gather the existing aforementioned standards set by each military branch, review them and how they have changed over the last decade, since January 1, 2015.

The review will also look at why those standards changed and the impact of those changes.

Read the memo:

Rapid Force-Wide Review of Military Standards by Kristina Wong on Scribd

Hegseth has made returning the military to its core mission of warfighting his top priority, which includes having forces ready and fit to fight.

Hegseth spoke about the importance of standards at his confirmation hearing in January, telling Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) that “ensuring that standards are equal and high is of importance to [the president] and great importance to me.”

“Because in those ground combat roles, what is true is that the weight of the ruck on your back does not change. The weight of the 155 round that you have to carry does not change. The weight of the 240-Bravo machine gun you might have to carry does not change,” he said.

“And so whether it is a man or a woman, they have to meet the same high standards. And Senator, in any place where those things have been eroded or in courses criteria have been changed in order to meet quotas — racial quotas or gender quotas — that is putting a focus on something other than readiness, standards, meritocracy, and lethality.”

He also expressed support for gender-neutral physical fitness standards according to the job, and not by any other determinant.

“The standards need to be the same, and they need to be high. And they need to be set by the people closest to the problem set, closest to the understanding of what is required by that job. Commanders, 10 commanding officers, and co-COMs and elsewhere who understand the reality of what face, that is the feedback we should get. That is what should be enshrined and enforced,” he said.

“And no other set of political prerogatives — when I talk about removing politics, ideological or political prerogatives — should contribute to those determinations. Nothing other than the execution of the mission.”

Since becoming defense secretary, Hegseth has highlighted the importance of physical fitness by carving time out during trips to conduct physical training with troops.

In Germany last month, he conducted PT with the 10th Special Forces Group. The photos from the session went viral.

Follow Breitbart News’s Kristina Wong on ”X”, Truth Social, or on Facebook.

Breitbart · by Kristina Wong · March 12, 2025

5. America Turns to Ukraine to Build Better Drones

America Turns to Ukraine to Build Better Drones

Silicon Valley is tapping into the know-how of war-trained drone makers; ‘no U.S. company is keeping up with Ukraine’

https://www.wsj.com/world/ukraine-drones-american-defense-tech-startups-25f1fe92?mod=world_more_article_pos1

By Heather Somerville

March 11, 2025 9:00 pm ET

An employee of Blue Arrow, an American and Ukrainian joint venture, tests a first-person-view drone. Photo: Blue Arrow

With America’s drone technology a disappointment on the battlefield, defense startups have joined forces with Ukrainian manufacturers to build better, war-proven aircraft for the U.S. military.

U.S. startups have spent billions of venture-capital dollars in hopes of developing the small drones that the Pentagon says it needs for future conflicts, but many have produced only expensive aircraft that don’t fly very well. Ukrainian drone makers, meanwhile, have mastered mass-producing drones despite limited resources and are looking for new customers and capital.

Now, the two sides are coming together, and the unlikely pairing is getting attention from the Defense Department.

Southern California startup CX2 last year struck a deal to put its software and sensors on Ukrainian drones, a matchup that has received approval from a branch of the U.S. military and might soon arm American forces.

“No U.S. company is keeping up with Ukraine,” said CX2 co-founder Nathan Mintz. “You know their stuff works. They’ve got the ultimate high-stakes laboratory meant to battle-proof all this stuff.”

The Defense Department’s interest in Ukrainian drones underscores the challenges that have beset American drone startups and the achievements of the Ukrainians since the Russian invasion. Despite the Pentagon’s view that small, autonomous drones are essential and a funding priority, the sentiment has failed to spur an American drone-industry boom.

The U.S. has the capacity to build up to 100,000 drones a year, according to one Defense Department estimate. Last year, Ukraine built more than two million drones. Some of the Ukraine-built drones that the Defense Department wants can fly hundreds of miles with explosives and have been used in attacks inside Russia.

Ukrainian drone manufacturers are starting to contemplate a future after the war, as the U.S. and Ukraine continue talks around a possible peace process. Any diplomatic plot twists are unlikely to unravel the bond that has developed between U.S. and Ukrainian drone startups, or reverse the Defense Department’s efforts to adopt superior innovation from Ukraine, said defense officials and startup founders.

U.S. Army soldiers inspecting CX2’s Wraith drone in Germany in January. The Southern California startup last year struck a deal to put its software and sensors on Ukrainian drones. Photo: CX2

‘Drone capital of the planet’

For Ukrainian startups, growth depends on expanding outside their country, where there are caps on how much profit they can make on sales and the government can’t afford to buy all the drones produced in the country.

To make the drone sector a catalyst for economic growth after the war, the startups want American customers and investors.

“Ukraine has made it pretty clear that they intend on being the drone capital of the planet once this war is over,” said Derek Whitley, co-founder of startup Vivum, which sells its AI software for autonomous systems to the Defense Department.

Ukrainian drones often sell for one-tenth the price of American options. They have proven on the battlefield that they can work when radio and satellite communication is blocked by electronic jamming.

American startups are slower to build, deliver and update their drones, which also have often failed to weather severe electronic warfare. Many U.S. companies that brought their drones to Ukraine watched them fall out of the sky or fail to complete missions.

The Defense Innovation Unit, or DIU, an arm of the Defense Department that sources new technology for the military, for the first time awarded contracts in recent weeks to two Ukrainian-American partnerships. The companies will test their long-range attack drones this spring in Ukraine, where the drones are manufactured, and then have an opportunity to compete for production contracts with the Pentagon.

“We want the best, and we see the capabilities we need in Ukraine,” said Trent Emeneker, a contractor with the DIU who helps manage its autonomous-systems portfolio.

The DIU has—also for the first time—chosen a Ukrainian drone maker to add to its list of approved potential suppliers for the U.S. military.

The company, Skyfall, has completed more than 1.5 million missions for Ukraine and builds thousands of drones a day. Skyfall’s bomber drones—loaded with software and a sensor package from CX2—will likely be offered to the U.S. military this year if they pass certain security tests.

CX2 was started last year by Mintz and three co-founders, including former Andreessen Horowitz investor Porter Smith, as an answer to the electronic-warfare challenges that defeated other drone companies. Its software and sensor design help drones fly autonomously in jammed war zones and find and attack other drones and targets.

CX2 co-founder Porter Smith, far left, with a test team in Germany in January. Photo: CX2

Pittsburgh-based startup Swan is providing the autonomy software for one of the Ukrainian attack-drone companies selected for a DIU award and has staff in Ukraine who work with more local drone partners.

Another Pittsburgh startup, KEF Robotics, formed a joint venture with Ukrainian company Sensorama Lab to build software and sensor systems in Kyiv that will enable drones to navigate in jammed airspace and locate targets while remaining relatively undetected. The joint venture, called Blue Arrow, has orders from European militaries and is raising funding from U.S. venture capitalists. It will test its drones with an elite Ukrainian unit on the front lines within the next two weeks.

“Nobody stateside is keeping up with the level of production that’s happening in Ukraine,” said Olga Pogoda, a co-founder of Blue Arrow.

Headwinds

There are hurdles to bringing Ukraine’s drones to the world, not least among them the country’s restrictions on drone exports. Ukrainian drone makers have organized to lobby Kyiv to end the ban on selling their drones outside the country and are joining their new U.S. partners to find workarounds.

Skyfall is seeking special permission from the Ukrainian government to sell its bomber drones to the U.S.

“The parts that we cannot sell to Ukraine because they don’t have the money, we can sell to the Americans or Europeans or Baltic countries,” said Elena Dushenok, head of growth at Skyfall.

In October, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told journalists that the government was considering the possibility of exporting weapons to countries that had supplied Ukraine with arms for the war. But Kyiv’s mounting distrust of Washington could complicate the effort to bring Ukrainian drones to the U.S.

A spokeswoman for the Ukrainian Ministry of Strategic Industries declined to comment.

Another potential pitfall for Ukrainian manufacturers is that they often rely on parts from China. To sell to the Defense Department, they will have to find suppliers elsewhere.

Drone manufacturers are undaunted by the politics.

Sine.Engineering, which sells radios and navigation software to drone manufacturers and the Ukrainian military, is in the process of opening a new European unit outside Ukraine. From that base, it aims to expand its production and sales, including to defense manufacturers in the U.S. that supply the Pentagon.

“This year, one of the main priorities for us is expansion outside of Ukraine,” Chief Executive Andriy Chulyk said. The added income will fund more drone-technology development for the fight against Russia. “This is a really big war we have here right now,” he said.

A drone equipped with technology from Blue Arrow, a joint venture between Pittsburgh startup KEF Robotics and Ukrainian company Sensorama Lab. Photo: Blue Arrow

Write to Heather Somerville at heather.somerville@wsj.com

If you want to provide news tips or documents on any subject to reporters at The Wall Street Journal, you can do so using the instructions below.

How to Submit

Appeared in the March 12, 2025, print edition as 'America Turns to Kyiv To Build Better Drones'.

6. How Europe’s Military Stacks Up Against Russia Without U.S. Support

NATO battle plans? How do you say "lariat advance" (IYKYK) in German, or French, or any other European language?

Excerpts:

Aside from NATO, Europe has no continentwide military command. The U.S. spent decades ensuring that by co-opting or squelching any effort by allied European governments to create rival military groupings. Europeans have repeatedly talked about establishing a multinational fighting force but made little headway.

Now Europeans are pondering what collective defense might look like without the U.S. A starting point could be NATO’s own battle plans, which are adaptable to varying force levels, alliance officials say.

The elaborate, flexible and detailed plans are classified. Still, NATO’s fundamental approach today, as during the Cold War, is to employ forces available in Europe to hold off Russian attackers until reinforcements arrive from the U.S.

Europe could still use NATO blueprints as a basis for its own defensive plans, even if they have gaps. Developing capabilities that could alleviate shortfalls if Washington declined to join a conflict is an undertaking that would balloon Europe’s bill for military modernization.

“You have to use the best tools available,” said Spatafora at the EU institute. “NATO’s plans are a good model because components of national armies are being put together for that.”

How Europe’s Military Stacks Up Against Russia Without U.S. Support

Tensions in the trans-Atlantic alliance prompt the once-unthinkable question of whether the continent’s armies could fight Moscow’s forces

https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/europe-military-compared-russia-without-us-1ccd751b?mod=latest_headlines

By Daniel Michaels

Updated March 13, 2025 12:10 am ET

Soldiers took part in exercises for NATO’s new quick-reaction force in Smardan, Romania, last month. Photo: Andrei Pungovschi/Bloomberg News

Last month roughly 10,000 NATO troops carried out drills just miles from Ukraine’s border to test a new quick-reaction force created after Russia’s large-scale invasion of its neighbor. The show of military muscle was unusual for who was absent: the U.S.

Now people in and around the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are wondering whether Europeans could handle more than just an exercise on their own. America’s commitment to NATO security guarantees is suddenly in doubt, even after the U.S. reinstated military support for Ukraine this week after Kyiv accepted a cease-fire and Moscow signaled it is in no hurry to end hostilities. American diplomatic outreach to Russia and the Trump administration’s frostiness toward Europe raise worries.

That is leading some to ask a once-unthinkable question: If trans-Atlantic ties deteriorate further, could Europe be forced to defend itself against Russia without U.S. support? American military brass and officials who have served across the Atlantic say Europe would pack a strong punch in such a scenario.

Europe lacks important air-defense and intelligence capabilities, but its militaries together constitute a massive air force, giant navy and formidable army. Those land forces, which shriveled after the Cold War, are now gradually rebuilding and adding advanced equipment.

A fight would be deadly and hugely destructive—as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shown—and raise the risk of nuclear war. But in conventional combat, say strategists, Russia would struggle against Europe.

Active military personnel

1.97M

Europe

Russia

1.34M

EQUIPMENT BY TYPE

Armored fighting vehicles

Self-propelled

artillery

Combat

planes

32,700

10,700

2,100

1,100

2,200

1,400

Note: Data has been rounded. Russia manpower can vary due to the Ukraine war.

Sources: International Institute for Strategic Studies Military Balance 2025; “Building Defence Capacity in Europe: An Assessment”, IISS, 2024

NATO members have said that Russia in a few years could be strong enough to launch a more traditional attack on Europe, especially if a Ukraine peace agreement allows Moscow to rebuild its armed forces. Whether a reconstituted Russian military could take European ground is the question.

“What we’ve seen of Mr. Putin’s army is, they are certainly not 10 feet tall. They have struggled mightily in fighting Ukraine,” said retired U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove, a former NATO supreme allied commander.

He said that 11 years after Moscow’s initial attack on Ukraine, when it seized the Crimean Peninsula, and three years after its full-scale invasion, “their army has been decimated” by a lesser Ukrainian force.

Breedlove and others are positive on Europe’s prospects in a fight with Russia in part because of the potential circumstances: a Russian attack on Europe. Europe has no thoughts of attacking Russia. Defending territory is easier than taking it, as ragtag Ukrainian forces showed three years ago when they stopped Russia’s attempt to grab Kyiv.

“I think that the European armies are well-suited to any problem that would happen with Russia,” said Breedlove.

One caveat raised in recent days, following President Trump’s blockage of aid to Ukraine, is the U.S. actively impeding European NATO action. “That’s no longer completely unimaginable,” said Giuseppe Spatafora, a former NATO planner and now a research analyst at the European Union’s Institute for Security Studies.

NATO countries are racing to learn from Ukraine and develop their own drones and antidrone systems. Photo: Andrei Pungovschi/Bloomberg News

Europe’s military shortcomings are well documented. Its forces rely on the U.S. for vital intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, transport aircraft and command-and-control. Perhaps most critical in a fight with Russia is Europe’s lack of air defenses. Russia has demolished Ukrainian towns and cities with missiles and rockets.

Still, Europe’s militaries together have significant defensive capabilities, which they are building through incessant training. The scale of exercises has increased and their focus has shifted to collective defense. U.S. absence from the reaction-force drill in February was largely due to troop rotations and European initiative to lead the effort, say NATO officials.

NATO’s 32 members last spring staged their largest exercise since the Cold War, including roughly 90,000 troops, more than 80 aircraft and 1,100 combat vehicles—a big chunk of which came from the U.S. This year, NATO plans nearly 100 separate exercises, said NATO’s supreme allied commander Europe, U.S. Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli, in January. Most are in or near Europe.

“This is an intensive schedule, it’s ambitious, but it’s absolutely necessary so that we can make sure our forces are trained and ready to defend our citizens,” Cavoli said.

The exercises let combat troops get used to fighting alongside allies and help commanders learn how to lead mixed-nationality forces. They also force noncommissioned officers, who lead troops in battle, to practice making decisions under stress and in fast-changing circumstances.

The Epic Dynastic Feud Behind the Arrest of the Former Philippine President

Power struggle between the Philippines’s Marcos and Duterte families roils the key American ally as Rodrigo Duterte stands accused of crimes against humanity

https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/philippines-duterte-marcos-family-feud-584410d3?mod=latest_headlines

Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte and President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. in Manila, after he took the oath of office in 2022. Photo: Ezra Acayan/Getty Images

By Gabriele Steinhauser

Follow in Singapore, Bella Perez-Rubio in Manila and Matthew Dalton

Follow in Paris

Updated March 13, 2025 12:10 am ET

She had ordered a hit man, the vice president said, to kill the president in the event she herself turned up dead.

For months, tensions had built between Sara Duterte, the daughter of Rodrigo Duterte, the divisive former president of the Philippines, and President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., himself the scion and namesake of the country’s longtime dictator. Considered a natural successor to her father, Sara Duterte was watching her political fortunes slip amid allegations of large-scale corruption and attacks on her family’s friendly ties with China.

So in a midmorning news conference in November, Sara Duterte clapped back. She said she had asked a hit man to assassinate Marcos Jr., along with his wife and the speaker of the country’s House of Representatives.

“I said, do not stop until you kill them,” Sara Duterte said. The hit man, she added, “said yes.”

The profanity-laden briefing was an astonishing episode in the high-stakes political feud now roiling one of America’s prime allies in the Pacific. Pitched against each other are the Philippines’s two most powerful dynasties—the Dutertes and the Marcoses—who have steered the fortunes of the island nation for much of the past six decades. Their feud entered a decisive new chapter this week with the arrest of former President Duterte on charges of crimes against humanity.

Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court allege that he is responsible for the extrajudicial killings of thousands of Filipinos during the country’s “war on drugs.” The bloody counternarcotics campaign began in the late 1980s, when Duterte became mayor of the family stronghold of Davao in the southern Philippines, and spread nationwide during his presidency from 2016 to 2022.

Chinese Volt Typhoon Hackers Infiltrated US Electric Grid for Nearly a Year

hackread.com · by Waqas · March 12, 2025

Cybersecurity firm Dragos has revealed a prolonged cyber attack by the Chinese threat actor Volt Typhoon into the United States electric grid, specifically targeting the Littleton Electric Light and Water Departments (LELWD) in Massachusetts. This breach lasted over 300 days from February to November 2023.

The incident came to light just before Thanksgiving in 2023 when the FBI alerted LELWD to a potential compromise. Following investigations, with assistance from Dragos, revealed that the Volt Typhoon had infiltrated the utility’s systems as early as February 2023.

According to Dragos’s report, during this extensive period, the threat actors collected sensitive operational technology (OT) data, including information on energy grid operations, which could facilitate future disruptive attacks on critical infrastructure.

Volt Typhoon’s Modus Operandi

Volt Typhoon, also known as VOLTZITE, is a Chinese state-sponsored advanced persistent threat group active since at least mid-2021. The group focuses on cyber espionage, primarily targeting US critical infrastructure sectors such as telecommunications and energy. They employ sophisticated techniques to maintain persistent, long-term access to networks while evading detection.

Tim Mackey, Head of Software Supply Chain Risk Strategy at Black Duck, emphasizes the challenges posed by the long lifespan of devices in critical infrastructure. He notes that devices designed and tested to best practices available at their release can become vulnerable to more sophisticated attacks later in their lifecycle. Attackers, aware of the emphasis on uptime and service availability in critical infrastructure, may exploit these vulnerabilities to plan targeted attacks rather than opportunistic ones.

Implications and Recommendations

The LELWD incident shows the increasing cyber threats to essential services and why the energy sector needs proper cybersecurity measures. Organizations responsible for critical infrastructure must prioritize regular assessments and updates of their cybersecurity protocols to address evolving threats.

Additionally, implementing strong monitoring systems, conducting security audits, and collaborating with cybersecurity experts are essential to securing your infrastructure from threat actors like the Volt Typhoon.

I am a UK-based cybersecurity journalist with a passion for covering the latest happenings in cybersecurity and tech world. I am also into gaming, reading and investigative journalism.

View Posts

Trump, pushing for new military leader, submits nomination of Dan ‘Razin’ Caine to the Senate

Trump will have to issue a waiver because Caine doesn’t meet the standard criteria to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

https://defensescoop.com/2025/03/12/trump-dan-razin-caine-senate-nomination-sasc/?utm

Jon Harper

March 12, 2025Listen to this article

3:56

Learn more.

U.S. President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol on March 04, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump moved the ball forward this week in his effort to get retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine installed as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with a four-star rank.

The White House on Monday officially submitted Caine’s nomination to the Senate and it was referred to the Senate Armed Services Committee for consideration, according to a notice posted on Congress.gov. A confirmation hearing has not yet been announced.

If confirmed, Caine would become Trump’s top military adviser amid international conflicts and a major modernization push by the Defense Department to acquire new AI capabilities and other high-tech systems, as well as buy software and other tools more rapidly.

Last month, Trump fired Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown from his job as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and announced his intention to nominate Caine.

The president has praised Caine for his efforts to combat the ISIS terrorist group during his first administration.

“He’s a real general, not a television general,” Trump said during remarks at an investment summit in Miami last month before he announced his plan to bring Caine out of retirement and remove Brown. “We have the greatest military in the world, but we don’t have the greatest top, top leadership.”

Trump also fired Adm. Lisa Franchetti as chief of naval operations on the same day that Brown was fired.

Caine, a Virginia Military Institute graduate and former F-16 fighter pilot, held a variety of roles during his military career. His last assignment was associate director for military affairs at the CIA, which ended in December 2024, according to his Air Force bio.

“General Caine embodies the warfighter ethos and is exactly the leader we need to meet the moment. I look forward to working with him,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said in a statement after Trump announced his selection.

After his recent retirement from the military, Caine became chairman of the national security advisory board at Voyager Space, a venture partner at Shield Capital, an advisor for Thrive Capital and a venture partner at Ribbit Capital, according to his LinkedIn bio.

According to his Air Force bio, he was a part-time member of the National Guard from 2009 to 2016 and “a serial entrepreneur and investor.”

Trump’s selection of Caine — who was retired from the service and didn’t hold a four-star rank — for the U.S. military’s top post was an unconventional pick and came as a surprise to many. Trump will have to issue a waiver because Caine doesn’t meet the standard criteria to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

So far, the Republican-led Senate has generally approved Trump’s high-level nominees during his second term.

After Brown was fired and Trump announced that he wanted Caine to replace him, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., was asked during a Feb. 23 appearance on ABC News’ “This Week” if he had confidence in Caine.

“I do not know [Lt.] Gen. Caine. He will be subject, as the case, to careful review by the committee. There are obviously a great many questions that we’re going to raise with him, but I think we have to give him the opportunity to make his case and also to make clear that he is going to be willing to speak truth to power, willing to give his best military advice to the president, not just tell the president what he wants to hear — and also to be open and share with the Congress the facts on the ground, not be a political spokesperson for the president. So those are part of the issues that we’ll address as we go forward,” Reed said.

Written by Jon Harper

11. US agencies face Thursday deadline to submit mass layoff plans

The great reset of the federal bureaucracy is moving full steam ahead.

In the crystal ball I see a future of AI oversight - fraud, waste, and abuse will be detected and stopped by algorithms with no need for human oversight.

US agencies face Thursday deadline to submit mass layoff plans

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-agencies-face-thursday-deadline-submit-mass-layoff-plans-2025-03-13/?utm

By Nathan Layne

March 13, 20256:08 AM EDTUpdated 43 min ago

Item 1 of 2 A sign marks the headquarters of the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 20, 2025.

[1/2]A sign marks the headquarters of the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 20, 2025. Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

Summary

U.S. agencies must submit plans for mass layoffs by ThursdayPlans must include 'significant reduction' of full-time staff, as well as cuts to real estate and budgetDOGE has already eliminated more than 100,000 positionsTrump and Musk say government is bloated and wasteful

March 13 (Reuters) - The potential scale of President Donald Trump's efforts to shrink the U.S. federal government could become clearer on Thursday, the deadline for government agencies to submit plans for a second wave of mass layoffs and to slash their budgets.

Agencies ranging from the Treasury Department to the Justice Department are required to submit their cost-cutting proposals to the White House and the Office of Personnel Management, the government's human resources department, kicking off a process that could eliminate tens of thousands of federal jobs.

Get weekly news and analysis on U.S. politics and how it matters to the world with the Reuters Politics U.S. newsletter. Sign up here.This new round of layoffs marks the latest step in Trump's sweeping effort to remake the federal bureaucracy - a task he has largely put in the hands of tech billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency.

So far, DOGE has overseen cuts of more than 100,000 jobs across the 2.3 million-member federal civilian workforce, the freezing of foreign aid, and the canceling of thousands of programs and contracts. Dozens of lawsuits have been filed by labor unions and others challenging the legality of those moves, with mixed success.

The prospect for more job losses comes with financial markets already rattled about the economic risks posed by Trump's global trade war. Over the weekend, Trump declined to predict whether his tariff policies might cause a recession.

Americans are broadly supportive of the idea of cutting the size of the federal government, with 59% of respondents to a Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Wednesday saying they supported that goal.

But they expressed concern about the way Trump was going about doing so, with a similar 59% of respondents saying the opposed the moves to fire tens of thousands of federal workers.

Trump appears to be rushing to enact deep, pain-inducing reforms to use his political capital before whatever is left of the post-election honeymoon period comes to an end, said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University.

"The Trump administration knows that it has a limited time horizon," Jones said. "The risk is they cut too much, or they don't cut strategically, and it has negative blowbacks in terms of the ability of the federal government to function."

With Musk at his side, Trump signed an executive order on February 11 directing all agencies to "promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force," using a legal term commonly referred to as RIF to denote mass layoffs.

An OPM memo said plans should include "a significant reduction" of full-time staff, cuts to real estate, a smaller budget, and the elimination of functions not mandated by law.

A handful of agencies have telegraphed how many employees they plan to cut in the second phase of layoffs. These include the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is aiming to cut more than 80,000 workers, and the U.S. Department of Education, which said on Tuesday it would lay off nearly half its 4,000-strong staff.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. government agency that provides weather forecasts, is planning to layoff more than 1,000 workers.

Several agencies have also offered employees lump-sum payments to voluntarily retire early, a move that could help the agencies avoid the legal complications inherent in the RIF process, which unions have vowed to fight in court.

Trump and Musk have argued that the government is bloated and prone to wasting taxpayers' money. DOGE says it has saved $105 billion by eliminating waste, but it has publicly documented just a fraction of those savings, and its accounting has been plagued by errors and revisions.

Reporting by Nathan Layne in New York, editing by Ross Colvin and Alistair Bell

12. The Army wants to get the load soldiers carry down to 55 pounds

Travel light, freeze at night.

55 ibs of lightweight sh*t is still 55 lbs (but still better than 100lbs).

We have been trying to get this right since before SLA Marshall was a Colonel and wrote "The Soldier's Load and the Mobility of a Nation." read it HERE

But I do seriously hope our Army can reduce our soldiers' load.

Will the "squad as a system" make the difference?

The Army wants to get the load soldiers carry down to 55 pounds

Army leaders say that the service’s new “squad as a system” approach to kitting our soldiers with less gadgets could cut down on the total gear infantrymen have to carry.

Patty Nieberg

taskandpurpose.com · by Patty Nieberg

The Army wants to reduce the amount of equipment that close combat soldiers, like the infantry, have to carry. The obvious perks are that a lighter soldier can move (and fight) faster, is less likely to injure themselves carrying everything and the kitchen sink, and has less gear to worry about getting in trouble for losing.

“No longer will we hang things on them like we hang things on a Christmas tree,” Brig. Gen. Phil Kiniery, commandant of the Army’s Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia, told Task & Purpose in a statement. “In some cases, we’re giving our forces redundant capabilities at the squad level, the platoon level, and the company level. Is that necessary, effective, and efficient? In some cases, the answer will be yes, and in some cases no.”

The average infantry soldier carries or wears more than 80 items. The Army wants to reduce that weight to 55 pounds, or “no more than 30%” of their body weight, Kiniery told contractors at an event earlier this month.

The cuts would impact the Army’s close combat forces, which include infantry, scouts, combat medics, forward observers, combat engineers, and special operations forces.

The excess equipment amassed over two decades of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, combined with the changing nature of warfare, has led Army leaders to rethink what their formations need to have on hand. Soldiers across the Army have seen their kit bags swell with excess batteries and cables over the years, Kiniery said. But on a future battlefield, the Army wants to have technology that uses modern software and less hardware.

“We’d like to see batteries and cables designed within the architecture to serve various parts of the system, and we want to reduce signatures across all spectrums. Ultimately, we want everything the squad employs to be compatible and synergistic,” he said.

Get Task & Purpose in Your Inbox

Sign up for Task & Purpose Today to get the latest in military news each morning, and The Pentagon Rundown for a weekly breakdown of the biggest stories every Friday.

By signing up you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

Other programs asking troops to lighten their load have seen success. At the unit level, an Army Materiel Command initiative called Rapid Removal of Excess Equipment or R2E led to soldiers at Fort Stewart, Georgia and Fort Bragg, North Carolina turning in 37,000 pieces of gear in January 2024. Army officials said the gear cuts could save 309,000 man-hours across 15 units each year in inventory checks, maintenance, and repairs.

The re-think of soldier gear also matches the Army’s need for soldiers to move faster and farther to avoid enemy drones and sensing technology on the modern battlefield. At an August training event, the 101st Airborne Division’s 2nd Brigade dropped large brigade radios and instead gave soldiers small Android devices that could connect to cell towers or satellite networks.

The vision for light and leaner formations will also change what soldiers wear on their backs with “new and novel lightweight materials” coming from the private sector, Kiniery said.

The new gear focus even has its own new buzzwords: “Squad as a system,” a concept Kiniery introduced at an industry event in Alexandria, Virginia. Past ways of equipping soldiers lacked “integration,” according to Kiniery, but with “squad as a system,” the service wants to look at the equipment that infantry soldiers carry in a more systematic way, rather than designing individual items for a specific purpose.

“Squad as a System,” aims to address a problem that impacts soldiers directly: too much equipment to track and too much weight to carry. Kiniery argued that excess and redundant equipment causes “cognitive overload” for soldiers.

“I believe the application of Squad as a System is going to change all that,” said Kiniery. “Any time you continue to add weight to soldiers, you’re going to begin to impact their ability to think on their feet.”

The latest on Task & Purpose

Soldiers in Alaska landed their Black Hawk on a train in a special ops exercise
Air Force general says service’s newest plane could be used over the US-Mexico border
Fort Moore renamed Benning, this time for a corporal who fought heroically in WWI
In 15 months, the Navy fired more air defense missiles than it did in the last 30 years
The Army’s top enlisted leader goes dark on social media

Patty Nieberg

Senior Staff Writer

Patty is a senior staff writer for Task & Purpose. She’s reported on the military for five years, embedding with the National Guard during a hurricane and covering Guantanamo Bay legal proceedings for an alleged al Qaeda commander.

taskandpurpose.com · by Patty Nieberg

13. Military Paradigm Swinging Away from Wokeism Toward Meritocracy

Ms. Donnelly is no longer a lone voice in the wilderness. Her decades of work is now vindicated.

But like any other swings of the pendulum, will it swing too far?

Military Paradigm Swinging Away from Wokeism Toward Meritocracy

By Elaine Donnelly

March 13, 2025

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/03/13/military_paradigm_swinging_away_from_wokeism_toward_meritocracy_1097215.html?mc_cid=233d256a2d

We are witnessing in our military a major paradigm shift toward common sense and away from wokeism – defined as progressivism taken to extremes and imposed with coercion, even if it hurts the institution.

Commander-in-Chief Donald Trump has issued a series of Executive Orders addressing three over-arching goals: Meritocracy and non-discrimination instead of “equity” for favored groups, common sense definitions of “sex” and respect for sex differences, and elimination of divisive critical race theory (CRT) programs.

This won’t be easy because the weeds of wokeism are deeply rooted in the Defense Department, and they did not spring up overnight. Pentagon ideologues have been cultivating them for years.

In 2011, the Military Leadership Diversity Commission issued a 162-page report titled From Representation to Inclusion: Diversity Leadership for the 21 ^st Century. MLDC recommendations shifted the military’s cultural priorities away from meritocracy and non-discrimination toward “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) as paramount goals.

Previously, the armed forces assigned priority to individual merit, performance, and the needs of the military. The MLDC altered that paradigm by rejecting “color-blind” policies and admitting that “fair treatment” was “not about treating everyone the same.”

Accordingly, Defense Department officials replaced equal opportunity with outcome-based preferences favoring some demographic groups over others. Before long, the DoD’s favorite meme, “Diversity is a strategic imperative,” justified the full range of progressive social changes that are now called “wokism in the military.”

Meritocracy “Yes,” Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) “No”

Under President Joe Biden, diversity-crats ruled the Pentagon. On January 20, however, President Trump signed an Executive Order Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing.

As CMR reported here, Trump’s EO called for termination of all discriminatory programs, including the Biden Administration’s vast DEI bureaucracy, chief diversity officer (CDO) positions, universal Equity Action Plans, and illegal diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) programs . . . “under whatever name they appear.”

Another EO, Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity (Jan. 21), affirmed the policy of the United States to “protect the civil rights of all Americans and to promote individual initiative, excellence, and hard work.”

This order cited the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and the University of N. Carolina, (2023). It also revoked President Lyndon Johnson ’s 1965 Executive Order that inadvertently created today’s system of racial categorization, which the Supreme Court described as “imprecise. . . overbroad . . . arbitrary . . . undefined . . . incoherent, [and based on] irrational stereotypes.”

Reinforcing Trump’s EO Restoring America’s Fighting Force (Jan. 27) Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s January 29 Memorandum stated: “The DoD will strive to provide merit-based, color-blind, equal opportunities to Service members but will not guarantee or strive for equal outcomes.”

Gender Identity and Common Sense

A key Executive Order titled Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government (Jan. 20) restored sound policy with an honest endorsement of science: “’Sex’ shall refer to an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female. Sex is not a synonym for and does not include the concept of ‘gender identity.’”

The truth-telling EO continued: “Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being. “[Therefore,] it is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”

Referring to “legal and other socially coercive means to permit men to self-identify as women and gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for women, from women’s domestic abuse shelters to women’s workplace showers,” Trump affirmed, “This is wrong.”

Under Biden-era transgender policies, military women were forced to accept in their private living areas men who changed their “gender marker” in the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS). Secretary Hegseth’s February 7 Memorandum and “Additional Guidance” (Feb. 26) changed that: “All military records will reflect the Service member's sex” and “Access to intimate spaces will be determined by Service members' or applicants for military service's sex.”

Gender Dysphoria and Eligibility to Serve

The EO titled Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness (Jan. 27) directed the Secretary of Defense to restore gender dysphoria to the list of psychological conditions that make a person ineligible for military service due to “excessive time lost from duty for necessary treatment or hospitalization.” (DoDI 6130.03).

Under the January 27 order, defense dollars will no longer provide expensive subsidies for lifelong hormones or surgeries that attempt to change sex, and the DoD will end mandatory use of “invented pronouns . . . that inaccurately reflect an individual’s sex.”

Another order, Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation (Jan. 28), confronted “the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions. This dangerous trend will be a stain on our Nation’s history, and it must end.”

Consistent with these common sense orders, the January 31 News Release Identity Months Dead at DoD (Jan. 31) prohibited “Pride” events, including sexualized drag performances before military children and paid time off and travel to participate in such events.

Affirming Sound Priorities, Not Critical Race Theory (CRT)

President Trump’s order titled Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling (Jan. 29) eliminated funding for CRT indoctrination in K-12 schools, meaning teachings that “Members of one race, color, sex, or national origin are morally or inherently superior . . . [or] An individual, by virtue of the individual’s race, color, sex, or national origin, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.”

The order also prohibited military school CRT programs teaching that the United States “is fundamentally racist, sexist, or otherwise discriminatory.”

What Should Happen Next

The Trump Administration’s bold executive actions will not be permanent unless Congress codifies them in law. In doing so, Congress should affirm four main principles: Merit as the exclusive basis for personnel actions, a prohibition of non-merit factors such as racial or gender preferences, clear definitions for all key terms, and narrow exceptions to permit mission-specific operational requirements.

Three more principles should guide congressional action to eliminate wokeism in the military: Defund DEI and CRT in all DoD agencies, deter “re-branding” by defining divisive DEI practices, and repeal previous legislation authorizing DEI personal and operations.

A statute incorporating these elements would be a durable way to support our military by affirming meritocracy, ending discrimination, and restoring common sense programs that strengthen military readiness and morale.

Elaine Donnelly is President of the Center for Military Readiness, an independent public policy organization founded in 1993, which reports on and analyzes military/social issues. More information is available at www.cmrlink.org.

14. Green Berets Looking For FPV Drones To Help Them Clear Hostile Cave Complexes

The Vietnam tunnel rats are asking where was this capability when we needed it?

But this will be a game changer if we ever return to Afghanistan (But also will be extremely useful in Gaza and Lebanon and ultimately in the 5000 underground facilities in north Korea, though getting them through blast doors will be a challenge.)

Green Berets Looking For FPV Drones To Help Them Clear Hostile Cave Complexes

SOCOM says these drones would be safer and more effective in some ways than relying soley on military working dogs.

Howard Altman

Posted 24 Hours Ago

twz.com · by Howard Altman

The command overseeing U.S. special operations forces in the Middle East wants to buy an unspecified number of first-person view (FPV) drones and associated training to help Green Berets clear caves. U.S. Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT) is seeking these weapons to augment the use of military working dogs (MWDs) because it considers drones safer and more effective. The concern is of increasing relevance as Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran have all utilized caves, tunnels and other underground facilities as attack vectors, weapons and personnel hiding facilities and command and control nodes.

“Currently, the absence of dedicated unmanned aerial systems (UAS) for cave clearing operations forces reliance on Military Working Dogs (MWD) or partner forces, significantly increasing risk to both personnel and mission success,” U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) wrote in a request for a single-source FPV drone contract for SOCCENT posted on the SAM.gov U.S. purchasing portal. “Caves present confined, complex spaces with limited visibility and unpredictable terrain, increasing the danger to personnel and potentially hindering MWD effectiveness.”

SOCOM is looking for FPV drones for cave warfare because it considers them safer and more effective than Military Working Dogs. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

In its justification for the single-source procurement, SOCOM notes that the fast and highly maneuverable FPV drones would provide real-time visual intelligence from inside caves, reducing the risk of having troops inside them when much of the mission can be accomplished by a drone. In addition, FPV drones with communications relays “enhance coordination between teams inside and outside the cave, facilitating smoother operations and faster response times.”

Operating drones underground, in confined spaces with no line-of-sight, is a challenge the U.S. military has been working to overcome for years. While the request doesn’t specify what kind of FPV drones are required, SOCOM could very well be looking for a number of options, including those guided by a fiber optic cable, given the difficulties of operating in these areas. Both Ukraine and Russia have been increasingly using hard-wired fiber optics for control links because the connection cannot be jammed by electronic warfare equipment but also because the link isn’t degraded when flying low over the ground or amongst obstacles and terrain since there is no line-of-sight connectivity requirements. This allows them to maneuver with full picture and control fidelity inside of buildings and tunnels. You can see examples of this from Ukraine below and in this past story:

Russian fiber-optic FPV drone strikes Ukrainian soldiers resting inside a building.

The drones can easily enter through doors and windows. pic.twitter.com/gJUGuSpwK9

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) September 6, 2024

Fiber optic drones are future in the drone warfare. Cable attach for signal and the anti-drone equipment doesn’t work on them. Only the good all shotgun works on everything, even on optic drones. pic.twitter.com/HU0Yc0huLY

— Tuth (@TUTHorchestra) January 14, 2025

Seems like Fibers have effectively replaced Lancets pic.twitter.com/EssmR6ATRt

— WarVehicleTracker ☧ (@WarVehicle) March 10, 2025

There are also small drones that have FPV capability that are tailored to urban environments and can use publicly available cellular data and other wireless networks to provide a connection to its operator. The introduction to AI will also allow even small drones to be able to navigate at least partially on their own, which could help significantly for operating in tunnels and other areas where the connection can be spotty at best. Drones with spherical cages around them and other unique alterations also allow them to fly more freely in tight spaces without clipping their propellers. SWAT and other police units have pioneered the use of drones in such circumstances.

In addition to seeking the hardware, SOCOM also wants SOF operators to be trained how to use them, considering how much work it takes to fly them effectively. You can read about how the Ukrainians, leaders in FPV drone innovations, have trained on them in our story here.

SOCOM redacted the cost of the request but said the “investment will significantly improve the safety and efficiency of cave clearing operations, ultimately contributing to mission success and force protection.” The funding will come from the command’s Fiscal Year 2025 Operations and Maintenance (O&M) account. We’ve reached out to the command for more details and will update this story with any pertinent information provided.

Part of SOCOM’s justification for seeking a single-source contract for FPV drones. (SOCOM)

The command’s pitch has redacted the specific location where the drones would be used and the exact unit that would operate them. However, it does state that they would be operated by ODAs – Operational Detachment Alphas, or A-Teams, the basic building block of the U.S. Army’s Green Berets. The request also notes that the redacted unit “has limited UAS capabilities and is reliant upon external agencies to provide specialized assets. The equipment enables ODAs to gain a visual on the risks present on an obscured objective, prior to engagement. Without this capability, ODAs accept undue risk to the force by entering an objective without detect and defeat capabilities.”

U.S. special operations forces are increasingly being trained to operate underground. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Rose Gudex) Staff Sgt. Rose Gudex

Green Berets have already been training with FPV drones largely based on lessons learned in Ukraine. Last year, the Army announced it had hired private contractor Flymotion to provide drone and non-standard vehicle training services to a Green Beret A Team from the 2nd Battalion of the 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne), or 10th SFG(A), out of Fort Carson, Colorado. Since Flymotion received a sole-source deal, Army officials had to provide detailed justifications for not using typical competition contracting processes. That is the type of process SOCOM is seeking for the FPV drones. You can read more about Green Beret FPV drone training in our in-depth story here.

A US Army Green Beret operates a FPV drone during an exercise in Greece in 2024. (SOCEUR) SOCEUR

Though SOCOM has redacted the area where these drones will operate, given that the request is being made on behalf of SOCCENT, it most likely involves operations in the U.S. Central Command Area of Operations (AOR). That covers 21 nations in the Middle East and Central Asia, including Afghanistan, Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, and Yemen.

During the so-called war on terror, U.S. and allied troops frequently found themselves battling the Taliban, ISIS and other jihadi groups in caves. Weaponized FPV drones, which were not in use back then, would be beneficial in any future U.S. SOF underground operation in that region.

Soldiers from the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne Division search a cave Jan. 30, 2003 in the Adi Ghar mountains, Afghanistan. (Photo by Leopold Medina Jr/U.S. ArmyGetty Images) U.S. Army

The ability to fight underground is such a concern for SOCOM that in 2020 it requested more than $14 million to build a nearly 20,000-square-foot subterranean training site for Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) units like the U.S. Army’s Delta Force and the U.S. Navy’s Naval Special Warfare Development Group, better known as SEAL Team Six.

US special operations forces during training. (DoD) www.twz.com

Israel has gained extensive experience in cave and tunnel fighting against Hamas and Hezbollah. Beyond Gaza and Lebanon, Israel also carried out a raid against an Iranian underground missile facility. That raid served as a warning to Iran that its underground facilities were not invincible. You can read more about that mission here.

IDF special operations training for hostage rescue in dense urban environments. (IDF)

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have used FPV drones in Gaza mostly to “survey buildings and underground tunnels, given that this is the most precise method of navigating such spaces,” the Institute for National and Strategic Studies (INSS) noted last year in a report on FPV drone usage.

At the time, however, it was “unknown whether there has been any additional IDF procurement of drones, whether they have been deployed more widely and whether troops have been specially trained in their use for intelligence gathering or attacks, even though the IDF makes widespread use of other kinds of drones,” INSS posited.

However, the Israeli Ministry of Defense Department of Production and Procurement wants to procure thousands of FPV drones from Israeli companies for a wide range of offensive purposes, according to the Israeli Globes media outlet.

The initial solicitation called for 5,000 FPV drones, but that could expand to 20,000, the publication noted. So far, about 25 Israeli drone suppliers that work with the Ministry of Defense have registered for the tender.

As for SOCOM, the command says only one company is capable of providing the FPV drones and training required.

“After conducting market research and a comprehensive and thorough review of available options,” SOCOM said that it has selected the vendor, but that company’s name is redacted in the SAMs request, which does not state a specific timeline for fulfillment.

Though SOCOM is concerned about the risk of continued reliance on MWDs, it must be noted that no drone has the keen senses of sight and smell like that of a highly trained dog. These animals have frequently accompanied SOF teams on missions, including the 2019 raid that killed then-ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi in his Syrian compound. Al-Baghdadi died after running into a dead-end tunnel with three children, chased by an MWD later identified as Conan. The ISIS leader detonated a suicide vest, killing himself and the three children, collapsing the tunnel and injuring Conan.

We have declassified a picture of the wonderful dog (name not declassified) that did such a GREAT JOB in capturing and killing the Leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi! pic.twitter.com/PDMx9nZWvw

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 28, 2019

The U.S. military in general is pushing drones to smaller units, an effort ramped up by lessons from Ukraine, Gaza and elsewhere.

U.S. Army soldiers training to use the Anduril Ghost drone. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Scyrrus Corregidor)

However, American forces are still lagging behind in many ways when it comes to the ubiquity of FPV drones on the battlefield, regardless of the domain.

That SOCOM wants to purchase them, as well as the training it will take to make operators proficient, is another way U.S. special operations forces are working to close that gap.

TWZ Editor-in-Chief Tyler Rogoway contributed to this story.

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com

15. There's a New War Game for 'Nerds with a Drive for Violence.' It's Spreading Across the Marine Corps.

When I saw "nerds" along with wargaming I immediately thought of this clip of Lt Ring telling Gunny Highway about the paper on tactics he is preparing for the war club next week in the film Heartbreak Ridge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW6JakixJWU

But seriously, I am pleased to see the work of Sebastian Bae highlighted. He has been one of the most innovative wargamers in recent years.

Excerpts:

War-gaming for the Marine Corps has been happening in various forms for over a century, according to retired Marine Maj. Ian Brown, who, along with Sebastian Bae, a former Marine sergeant, current war-game designer and professor, penned a history of Marine Corps war-gaming over the last 100-plus years in an article for Marine Corps University in 2021.

In that history, the service experimented with different war games, like the "Tactical Game" used at the Naval War College, they wrote, but "too often, the Corps' institutional embrace slackened or vanished entirely, leaving the promise unfulfilled."

There's a New War Game for 'Nerds with a Drive for Violence.' It's Spreading Across the Marine Corps.

military.com · by Drew F. Lawrence · March 12, 2025

Capt. Nicholas Royer describes himself and many of his fellow Marines as "nerds with a drive for violence." It's an apt description for disciples of a booming craft in the Corps: war-gaming.

In 2023, about six months into his tenure as II Marine Expeditionary Force's modeling and simulation officer -- or as he puts it, the unit's "pet little mad scientist," Royer was responsible for coordinating training and war-gaming needs for units across Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, at its Battle Simulation Center, the Marine Corps' first purpose-built facility of its kind.

Amid the fancy simulation systems and high demand for laptops, Royer saw that there was not only a frequent "technical burden" to offering Marines a chance to test out battle scenarios, but an accessibility gap. War-gaming was a staple at higher echelons, and other available simulations -- which can be loaned out to or scheduled by troops on a limited basis -- catered to small-unit tactics for motivated junior noncommissioned officers or officers amid their busy schedules.

Royer said "we had a bit of a gap in something that we could do in between those two extremes" and identified a need for a war game that units could easily check out from the center that would still fulfill the immersive quality of the technical simulators, but without the barrier to entry or logistical support.

Using his personal experience playing and designing board games, Royer began 3D printing miniature prototypes of Marine figurines and equipment in his own home for a concept called "Down Range," a now high-demand, turn-based game that has been embraced by II MEF and can be played by any group of Marines in any clime, from the smoke pits to the Arctic Circle.

"If there's one thing I've come to believe about Marines from my time at the sim center is there are a lot of Marines who are, to put it bluntly, nerds," Royer said in an interview with Military.com on Tuesday. "They're still Marines, and Marines have a drive for violence."

The marriage of those two "passions" resulted in "Down Range," and it works like this: Marine units can check out "kits" with dice, rules sheets and 3D-printed pieces that resemble different formations, from Marines' own units to enemy equipment.

At face value, the sets might resemble "terrain model kits" that have been used by tactical leaders for years to demonstrate battle plans, but the nuance of "Down Range" comes with the addition of a competitive, easily replicable, interactive game at a low cost, which runs about $4 to $5 per kit, Royer said.

Royer said that the game has driven healthy competition among Marines, adding that "when you're playing it, you want to beat your buddy. You've got two lance corporals going at it over the sand table, and guy A really wants to beat guy B, and the rules push him into a set of practices that reflect Marine Corps doctrine and reflect effective ways to use some of these new technologies like electronic warfare and drones."

High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS; Soviet-era BMP-1s; and even tiny Marine replicas holding shoulder-fired rocket launchers dot a two-dimensional board, which could be a piece of paper with terrain features drawn onto it with marker or a handmade "sand table" out in the field.

Pieces for the war game ‘Down Range’ are displayed at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, March 6, 2025. (Cpl. Marc Imprevert/U.S. Marine Corps photo)

Each token can be easily 3D printed at the simulation center to match any type of Marine unit and is assigned a difficulty number during play. When a Marine rolls the dice, the resulting number determines how effective his or her move is against the simulated enemy.

"We're taking the rules down to toddler level, so the training audience can have adult-level discussions about what are the tactics, the techniques and the procedures of prosecuting violence on the enemy," Royer said. And because the miniatures are made to model real equipment, Marines are beginning to easily identify enemy vehicles and equipment "in a way that translates to real life," he added.

'If I Can Be Shot'

Royer explained that some of the features of "Down Range" were inspired by commercial games, but it was also important to him that unique Marine Corps characteristics were part of the game's DNA and that it was free from the often cumbersome spreadsheets or databases associated with popular civilian games like "Dungeons & Dragons."

Turns can be used to set up accurate fields of fire, detect or deploy drones, employ mortar systems or contend with enemy electronic warfare targeting, among pretty much any other scenario a Marine can think of.

"When playing this, we start having Marines who may have been in the Marine Corps for less than six months start talking among each other and coming to the conclusion -- without being told from the top down -- if I transmit, I can be detected," Royer said. "If I can be detected, I can be shot, and if I can be shot, I can definitely be killed."

Each move has a consequence, and it is with the accessibility of the pieces, hands-on features and immersion that those consequences become clear to the user.

"When you're playing the game, the consequences of whatever you try to do or whatever you would like to do are very apparent," said Cpl. Elijah Woodard, a heavy equipment mechanic with II MEF who has played the game. "You can tell very easily the flaws that come in your own planning, and it allows you to be a better planner and just overall tactical decision-maker in the future."

The game fits into the Marine Corps' official decision-making process, specifically between planning and execution of a mission. War-gaming is the third step of a six-step system that is used by Marines at all levels -- and when it comes time to brief a plan, common understanding is one of the most important and difficult elements to achieve before execution.

"I know there's been plenty of times where I've had terrain models or other things built to me, and it's a little hard to kind of focus without having real, very viable visual aids to use to kind of give me a better picture of what's going on," Woodard said. "So, I think with this, the way it's being played, is very versatile."

Gunnery Sgt. Joshua Long, the staff NCO in charge of II MEF's simulation center, said that they sent a kit to the School of Infantry at Camp Lejeune for young leaders to use during the orders process, and it helped junior Marines in understanding those plans.

"They could walk out their plan with their team leaders and say, 'Hey, does everybody understand this individual aspect of X, Y or Z?" Long said of the game's use at the school. "There's a common understanding between the squad leader, the team leaders, all the way down to the individual riflemen. And it builds not only a sense of confidence in that squad leader, but it's a great team-building exercise as well for the squad where the team leaders get involved."

The Art and History of War(-Gaming)

War-gaming is a critical feature for any military and has been for centuries.

It allows troops to fight against simulated enemy combatants without the stresses of actual combat or logistical burdens of training exercises. And in the last five-plus years, the Marine Corps has invested significant effort into its war-gaming repertoire: tournaments; state-of-the art, multimillion-dollar centers dedicated to the craft; and a "War-Gaming Cloud" at the Marine Corps University that provides a digital library of countless war games and resources, for example.

War-gaming for the Marine Corps has been happening in various forms for over a century, according to retired Marine Maj. Ian Brown, who, along with Sebastian Bae, a former Marine sergeant, current war-game designer and professor, penned a history of Marine Corps war-gaming over the last 100-plus years in an article for Marine Corps University in 2021.

In that history, the service experimented with different war games, like the "Tactical Game" used at the Naval War College, they wrote, but "too often, the Corps' institutional embrace slackened or vanished entirely, leaving the promise unfulfilled."

It wasn't until 2019, Brown said in an interview Wednesday with Military.com, that the Marine Corps experienced a true "watershed" moment when it came to war-gaming. The then-commandant, Gen. David Berger, emphasized the craft in his planning guidance to the entire force and, according to Brown, the direction marked a "definite before-and-after environment" for the Corps' war-gaming.

"After that point is where all the effort to build the cloud environment for the games, to hire a war-gaming director, to look at how those games could formally integrate with all of the preexisting curricula to become an enhancement to each of those courses in the way that was appropriate for the operational level they were looking at. That did not exist before," Brown said.

That watershed came at a fortuitous time in the digital age. During the 1990s -- part of what Brown and Bae characterized as a 20-year "golden age" starting in the '70s for military war-gaming -- the craft existed in "different little islands of excellence," Brown said, but did not have the technological connectivity to make it viable for the broader institution like it does today.

And as the internet became commonplace for Americans in the early 2000s, "immediate operational concerns in Afghanistan and Iraq absorbed institutional bandwidth" throughout the mid-2010s, and the Marine Corps "had no time for games," they wrote.

In the last five years, however, commercial games like "Dungeons & Dragons" have boomed in popularity, and the rapid proliferation of 3D printing has made it easier for home-brew game designers to make their own games. Designers can quickly share prototypes digitally with one another and turn to cheap filament to materialize them in their own homes via 3D printers.

So while the Marine Corps built and emphasized formal war-gaming practices, an informal, contemporary grassroots culture began to emerge in which Marines, according to Brown, felt that they could take the guidance they had received from higher up and experiment on their own initiative in this new, accessible environment.

"There's institutional, formal and informal threads, but also things outside the institution that have converged in a very convenient time right about now, where Marines are printing their own game pieces on their own 3D printers, and now it's having an impact on the formal training that they're doing," Brown said.

And that has trickled down to all ranks, so that when junior leaders on the battlefield are faced with difficult decisions, they've already strengthened that "mental muscle" through war-gaming, he added.

'All over the World'

According to the II MEF Marines Military.com spoke to on Tuesday, it seemed to help that the Marine Corps -- or at least their unit -- was tapping into their personal interests in a way that made experimentation with new ideas possible, or at least acceptable.

Royer, the "mad scientist" of II MEF, is a communication strategy officer by trade, but a self-described game nerd. Long, the staff NCO in charge of the Battle Simulation Center, is a career infantryman, with experience in training young leaders how to violently close with and destroy the enemy.

"When I showed up to II MEF, I sat down and had a good conversation with the II MEF [operations] chief before placing me where I needed to go," Long said. "And he said, 'OK, so you're an infantryman by trade. You've taught at SOI from everything from privates to squad leaders. You understand operations, because you were a current operations chief out in Okinawa, and you're a self-proclaimed nerd. Boy, do I have the spot for you.'"

The group's war games have been used to simulate disaster relief stateside, and law enforcement and other government agencies have "bought into" their concept. Other services, the Center for Naval Analysis, and international allies have been involved in the refinement of their war-gaming process, they said.

As of Tuesday, Royer's biggest problem was demand for "Down Range." He said he's sent it to Quantico, Virginia, and the Basic School, where new officers are trained; Long said that Marines are playing it on the decks of ships while deployed with Marine expeditionary units.

"At this point, 'Down Range' is kind of all over the world," Long said.

military.com · by Drew F. Lawrence · March 12, 2025

16. China’s expanding footprint in geostationary orbit raises security concerns

China’s expanding footprint in geostationary orbit raises security concerns

China’s expanding fleet in GEO tests satellite proximity maneuvers, refueling and surveillance tactics.

by Andrew Jones

spacenews.com · March 12, 2025

Join our newsletter to get the latest military space news every Tuesday by veteran defense journalist Sandra Erwin.

HELSINKI — China is expanding its presence and capabilities in the strategically vital geostationary belt, raising security concerns due to unpredictable satellite movements, according to experts.

Participants in a panel on “A renewed space race” at Chatham House Space Security 2025 conference in London, March 5, identified Chinese spacecraft and behaviors in geostationary orbit that are unpredictable, hard to track, and of concern.

The geostationary orbit belt, or GEO, at 35,786 kilometers above the equator, sees spacecraft orbit at a speed that matches the rotation of the Earth, meaning they stay fixed in position in the sky as seen from the ground. The belt has strategic and commercial importance for communications, intelligence, and military operations.

China has been adding to its fleet of satellites in GEO in recent years with communications and remote sensing satellites, as well as classified spacecraft, described as experimental communications satellites, but with capabilities thought to include proximity maneuvers and satellite inspection, missile early warning, space situational awareness and electronic signals intelligence. Altering their orbit by tens of kilometers above or below the belt allows spacecraft to drift either west or east respectively, changing their position in GEO.

“There are a number of what the Chinese refer to as these experimental communication satellites that are out in GEO, and yet these GEO satellites, they’re sliding, or they’re moving very frequently across the GEO belt, which is a behavior that is very uncharacteristic of a satellite that’s intended to provide satellite communications,” Chief Master Sergeant Ron Lerch, deputy chief of Space Operations for Intelligence with the U.S. Space Force, said.

The latest in a series of such experimental satellites, TJS-15, launched March 9 from Xichang.

A number of Chinese spacecraft have been sweeping GEO and conducting targeted proximity maneuvers in order to approach and inspect satellites from other countries, potentially imaging them and even intercepting communications signals.

“China, at this point, is able to conduct very targeted proximity maneuvers, potentially even doing physical damage or listening to communications, etc. But they can now also do it, not quite unseen, but they’re very good at hiding what they’re doing until after the fact,” said Juliana Suess of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP).

While space domain awareness means hiding in GEO is not truly possible, as Suess clarified, China has demonstrated a capability to obscure its actions by using precise timing, shadowing techniques, and rapid maneuvers that can delay or confuse ground-based optical and radar detection. This all makes China potentially unpredictable going forward.

While China’s activities raise concerns, it is not alone in deploying maneuvering satellites in GEO. The U.S. and Russia also have classified satellites operating in and sweeping across the belt, as well as executing highly targeted proximity operations. Incidents of “cat and mouse” interactions have grown in recent years, with each party attempting to out-maneuver each other and get a glimpse of the other’s hardware and test counterspace and space situational awareness capabilities.

China has also recently added to its activities with a new satellite apparently set to test on-orbit servicing in GEO.

“Just this past January, the Chinese put on orbit what’s known as the Shijian-25, and this is the first time that they’ve publicly disclosed a capability on orbit to do refueling and servicing,” said Lerch.

Shijian-25 is an apparent followup to Shijian-21, an earlier satellite in a series dedicated to testing technologies and on-orbit operations. That satellite docked with a defunct Beidou navigation satellite and towed it to a graveyard orbit above the geostationary belt. Shijian-25 is stated to be for “satellite fuel replenishment and life extension service technology verification.”

Analysis from Integrity ISR in January showed that Shijian-25 is co-planar with Shijian-21, meaning the latter appears an ideal target for a refueling test. China has provided no details regarding the target or timeline for the mission.

The activities in GEO are part of China’s broader expansion of on-orbit infrastructure and capabilities. China has approximately 1,000 satellites in orbit as of now, marking a dramatic increase from around 40 satellites in 2010, according to Lerch.

“We [U.S. Space Force] see great risk right now because of the unprecedented growth, as well as the unmanaged competition,” Lerch said, regarding the wider space domain.

spacenews.com · March 12, 2025

17. Four-Legged Green Berets: The Canine Operators of Army Special Forces

I recall when this program first started the conventional wisdom outside of SOF twas that dogs could only focus on one function such as attack, racking, or detection. These great soldiers pioneered the concept of multipurpose canines.

Although I am not a dog owner so I do not have the appreciation for dogs that others do, I have to say that the Belgian Malinois is a very impressive animal.

With all the focus on high tech it is great to see how we can effectively employ our four legged friends. But in many ways this seemingly "low tech" is actually very high tech.

Excerpts:

The goal is to identify Belgian Malinois with the physical resilience and mental clarity to thrive in the chaos of special operations — a rigorous standard aligned with the defense secretary's vision.

Four-Legged Green Berets: The Canine Operators of Army Special Forces

defense.gov · by Army Maj. Wes Shinego

From selection to retirement, elite multipurpose canines are the silent Green Berets who don't always bask in the spotlight but are equally deserving of it.

K9 Competition

An Army SOF canine handler competes in a K9 competition during National Police Week at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., May 18, 2022.

Download: Full Size (1.57 MB)

Credit: Air Force Airman 1st Class Ty Pilgrim

VIRIN: 220519-F-QE874-1012K

These four-legged warriors of the Army Special Forces undergo rigorous vetting, endure the same hardships as their human teammates and retire with the dignity of professionals. Their careers mirror those of the special operators they serve alongside, forging bonds that often transcend their time in the military.

In the shadows of America's most exclusive fighting force, these dogs prove that courage, loyalty and sacrifice aren't exclusive to the men and women who wear the uniform — a testament to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's warfighting focuses on meritocracy, standards and lethality.

For one Special Forces dog handler — an 18D medic whose identity remains classified, like that of his canine partner — the connection with his dog is as much a brotherhood as any forged among the soldiers of his team.

"He's … soldier himself," the handler said. "He gets a seat in the vehicle, a seat in the helicopter and he's as much a member of the team as anyone else."

He's also a gifted tracker whose natural talent elevates him above his peers and has earned him an exclusive position within the Army's special operations community, his handler said.

Selection

The journey begins with a selection process not unlike the grueling assessments faced by human candidates aspiring to join the Special Forces community. Before a canine sets a paw in the Army Special Forces kennels, the dog undergoes a battery of evaluations that include X-rays, physical exams and behavioral screenings.

"They get screened just like we do," the handler said.

The goal is to identify Belgian Malinois with the physical resilience and mental clarity to thrive in the chaos of special operations — a rigorous standard aligned with the defense secretary's vision.

Training Exercise

A soldier accompanies his dog during a training exercise at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., March 12, 2025.

Download: Full Size (266.24 KB)

Credit: Army Maj. Patrick Connelly

VIRIN: 250312-D-D0234-1002K

Not every dog makes the cut. Some assessments reveal health issues — hidden until the strain of leaping from helicopters or sprinting toward enemy combatants takes its toll. Others lack the temperament to balance aggression with control. Army Special Forces seek a rare breed that's levelheaded yet fierce, capable of biting a combatant on command while remaining calm under pressure.

"We're going against hundreds of years of breeding that taught dogs not to bite humans," the handler said. "But we need them to do it professionally — until I say, 'no more.'"

Much like a soldier overcoming the instinct to avoid violence, these dogs are trained to channel their prey drive into precision. The result is a canine operator that can lock onto a target with unwavering focus, holding steady until the mission demands otherwise.

Service

Once selected, canines integrate into Army Special Forces as full-fledged team members. They ride alongside their handlers in planes, helicopters and wheeled vehicles, their presence accounted for in every plan.

Working Dog Team

A U.S. military working dog team moves through an obstacle course during a K9 skills competition at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., May 16, 2024. Approximately 20 teams from the Air Force, Army and local law enforcement participated in the competition.

Download: Full Size (1.45 MB)

Credit: Samuel King Jr., Air Force

VIRIN: 240516-F-OC707-5004K

"You don't plan for the dog to be on the floor," the handler said. "He gets a seat."

This isn't just a courtesy — it's a recognition of the dog's role. They are assets, trained in explosive detection, tracking and apprehension, often deployed on direct-action raids where split-second decisions mean life or death.

The parallels to their human counterparts deepen in combat. Just as Green Berets face the unnatural stress of gunfire and explosions, their dogs endure the same.

"It's not natural for a dog to be around that," the handler admits.

Obstacle Course

An Army SOF canine handler guides his military working dog through an obstacle course during a K9 skills competition at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., May 16, 2024. Approximately 20 teams from Air Force, Army and local law enforcement participated in the competition.

Download: Full Size (1.73 MB)

Credit: Samuel King Jr., Air Force

VIRIN: 240516-F-OC707-5008K

The demanding nature of their service can leave a lasting impact on these courageous dogs. Some, after enduring multiple deployments, return profoundly altered, unable to carry on. Others, scarred by the intense pressures of even a single tour, find themselves needing a different kind of life away from the frontlines. Their struggles serve as a poignant reminder of their sensitivity and the invisible wounds they carry.

Still, many dogs soldier on, their intelligence and work ethic shining through.

The dogs have high IQs and learn to associate stressors — like the roar of a helicopter — with the job, thriving in the pack mentality of the team, the handler said.

High Jump

A soldier guides his military working dog through an obstacle course at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., March 12, 2025.

Download: Full Size (481.28 KB)

Credit: Army Maj. Patrick Connelly

VIRIN: 250312-D-D0234-1001K

"Everyone smells the same, dresses the same, gives off the same endorphins," he said. "The dog knows we're going to work, and they love it."

The physical toll of life on a Special Forces team is equally humanlike. The dogs break teeth, rip toenails and jam necks chasing down threats with blatant disregard for their well-being. Preventative surgeries are standard procedure. When injuries occur veterinary services mirror the actions of medics who patch up their two-legged teammates.

Retirement

When a canine's service ends, the parallels between their human counterpart persists. Retirement isn't a haphazard affair — it's a deliberate transition, reflecting the canine's contributions to the team.

Dogs too rattled for further Special Forces missions often move on to serve in conventional units — like Air Force security forces — where they patrol bases in less strenuous environments. Others find new purpose with law enforcement, their explosive-detection skills still sharp. For those too damaged by service — physically or mentally — retirement means a quieter life, often with their handlers.

For this particular handler's own dog, retirement looms. After years of surgeries and kennel rest at the handler's home — where he's a family member — the transition promises to be seamless.

"My kids know him, my wife knows him, my other dogs know him," he said. "He'll have no trouble becoming a couch dog."

Working Dog Handler

Air Force Master Sgt. Brandon Ouderkirk, a military working dog handler assigned to Moody Air Force Base, Ga., competes in a K9 competition during National Police Week at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., May 18, 2022.

Download: Full Size (1.65 MB)

Credit: Air Force Airman 1st Class Ty Pilgrim

VIRIN: 220519-F-QE874-1051K

The deepest parallel lies in the relationships these dogs forge. For the Army Special Forces handler, his canine is more than a system — he's a partner and friend. Bringing the dog home during recovery periods has blurred the lines between duty and family.

"Since I started working with dogs, I've become accustomed to that lifestyle," he said. "My canine inspired me to continue service through some of my toughest years in uniform. He's as responsible for my success as anyone else on my team."

defense.gov · by Army Maj. Wes Shinego

18. UPDATE: Controversial Intelligence Pick Dropped

Wow. Personnel is policy.

Excerpts:

A career military officer who earned two Bronze Stars (in Operation Desert Storm and in Afghanistan), Davis briefly came to public attention in 2012 when he issued a blistering critique of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, filing classified and unclassified reports with the Defense Department inspector general’s office asserting that senior military officers, including Gen. David Petraeus, had been misleading the public about U.S. progress in the conflict. The New York Times praised him for what it described as “an unusual one man campaign of military truth telling.”

“How many more men must die in support of a mission that is not succeeding?“ Davis wrote in an article for The Armed Services Journal entitled “Truth, Lies and Afghanistan: How Military Leaders Have Let Us Down.”

In more recent years, Davis signed on as a senior fellow at Defense Priorities, a Washington think tank founded by Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul and funded by energy magnate Charles Koch and his late brother David Koch. On its website, the group defines its mission as informing policymakers how American military power must be “used more judiciously to protect America’s narrowly defined interests.”

But Davis has gained more attention for his podcast where he frequently has featured guests with fringe views about national security policies often tinged with conspiracy theories. Among recent guests: George Galloway, a stridently anti-American British socialist who had praised Saddam Hussein and, channeling Vladimir Putin, once told the Guardian that “the disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life.” Another Davis guest: Larry Johnson, a former CIA and State Department analyst who once spread bogus claims about Michelle Obama using racial slurs against white people and that British signals intelligence had wiretapped Donald Trump in 2016 on behalf of then-President Barack Obama. Another frequent guest has been political scientist John Mearsheimer, who has decried the power of “the Israel lobby” over U.S. foreign policy.

UPDATE: Controversial Intelligence Pick Dropped

Retired Army Lt. Col. Daniel Davis had been slated as a top deputy to Tulsi Gabbard at ODNI

https://www.spytalk.co/p/conspiracy-theorist-in-line-to-be?r=7i07&utm

Michael Isikoff

Mar 12, 2025

Lt. Col. Daniel Davis (US Army-retired) was widely praised for his courageous whistle-blowing during the Afghanistan War, but his views alarmed some intelligence officials and pro-Israel groups. (Fox News screen grab)

The Trump administration has reportedly pulled Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s pick of a retired Army officer to be one of her top deputies after an outcry from Congress and Jewish groups over the officer’s harsh criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, particularly over support for Israel, but also Ukraine.

On Wednesday morning the Anti-Defamation League condemned the selection of retired Army Lt. Col. on X, calling him “extremely dangerous” and “unfit for this key security role.” Late Wednesday, after the Jewish Insider magazine and later SpyTalk published stories about Gabbard’s choice to be deputy Director of National Intelligence for Mission Integration, New York Times intelligence reporter Julian Barnes posted on X : “Senior Administration confirms that Davis is pulled and won’t take senior intel post.” Gabbard’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

The abrupt rise and fall of Davis from one of the most influential intelligence positions in the government shows that political blowbacks can still matter even in Donald Trump’s Washington. Davis had won decorations for his performances in Operation Desert Storm and the Afghanistan War and earned praise as a courageous whistleblower for disputing bloated claims of progress by the U.S. command in Kabul. But his blunt criticisms of mainstream U.S. foreign policy as a podcaster and rightwing media guest drew attention when word spread that Gabbard wanted him to be one of her senior deputies.

Two intelligence community sources late last week told SpyTalk they were stunned to learn that Davis, a senior fellow with Defense Priorities, the Koch-funded think tank that advocates a diminished U.S. presence overseas, was Gabbard’s pick to serve in a position that would put him in charge of intelligence briefings for President Trump.

Subscribed

In recent social media posts and podcast appearances, for example, Davis has dismissed Iran as a threat to U.S. interests, condemned Israel’s “genocidal” assaults on Gaza and indulged in an outlandish conspiracy theory about the Ukrainian government supposedly funnelling U.S. weapons to Mexican drug cartels.

“It seems like a pretty bizarre pick,” the official said about the prospect of Davis’s selection to the deputy DNI post. “It certainly speaks to a deep distrust of the professional staff” of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The official noted that the job Davis is slated for is “is one of the most powerful positions in the intelligence community,” given that it s responsible for, among other duties, preparing the President’s Daily Brief, or PDB, that is provided to the Oval Office each morning, thereby determining what intelligence Trump sees (or does not see) and potentially shaping responses to international crises. Indeed, some intelligence officials believe that Davis, by virtue of the position, could end up becoming the personal intelligence briefer to Trump.

Resistance

But Davis faced strong blowback from Republican national security hawks in Congress, one source cautioned. The brewing internal debate over his appointment mirrored larger tensions within the Trump administration between traditional national security hardliners and the America First neo-isolationists, a camp with which Davis is associated.

Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was among those who have raised objections to Davis, especially over his criticism of Israel, one of the sources said. But when Senate intelligence committee staffers expressed the chairman’s concerns to the ODNI, they were told that Gabbard wanted him and when Gabbard makes a decision, “she sticks by it,” said the source. The source, a former senior U.S. intelligence official, noted that Davis would be vetted for a security clearance that could delay any announcement of his selection (a point that became moot later Wednesday). Still, the former official said of the prospect of Davis serving as deputy DNI: “This is horrifying.” (Cotton’s office did not respond to requests for comment.)

While it is not clear how Davis came to the attention of Gabbard and other senior Trump administration officials, a review of his podcast—called “Daniel Davis Deep Dive”—and social media postings show he has has expressed views and cultivated relationships that sit well with some of the president’s top advisers, including Vice President JD Vance, who are skeptical of greater U.S. engagement overseas, particularly Ukraine..

In a recent appearance on podcaster Tucker Carlson’s show, Davis derided U.S. support for Ukraine in its war with Russia as pointless, saying the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy was “drunk with power.”

Subscribed

When Carlson volunteered that he knew for a “fact” that Ukraine was selling U.S. military equipment to Mexican drug cartels and the CIA was profiting from the transactions — a conspiracy theory for which top U.S. defense officials say there is no evidence — Davis jumped in and agreed with his host “100 percent,” adding: “This has been an open secret for almost the duration of this.”

In another provocative post on X, Davis attacked Israel for its “genocidal” actions and criticized Republican Sen. Ted Cruz for his “unAmerican” claims that anti-Semitism was behind college protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, suggesting the Texas senator was only saying so to protect the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu. Cruz had said in a video to which Davis was responding that colleges that failed to crackdown on disruptive anti-Israel demonstrations should have their federal funding cut off—an action since taken by the Trump administration.

“Where is ur moral outrage at the Israeli gov that continues to kill kids and other civilians without remorse or military necessity?” Davis wrote in remarks that tagged Cruz. “Where is even a tiny bit of concern for the Palestinian ‘Christians’ who are also killed in Gaza and the West Bank?”

(On Wednesday morning, the Anti-Defamation League condemned Davis’s selection on X, calling him “extremely dangerous” and “unfit for this key security role.”)

While voicing repeated hostility to Israel, Davis also has shown sympathy for the Jewish state’s main adversary, Iran, describing the country as a “marginal regional power” that is not a threat to the United States. “Let’s quit lying to ourselves: the West does not want peace w Iran, we want to destroy it,” he wrote on X last October. “So these claims we want to prevent a nuke Iran are lies. We want war.”

A career military officer who earned two Bronze Stars (in Operation Desert Storm and in Afghanistan), Davis briefly came to public attention in 2012 when he issued a blistering critique of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, filing classified and unclassified reports with the Defense Department inspector general’s office asserting that senior military officers, including Gen. David Petraeus, had been misleading the public about U.S. progress in the conflict. The New York Times praised him for what it described as “an unusual one man campaign of military truth telling.”

“How many more men must die in support of a mission that is not succeeding?“ Davis wrote in an article for The Armed Services Journal entitled “Truth, Lies and Afghanistan: How Military Leaders Have Let Us Down.”

In more recent years, Davis signed on as a senior fellow at Defense Priorities, a Washington think tank founded by Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul and funded by energy magnate Charles Koch and his late brother David Koch. On its website, the group defines its mission as informing policymakers how American military power must be “used more judiciously to protect America’s narrowly defined interests.”

But Davis has gained more attention for his podcast where he frequently has featured guests with fringe views about national security policies often tinged with conspiracy theories. Among recent guests: George Galloway, a stridently anti-American British socialist who had praised Saddam Hussein and, channeling Vladimir Putin, once told the Guardian that “the disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life.” Another Davis guest: Larry Johnson, a former CIA and State Department analyst who once spread bogus claims about Michelle Obama using racial slurs against white people and that British signals intelligence had wiretapped Donald Trump in 2016 on behalf of then-President Barack Obama. Another frequent guest has been political scientist John Mearsheimer, who has decried the power of “the Israel lobby” over U.S. foreign policy.

19. The U.S. Just Handed Ukraine a Clear Advantage

A security guarantee without a security guarantee? Protection of a concrete business interest will ensure security?

I wonder how those American miners and engineers will feel about being part of the frontline of defense of US interests?

Excerpt:

Trump has said that the minerals treaty—which he and Zelensky were about to sign until the Oval Office blowup and which they now seem set to try signing again in a do-over—would be a more-than-ample substitute for a security guarantee. The Russian army, he argues, wouldn’t dare threaten Ukrainian soil once American miners and engineers are present, exploring and excavating its minerals (whose revenues the U.S. would then share). There may be something to this, but it’s doubtful that Western companies would send their workers to Ukraine without U.S. security guarantees—especially since half of Ukraine’s mineral wealth is buried on land that Russian troops currently occupy.

The U.S. Just Handed Ukraine a Clear Advantage

Slate · by Fred Kaplan · March 12, 2025

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, right, and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, center, at talks between the U.S. and Ukraine hosted by the Saudis on March 11 in Jeddah. Salah Malkawi/Getty Images

Access is important. Slate is offering six months of Slate Plus to current and recently laid-off federal government employees. If you or someone you know has been affected, click here to get six months of Slate Plus free.

Maybe President Trump isn’t clamoring to push Ukraine under the bus after all.

Tuesday’s meeting in Jeddah, between his top officials and their Ukrainian counterparts, ended with the Americans handing Kyiv a clear advantage—militarily and diplomatically—and putting Moscow in a tight, awkward spot.

According to a joint statement released after several hours of talks, the two countries agreed to a 30-day ceasefire in the Russia–Ukraine war, hopefully to be extended for a longer span, segueing into negotiations toward a permanent peace. The ceasefire deal—which also contains details about a long-term settlement that have not been publicly disclosed—will soon be presented to the Russian government for its acceptance or rejection. Meanwhile, whatever the Russians decide, Ukraine will enjoy an immediate resumption of U.S. military and intelligence assistance, which Trump had suspended after his disastrous Oval Office meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky on Feb. 28.

Trump’s suspension of weapons deliveries—and especially his halting of intelligence on Russia’s movements—had started to damage Ukrainian troops’ strength and morale at a time when both sides are facing shortfalls and exhaustion. Even before the Oval Office meeting, when U.S. and Russian officials met to discuss an end to the war without inviting any Ukrainians to the talk, it seemed as if Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin were about to impose a peace on Kyiv—and that Trump had capitulated to Russia’s position.

Zelensky had pushed for the meeting in Jeddah to repair the damage done by the Oval Office disaster and, more broadly, to restore good relations with Washington, which are necessary not only for Ukraine’s war effort but also for his country’s stability—and possibly survival—after the fighting is over.

Whatever happens next, from Zelensky’s standpoint, the Jeddah meeting was an unqualified success.

Russian President Vladimir Putin must be displeased—and more than a bit surprised. He has opposed a ceasefire unless it is preceded by a settlement of the war’s “root causes.” By his definition of those causes, he has insisted on the removal of Zelensky’s regime (which he sees as illegitimate), the “demilitarization” and “neutralization” of Ukraine (meaning its disarmament and a pledge never to join NATO), and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from much of Eastern Europe (which is to say, the reversal of the West’s Cold War victory).

In recent weeks, Trump has expressed sympathy for Putin’s views, saying that Ukraine started the war and remains the main obstacle to peace.

At the very least, the results of the Jeddah meeting put that proposition to a test. “The ball is in Russia’s court,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said coming out of the meeting. If Putin rejects the ceasefire offer, he added, “then we’ll unfortunately know what the impediment is to peace.”

If Putin says nyet, even Trump might get the picture. He might even turn against Putin—whom he has openly admired for many years—for dissing his high-profile plan to end the war. He told reporters on Wednesday that Russia would face “devastating” penalties, mainly financial in nature, if it rejected the deal. He didn’t elaborate, nor is it clear what these penalties might be, given that the U.S. has already piled sanctions on Russia and that trade between the two nations is too scanty for tariffs to matter. Nonetheless, Putin’s foreign policy rests largely on staying cozy with Trump and thereby splitting the U.S.–European alliance; he may take the vehemence of Trump’s remarks as a warning that this partnership might be in danger.

Of course, Putin could accept the ceasefire, then refuse to abide by it. We have all seen, most recently in the Middle East, how difficult it is to sustain even a 30-day ceasefire, especially when one or both sides would rather keep fighting. It is unclear, at least from the U.S.–Ukrainian joint statement, how the ceasefire—whether for 30 days or an extended span—would be monitored and enforced. Some European countries, notably Britain and France, have offered to deploy peacekeeper troops on Ukrainian soil. Putin has rejected that idea out of hand. If actual peace talks get underway, he may have to change his position—or risk being seen, by the rest of the world and even by Trump, as the bad guy.

Even if a ceasefire happens, that wouldn’t necessarily mean the outbreak of peace. Nobody believes that a final deal would give back all the territory that Ukraine has lost to Russia since the annexation of Crimea in 2014 or even since the wider invasion of 2022. Zelensky doesn’t concede the point, but has said that he can’t stop fighting without some form of security guarantees, if not formally from NATO, then in some manner from select Western countries, including the U.S.—in order to deter or prevent Russia from reinvading months or years down the road.

Trump has said that the minerals treaty—which he and Zelensky were about to sign until the Oval Office blowup and which they now seem set to try signing again in a do-over—would be a more-than-ample substitute for a security guarantee. The Russian army, he argues, wouldn’t dare threaten Ukrainian soil once American miners and engineers are present, exploring and excavating its minerals (whose revenues the U.S. would then share). There may be something to this, but it’s doubtful that Western companies would send their workers to Ukraine without U.S. security guarantees—especially since half of Ukraine’s mineral wealth is buried on land that Russian troops currently occupy.

But those are issues for the future. In the meantime, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz—who represented the U.S. in Jeddah, along with Rubio and Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff—will be carrying the ceasefire proposal, including details not yet publicized, to Moscow.

Trump also said he will personally talk with Putin soon. During that phone call, Putin will probably repeat his rambling lecture that distorts and falsifies the history and geopolitics of Russia and Ukraine—a lecture that Trump has accepted in the past. Trump very much wants to believe the tall tale, just as he wants to restore good ties between Washington and Moscow—but whether he continues to do so may depend, this time, on Putin’s actions as well as his words. If true, that in itself marks a major change in the relationship.

Get the best of news and politics

Slate · by Fred Kaplan · March 12, 2025

20. Deciphering French Strategy in the Indo-Pacific

Excerpt:

France doesn’t have American capabilities in the Indo-Pacific or some of its regional powers, but it is a member of the U.N. Security Council with prerogatives and sovereign missions all over the region. Among European states, France holds a unique perspective of the Indo-Pacific that requires military expertise and capabilities. Efforts engaged to support Ukraine has not led to decreased interest or shifting resources to Europe from the Indo-Pacific after the 2022 National Strategic Review. France continues to maintain means of action that allows it to operate in strategic depth, far from Europe for its sovereign interests, but also because the Indo-Pacific is important in the context of the war in Ukraine. Europe needs to develop its own response to the manifold challenges generated by intensified Sino-Russian cooperation and Russian-North Korean co-belligerence. An update of its 2019 Indo-Pacific defense strategy may be necessary. Some of those answers may be in the Indo-Pacific.

Deciphering French Strategy in the Indo-Pacific - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Léonie Allard · March 13, 2025

From the fanfare-laden reopening of Notre-Dame to the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit held in the cavernous halls of the Grand Palais, to last-minute summits of European leaders hastily convened in the gilded chambers of the Elysee, French diplomacy appears to have been in overdrive in recent months. Emmanuel Macron, France’s hyper-energetic and peripatetic president, has been even more active than usual — tirelessly shuttling across a war-torn European continent and a widening Atlantic Ocean in a desperate effort to shore up trans-Atlantic unity at a time of historic upheaval.

And yet thousands of miles away, on the other side of the world, and for the first time since the 1960s, a French nuclear-powered carrier strike group is on a mission to steam though the Indian Ocean and beyond the Malacca Strait, all the way into the Pacific Ocean. As it ranges across these vast oceanic expanses, the carrier strike group — which incorporates a nuclear attack submarine, a fleet tanker, frigates, and maritime patrol aircraft — has participated in operations and led exercises in some of the most contested waters and maritime chokepoints in the world.

Why now, and for what purpose — especially at a time when, to the casual foreign observer, France seems to have so many more pressing geopolitical concerns closer to home? The answer to that simple question is twofold.

First of all, the Indo-Pacific is also France’s home. Its involvement is intangible with its own sovereignty, the protection of 1.6 million French citizens living in seven oversea territories and a nine million square kilometers of exclusive economic area. Their relationship with France dates back centuries. La Réunion has been French longer than Corsica, or than Hawaii has been American.

And second, France has a vested interest in the region’s security as a whole. The decision to send its most high-end naval asset such a great distance signals France’s long-term commitment to stability in the region and that it’s here to stay. To continue to stay engaged and credibly operate in a more contested environment, France should enhance its ability to deploy seamlessly through partnerships, integration, and interoperability with militaries all across the region. The United States is one of France’s most important partners in that respect, especially from an operational point of view, as shown by the carrier strike group’s interactions with the U.S. Seventh Fleet based in Yokosuka, Japan.

All of this is happening in a new context: with voices inside the new U.S. administration supporting burden-shifting away from Europe rather than burden-sharing across theaters. The crisis theaters in Europe and the Indo-Pacific will however remain increasingly linked, in particular given China’s support to Russia and North Korea’s involvement in Ukraine. Recognizing this, certain key democracies in the region, especially Japan as a member of the G7, Australia and South Korea, have provided diplomatic, economic and military support to Ukraine. Competitors use similar or coordinated strategies of influence, intimidation or even coercion from the South China Sea and the Pacific, all the way into the Indian Ocean and Europe. France’s commitment to the region is essential, given the shared challenges between the Indo-Pacific and Europe. The United States and France have existing synergies in their national ambitions that can help maximize their respective strategies. France is here to stay, but U.S. burden-shifting away from European security will make collaborative advantages in the Indo-Pacific more fragile as well.

Become a Member

The Indo-Pacific as a Continuum

Much like the United States, France views the Indo-Pacific through the lens of certain key sub-regions — some of which it has historically prioritized, some of which it has perhaps overly neglected. And like the United States, it is now increasingly considering this vast region as a more integrated geopolitical ensemble. France is well acquainted with the tyranny of distances in the Indo-Pacific, given that its furthermost overseas territory is almost 17,000 kilometers away from the mainland. Its seven overseas territories are strategically located. In the western Indian Ocean, Mayotte, La Réunion, and the Scattered Islands are at the opening of the Mozambique Channel or near it. In the South Pacific, New Caledonia sits at the entry of the Coral Sea towards Australia, which made it a key support base for the Allies in the Pacific during World War II. Wallis and Futuna is located between Fiji and Samoa. Finally, French Polynesia is at a similar latitude to Hawaii in the middle of the South Pacific between Australia and Latin America. This specificity offers an opportunity to look at the region through the lens of a continuum from the Mediterranean through the Red Sea, the openings of the Indian Ocean, all the way to key straits in the South China Sea towards the South Pacific.

As a “resident power,” France needs to adapt its capabilities to remain a relevant security contributor around its sovereign territories. Three military bases located in La Réunion, New Caledonia, and French Polynesia offer reliable support points during deployments, but are not equipped with key high-end capabilities. La Réunion and Mayotte use two surveillance frigates with a helicopter each, one supply and support vessel, two patrol vessels (including one polar patrol vessel) and two tactical transport aircraft. In the Pacific Ocean, the French Armed Forces in New Caledonia and in French Polynesia operate two surveillance frigates with one helicopter each, three patrol vessels, two multi-mission ships, five maritime surveillance aircraft, four tactical transport aircraft, and five helicopters. These are not high-end warfighting capabilities, but largely focused on dealing with climate change, illegal fishing, illegal migration, polluting activities, and exploitation of natural resources.

The 2024 to 2030 military programming law, which allocates 13 billion euros to the modernization of forces stationed in overseas territories, aims to close some of the existing gaps, but not all. The currently stationed surveillance frigates are being replaced around 2030 with new assets fitted with anti-submarine warfare capabilities. While there is no specific plan for drones in French overseas territories, their development and acquisition are a major line of general effort. Given the likely increase of the defense budget and production in Europe, an explicit plan to deploy surveillance drones to patrol the exclusive economic zones all the way to the Pacific would be necessary. There are further lines of efforts for France to remain a credible actor in order to enhance deployments, to stay ahead in the hybrid domain, and to enhance partnership strategies based on its post-AUKUS pivot.

Preserving Strategic Commons

With limited means permanently stationed, France’s ability to signal its commitment for the defense of contested strategic commons and contribution to maritime security also relies on first, regularity in high-end deployments from metropolitan France, and second, by showing an ability to react quickly to a crisis.

French military assets deploy with regularity from the Mediterranean to the Pacific, signaling political will and commitment for the defense of strategic commons where they are the most fragile. Since 2021, the French Navy deploys at least twice a year in the South China Sea and at least once a year in the Taiwan Strait. The 2021 port call of a nuclear attack submarine in Perth and Guam is not meant to be a one-off. France also monitors North Korean-related oil smuggling operations in violation of U.N. sanctions as part of a U.S.-led initiative. More frequent deployments are testing the French Navy’s ability to operate in the South China Sea and the Pacific. Every day, a third of global trade passes through the heavily trafficked Malacca, Sunda, and Lombok Straits where the carrier strike group led a nine-nation maritime security exercise in January called La Pérouse. For the first time, the carrier strike group tested its ability to operate with the United States around the Luzon Strait in the Philippine Sea with the U.S. Seventh Fleet and a Japanese warship during exercise Pacific Steller. In 2024, the multi-mission frigate, Bretagne, participated in major multilateral exercises, including the Valiant Shield exercise in the South China Sea around USS Theodore Roosevelt. At the same time, French and Canadian ships transited through the South China Sea to test their ability to conduct precise lethal and multidomain operations.

Armed forces also regularly signal their ability to deploy air and sea assets quickly in times of crisis all the way to the South Pacific and East Asia. In 2023, air assets, including 10 Rafale fighter jets, reached Southeast Asia in 30 hours from France during the PEGASE mission for the first time since the exercise was established in 2018. During its current deployment, the carrier strike group acquired the capability to refuel diesel bunkers at sea for one of its frigates with a U.S. tanker. France also participated in the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command-led Rim of the Pacific exercise in 2024. Beyond the United States, Europe has the opportunity to showcase its ability to integrate other European assets, such as in PEGASE 2024, which included French, German, Spanish, and British air assets.

To enhance its ability to project, more could be done for these strategically located territories to become real regional hubs, especially in the Indian Ocean where most of France’s capabilities are. While the hand-over of the Chagos Islands to the Republic of Mauritius has been paused by the United Kingdom amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s return to office, it arguably makes La Réunion more important. Current infrastructure in La Réunion is only sufficient to accommodate French naval port calls and small-scale multilateral exercises. France should seize the opportunity and invest in larger infrastructures, which could accommodate for more national and multilateral deployments. La Réunion already serves as an anchor for military cooperation: the Indian Navy deployed P-8I maritime patrol aircraft at Réunion Island in 2020 and in 2022.In March 2024, an Australian P-8A aircraft made an inaugural visit to Réunion Island. In this context, France strengthened its ties with Quad partners, despite not being a member, and could explore more opportunities for ad-hoc collaboration with India and Australia in La Réunion.

Contributing Beyond Maritime Security

The weak infrastructure networks and fragility of island states to climate change means we should pay more attention to hybrid threats. The example of Tonga in 2023 shows how the conjunction of these weaknesses can create a breakdown of sovereignty. Following a volcanic eruption, the island’s communications were entirely cut off from the world, which France helped restore. China has cut multiple cables deliberately around Taiwan in the last few years, and conducted suspected sabotage activities in the Baltic Sea in 2023 and 2024. Given the geography of its overseas territories, France faces threats similar to other island states of the region.

Island states are particularly vulnerable to multiple domains of coercion, including in the cyber and extra-atmospheric spaces, as well as the digital and undersea spaces. The 2022 National Strategic Review emphasizes the reinforcement of France’s ability to protect its sovereignty in these domains, especially in maritime security, as France’s exclusive economic zones in the Indian and Pacific Oceans makes France’s the second largest in the world with 9 million square kilometers. As such, one of the carrier strike group’s main missions in 2025 is to prepare the French Navy to enhance its information superiority through embarked data centers. According to the commander of the carrier strike group, the current deployment should be setting new benchmarks to be applied to the next generation of navy systems. During the deployment, the carrier strike group will test new sensors and big data tools to increase situational awareness.

France’s sovereignty in its overseas territories faces contestations that can be instrumentalized by competitors. In 2022, China proposed a cooperation deal on data and cyber security to Pacific Island nations. While not finalized, it denotes Beijing’s willingness to dominate the immaterial space in the region. Chinese diaspora and friendship groups have been active in New Caledonia and French Polynesia, including to push favorable economic projects for critical raw material or fishing rights. French sovereignty is contested in New Caledonia — with the support of Azerbaijan — and could be further contested in other areas, with Comoros laying claims on Mayotte with the support of China and Russia, or with Madagascar laying claims over Tromelin Island and the Scattered Islands.). New Caledonia, if independent, given its strategic location in the opening to Australia and the Pacific, could quickly become an important asset for competitors.

The Impact of AUKUS on France’s Partnership Strategy

The scrapped French Australian submarine deal would have anchored French forces in the Indo-Pacific in the long term because of implicit guarantees. The deal would also have reinforced French-American defense cooperation, as the submarines incorporated Lockheed Martin combat management systems. Instead, in the two years that followed the announcement of AUKUS, the slow mending of its relationship with Australia gave France more space to invest politically in Japan and India, but also in pivotal smaller-sized littoral and island states all over the region, some where no other French president had been in decades or ever, including Thailand, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Mongolia, Papua New Guinea, and Vanuatu.

The Indian Ocean is home to France’s most important partner in the region, India, rooted in the respect of each country’s version of strategic autonomy, culminating in 2023 into a joint vision for the Indo-Pacific. French-designed Rafale planes and Scorpene submarines are vital in the defense of India’s security capabilities. The new roadmap goes beyond initial joint surveillance and maritime awareness of the area, opening up new domains of cooperation into industrial ecosystems, space, and energy.

Nations should be equipped to better deal with dilemmas in protecting their sovereignty. In recent years, France upgraded its partnerships with Indonesia, which acquired 42 Rafale since 2022, and with the Philippines, which recently acquired patrol boats from France. Japan and France signed a new partnership roadmap in 2023 to multiply joint exercise towards increased interoperability. Both countries have enhanced their exercises, conducting first land drill and joint amphibious exercises in Japan in 2021 and in New Caledonia in 2023. Partnerships with Japan and South Korea have major potential for growth in already existing maritime, cyber, and space cooperation. Only recently the partnership with Australia gradually returned to the defense domain with the signature of a reciprocal access agreement in 2023. The two countries continued to cooperate on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, in particular to Tonga in 2022 and Vanuatu in 2023 through the disaster relief cooperation FRANZ agreement.

Maintain Trans-Atlantic Ties Across Theaters in Europe and the Indo-Pacific

In the context of limited resources, states can endure or endeavor to choose a hierarchy of priorities and partnerships. France, like many other powers with a global outlook, has been grappling with the difficulty of neatly prioritizing foreign policy. And in the current context, the temptation to forgo one theater for another could be strong in Europe, even more so as the push is now coming from the United States.

France needs to find its interests — and voice — amidst the American rebalancing toward the Indo-Pacific and disengagement from Europe. As an old European power, France wants to avoid history repeating itself and being stuck between the agenda of two competing superpowers — just like most resident countries of the Indo-Pacific. Its narrative of “power of balances” is the translation of this plea, not that it will embrace a form of multi-alignment. Three main priorities are outlined as a consequence: strategic autonomy, European construction, and multilateral engagement. These policies are not designed to come at the expense of relations with the United States but seek to address the lack of predictability and uncertainties regarding future American engagement on the continent and beyond.

France and the United States have held a unique annual defense-led Indo-Pacific dialogue since 2019, along with a state-led Indo-Pacific dialogue since 2024. The defense dialogues allow both countries to coordinate deployments in the Pacific but also to deconflict divergences. These dialogues need to continue even if there is burden-shifting given the spillover effect of crises with an increasing integration between competitors across theaters. The 2025 carrier strike group deployment enhances interconnection of communication and command systems between French and U.S. regional headquarters. It is a tremendous opportunity to identify areas of growth and existing barriers to the integration of France and the United States in the framework of a high-intensity conflict, work which should continue, albeit in a new context.

France doesn’t have American capabilities in the Indo-Pacific or some of its regional powers, but it is a member of the U.N. Security Council with prerogatives and sovereign missions all over the region. Among European states, France holds a unique perspective of the Indo-Pacific that requires military expertise and capabilities. Efforts engaged to support Ukraine has not led to decreased interest or shifting resources to Europe from the Indo-Pacific after the 2022 National Strategic Review. France continues to maintain means of action that allows it to operate in strategic depth, far from Europe for its sovereign interests, but also because the Indo-Pacific is important in the context of the war in Ukraine. Europe needs to develop its own response to the manifold challenges generated by intensified Sino-Russian cooperation and Russian-North Korean co-belligerence. An update of its 2019 Indo-Pacific defense strategy may be necessary. Some of those answers may be in the Indo-Pacific.

Become a Member

Léonie Allard is a visiting fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center. Before her current role, Allard worked for the Ministry of Armed Forces’ Directorate General for International Relations and Strategy.

Image: Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Skyler Okerman via Wikimedia Commons

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Léonie Allard · March 13, 2025

21. The U.S. Should Cut Defense Spending. Here’s How

Excerpts:

Here are five areas they should focus on that can help guide cuts and reshape the military into a more cohesive fighting force with national treasure spent on the capabilities and force structure we need, rather than on what we don’t.

Conduct a comprehensive review of military strategy

End duplication of military capabilities

Fix confusing, costly contracting procedures

Curtail congressional pork barreling

Review nuclear weapons needs

The U.S. Should Cut Defense Spending. Here’s How - Defense Opinion

defenseopinion.com · by John Fairlamb, Ph.D. · March 11, 2025

The proposed 2025 Department of Defense budget is $850 billion, and when Department of Energy funding for military nuclear programs is factored in, the total tops $895 billion. Yet, the Joint Chiefs of Staff say they can’t meet assigned missions without more money.

Despite this appetite for even greater defense spending, President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth are doing the right thing as they seek to cut billions from budgets.

Here are five areas they should focus on that can help guide cuts and reshape the military into a more cohesive fighting force with national treasure spent on the capabilities and force structure we need, rather than on what we don’t.

Conduct a comprehensive review of military strategy

Every four years the Department of Defense does a review of the National Defense Strategy (NDS), which is billed as a fresh look at current threats and the capabilities needed to defeat them. The last NDS was done in 2022, before Russia invaded Ukraine, demonstrating that the Russian military threat was severely overestimated.

A new NDS is not due until 2026, but the new administration should consider doing one sooner to account for changes in the military postures of both Russia and China, as well as the new administration’s foreign policy changes.

Absent a current review of the NDS, unrealistic assessments of how to deal with threats from potential opponents can lead to funding larger forces than needed. Experts who study Russia and China are skeptical of military strategies that envision employment of large American land forces.

Russia’s vulnerable center of gravity is it’s underperforming economy, which is largely dependent on high global prices for oil and gas, not its poorly performing military forces that would face combined NATO ground forces. A military conflict with China would be primarily an air, missile and naval fight with a limited role for ground forces.

A strategic review should seek to demilitarize, as much as possible, our approach to foreign affairs and plan to implement a “whole of government approach” to focus an array of government resources and expertise on threats to our security. The U.S. possesses many elements of national power that can be brought to bear on international problems. A high level of technological development and military industrial capacity and the ability to work with powerful allies to bring global pressure to bear are a few of these “soft power” elements.

End duplication of military capabilities

The U.S. has not had a truly complete review of the roles and missions of the various services since 1948. That turf war was so nasty that the service chiefs don’t want to risk opening that can of worms again. Consequently, the individual services are paying for duplication of effort and inefficient force structures.

For example, nine Department of Defense éléments all fund independent intelligence organizations. These are: the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the National Security Agency (NSA), the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA), the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), and the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Space Force. The Defense Intelligence Agency 2025 budget alone is $101.6 billion.

Senior leaders should conduct a roles and missions review to determine whether all the services need their own intelligence organizations. This is only one example and there are other areas that should be reviewed for consolidation.

The services are loathe to have discussions like this because there will be winners and losers. Even though their current budget share isn’t sufficient to meet all the missions acquired, senior leadership won’t rationalize organizational structure because it might mean less budget share — and lost flag officer spaces.

Fix confusing, costly contracting procedures

The Air Force’s Sentinel Program to develop a new ICBM is the poster child for an out-of-control program. The cost per missile has increased by at least 37% since the initial baseline, and the program is years behind schedule. Hegseth has placed a hold on the program, which could be an excellent candidate for restructuring or termination.

The list of defense procurement horror stories is endless. Many companies won’t bid on Pentagon contracts because wading through the arcane procedures is too costly in time and resources.

A major reason for excessive costs in defense procurement is that the military dictates dream specifications and sets off a frenzy of research and development efforts to meet optimal specifications, which takes time and drives up costs.

The military should buy “good enough” and train the heck out of the service members who need to use it. The approach should be based on buying more off-the-shelf gear and modifying it for military use.

Curtail congressional pork barreling

We could reduce defense spending dramatically if Congress would stop larding up budgets with earmarks. I worked on two high-cost programs the Army had no requirement for and didn’t want. This is commonplace.

Some of our defense budget is wasted every year on congressional pet projects or activities that ensure money is spent in the districts of powerful legislators. In fiscal 2025 alone, members of Congress requested “just over $38 billion for 1,499 military research and procurement programs … that the president didn’t seek,” CQ Roll Call found.

What’s more, the last survey of DOD facilities calculated the Pentagon has at least 22% more base infrastructure than needed to support current force structures. But Congress refuses to close excess installations because it would mean losing jobs and reduced spending in their districts.

Review nuclear weapons needs

The Congressional Budget Office estimated the DOD plans to spend $756 billion over a 10-year period to modernize nuclear forces. Nuclear weapons only have one function—to deter anyone else from using them against the U.S. or our allies. If we do things right, they will never be used.

In the New START agreement negotiated with the Russians in 2010, both agreed not to deploy more than 1,550 strategic warheads. In 2013, the Joint Chiefs of Staff concluded the U.S. could support deterrence strategy with only 1,000 deployed warheads.

President Trump wants the U.S., Russia and China to negotiate an agreement to drastically reduce nuclear weapons. If Russia and the U.S. agree to bring their numbers down, there could be a basis to persuade China to join a trilateral negotiation which would allow the U.S. to re-think spending so much on nuclear force modernization.

John Fairlamb, Ph.D.

John Fairlamb, Ph.D., is a retired Army colonel who served for 45 years as a commissioned officer and Department of the Army civilian in a variety of joint service positions formulating and implementing national security strategies and policies. His doctorate is in comparative defense policy analysis.

defenseopinion.com · by John Fairlamb, Ph.D. · March 11, 2025

22. If You're Taking JCIDS, Grab CAPE While You're at it

Graphic at the link (trigger warning -it will make your head explode.)

"the process is the product and it is no longer fit for purpose if it ever was"

If You're Taking JCIDS, Grab CAPE While You're at it

low hanging fruit if you are looking to reform The Pentagon

https://cdrsalamander.substack.com/p/if-youre-taking-jcids-grab-cape-while?utm

CDR Salamander

Mar 13, 2025

Sometimes I read something that makes me realize that, yes, someone gets me—they really get me.

Via Stephen Losey at Defense News:

…in a report released Monday, titled “Required to Fail”, former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Industrial Policy Bill Greenwalt and Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Dan Patt argue JCIDS has failed to produce the promised results and — after at least 10 failed attempts at reform — is beyond salvaging.

“JCIDS has failed too completely, too systematically, to be rescued by another committee’s review or a fresh coat of bureaucratic paint,” Greenwalt and Patt said in the report. “The DOD needs to burn it down to its smoldering foundations and let it vanish into history.”

That is almost pr0nographic to my ears. I may need to sit down for a minute or two.

…JCIDS has held back military progress — at times, taking more than two years to validate a requirement while adversaries proceed much more swiftly — left potential innovations tied up in bureaucratic red tape and prioritized “paper shuffling” over actually figuring out what would be the most combat-effective system.

JCIDS is “a burdensome layer of ceremony, divorced from the real decisions that shape our future military edge,” Greenwalt and Patt said.

Amen.

The process has become the product. It is no longer fit for purpose, if it ever was.

As we have often discussed, the accretions encumbered acquisition process that has become the greatest impediment to a military prepared to face the world’s threats. No serious person without a stake in the current system supports keeping it. It stifles innovation, is comically bureaucratic, and is intentionally designed to get between those who have to fight our wars and the equipment they need to fight them.

Getting rid of it is long overdue.

Yes, burn it to the ground. Salt the earth.

Side note: if you don’t understand what CAPE is in the title, this helps.

23. Frontline Innovation and Domestic Production: The Keys to Ukraine’s Journey Toward Defense Self-Reliance

So much to learn from our Ukrainian friends.

I wonder if we tried to teach them the JCIDS process or develop their own CAPE organization?

Frontline Innovation and Domestic Production: The Keys to Ukraine’s Journey Toward Defense Self-Reliance - Modern War Institute

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Paul Schwennesen · March 13, 2025

Share on LinkedIn

Send email

“Yes, we build them ourselves. We have no other choice.” Three of us—all American veterans—stood spellbound inside a repurposed potato shed as an elite Ukrainian drone team explained how they hand-make their own explosive payloads for the drones that have been instrumental in forcing the Russian war machine into a grinding slog.

A lanky soldier with dirty fatigues and a curled mustachio grins and explains: “We usually take apart Soviet antitank mines and boil out the explosives. We 3D print our own casings, fill them with explosive charges and shrapnel, then arm them with our own handmade detonators.” He lightheartedly tosses a brick of raw explosive our direction. We cringe and shake our heads.

As American warfighters, we’ve been brought up within a culture of war that views combat operations through a combined arms lens that leans heavily on air supremacy and a logistics system of unparalleled proportions. The idea of frontline units literally building their own weapons is as foreign to us as Cyrillic.

And yet that is precisely what is happening at the front lines of the war in Ukraine these days. Ukrainians are building purpose-made precision munitions from scavenged weapons, developing an astonishingly effective resistance in a spontaneous, bottom-up process that is scrappy, ingenious, and above all fluid. Inside the shed, we watched our hosts tear down a malfunctioned NLAW, removing the expensive guidance package to get at the explosives inside. The payload would be refitted that night to destroy the kind of armored target it was designed to kill but riding on a $300 drone instead of a $33,000 single-use launch tube. Ukrainians are evolving the modern battlespace at warp speed, holding back one of the largest conventional militaries on earth, largely through their own resourcefulness.

During their recent Oval Office showdown President Donald Trump repeatedly told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “You’re not in a good position. You don’t have the cards right now. With us, you start having cards.” While it is certainly true that Ukraine benefits substantially from US arms, it is also true that Ukraine has grown out of its wholesale dependence on them. The fundamental misperception held by many outside observers does not appreciate the dramatic steps Ukraine has made toward providing its own defense capability domestically over the war’s three years.

Currently, one-third of the weapons used on the battlefield are produced domestically, and an additional 30 percent are supplied by Europe. The capabilities of the Ukrainian defense industry have grown astronomically over the three years since the large-scale Russian invasion—from $1 billion in 2022 to $35 billion in 2025. In some areas, Ukraine has completely covered its own needs, particularly in unmanned platforms—not only drones, but also unmanned ground vehicles and naval systems. According to the commander of the Ukrainian military’s Unmanned Systems Forces, 100 percent of the drones attacking Russian military targets are of Ukrainian manufacture.

We witnessed this self-reliance firsthand: for the drones, everything down to the chips and flight controllers can be made in Ukraine, backing up existing but tenuous Chinese supply channels. Ukraine is at the forefront of introducing innovations such as laser technology, AI, and drone swarms on the battlefield—capabilities that even NATO lacks. It plans to manufacture up to four and half million military-use drones in 2025. Additionally, Ukraine produces armored vehicles, artillery systems, mortar shells, and other ammunition and has launched domestic production of long-range missiles. The battlefield is no longer defined solely by Western weapons.

With additional financing mechanisms established to support the Ukrainian defense industry—such as the utilization of $300 billion in frozen Russian assets, which some countries have already begun using—and substantial financial commitments from European nations, including tapping sovereign wealth funds as seen in Norway, the absence of American support would not be nearly as catastrophic as it would have been at earlier stages of the war.

Ukraine is transitioning from reliance to self-sufficiency, but the process isn’t instant and still requires specialized Western input. The reliance on American materials, technology, and support remains high, to be sure, but is not indispensable. While Ukraine can (and will) slog on regardless of the degree of US backing, the fact is that the job will be far easier with the right tools.

The drone team we met will continue building their lethal payloads and killing aggressors daily. Whether it will be enough is anyone’s guess. President Trump is right—Ukraine is not in a “good position.” But any observer who fails to fully appreciate the significance of Ukraine’s capability to adapt will inevitably underestimate a fundamental truth: Ukraine has many cards to play yet. And the way it has played its cards over the past three years—namely, fostering frontline innovation and dramatically boosting its industrial capacity—offers deeply meaningful lessons for any military preparing for large-scale conflict and the realities of the modern battlefield.

Dr. Paul Schwennesen is director of Global Strategy Decisions Group and a defense analyst for Geopolitical Intelligence Services. He recently returned from a seventh mission to the Ukrainian front lines. He was awarded the Verhkhovna Rada medal by Ukraine’s parliament for “Merit to the Ukrainian People,” and coordinates ongoing training and equipment programs there.

Dr. Olena Kryzhanivska is a Ukrainian policy analyst and senior editor at the NATO Association of Canada. She provided expert analysis for the Norwegian embassy in Turkey and the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs. She maintains the weekly report “Ukraine’s Arms Monitor.”

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

Image credit: mil.gov.ua

Share on LinkedIn

Send email

mwi.westpoint.edu · by Paul Schwennesen · March 13, 2025

24. How to Toughen Up Taiwan

Excerpts:

One useful step would be to develop a larger and more coherent security assistance program that includes preparation for both conventional and gray-zone attacks. Modeled in part on the U.S. assistance mission to Ukraine, an enhanced security assistance mission for Taiwan would bring in additional U.S. aid and advisers, who would also oversee the hardware, software, training, education, and other forms of security aid provided to Taiwan. U.S. Special Operations Command, the arm of the U.S. military most capable of training, advising, and assisting foreign partners subjected to gray-zone attacks, should play an elevated role. An expanded U.S. security assistance program could also help coordinate and increase assistance from experts from the Baltic states, Finland, Japan, Sweden, Ukraine, and other countries with decades of experience in improving national resilience.

The program could also help Taipei step up its civilian defense. There are several Taiwanese organizations that provide media literacy, first aid, and other training, but they are small, decentralized, and unprepared for wartime situations. The Taiwanese government has plans to train 400,000 civilians to support the military in a national emergency, but the scale of this effort is not large enough, given the amount of military power China can deploy. Civilians also need to participate in live-fire exercises, which simulate realistic scenarios. As part of civilian preparedness, the United States could help Taiwan increase the construction of bomb shelters, strengthen its command-and-control system for a national emergency, and develop and exercise emergency evacuation plans.

The Taiwanese government has markedly improved its national resilience efforts over the past year and is slowly shifting to a whole-of-society approach to crisis preparation. But these measures are still not sufficient to manage a threat as serious as the one China poses. Even as the United States helps Taiwan address its military weaknesses, it should also recognize that gray-zone threats can complement or even substitute for an outright invasion. A mix of subversion, disinformation, and limited attacks could create enough chaos and confusion that Taiwan would not be able to respond effectively, making it far easier for Beijing to subdue the island. If Taipei and Washington fail to act with greater urgency, Beijing may well take advantage of the opportunity to secure its control.

How to Toughen Up Taiwan

Foreign Affairs · by More by Daniel Byman · March 13, 2025

America Must Help the Island Deal With China’s Gray-Zone Tactics

March 13, 2025

Taiwanese soldiers taking part in military drills, Taoyuan, Taiwan, July 2024 Ann Wang / Reuters

DANIEL BYMAN is a Professor at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and Director of the Warfare, Irregular Threats, and Terrorism Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

SETH G. JONES is President of the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

More by Seth G. Jones

Print Subscribe to unlock this feature or Sign in.

Save Sign in and save to read later

Russia’s intervention in Ukraine did not start with the full-scale invasion in 2022. Well before, Moscow had spread misinformation in the country, supplied arms to separatists in Donbas, and deployed “little green men” to Crimea. If China launches a bid to absorb Taiwan, it may follow a similar playbook. The operation would likely begin not with tanks and missiles but with covert attempts to undermine civilian morale and public confidence in the Taiwanese government.

Although Taiwanese and U.S. defense planners are right to prepare for a Chinese invasion or blockade of Taiwan, the more immediate risk is that China would try to use gray-zone tactics, including sabotage and subversion, to destroy Taiwan’s will and power to resist. China might systematically sabotage water facilities, flood the island with propaganda, use cyberattacks to take down the electric grid, orchestrate “accidental” disruptions of the Internet by cutting undersea fiberoptic cables, and provide aid to Taiwanese opposition figures and movements. Beijing’s short-term aim would be to wipe out, without firing a single shot, Taipei’s ability to mobilize the public against Chinese coercion and aggression.

Unfortunately, Taiwan is not presently prepared for Beijing’s gray-zone actions—and neither is its main supporter, the United States. Taiwanese leaders have taken some important steps over the past year to strengthen national resilience, including increasing national-level planning and conducting exercises that involve civilians, but they have a long way to go. Taiwan’s energy sector is fragile. Its telecommunications infrastructure is vulnerable to subversion. And unlike in Ukraine in early 2022, there is little evidence that Taiwan’s military-age citizens are willing to take up arms if the United States is not there to back them up. These vulnerabilities—compounded by the Trump administration’s “America first” policy, the shakeup of historical U.S. alliances, and friction with some regional allies, such as Australia—make it more likely that Beijing would consider Taiwan ripe for the picking.

U.S. military and training support for Taiwan is limited and focused on preparing for a conventional invasion, but much needs to be done outside that realm. The United States must help Taiwan secure additional sources of energy, such as nuclear power, that could sustain the island in case of a blockade or quarantine. To compensate for the loss of access to undersea fiberoptic cables to Chinese sabotage, the Trump administration should support Taiwan’s development of strong satellite communications in low-earth orbit. And to help coordinate international assistance, Washington needs to establish an expanded security assistance mission, much like it did in Ukraine.

A failure by the Trump administration to bolster Taiwanese resilience could mean letting Taiwan collapse beneath the weight of Chinese intimidation, coerced into accepting a deal with China on Beijing’s terms. If the demise of a prosperous, pro-American democracy were not worrying enough, China’s success in Taiwan might embolden Beijing to use the same tactics elsewhere. And the countries it might target, such as the Philippines, could grow more likely to bend under Chinese pressure.

BEARS DON’T PREY ON PORCUPINES

From a national security perspective, a country is resilient if it has the will and the ability to resist and recover from external pressure, such as disinformation campaigns or a full-scale military invasion. Resilient societies can protect their civilians, ensuring minimal services such as electricity and medical care continue; stand up to coercion and aggression; and build public will to fend off and survive an invasion.

Resilience is vital in a crisis. Ukraine demonstrated this in February 2022, when the country rallied in the face of Russian military incursions, cyberattacks, propaganda, assassination attempts against Ukrainian leaders, and other threats. Ukrainians kept electricity and power plants going, signed up to fight in droves, countered Russian cyber-operations, and conducted assassinations and sabotage in Russian-occupied territories, making it hard for Moscow to administer and stage assaults from those areas. All of this bought valuable time for Ukraine’s allies, especially the United States, to pour billions of dollars of military aid into the country, helping the country survive multiple years of a grinding war against a much larger aggressor.

But the greatest advantage that resilience confers is in helping countries forestall crises in the first place. Resilience is vital to deterrence. Countries that lack resilience are easier to invade. Those fortified by resilience are more difficult to occupy. The Finnish national defense strategy is based on old proverb: “Even the biggest bear will not eat a porcupine.” In practical terms, becoming a porcupine means building up such national resilience that would-be aggressors think twice before engaging in an invasion that promises to be too costly to sustain.

Resilience has many components, but several stand out: well-organized and well-run national command structures that set clearly defined responsibilities, capable legal authorities, effective and efficient communications, adequate civil defenses, fortified critical infrastructure, a strong public will to fight, preparedness to engage in nonviolent resistance, and ample support from partners and allies. To build resilience, governments must have a plan, a budget, a division of labor among key actors, and other essentials. In Finland—a leader in thinking on resilience because of the decades-long threat it has faced from neighboring Russia—the Ministry of Defense runs a whole-of-government committee that is focused on resilience, with different ministries participating along with representatives from businesses, nongovernmental organizations, and the political leadership. This committee ensures that Finnish government ministries regularly update plans, carry out risk assessments, and conduct drills and exercises.

Rule of law is critical to resilience. To maintain order in a crisis, governments might need to deploy the military domestically, whether by declaring martial law or through other means, and seize property that could be used by foreign governments to conduct spy and sabotage operations. Should an invaded country or part of it fall under foreign occupation, local populations would require official representation in exile. To that end, governments must prepare for their own potential displacement and transfer assets abroad accordingly. They must also ensure that the areas under occupation would not be abandoned. Stay-behind networks, or organized groups of citizens who resist the occupier, could continue to gather intelligence, administer medical support, counter propaganda, and engage in sabotage and fighting.

Soldiers marking Taiwan's National Day, Taipei, October 2024 Ann Wang / Reuters

Information is vital in a crisis, and disinformation and cyberattacks on government and media sites compound the challenge. Populations must be prepared for information operations and understand their own roles and duties in advance of a crisis. In the wake of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, Lithuania—a NATO member that shares a border with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and the Russian satrapy Belarus—distributed instruction manuals to its citizens titled, How to Act in Extreme Situations or Instances of War. (To increase readership, the state titled a follow-up edition Prepare to Survive Emergencies and War: A Cheerful Take on Serious Recommendations.) Such efforts can reduce the impact of disinformation and disruption.

Populations must also have emergency stores of food, water, batteries, and shelters. Countries such as Finland and Israel have extensive air-defense shelters. The former Finnish chief of defense, Jarmo Lindberg, has compared the Helsinki underground to “Swiss cheese,” complete with a far-reaching network of tunnels and deeply buried military headquarters. In a crisis, both government personnel and civilians might have to provide medical care, assist those with disabilities to move out of vulnerable areas, and otherwise protect their fellow citizens.

As its name suggests, critical infrastructure such as communications, energy, and transportation systems must be protected. Such systems—and the expertise to defend, maintain, and repair them—are increasingly in the hands of private actors. To mitigate vulnerability, the government must secure their cooperation in its crisis preparations before a disaster unfolds. In Finland, the National Emergency Supply Agency, a government department, works with around 1,500 companies to ensure stockpiles, redundancy, information sharing, and other essentials that may be necessary in a crisis.

The public’s will to fight is more nebulous, but one factor that increases it is a high level of social trust. For example, in Israel, despite the country’s many political divisions, there is a durable will to fight born of a strong collective identity and widely shared concerns about external threats. Israel reinforces the will to fight, in part, through military conscription and compulsory reserve duty, as well as state-subsidized higher education that helps reduce the efficacy of foreign disinformation campaigns. Atomized societies are less able to resist outside pressure.

Finally, resilient countries are integrated into broader networks of allies and partners. Foreign countries can provide supplies, military aid, and diplomatic support. A country such as Finland or Lithuania cannot hold out on its own against Russia indefinitely: support from NATO allies is essential. Creating plans for cooperation in the event of a crisis sends a signal that strengthens deterrence. If an invasion occurs, structures will already be in place to receive military, medical, and other supplies, and having a plan can help a small country maintain its resolve as it awaits the arrival of outside military forces.

CRACKS IN THE ARMOR

Taiwan has taken some steps to strengthen its resilience. Last year, President Lai Ching-te established a Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience Committee to organize and prepare the Taiwan for natural disasters, gray-zone activities, and invasion. As part of this effort, Taiwan’s National Security Council, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of National Defense, Ministry of Digital Affairs, and other agencies are now conducting civil defense exercises, developing better ways for the government to communicate with the population in a crisis, and more. But Taiwan still has a long way to go.

One glaring area of concern is Taiwan’s energy infrastructure, which is an easy target for Chinese gray-zone activities and conventional attacks. The island imports over 97 percent of its energy, most of which comes from oil and petroleum, coal, and natural gas. A blockade by the Chinese military would create severe energy problems, since Taiwan’s reserves of natural gas would last less than two weeks and its coal reserves just over a month.

Taiwan’s electric grid is overly centralized and heavily relies on a few large plants. A serious problem in any one plant could ripple across the entire grid and cause significant disruptions. Three major blackouts in the past eight years highlight this fragility. The most recent, in March 2022, affected nearly 5.5 million residents and cost semiconductor, petrochemical, and steel businesses more than $16 million.

Taiwan’s telecommunications infrastructure is also vulnerable. In February 2023, two Chinese merchant vessels cut undersea cables connecting Taiwan’s main island with the Matsu Islands, disrupting Internet communications. This January, a Chinese-linked cargo vessel damaged another undersea fiberoptic cable—one of only 14 such cables linking Taiwan to the rest of the world. Taiwan relies on Eutelsat OneWeb, a European satellite operator, for low-earth-orbit satellite service and backup microwave communications. But OneWeb lacks sufficient bandwidth to make up for the potential impairment of all or most of Taiwan’s fiberoptic cables.

A final area of concern is the Taiwanese public’s willingness to fight a foreign invader. A 2024 survey conducted by the Taipei-based Institute for National Defense and Security Research indicated that 68 percent of respondents would be willing to fight to defend Taiwan. Yet just over half of Taiwanese believe the U.S. military would come to their aid following a Chinese invasion, and only 39 percent believe the U.S. military would break a Chinese blockade of Taiwan. No opinion polls have asked Taiwanese respondents whether they would still fight if the United States abandoned the island following a Chinese invasion or blockade. And Taiwan’s young people, who would bear the brunt of the fighting, are less willing to fight than the older generation.

BUILDING RESILIENCE

The Taiwanese government is understandably worried about spooking its population by highlighting the extent of the threat from China, but it is necessary for Taipei to issue more urgent warnings about Beijing’s rapidly expanding capabilities and aggressive actions. In recent years, China’s People’s Liberation Army has engaged in a conspicuous military buildup and ramped up its cable cutting, cyberattacks, air and naval encroachments, and military exercises, including a simulated blockade of Taiwan.

In light of this growing threat, Taipei should establish a public communications platform that regularly alerts citizens about Chinese actions on or near the island. A data-driven system that reports updates objectively would not only help foster a public dialogue but also give citizens tools to discern between actual threats and misinformation. In parallel, Taiwan should develop a more unified strategic communications campaign across its government ministries to ensure that consistent messages about the threat level are communicated to the Taiwanese people.

Taiwan also needs to increase redundancy in its energy sector. Above all, the government should decentralize and upgrade the island’s power grid. Taiwan’s small number of centralized power generation facilities could be knocked offline by cyberwarfare or missile or other attacks; increasing the number of microgrids and local power generation units would enhance the system’s resilience to attacks and natural calamities, reducing the risk of blackouts. Taiwan should aim to decentralize at least a third of its power generation within the next decade, with a focus on renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, which are more adaptable than fossil fuel to decentralized systems and do not require resupply from outside sources. Restarting one or more of Taiwan’s nuclear power plants would help, too. This process will take several years, but it is critical to ensure sufficient energy in a crisis. It is also popular in Taiwan, with roughly two-thirds of the population supporting nuclear energy.

China’s success in Taiwan might embolden Beijing to use gray-zone tactics elsewhere.

In the telecommunications sector, Taiwan’s leaders are understandably opposed to working with SpaceX’s Starlink, on account of the SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s business interests in China and his decision not to extend Ukraine’s access to Starlink service in some areas, such as the Black Sea, after Moscow objected. But the island does need a powerful satellite service to reduce its reliance on undersea cable networks. The most logical alternative to Starlink is Amazon’s Kuiper broadband Internet constellation. Taiwanese leaders are already in discussions with Kuiper, but they need to move toward a deal more quickly, and Kuiper needs to increase its satellite launches in low-earth orbit.

Taiwan should also work with U.S. cloud services such as Google, Microsoft, and Amazon Web Services to store backups of its critical data outside the island. Although every government prefers to buy local, using Taiwanese firms for data storage leaves the data more vulnerable to Chinese cyberattacks, espionage, and physical destruction through missile or other attacks.

Finally, Taiwan needs to better integrate the private sector into its resilience efforts. Domestic and international companies should be involved in planning around energy, telecommunications, information technology, and cyberdefense.

A LITTLE HELP FROM ONE’S FRIENDS

The U.S. government has focused on providing military capabilities and training to Taiwan and helping it develop more secure technical systems, all in service of resisting a conventional Chinese invasion. But U.S. efforts have not sufficiently prepared Taipei to meet the growing spectrum of threats it faces, particularly gray-zone threats.

One useful step would be to develop a larger and more coherent security assistance program that includes preparation for both conventional and gray-zone attacks. Modeled in part on the U.S. assistance mission to Ukraine, an enhanced security assistance mission for Taiwan would bring in additional U.S. aid and advisers, who would also oversee the hardware, software, training, education, and other forms of security aid provided to Taiwan. U.S. Special Operations Command, the arm of the U.S. military most capable of training, advising, and assisting foreign partners subjected to gray-zone attacks, should play an elevated role. An expanded U.S. security assistance program could also help coordinate and increase assistance from experts from the Baltic states, Finland, Japan, Sweden, Ukraine, and other countries with decades of experience in improving national resilience.

The program could also help Taipei step up its civilian defense. There are several Taiwanese organizations that provide media literacy, first aid, and other training, but they are small, decentralized, and unprepared for wartime situations. The Taiwanese government has plans to train 400,000 civilians to support the military in a national emergency, but the scale of this effort is not large enough, given the amount of military power China can deploy. Civilians also need to participate in live-fire exercises, which simulate realistic scenarios. As part of civilian preparedness, the United States could help Taiwan increase the construction of bomb shelters, strengthen its command-and-control system for a national emergency, and develop and exercise emergency evacuation plans.

The Taiwanese government has markedly improved its national resilience efforts over the past year and is slowly shifting to a whole-of-society approach to crisis preparation. But these measures are still not sufficient to manage a threat as serious as the one China poses. Even as the United States helps Taiwan address its military weaknesses, it should also recognize that gray-zone threats can complement or even substitute for an outright invasion. A mix of subversion, disinformation, and limited attacks could create enough chaos and confusion that Taiwan would not be able to respond effectively, making it far easier for Beijing to subdue the island. If Taipei and Washington fail to act with greater urgency, Beijing may well take advantage of the opportunity to secure its control.

SETH G. JONES is President of the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Foreign Affairs · by More by Daniel Byman · March 13, 2025

25. Japan Appoints First Chief of New Joint Operations Command

Conclusion:

Regarding command and control coordination between Japan and the United States, the U.S. military has far more information and equipment than the JSDF, so the biggest issue of concern in Tokyo is ensuring the independence of Japan’s operational command. The Japanese government has emphasized that the JSDF will not come under the command of USFJ.

Japan Appoints First Chief of New Joint Operations Command

thediplomat.com · by Takahashi Kosuke

The new command, which has the authority to unify all three JSDF branches, is set to be launched on March 24.

March 12, 2025

Then-Commandant of the United States Marine Corps Gen. David H. Berger (left) poses for a photo with Japan’s Vice Chief of Joint Staff Lt. Gen. Nagumo Kenichiro in Tokyo, Japan, May 15, 2023.

Subscribe for ads-free reading

As the world faces the most severe and complex security environment since the end of World War II, Japan now has a new joint operations commander who has the authority to unify the three branches of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) from peacetime to times of emergency – especially with a Taiwan contingency in mind.

At a Cabinet meeting on March 11, the Japanese government appointed Lieutenant General Nagumo Kenichiro, vice chief of staff at the Joint Staff of the JSDF, as the first head of the Joint Operations Command.

This new joint operations command is set to be launched on March 24 at the Defense Ministry’s headquarters in Tokyo with a staff of about 240 personnel, a spokesperson at Japan’s Joint Staff told The Diplomat on March 12.

The appointment came after the National Defense Strategy and the Defense Buildup Program, both approved by the National Security Council and the Cabinet in December 2022, called for reinforcing effectiveness of the joint operational posture of the three JSDF services.

“A Permanent Joint Headquarters will be established in order to build a system capable of seamlessly conducting cross-domain operations at all stages from peacetime to contingency, with the aim of strengthening the effectiveness of joint operations among each SDF service,” the Defense Buildup Program stated.

“In this regard, in light of the rapidly increasing severity of the security environment surrounding Japan, MOD/SDF will make every effort to pursue the establishment of a Permanent Joint Headquarters as soon as possible,” it added.

Nagumo, 59, is from Yonezawa City of Yamagata Prefecture in northern Japan’s Tohoku region. He graduated from the National Defense Academy and joined the Air Self-Defense Force in 1989.

He has served as director general of the Defense Planning and Policy Department at the Japan Air Self-Defense Force’s Air Staff Office and commander of the Western Air Defense Force, among other positions.

Most recently, he has served as vice chief of the Joint Staff Office since March 2023. The post is Japan’s No. 2 uniformed officer, second only to the JSDF’s chief of staff – currently Yoshida Yoshihide, 62.

During the roughly one-month period when Yoshida was hospitalized from late February 2024, due to fatigue from responding to the Noto Peninsula earthquake and other events, Nagumo acted in Yoshida’s place.　

Nagumo had been widely seen as a leading candidate for the new Joint Operations commander.

According to major Japanese newspapers columns that track the prime minister’s activities, Nagumo, as vice chief of staff of the Joint Staff, has frequently visited the Prime Minister’s Office and delivered reports directly to both previous Prime Minister Kishida Fumio and current Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru. For this reason, Nagumo is considered highly trusted by Ishiba and other senior members of the administration.

The government also decided to appoint Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) Vice Admiral Tawara Tateki, JMSDF Sasebo District commandant, 58, as deputy commander of the new Joint Operations Command, the spokesperson said.

As The Diplomat previously reported, there is a bitter lesson behind this reorganization of the command structures of the JSDF. In the aftermath of the March 11, 2011 Great East Japan triple disaster (earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident), it became evident that General Oriki Ryoichi, then the JSDF chief of staff of the Joint Staff, was overloaded with an enormous amount of work. He was forced to command the entire JSDF in the disaster relief mission, in addition to being responsible for providing explanations to the prime minister and the defense minister, and for coordinating with the U.S. military.

Since then, there have been strong opinions among national lawmakers and defense officials that the head of the Joint Staff should distribute some of those roles to others.

The new headquarters will also play a coordinating role in close cooperation with the U.S. military. Japan’s existing system lacked the ability to coordinate with U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM). This is because the counterpart of Japan’s chief of the Joint Staff is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the U.S. military, meaning Japan lacks a natural point person for engaging with INDOPACOM.

Meanwhile, in July 2024, the U.S. government announced that it would reconstitute U.S. Forces Japan (USFJ) as a Joint Force Headquarters, reporting to the commander of INDOPACOM in Hawai‘i, in order to parallel Tokyo’s new force structure.

The current USFJ commander, a three-star general based in Yokota in western Tokyo, has no commanding authority and has to take orders from INDOPACOM, which is about 6,500 km away.

Japan has requested that the four-star rank, not a three-star general, head the Joint Force Headquarters of the U.S., just as it is in South Korea.

Asked whether the U.S. military had ruled out that possibility at a press conference held in July 2024, then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said, “No, we haven’t ruled that out.”

Regarding command and control coordination between Japan and the United States, the U.S. military has far more information and equipment than the JSDF, so the biggest issue of concern in Tokyo is ensuring the independence of Japan’s operational command. The Japanese government has emphasized that the JSDF will not come under the command of USFJ.

Authors

Contributing Author

Takahashi Kosuke

Takahashi Kosuke is Tokyo Correspondent for The Diplomat.

View Profile

Subscribe for ads-free reading

thediplomat.com · by Takahashi Kosuke

26. Harding Project: Writing for Impact – Sneaking professional writing into our routine military activities isn’t hard.

Harding Project Substack

Writing for Impact

Sneaking professional writing into our routine military activities isn’t hard.

https://www.hardingproject.com/p/your-weekend-reading-assignment-b7a?utm

MAJ Lamanda Jackson

Mar 13, 2025

At the Medical Center of Excellence (MEDCoE), we’ve taken a creative leap in leadership development by integrating professional writing into our competitive board processes. In today’s military, where clear communication is crucial, writing shapes decisions, influences military leadership, and helps ready the force.

Looking ahead, we remain committed to evolving and enhancing our leadership development initiatives to better support the mission.

With that integration, The Pulse of Army Medicine was successfully incorporated into our first Sergeant Audie Murphy Club Board, Best of the Best Competition, and 68Z Symposium, with valuable input from board submissions shaping the process.

Photo courtesy of MAJ Jackson.

This pilot effort encourages our best non-commissioned officers to write a draft journal article—rather than a traditional essay—as part of their application for Sergeant Audie Murphy Club membership, for promotion boards, and as part of our Best Medic Competition. During the board, applicants defend their ideas, sparking an engaging exchange of perspectives. Afterward, they can refine their papers using feedback and submit them for publication in the Pulse of Army Medicine, https://medcoe.army.mil/the-pulse-of-army-medicine/, amplifying the impact of their contributions.

By embedding writing, we get a “two-fer.” Smart ideas break out of the board room and onto the pages of The Pulse without any more overhead than changing the essay prompts to comply with our submission instructions, https://medcoe.army.mil/the-pulse-of-army-medicine/. Other Army institutions and Centers of Excellence should think about joining us. Read on to learn more.

What we’ve done

This initiative has already produced tangible results, with over 15 articles submitted. Of those, 2 met the standards required for publication in The Pulse of Army Medicine. Command Sergeant Major Victor Laragaione personally highlighted a few standout contributions, such as a Senior Leader’s reflection on the recent 68Z Medical Symposium and a participant’s insights from the Best of the Best competition. These essays were particularly impactful because they demonstrated critical thinking and professional discourse, both of which serve as key drivers for personal and professional growth.

The lessons within these reflections emphasized that growth often stems from the most challenging experiences. Pushing beyond perceived limits fosters not only individual development but also enhances team effectiveness. By embracing discomfort, Soldiers—whether medics, support specialists, or leaders—are reminded that stepping outside their comfort zones allows them to learn, adapt, and refine their skills in meaningful ways. This process encourages ongoing self-improvement, which in turn strengthens the entire force.

Even for those essays not selected for publication, CSM Laragione was able to identify promising concepts that contribute to a broader understanding of the force’s needs and challenges. This ongoing cycle of feedback ensures leadership remains engaged and continues to shape the evolution of policies and practices in real-time.

This approach goes beyond just improving communication—it strengthens leadership, supports policy evolution, and drives mission success. It ensures that leadership, professional development, and operational effectiveness remain central to the Army's ongoing success.

If you want to try something similar, here are a few lessons we’ve learned that might help:

Readers: Be selective when choosing which boards to partner with. Partnering with too many can lead to an immense amount of content. Focus on boards that align with your goals to ensure quality and relevance in the submissions. Initially, we received Information Papers or Research Papers that do not fit the Pulse. To streamline this, we selected boards that we could guide more effectively with journal-style writing prompts.
Exception to Policy: Be prepared to handle policy exceptions. Not every board or situation will neatly fit the established rules, so flexibility is key. It’s essential to have a clear process in place to manage exceptions while staying aligned with your overall goals. For example, when we sought to partner with the Sergeant Audie Murphy Club (SAMC), we needed to request an exception to policy from TRADOC, since TRADOC Regulation 600-14 governs the SAMC process. This request was relatively straightforward and even sparked a discussion about adjusting the regulation to include journal submissions.

By embracing this professional discourse approach, we’ve created a culture of ongoing feedback, leadership growth, and positive change.

Have you tried something similar in your own organization or board processes? We’d love to hear about your experiences! Comment below or send us a note. Together, we can continue to refine this approach and foster even greater impact across the force.

Ready to transform the way you approach leadership development? If you’d like to learn more or implement a similar strategy at your location, reach out to us at usarmy-medpulse@us.army.mil.

1 Like

A guest post by

MAJ Lamanda Jackson

MAJ Lamanda Jackson is the Harding Fellow for Medical Center of Excellence and the Editor-in-Chief of The Pulse of Army Medicine.

27. Will Trump defend Taiwan? U.S. defense perimeter appears to shrink

Will Trump defend Taiwan? U.S. defense perimeter appears to shrink

Defense policy pick claims cost of island's defense outweighs benefits

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Trump-administration/Will-Trump-defend-Taiwan-U.S.-defense-perimeter-appears-to-shrink

KEN MORIYASU

March 10, 2025 23:20 JST

WASHINGTON -- In a speech to the National Press Club in 1950, U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson drew a line in East Asia laying out the American defensive perimeter to prevent the spread of communism. It ran through the main islands of Japan, Okinawa and the Philippines but excluded South Korea and Taiwan. It was called the "Acheson Line."

Months later, North Korea launched a military offensive across the 38th parallel, with many historians pointing to the Acheson Line for emboldening the action.

Following the confirmation hearing of Elbridge Colby to be undersecretary of defense for policy, there is a discussion in Washington over where the U.S. defense perimeter lies under the Trump administration. Colby's statement that Taiwan is not an "existential" interest has led to some analysts to note that the perimeter now stops with Japan and South Korea -- leaving the question of Taiwan ambiguous.

In contrast, former President Joe Biden, on at least four occasions, made clear that the U.S. would defend Taiwan militarily if China were to attempt to seize it by force.

While Colby is but the Pentagon's third-ranking official, he is considered a key intellectual in the Trump team. In announcing the nomination in December, President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that Colby is "a highly respected advocate for our 'America First' foreign and defense policy."

An Asian diplomat told Nikkei Asia that Trump's inclusion of "foreign policy" signaled Colby would have an influence beyond defense. That Vice President JD Vance introduced Colby at the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on March 4 further underscored his importance.

"I believe the costs of explicitly committing to Taiwan's defense outweigh its benefits," Colby said in a written statement to the hearing.

While acknowledging Taiwan falling to China by force would constitute "a severe blow" to American interests, Colby said going further than the current policy of declaring that the U.S. has deep interests in Taiwan's security "poses serious risks on a number of fronts," such as inflaming relations with Beijing and offering a pretext for military action.

Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, said there is a disagreement in Washington on where America's line of defense should be.

"There are some that would say it's Taiwan. There are others, like me, who would say Japan is the line. And there are others who are much, much more restrained and say that the homeland is the line," she said.

"Some countries, based on their geography and economic and military power, are inherently more important than others," Grieco added. "The countries that matter most to the regional balance of power are the major Asian industrial powers, like the United States, China, Japan, India and South Korea. Some countries in Southeast Asia, like Singapore, are also important because of their geography. Taiwan fails to pass this test."

"The United States would prefer that China not seize it, but if the worst happened, it would still be possible to preserve the regional balance of power," she said.

In a Foreign Affairs article just days before the Colby hearing, Jennifer Kavanagh and Stephen Wertheim, senior fellows at think tanks Defense Priorities and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, respectively, wrote, "The balance of power in Asia does not hinge on control of Taiwan."

In the piece, titled "The Taiwan Fixation: American strategy shouldn't hinge on an unwinnable war," the authors say the U.S. should assist Taiwan "from a distance," in a potential cross-strait conflict, and ensure that the U.S. position in Asia stays intact, regardless of how that conflict concludes.

Defense Priorities' Kavanagh said Trump's defense perimeters will likely not include South Korea or Taiwan. "I'm less sure how he views the U.S. commitments to the Philippines and Japan. I doubt either will be tested by China in the next four years, whereas the commitments to South Korea and Taiwan might be," she said.

Carnegie's Wertheim told Nikkei, "Already Trump has demoted China in his political narrative of who America's enemies are. The 'enemy within' takes precedence."

At his confirmation hearing, Colby warned of what is known as the "Lippmann Gap," a concept introduced by journalist Walter Lippmann in 1943 on the balance of a nation's commitments and the nation's power. Lippmann argued that there needs to be a comfortable surplus of power for the formula to work, and if commitments exceed power, it leads to insolvency.

"The Trump administration is entering office with the country facing a major 'Lippmann Gap': a perilous mismatch between what we have been trying to achieve in the world, on the one hand, and the resources and political will we have to match those aspirations on the other," Colby said.

In the 2018 National Defense Strategy, which Colby led as a deputy assistant secretary, the Pentagon shifted from a two-war construct, in which the U.S. would be prepared to fight dual regional wars simultaneously, to prioritizing a war with a great power first, before moving on to the next fight.

"At the start of every administration, when they embark on a review of the National Defense Strategy, there's always this question on whether or not the strategy is insolvent or if it's incoherent," Jim Mitre, who was Colby's deputy at the Pentagon as they drew up the National Defense Strategy, told Nikkei.

"By insolvent, it is to say that the ends outstrip the means that are available. This camp says there are many challenges and the U.S. needs to invest a lot more in defense. And then there's another school of thought, which is, that there is plenty of money going towards the Department of Defense but the problem is that it's not using it effectively. It's internally incoherent. It needs to be more strategic in its application of resources."

Zack Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote in The American Enterprise on Wednesday that Trump is seeking to make "the most fundamental change in American strategic thinking in at least a century."

The choice facing the Trump team is to prioritize China or retrench to the Americas, Cooper wrote.

"Withdrawing some forces from Europe and the Middle East is consistent with both strategies," he said. "But where those forces go afterward is another question. Secretary of State Rubio and National Security Adviser Michael Waltz seem to support prioritization of China and a larger presence in East Asia. But President Trump and many of his closest MAGA advisers appear to favor retrenchment and an Americas First approach."

"This choice between prioritization and retrenchment could reshape American foreign policy for generations," Cooper wrote.

28. The Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria

The Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria

https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/03/13/the-islamic-state-isis-in-syria/

by Jeremy Hodge

03.13.2025 at 06:00am

Introduction

In the six weeks between the December 8, 2024, overthrow of former Syrian President Assad and the inauguration of President Trump, the United States (US) quietly widened the territorial scope of its counter-terrorism footprint in Syria more than three-fold, an unprecedented expansion not seen even at the height of the U.S. anti-ISIS campaign from 2014-2017.

The purpose of this growth has been to fill the void left by outgoing Russian troops. Prior to Assad’s ouster, Russian forces were responsible for anti-ISIS operations in the regime-controlled area south of the Euphrates River, per a de-confliction agreement reached between Washington and Moscow in 2015.

Starting in 2024, ISIS activity in Syria increased significantly, with the group’s attacks tripling compared to 2023. This growth pushed the US to breach the deconfliction agreement for the first time in September–October 2024, launching airstrikes targeting ISIS cells south of the Euphrates River that killed more than 100 of the group’s fighters and leaders.

The US Presence in Syria

Since the overthrow of Assad, the United States is now the sole foreign power in Syria both capable and willing to confront ISIS. As a result, the US military has launched an unprecedented number of airstrikes in Syria’s Central Desert, a sparsely populated 80,000 kilometer2 expanse home to a series of rugged, impenetrable mountains which has served as ISIS’ primary base of operations since 2019.

American aircraft have since been seen conducting aerial patrols in areas as far off as Suwayda, Syria’s southernmost province. In the Syrian capital of Damascus, U.S. intelligence was critical in foiling a failed ISIS suicide attack on the Sayyida Zaynab shrine—one of the holiest sites in Shi’a Islam—on January 11 2025.

ISIS’ Syria Strategy

Rather than the group’s ability to carry out attacks in Syria itself, the United States should be far more concerned with ISIS’ efforts to exploit the normalization of Salafi-Jihadism under the country’s new regime, which the group could use as cover to spread its ideology, strengthen its recruitment and revenue streams, and collect resources that can be redeployed abroad.

Since 2019, ISIS attacks in Syria have concentrated in key parts of the Central Desert home to large oil, gas, and phosphate reserves, and other revenue generating infrastructure, whose operations the group seeks to tax and extort in order to self-finance and survive as an organization. Now, ISIS will likely exploit Syria’s takeover by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)—the Salafi-Jihadist group which exerts de-facto control over the country’s interim government—as cover to better integrate into local society and insert its operatives deeper into commercial and black-market sectors of the economy.

HTS will undoubtedly seek to prevent this, having launched its own series of crackdowns against ISIS and al-Qa’ida since 2018, often with assistance from the US. It must be noted that since 2019, the US has launched more than two dozen operations in HTS and other rebel held areas that killed more than 100 ISIS and al-Qa’ida operatives. Among those killed were two ISIS caliphs and dozens of the group’s first and second tier leaders, including those planning terror attacks abroad.

These high-profile killings, however, point to an uncomfortable truth. Prior to Assad’s overthrow, HTS and other rebel held areas were home to a far higher concentration of top-level ISIS and al-Qa’ida leaders than any other part of the country. This was largely due to the Sunni Islamist and Salafist nature of Syria’s rebel movement, whose modes of dress, outward appearance, religious rituals and ideology more closely resemble those of ISIS than they do fighters from the former Assad regime, or the Kurdish dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

ISIS and Syria’s rebel movements have also historically recruited from within the same or similar networks in Syria’s Sunni communities, creating significant overlaps and even kinship ties between both sides’ membership.

Perhaps as a result, prior to Assad’s overthrow HTS and other rebel held areas consistently saw the lowest number of ISIS attacks compared to other parts of the country. This was likely deliberate on the part of ISIS, and a component of a broader strategy by the group’s leadership to better embed themselves amongst rebel groups and avoid scrutiny in order to oversee and plan worldwide operations.

Going forward, ISIS’ efforts to integrate will be made easier by the fact that HTS has alliances with nearly a dozen other Salafi-Jihadist groups operating in Syria, which include thousands of Uighur, Uzbek, Tajik, Circassian, Afghan, Chechen, Albanian, and Arab foreign fighters, some of whom are under US sanction.

Many of these groups, in particular, Ansar al-Tawhid and the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP), have absorbed many former ISIS and al-Qa’ida militants that defected from both groups following periods of crackdown by HTS. On December 30, 2024, HTS shocked many Syrians by appointing 6 Uighur, Jordanian, Turkish, Tajik, and Albanian fighters to the ranks of colonel and brigadier general within the country’s new army. This move serves as an indication of the influence foreign jihadists will wield in the new Syria.

Recommendations

Moving forward, the United States should focus its operations on the parts of Syria which are home to the country’s most valuable revenue generating infrastructure. Furthermore, the US should use the prospect of sanctions relief to incentivize Syrian leaders to grant US intelligence assets full access to these sites. Currently, the US-backed SDF, in northeast Syria, still controls dozens of prisons. These facilities house more than 9,000 ISIS fighters and 40,000 of their family members, an “army in detention” according to US officials. In January 2022, ISIS cells launched a 10-day assault on one such prison, enabling several hundred of its members to escape including several dozen high ranking leaders.

Should ISIS be allowed to regroup, these prisons will likely be their first target, followed by others abroad. To prevent this, the United States should focus first on combatting ISIS’ ability to self-finance. Doing so will require expanded operations in several key regions.

Phosphate Mines

On December 5, 2024, as Assad’s forces were collapsing around the city of Homs, ISIS announced that it had taken over territory near Khneifis, Syria’s second largest phosphate mine in the heart of the Central Desert. The next day, the US-backed Syrian Free Army—stationed at the US base in Tanf, along the Syrian-Jordanian-Iraqi border—marched north and recaptured the area, along with the larger al-Sawana phosphate mines and several nearby towns. However, ISIS’ initial expansion near Khneifis is a dangerous indication of its capabilities and future intentions.

Syria’s phosphate reserves total 1.8 billion tons, the third largest in the world after Morocco and China. Though largely inactive throughout the course of the civil war, Syrian phosphate constitutes a potentially lucrative source of revenue. Starting in 2018, the Assad regime managed to partially revive production at the mines and export between 400,000–650,000 tons of phosphate to European countries per year. Under Assad, extraction and export of phosphate was divided almost entirely between Russia and Iran. This changed in November 2022, when Saudi investors established the Seven Wells for Phosphate Investment LLC in an attempt to increase the kingdom’s investment in the sector. In each instance, the Assad regime gained access to a much-needed source of foreign currency as the country suffered under sanctions.

Syrian phosphate is particularly valuable as it contains relatively low levels of cadmium, a carcinogen whose permitted levels in fertilizer are highly regulated in the European Union. In addition, Syrian phosphate contains 300 grams per cubic ton of depleted uranium. This rate is higher than the 200 grams per cubic ton world average. As a result, Syrian phosphate is extremely useful in the production of sarin, soman, and tabun, which are key elements in the production of chemical weapons.

In the weeks since Assad’s overthrow, local forces operating under the umbrella of the Tribal Council of Palmyra have repelled ISIS attacks on several arms warehouses and other facilities around Palmyra, the largest city in the Central Desert just north of Khneifis. Later, HTS units led by commander Burhan al-Jarallah aka Abu Duma began carrying out sweeps of the al-Amour mountain range north of the city, where ISIS cells are known to congregate.

The future in the area is uncertain. Assad’s removal from power and the withdrawal of Russian and Iranian troops from the Syria mean that foreign investors will likely have new opportunities to expand their footprint in Syria’s phosphate sector. Should activity at Syria’s phosphate mines begin to return to full-production, ISIS cells will likely increase their attacks in the area in the hopes of extorting money from local producers.

Gas

Syria’s Tuwaynan and al-Sha’ir gas fields in the westernmost stretches of Syria’s Central Desert will be among the most important sites for the United States to monitor. In the latter years of Syria’s civil war, both sites combined produced an estimated 6 million cubic meters per day (CMD) of natural gas.

ISIS initially seized Tuwaynan in January 2014, maintaining control of the field until Assad’s forces recaptured the Central Desert in early-2017. During this period, ISIS reached an agreement with HESCO, a Syrian government contractor, and StroyTransgaz, a Russian company, to keep the field operating. According to the deal, ISIS agreed to a 60-40 profit sharing split with HESCO-StroyTransgaz, and allowed Russian engineers to work at the site during the day and return home at night. ISIS attempted to establish a similar arrangement at al-Sha’ir, a much larger gas field with 100 billion CMD in reserves, however failed to permanently keep control of the facility.

Between July 16 2014 and 27 April 2017, both ISIS and the Assad regime each captured and then lost control of the al-Sha’ir field four times. After the loss of its Caliphate in July 2019, ISIS resumed attacks in the area around both Tuwaynan and al-Sha’ir, which quickly became one of the most active theaters for the group in all of Syria.

Three times, between June and December 2020, ISIS cells took over key villages in the east Hama countryside near Tuwaynan. Eventually, ISIS’ position become so strong that Assad’s regime required Russian airpower to dislodge them. In one instance, regime troops were forced to call in a former Minister of Defense, who happened to hail from the area, to lead troops into battle and rally local tribes.

Since then, ISIS has made terrorizing the local population a key feature of its attempts to gain influence in the area. In doing so, they have twice carried out mass kidnappings of tribesmen, and regularly stolen thousands of sheep from herders and merchants. From February to April 2023, ISIS carried out three massacres of dozens of local Bani Khalid and Hadid tribesmen. This move further solidified a blood feud that pushed large numbers of locals from both factions into join pro-Assad militias.

With Assad gone, Bani Khalid and Hadid tribesmen will judge HTS and the United States by the extent to which both actors assist in the feud against ISIS. In an ideal scenario, tribesmen would like to work with both HTS and the US. ISIS’ recent activity around Palmyra—located southeast of the al-Sha’ir field— has likely already begun to worry local tribes, who will be eager to seek support from outside parties.

Oil

Lastly, one of the most crucial regions for ISIS is Syria’s easternmost province of Deir Ezzor. This area is home to the majority of the country’s oil reserves, most of which are located north of the Euphrates River and are controlled by the US-backed SDF since late 2017. Prior to Syria’s civil war, peak production in Deir Ezzor exceeded 200,000 barrels per day (bpd). Recent data estimates say that the number of bpd had dropped to, or below 50,000 bpd.

During the height of its territorial control, ISIS named Deir Ezzor “Wilayat Kheir”, or “the Province of Abundance”. This title was due to the significant wealth the group extracted from the region. Since losing control of the area, the group has carried out a systematic campaign of attacks against local oil merchants on both sides of the Euphrates, demanding they pay ISIS a tax on their production.

Even before the overthrow of Assad, ISIS attacks on oil facilities and merchants, along with robberies and the seizures of tankers, expanded significantly throughout 2024. Furthermore, ISIS regularly issued public and direct threats to specific individuals who resisted its expansion into the sector. In May 2024, for example, ISIS cells hung fliers at mosques across Deir Ezzor warning locals against cooperating with SDF officials Shuheil Muhammad Ramadan and Hamza al-Sayyid.

More than in any other part of Syria, the United States must strengthen its force posture in Deir Ezzor. The increased presence will prevent ISIS from extorting and extracting more revenue from the area. Deir Ezzor’s location on the Syria-Iraq border also makes it a key hub for smuggling and movement by ISIS cells between both countries. A larger presence will be better postured to interdict ISIS smuggling operations between the two country’s porous borders.

Conclusion

HTS is eager to work with the United States to combat both ISIS and al-Qa’ida, in the hopes that doing so will encourage Western nations to lift sanctions. However, HTS must balance these goals with a competing set of commitments to its radical base, which will actively oppose conditions set by Western nations for sanctions relief. These include commitments to democracy, political pluralism, and human rights, along with efforts more to purge radicalism from Syrian institutions.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban has elected to appease its base rather than cave to Western demands. As a result, the country has remained under strict sanctions. However, this strategy may have succeeded in reducing the appeal of the country’s ISIS branch, known as ISIS-K, which controls very little territory in Afghanistan and as a result has resorted to carrying out most of its operations abroad.

Should HTS go the opposite route or at least work harder to thread the needle between both sets of commitments, extremist Syrian and foreign factions in the country may grow disgruntled and radicalize further. This will likely create a wedge that groups such as ISIS and al-Qa’ida may later be able to exploit. The proliferation of radical Salafi-Jihadist groups across Syria may have already provided cover for ISIS operatives to surreptitiously preach radical versions of Islam in parts of the country where such ideas could previously have never been broached to begin with.

Going forward, the United States must anticipate within which sectors and parts of the country ISIS may seek to expand and pre-emptively work to gain oversight over and access to these areas. Failing to do could risk a broader catastrophe that empowers thousands of ISIS and other radical fighters to expand their influence across the country.

Tags: Al-Qaeda, Economic Statecraft, Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, HTS, ISIS, Islamic State, Syria

About The Author

Jeremy Hodge
Jeremy Hodge is a Research Fellow at New America's Future Security Program and Arizona State University's Future Security researching extremist patronage networks in the Middle East. He is also Senior Investigator at the Zomia Center, and an investigative journalist covering the rise of extremism in Syria and Iraq, the petroleum/defense sectors, and regional finance. He has published articles in Foreign Affairs, The Nation, Le Monde Diplomatique, Al Jazeera, The Daily Beast, Africa Confidential and other publications.

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

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

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

Access NSS HERE

Company Name | Website

The Painting That Explains Trump’s Foreign Policy

James K. Polk expanded the U.S. more than any other president. Now his portrait hangs in the Oval Office, a signal that President Trump’s ambition to take over Canada, Greenland and other territory is more than just talk.

Will the US collapse like the Soviet Union did? - Asia Times

Sign up for one of our free newsletters

Trump nominates Anduril executive, former special operations officer to be Army undersecretary

Exclusive -- Hegseth Orders Review of Fitness, Grooming

America Turns to Ukraine to Build Better Drones

Silicon Valley is tapping into the know-how of war-trained drone makers; ‘no U.S. company is keeping up with Ukraine’

‘Drone capital of the planet’

Headwinds

How Europe’s Military Stacks Up Against Russia Without U.S. Support

Tensions in the trans-Atlantic alliance prompt the once-unthinkable question of whether the continent’s armies could fight Moscow’s forces

The Epic Dynastic Feud Behind the Arrest of the Former Philippine President

Power struggle between the Philippines’s Marcos and Duterte families roils the key American ally as Rodrigo Duterte stands accused of crimes against humanity

Chinese Volt Typhoon Hackers Infiltrated US Electric Grid for Nearly a Year

Volt Typhoon’s Modus Operandi

Implications and Recommendations

RELATED TOPICS

Trump, pushing for new military leader, submits nomination of Dan ‘Razin’ Caine to the Senate

US agencies face Thursday deadline to submit mass layoff plans

The Army wants to get the load soldiers carry down to 55 pounds

Get Task & Purpose in Your Inbox

The latest on Task & Purpose

Patty Nieberg

Senior Staff Writer

Meritocracy “Yes,” Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) “No”

Gender Identity and Common Sense

Gender Dysphoria and Eligibility to Serve

Affirming Sound Priorities, Not Critical Race Theory (CRT)

What Should Happen Next

Green Berets Looking For FPV Drones To Help Them Clear Hostile Cave Complexes

There's a New War Game for 'Nerds with a Drive for Violence.' It's Spreading Across the Marine Corps.

'If I Can Be Shot'

The Art and History of War(-Gaming)

'All over the World'

China’s expanding footprint in geostationary orbit raises security concerns

Related

Four-Legged Green Berets: The Canine Operators of Army Special Forces

Selection

Service

Retirement

UPDATE: Controversial Intelligence Pick Dropped

Retired Army Lt. Col. Daniel Davis had been slated as a top deputy to Tulsi Gabbard at ODNI

The U.S. Just Handed Ukraine a Clear Advantage

Get the best of news and politics

Deciphering French Strategy in the Indo-Pacific - War on the Rocks

The U.S. Should Cut Defense Spending. Here’s How - Defense Opinion

If You're Taking JCIDS, Grab CAPE While You're at it

low hanging fruit if you are looking to reform The Pentagon

Frontline Innovation and Domestic Production: The Keys to Ukraine’s Journey Toward Defense Self-Reliance - Modern War Institute

How to Toughen Up Taiwan

America Must Help the Island Deal With China’s Gray-Zone Tactics

BEARS DON’T PREY ON PORCUPINES

CRACKS IN THE ARMOR

BUILDING RESILIENCE

A LITTLE HELP FROM ONE’S FRIENDS

Japan Appoints First Chief of New Joint Operations Command

Writing for Impact

Sneaking professional writing into our routine military activities isn’t hard.

What we’ve done

Will Trump defend Taiwan? U.S. defense perimeter appears to shrink

The Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria

Introduction

The US Presence in Syria

ISIS’ Syria Strategy

Recommendations

Conclusion

About The Author